Colin McNickle is the Trib's editorial page editor.
Colin McNickle can be reached via e-mail or at 412-320-7836
A ‘shield law’? Think thrice?
By Colin McnickleNow comes Barack Obama, his Justice Department on the hook for a secret fishing expedition through the business and personal phone records of Associated Press employees (and who knows who else), suddenly full of manufactured outrage and promising the spied …
Around the Horn of Incongruity
By Colin McnickleWhat was that inconvenient fact that too many media outlets chose not to report (or did they deliberately omit it?) from Tuesday’s new Justice Department report on gun violence? That fewer than 2 percent of state prison inmates who possessed …
What’s wrong with these pictures?
By Colin McnickleThe board of trustees of Community College of Allegheny County approved a tuition and fee increase of up to 11.2 percent on Thursday. It cited declining taxpayer subsidies as its justification. But in the same meeting, the board voted to …
Don’t commit Medicaid-assisted suicide in Pennsylvania
By Colin McnickleEverybody and his brother, sister, mother, father and, heck, maybe even the family fido suddenly is citing this or that study in an attempt to persuade Gov. Tom Corbett to expand Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program under ObamaCare. All types of multibillion-dollar …
Cut through the film tax credit fiction
By Colin Mcnickle 9:00 p.m.There was an interesting cluster cluck in Harrisburg Wednesday last — a joint hearing by the Senate and House Democratic Policy committees on Pennsylvania’s Film Tax Credit Program. The credit “is a glowing example” of a legislative success story that …
Six years & four guns later ...
By Colin McnickleSo, it turns out that alleged Pittsburgh cop shooter James Robert Hill is a recidivist illegal gun toter who benefited from a legal system that was out to lunch, kept cutting him slack and allowed him to wriggle away. How …
Pittsburgh’s challenge, by the numbers
By Colin McnicklePittsburgh’s next mayor, effectively chosen in the Democrats’ May primary, will be elected by the people, of course. But if past is prologue, he’ll be elected by barely a quarter of the registered electorate and by an embarrassingly small percentage …
Meanwhile, back at the gun wars ...
By Colin Mcnickle“Universal background checks” will be the centerpiece of gun control legislation when Congress returns from its two-week Easter recess. And who could be opposed to such a “commonsense” law, its proponents argue, putting on their incredulous face. But as avid …
Oh, the disenfranchisement!
By Colin McnickleCall it ignorance. Call it poor critical thinking skills. Call it intellectual vapidity. But whatever you call it, there can be no doubt that America is suffering a pandemic of brain flatulence. And one of the latest symptoms is “early …
‘We live in frightening times’
By Colin McnickleHere’s the latest news from the Gun War front: • A bill introduced in the Florida Legislature would require anger-management courses every 10 years for those buying ammunition. From the proposal: “It is unlawful to: A) Sell ammunition to another …
Real ‘radicals’ of the gun debate
By Colin McnickleA well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. — Second Amendment Joseph Story was a U.S. Supreme Court justice from 1811 …
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