Opinion category, Page 656
Letter to the editor: School tax & retirement
I believe in total elimination of school tax. No property owners should lose their homes because of it! Op-ed writer Gary English (“Tax -shifting schemes won’t provide property tax relief,” Feb. 18, TribLIVE) doesn’t agree. The proposed House/Senate Bill 76 on school tax elimination would provide much more than a...
Letter to the editor: Economic truths about Obama, Trump
In response to the letter “Obama vs. Trump on national debt” (Feb. 27, TribLIVE): The Bible tell us that the truth will set you free. While President Obama inherited a bad economy, the truth about the Obama “recovery” is that it had the lowest labor participation rate in years with...
Letter to the editor: Young people know the election stakes
There is a growing trend of Republican retirements in the Pennsylvania Legislature. From Joe Scarnati to Mike Turzai to local representatives, it’s clear that something is sending career Republicans packing in 2020. Each time members of the GOP decide against filing reelection papers, it’s an opportunity for voters to ask...
Pat Buchanan: Will coronavirus kill New World Order?
Dr. Brian Monahan, attending physician of Congress, told a closed meeting of Senate staffers last week that 70 million to 150 million Americans — a third of the nation — could contract the coronavirus. Dr. Anthony Fauci testified that the mortality rate for covid-19 will likely run near 1%. Translation:...
Editorial: What are essential businesses in Pa.?
What does “essential” mean? It’s a question everyone needs to ask after Gov. Tom Wolf’s announcement Monday that essential businesses in Pennsylvania need to close in response to the coronavirus pandemic. “We strongly urge nonessential businesses across the commonwealth to do their part by temporarily closing as we work to...
Tom Purcell: Polio lessons for coronavirus
My Aunt Cecelia was just beginning the eighth grade when it happened. In late spring 1951, she came home from school with a high temperature, feeling very ill. The next morning, her legs gave out as she tried to get out of bed. By that evening, she was so weak...
Letter to the editor: History of African American Chamber of Commerce
I would like to clarify the history of an economic organization that is important in the history of Pittsburgh’s black community — the African American Chamber of Commerce, founded in 1996 at the suggestion of business consultant Richard Portis. Founding members were Mulu Birru and Charles Reaves of the Urban...
Laura K. Murray: How to cope with stress over coronavirus — it’s as important as hand-washing
I recently returned from Zambia, where I am leading a study focused on implementing strategies to build leaders and scale up treatments known to be effective for coping with the mental health effects of violence and substance use. But like everywhere in the world, coronavirus was a major topic of...
Letter to the editor: Empathy and public policy
In his appeal “Less judging, more love,” letter-writer Keith Kondrich ironically ponders bedtime questions through a lens of self, but imagining hardship on ourselves doesn’t prevent or alleviate hardship for others. “What if it’s me” ignores searching for solutions to help improve lives of those struggling with difficult circumstances. If...
Jonah Goldberg: Debating virus terminology waste of energy
Amid all of the well-placed urgency and occasionally misplaced panic of the covid-19 pandemic, many have decided there’s a pressing need to debate whether terms such as “Wuhan virus” or “Chinese coronavirus” are racist. On one side is a broad coalition that includes liberal pundits, Democratic politicians, the World Health...
Letter to the editor: Tulsi Gabbard is still in the race
In her column “Voting for a woman president” (March 5, TribLIVE) Lori Falce writes: “Sen. Elizabeth Warren was the most recent candidate to pull out of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination. She was the last serious female contender.” Really? I take Tulsi Gabbard’s credentials and candidacy very seriously....
Letter to the editor: Chuck Schumer should resign over ‘word choice’
“It was a very poor choice of words,” Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., said. And just like that, Sen. Chuck Schumer’s attack on two sitting members of the Supreme Court in the most voracious manner was dismissed by some on the left. Those words to Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh...
Colin McNickle: Pittsburgh Mills TIF comes home to roost
The boomerang that tax-increment financing (TIF) can be has come back to hit some Frazer Township taxpayers square in the wallet, finds an analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “Yet again, the risks of TIF for retail have been laid bare,” says Eric Montarti, research director at the...
Letter to the editor: Reject socialism
I watched Bernie Sanders being interviewed on “60 Minutes” and was amazed. When asked how his new government programs would be funded, his answer was “tax the billionaires.” I wonder if billionaire Mike Bloomberg agrees with that. Sanders’ freebies simply cost too much. There are not enough billionaires to pay...
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of March 16
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of March 16....
Editorial cartoons for the week of March 16
Editorial cartoons for the week of March 16....
S.E. Cupp: Comparing Joe Biden to Hillary Clinton
In the hours surrounding Joe Biden’s convincing Michigan win Tuesday night, adding to his Mississippi and Missouri shutouts of Sen. Bernie Sanders, analysts and pundits, as we are wont to do, deluged the airwaves and social media with assessments and predictions about the state of the 2020 race. Sometimes these...
Editorial: Pennsylvania’s handling of school closings gets ‘F’
This is not an editorial about coronavirus. It’s an editorial about questionable government decision-making that just happens to involve coronavirus. The thing is it could be about any big, important issue. Probably a few smaller, more mundane ones, too. For days, there was hemming and hawing about what would close...
Andreas Kluth: The case against closing schools to slow the pandemic
Suddenly, every country in the world has to decide whether or not to close schools to slow the covid-19 pandemic. France will, as of Monday; the U.K. won’t, and so on. Within federal systems like the U.S. and Germany, states or school districts have to make the decision. In Germany,...
Letter to the editor: High heels & mine sites
In her column “Voting for a woman president” (March 5, TribLIVE), Lori Falce relates standing next to a woman wearing high heels in the dirt at a strip mine. The woman was bemoaning the fact that she needed to get home to make pies, and the men on the site...
Letter to the editor: Democratic candidates’ promises won’t work
After listening to the recent Democratic presidential debate, which looked more like “Saturday Night Live,” I wondered: Is this the best the Democrats have to run for president? Bernie Sanders talked about education in Cuba. I ask, how else would you brainwash our kids? Joe Biden said 150 million people...
Editorial: We will get through this coronavirus pandemic together
We are all in this together. The word “pandemic” is scary. It takes the already frightening “epidemic” and turns up the volume and shines a spotlight. The changes are pouring out faster than we can track, like water from a hose. It’s overwhelming. It’s confusing. It’s relentless. We understand. We...
Letter to the editor: Pittsburgh Zoo’s accreditation doesn’t break lease
The editorial “Pittsburgh should OK zoo accreditation” (March 6, TribLIVE) supporting the Pittsburgh Zoo accreditation by the Zoological Association of America (ZAA) as not a lease violation is absolutely correct. The condition that Pittsburgh Councilman Bruce Kraus argues as a lease violation is that the zoo broke the lease when...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Drastic changes ahead to save lives in the corononavirus pandemic
“If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.” That is the advice that the Sicilian aristocrat Don Fabrizio received from his populist nephew in Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s novel “The Leopard.” During the late 1800s, the old don was struggling with changes in Italian...
Antony Davies & James Harrigan: ‘Price gouging’ during crisis a good thing
America is officially in a national emergency over the coronavirus pandemic. As conditions rapidly change, medical experts are unable to provide answers to every question citizens will have. But non-experts should be able to answer this basic question: “Should there be a nationwide shortage of toilet paper because of this?”...
