Opinion category, Page 604
Paul Muschick: Some shooters defending liberties will ironically lose freedom behind bars
I wasn’t surprised when gunfire erupted outside a local store because of a simple request that a shopper wear a mask. That I expected it to happen is really sad. Mask rage has occurred elsewhere, and it was bound to occur in the Lehigh Valley eventually. Thankfully, the results weren’t...
Pat Buchanan: For Joe Biden, no men need apply
There is a real possibility that this week Joe Biden will be selecting the 47th president of the United States. For the woman Biden picks — he has promised to exclude from consideration all men, black, brown, white or Asian — has a better chance of succeeding to the presidency...
Editorial: Rivera and Lechman — a tale of two departures
The coronavirus pandemic has created all-hands-on-deck situations in areas like medicine and the economy, government and manufacturing. But we are now staring down a deadline for two arenas: education and elections. So what happens when longtime leaders step away from those responsibilities? On Monday, Westmoreland County officials confirmed elections bureau...
Jonah Goldberg: If mail-in voting will be disaster, why isn’t Trump trying to prevent that?
President Trump’s delay-the-election trial balloon on Twitter last week was resoundingly denounced, and rightly so. Indeed, so thorough was the repudiation, including from top Republicans, that the president backtracked a little. “I don’t want to delay,” Trump explained in a press conference to discuss the pandemic. “I want to have...
Letter to the editor: Science, abortion and Black lives
Being that science and anthropology teach us that human life begins with the first cell (zygote) in the mother’s womb, that makes abortion the beginning of killing Black lives and all lives for that matter. Abortion would then be the beginning of racism and opposition to humanity. We have a...
Letter to the editor: Pa. nursing home data errors alarming
After reading the article “Pa. nursing home data used to track covid-19 deaths, cases riddled with errors” (July 17, TribLIVE), I believe one might legitimately ask if there is some conspiracy afoot to shut down the economy. The Pennsylvania Department of Health showed 76,336 residents at an Elk County nursing...
Letter to the editor: Citizens should be able to vote out bad cops
We the people should have the right to vote out a police officer based on proof that he’s a bad cop. Citizens pay tax dollars to pay officers to protect and serve, and that’s not what’s transpiring in many situations. We the people can vote out mayors, governors, Congress members...
Letter to the editor: Trump diverting our attention from his failures
As covid-19 continues to spiral out of control across the country, President Trump runs ads portraying himself as the “law and order” president. He sends faux-military people without identification and without marked vehicles to nab and detain journalists and protesters from the streets of America, similar to when police in...
Letter to the editor: Done with the NFL
Dear Steelers, It’s not you, it’s me. I am a 62-year-old lifelong Steelers fan. I grew up in the Pittsburgh area. I can tolerate crying, whiny, millionaire players, as that really hasn’t changed in all those years. I can even tolerate supporting a cause I don’t agree with. But I...
Letter to the editor: Media mind control
What do The New York Times, Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC have in common? They all play a big role in determining what Americans see, read, think about and ultimately believe. Sprinkle in lesser-known but still large institutions like Slate, The Atlantic, The New Yorker and HuffPost, and you have...
David Zurawik: Cable news is the medium now setting national agenda
Once upon a time in a far more stable America, our national agenda was largely shaped by network news, The New York Times, weekly news magazines such as Time and The Associated Press. Media productions like the “CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite” not only determined what we would talk...
Tom Purcell: America means freedom to them
A friend of mine can’t for the life of him understand why some Americans are clamoring to replace capitalism with socialism. Born in Vietnam, he was a young boy when he and his family barely escaped that communist nation amid gunfire. America welcomed his family among thousands of Vietnamese refugees....
Editorial: The New Ken-Arnold school board should have seen the severance agreement
The people have a right to know what the government is doing in their name. And how much it’s going to cost them. Last week, the New Kensington-Arnold school board accepted the resignation of superintendent John Pallone. That was followed by a 7-0 vote to accept a severance agreement with...
Editorial: Freedom of press and coronavirus
A pandemic can affect a lot of things. It can change how we work, how kids go to school and how we shop. It can screw up baseball and bingo. It can complicate weddings and funerals. But it doesn’t change the Constitution. It hasn’t changed the freedom of speech of...
Zach Shamberg: State data on covid-19 in nursing homes is too confusing
At this point in the pandemic, we know that accurately compiling and reporting data is a critical tool for tracking and slowing the spread of covid-19. When the Pennsylvania Department of Health announced back in May that it would begin publicly reporting cases in long-term care facilities, I celebrated the...
Letter to the editor: Babies’ lives matter, too
I keep hearing “lives matter,” and “we need to protect lives,” which are completely true sentiments. No matter how you talk about this issue, someone will absolutely be upset, but here’s the thing: Daily during the virus, babies’ lives didn’t seem to matter. The governor of Pennsylvania did not shut...
Letter to the editor: Climate action in Pa.
Buffeted by a global pandemic, political partisanship and dismay with government gridlock, what can a grandmother do to address the ticking time bomb of climate change? Harkening back to the article “Western Pa. lawmakers fight Gov. Wolf on Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative” (Nov. 19, TribLIVE), I reviewed supportive information from...
Letter to the editor: Numbers guys making the decisions
I pride myself for “rolling with the punches. Over the course of 70-plus years, it’s been a challenge. Yet another one looms. In the 1970s, a new breed of owners and managers deemed that rather than people who know their product (or service) inside and out, mathematicians were better suited...
Letter to the editor: Protesters do not speak for all of us
Of course, absolutely Black lives matter, but Black lives and all lives need to learn how to comply with police orders. I’d like to ask people what they would do in the following situations: • What would you do if a police officer signaled you to pull over? Would you...
Letter to the editor: Wrong to give tax credits to frackers
As the government continues to defund education and environmental programs, I am losing hope for the future of my generation. Our air and water are polluted by fracking, placing communities across Western Pennsylvania at higher risk for cancer, yet our government plans to give money to the companies who may...
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of Aug. 3
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of Aug. 3....
Editorial cartoons for the week of Aug. 3
Editorial cartoons for the week of Aug. 3....
Noah Smith: Focusing on Facebook and Google’s monopoly misses the point
The heads of four of the U.S.’s biggest technology companies — Alphabet Inc., Apple Inc., Facebook Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. — appeared before Congress last week to respond to criticism that they have too much market power. The hearing showed that lawmakers are beginning to understand what is and isn’t...
S.E. Cupp: Will ‘healthy’ schools be traumatic?
August is usually when we try to get one final vacation in, find fun ways to beat the heat and take our last licks of summer. But this year, August is different. For those of us who have school-age children, the potential return to class hangs over us; we count...
Letter to the editor: Decreasing taxes to 25% a great idea
Just read Greg Massung’s letter “25% capacity should mean 75% decrease in rent, plus property tax relief” (July 26, TribLIVE). Although the amount of tax is already reduced by the reduced income of those businesses, his idea of reducing that amount to 25% is a stroke of genius. Let the...
