Opinion category, Page 684
Editorial: Put down cellphone while driving
There’s just no reason for it. People have been driving for more than 100 years. When the Model T first rolled off Henry Ford’s assembly line in 1908, it put Americans on the road and gave them a freedom they never had before. The cellphone has snatched that away. Ironically,...
Letter to the editor: Proud of West Newton’s GAP efforts
The Trib’s “Staycations” feature about the Great Allegheny Passage hike and bike trail that stretches 148 miles from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C. (“West Newton to Ohiopyle on the Great Allegheny Passage,” Oct. 27, TribLIVE) used West Newton as a starting place. And for good reason. While two hiking trail sections...
Letter to the editor: Let’s judge by character
I’ve been reading this paper for 44 years, and perhaps the greatest letter to the editor I’ve ever read was Steven Crichley’s “Apologies for being old, white, straight, conservative, Christian male” (Nov. 12, TribLIVE). Crichley apologizes for working hard over the past 40 years, obeying the law, paying his taxes,...
Letter to the editor: We must stop gerrymandering
We, as in you and I, must stop gerrymandering. Five justices of the U.S. Supreme Court have failed us, and so we must rely on the state to eliminate gerrymandering. Let me be clear about this: Those who gerrymander admit their ideas do not represent the people. They fail the...
Caleb Verbois: Winter is always coming
One day last month, my father-in-law came to visit for a few hours. Around 3 p.m., he got back in the car for his 90-minute drive home to northeast Ohio — and then sat on the same quarter mile of Interstate 80 for nine hours before eventually getting home. Winter...
Alicia Harvey-Smith: Changing workforce, Act 76 place focus on career education
With deep roots in steel and manufacturing, Pennsylvania is well known as the state that built America. Towering skyscrapers and sprawling infrastructure are Pennsylvania’s long-standing calling card to our nation. Today, with the emergence of advanced manufacturing, robotics, automation and other tech-driven sectors, Pennsylvania is again well poised to drive...
Richard Edley: Services aiding Pa.’s most severely disabled individuals at risk
Even well-intentioned programs can have dire unintended consequences if the implementation isn’t done right, and that’s exactly what’s happening with the state’s Community Participation Supports (CPS) program. CPS is designed to support and facilitate the integration of individuals with intellectual disabilities into the community with meaningful activities, a concept that...
Ryan Costello: APEX Act will decimate Steel Country
Ahead of the 2020 presidential election, Steel Country is no doubt under strain. Over the past year, industry growth in states like Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin has slowed to a crawl. Pennsylvania has lost 8,100 manufacturing jobs since January. Despite the president’s best effort of looking out for America’s manufacturers,...
Editorial: Operation Santa Claus gives caring
There are words for the deficits in a person’s life. If you need food, you are hungry. If you need water, you are thirsty. If you need shelter, you are homeless. But there is a different kind of need — sometimes overlapping one or more or all of those —...
Letter to the editor: Attack on Yovanovitch was cruel
Even in this era of “alternative facts,” of reason being stood on its head, Elizabeth Gaston Barsoum’s letter “Yovanovitch’s intimidation claim laughable” is stunning for its cruelty and lack of compassion. One of the lowest lows in an administration which perpetrates atrocities on an almost daily basis was President Trump’s...
Letter to the editor: Trump deserves respect
Whatever happened to respect? Whether we like President Trump or not, he’s still our president. Even our government officials do not respect their own. Nancy Pelosi, questioning Trump, points her finger at him and walks out. What does that tell America? Did her parents not teach her it’s not polite...
Letter to the editor: Proof of God’s existence
In response to the letter “Atheism & politics,” stating that “we live in the information age, and the more you know, the less religious you become”: Hopefully the quest for information continues with an open mind — as there is more than ample scientific evidence available now that fully supports...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Thankful for both entrepreneurs & laborers
During a 2012 campaign stop in Virginia, President Barack Obama caused a stir when he told business owners that they owed much of their success to other hardworking Americans who did all the other things necessary for businesses to thrive. “If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you...
Walter Williams: Liberal agenda a threat to blacks
Former presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke said that racism in America is “foundational” and that people of color were under “mortal threat” from the “white supremacist in the White House.” Pete Buttigieg chimed in to explain that “systemic racism” will “be with us” no matter who is in the White House....
John Stossel: Thanks, private property!
Families argued this Thanksgiving. Such arguments have a long tradition. The Pilgrims had clashing ideas about how to organize their settlement in the New World. The resolution of that debate made the first Thanksgiving possible. The Pilgrims were religious, united by faith and a powerful desire to start anew, away...
Editorial: Harrisburg targets hunting changes
It used to be that the Saturday after Thanksgiving was about hunting for bargains or hunting for Christmas ornaments or maybe just hunting for the remote to watch college football. “Used to be” was last year. That changes this weekend. This year, the Saturday after Thanksgiving is also the first...
Letter to the editor: Grateful for right to disagree
Regarding George A. West’s letter “Trump & the Pharisees” (Nov. 22, TribLIVE): It’s great to live in a country where people are free to voice their opinions. It’s great to live in a country where people are free to voice their opinions without fear of reprisal. Let us all pray...
Letter to the editor: Shame on Comcast
Well, Comcast has done it again. As of Oct. 10, the Turner Classic Movies network is no longer available to Preferred Digital customers. In order to receive TCM, one must upgrade (at a cost of $9.99 per month) to its “Sports and Entertainment” package. Comcast never has a problem increasing...
Letter to the editor: Were Ike, Nixon ‘crazy socialists’?
According to President Trump and the national conservative news media, someone who simply supports a federal government social program that helps people, like Social Security and Medicare, is a “crazy socialist.” If we go by that definition, then that would make Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon “crazy socialists” because they...
Sounding off: Yovanovitch’s intimidation claim is laughable
Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch said during the impeachment hearings that she felt intimidated by President Trump’s tweet critiquing her performance as ambassador. As a retired Foreign Service employee, I find that unbelievable and laughable. Our ambassadors around the world are made of sterner stuff. Yovanovitch apparently is not. Irrelevant to impeachment,...
Jonah Goldberg: Opponents of ‘unfettered capitalism’ are fighting a phantom
Enemies of unfettered capitalism, unite! For as long as I can remember, people on the left have complained about “unfettered capitalism.” Moderate liberals do it, and of course flat-out Marxists do it. In his new book, “A Bit of Everything: Power, People, Profits and Progressive Capitalism for an Age of...
Lori Falce: My Black Friday not-shopping list
I have to plan ahead. I have to make lists and I have to plot ideas. I need to know the best way to go. I will avoid Black Friday the way survivors in a post-apocalyptic wasteland will avoid zombies. Because I’ve done Black Friday before, and sometimes the difference...
Laurels & lances: Filming, closing, giving and picking
Laurel: To not giving up. Aspinwall’s Philip Beard proves the old saying about good things coming to those who wait. Filming on a movie version of his 2004 novel “Dear Zoe” just wrapped last week after shooting around O’Hara, Squirrel Hill and Braddock. It may have taken 15 years to...
Letter to the editor: On impeachment, let system work
On impeachment, let our system do its job On the impeachment hearings: We need to let the system work. If President Trump, his staff or personal attorneys have done things they’re accused of, and if he violated his oath of office, they should be punished. We need to go by...
Letter to the editor: Why doesn’t media report on Biden blackmail?
Mainstream media claims no bias favoring Democrats. So where are the stories on Joe Biden’s public confession of the Obama administration’s blackmail of Ukraine? Isn’t it relevant given the current impeachment inquiry? Many believe corruption that bold by a wannabe American leader made it President Trump’s civic duty to ask...
