Featured Commentary category, Page 90

The Department of Education just released results of the quadrennial National Assessment of Educational Progress tests in U.S. history, civics and geography given in 2018 to thousands of American eighth-graders: “Grade 8 Students’ NAEP Scores Decline in Geography and U.S. History; Results in Civics Unchanged Since 2014.” The tests were...

Paul Finkelman, Ph.D., is president of Gratz College and a former law professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. The novel coronavirus has ravaged Pennsylvania, forcing more than 1.5 million of our neighbors to the unemployment line. This represents 23% of the Keystone State’s workforce. The devastation far...

Candace McKinley is the lead organizer for the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund, which is working to end cash bail in Philadelphia. The mission of the Philadelphia Community Bail Fund is to end the use of cash bail in Philadelphia and, until that day comes, post bail for as many of...

Alessandra Hirsch, M.D., is a first-year resident physician in obstetrics and gynecology in Chicago, Ill. On Sunday, March 15, the single day that I was given to adjust from a full month of working overnight to my next rotation in gynecologic surgery, I received an email with new instructions: all...

How long can Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci keep this up? We’ve been watching their faces, and we know as surely as we know ourselves that they are in agony working for an administration ruled by chaos and led by an irresponsible enemy of science who gets his facts wrong,...

This month, National Nurses Month, we honor nurses throughout history, noting the brave care they are presently administering for victims of the coronavirus. All of us have benefited from nursing care, from the time we were born to the end of our lives. The word nurse comes from old-French nourice,...

Over the past few months, the coronavirus has raced across the world, attacking innocent victims and causing economic strife. This unprecedented crisis has mobilized President Trump and the commonwealth of Pennsylvania to take aggressive action to slow its spread. Too many Pennsylvanians have lost their livelihoods and, in some tragic...

The coronavirus pandemic has killed nearly 70,000 Americans and induced the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression. And if history is our guide, the economic crisis, which has produced 30 million unemployed Americans in six weeks, may prove more enduring, ruinous and historic than the still-rising and tragic death...

Cornelius Clancy, M.D., is an associate professor of medicine and director of the XDR Pathogen Lab at the University of Pittsburgh. The coronavirus infects and kills more Americans each day. The number of confirmed cases just eclipsed 1.2 million and the death toll now exceeds 70,000. While the standard advice...

One of the surprising trends in the recent shutdown of the U.S. economy is an uptick in the number of people in Pennsylvania who are starting companies. Why would anyone have the confidence to start a business now? The answer is that many people have more confidence in themselves than...

One of the problems with politics these days is that it’s increasingly difficult to hold a single line of argument without veering out of that lane and ramming into something else. The pundits and politicians fighting over Tara Reade’s accusations against presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden often careen around...

Like most Pennsylvanians, our commonwealth’s nursing home providers watch Secretary of Health Rachel Levine’s daily updates with hope, but also with concern as we hear the latest numbers of nursing facility and personal care home residents who have tested positive for covid-19. As this battle for the health of Pennsylvania...

Despite an obstacle- strewn ascension similar to a “Game of Thrones” episode, former Vice President Joe Biden managed to slay every metaphorical dragon he faced in becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, from old policy specters to campaign trail gaffes to a primary opponent who was stubborn to concede. But...

Dr. Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, a military historian and a professor emeritus of classics at California State University, Fresno. He has written two articles relevant to today’s society. Last October he published, “Members of Previous Generations Now Seem Like Giants,”...

Every person in our community needs and deserves a safe place to call home. Yet in the richest country in the world, housing is shamefully unaffordable and people are facing unreasonable struggles to pay the rent. Even before this crisis, nearly 12 million people were spending half of their paychecks...

Wrestling with a serious coronavirus-induced revenue shortfall, the City of Pittsburgh must cut spending and cannot afford to raise taxes, conclude researchers at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “Now would be a perfect time to look at money-saving proposals — such as privatization and outsourcing — to reduce city...

During the filming of the 1939 movie “Jesse James,” a stuntman and his horse went over a cliff and fell 70 feet into a river. The stuntman was fine; the horse died. This incident is what gave rise to that line at the end of many movies: “No animals were...

Workers in food retail, donation or meal delivery are on the front lines of the covid-19 pandemic. Until now, food retailers, food banks and school food services operated under food safety regulations to prevent food-borne disease. But with the deadly outbreak of covid-19, they are developing new standards and guidance...

“War is the health of the state,” wrote the progressive Randolph Bourne during World War I, after which he succumbed to the Spanish flu. America’s war on the coronavirus pandemic promises to be no exception to the axiom. However long this war requires, the gargantuan state will almost surely emerge...

Joel Pfeffer is a Pittsburgh-based attorney with the law firm Meyer, Unkovic & Scott. He works primarily in the areas of immigration, nationality and corporate law. He is a member of the American Immigration Lawyers Association and former chairman of the organization’s Pittsburgh chapter. President Trump caused a stir when...

We’ve lost count of how many times the “we-know-better crowd” has proposed a Pittsburgh-Allegheny County merger. And never mind that it repeatedly, as it is said, “had no legs,” a new merger proposal has popped up like a stubborn crop of dandelions. “In short, in decades past and continuing through...

David Dausey, Ph.D., an epidemiologist, is provost and vice president of academic affairs at Duquesne University and a professor in Duquesne’s John G. Rangos School of Health Science. He is also a distinguished service professor of health policy at Carnegie Mellon University. The global pandemic of covid-19 continues to defy...

On Tuesday night, I called to check in on my friends in San Francisco. One is a lawyer; his grandfather died this month. His partner is a doctor on the front lines of covid-19. In short, they’ve been through it. I asked the doctor, “How is work?” “Thank God we’re...

I’m “social distancing.” I stay away from people. I do it voluntarily. There’s a big difference between voluntary — and force. Government is force. The media want more of that. “Ten states have no stay-at-home orders!” complains Don Lemon on CNN. “Some governors are still refusing to take action!” Fox...

Amid all the uncertainty in our nation as we face and fight the covid-19 pandemic, one thing is certain: Community health centers (also known as federally qualified health centers, FQHCs) will continue to care for all regardless of insurance status or ability to pay. The most vulnerable Americans in urban...