Featured Commentary category
Farrah Hassen: ICE’s warehouse scheme draws bipartisan protests
Warehouses are for storing goods. ICE wants to use them to store people. As Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ramps up arrests, the Trump administration is seeking to spend $38 billion to expand its detention capacity to 92,600 people, according to agency documents. At least 73,000 people — a record...
Elizabeth Soltan: After decades of trying, Pa. needs to pass a state False Claims Act
Gov. Josh Shapiro urged Pennsylvania to pass a state False Claims Act (FCA) in his 2026 budget address. There is bipartisan support for House Bill 1697, which would create a state FCA modeled after the federal FCA, one of the government’s best fraud-fighting tools. The FCA encourages whistleblowers to come...
Leonard Greene: Thousands dead over war in Iran — biggest casualty is compassion
War is ugly. So is hubris. The next time President Donald Trump tells you how well the war is going, remember that U.S. missile strikes have killed more than 1,400 people in Iran, including 168 children who perished at an elementary school. Remember, too, that the average price of gas...
Luke Bernstein: Pennsylvania energy helps stabilize a volatile world
A widening conflict in the Middle East is once again injecting instability into global energy markets. Earlier this month, attacks on infrastructure in the Gulf forced Qatar to pause operations at major LNG export facilities, tightening supply almost overnight. With tanker traffic disrupted through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical...
James Stavridis: 3 targets for U.S. boots on the ground in Iran
As President Donald Trump’s administration wrestles with options in the war with Iran, it continues to consider “boots on the ground.” While the Pentagon has been doing a good job with the massive air and sea assaults against Iranian targets, there are several dangerous missions that ultimately would require U.S....
Chris Heck: While Washington huddles, Pa. makes its AI play
Just before the 2026 NFL Draft descends upon Pittsburgh in April, sports, technology and capital investment will collide in the Steel City at Powering the Future of Sport: A Draft Week Showcase. Hosted by Carnegie Mellon University, this high-profile event will see cutting-edge companies deploy artificial intelligence in real-world scenarios...
Carl P. Leubsdorf: Getting out of wars is harder than getting in
Some years after the most successful U.S. war of recent decades — the 1991 rout of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait — Gen. Colin Powell articulated the principles that guided the Bush administration’s strategy. “Decide what you are trying to achieve politically and, if it can’t be achieved...
Nolan Finley: Blame Temple Israel attack on those who made antisemitism fashionable
Thursday’s attack on the Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., reflects more than two years of building animosity in this country and worldwide toward Israel, and by extension, the Jewish people. While officials have not formally called this a terror attack or assigned its motivation to antisemitism, I’ll...
William M. Cotter: Let the sunshine in — restore transparency to Pa. government
National Sunshine Week, March 15-21, is a time to highlight the importance of open, transparent government and to call attention to actions that place those principles at risk. Pennsylvanians deserve to know what their elected school and township supervisor boards, borough councils and other agencies plan to discuss and vote...
Capt. Jason M. Deichler: ‘One for the Thumb’ — Pittsburgh’s next warship deserves Pittsburgh’s full support
In Pittsburgh, “One for the Thumb” was never just a slogan. It was a declaration — that toughness, discipline and hard work could earn something lasting. When the Steelers chased a fifth Lombardi Trophy in the 1980s, the city wasn’t bragging. It was acknowledging a standard. Today, that same spirit...
David L. Nevins: Non‑partisan doesn’t mean unbiased — Why America keeps getting this wrong
For as long as I’ve worked in democracy reform, I’ve watched people use nonpartisan and nonbiased as if they meant the same thing. They don’t. This confusion has distorted how Americans judge the credibility of the democracy reform movement, journalists and even one another. We have created an impossible expectation...
Elizabeth Stelle and Edward Timmons: Affordable child care begins with cutting red tape
Child care in Pennsylvania is expensive. Just one child in day care costs about 40% of the median household income of single-parent households in the commonwealth. When affordability is on everyone’s mind, we can’t overlook the opportunity to reduce one of the largest expenses for young families. Day care is...
Noah Feldman: The Supreme Court has a marijuana problem
The 17.7 million Americans who use marijuana daily or near-daily can relax: The Supreme Court appears poised to hold that Congress can’t prohibit them from owning firearms. More significantly, the argument revealed that the Supreme Court’s originalist doctrine on gun laws has made it increasingly difficult for Congress to bar...
Jamelle Bouie: Trump is the anti-Trump
There is an alternate universe in which Donald Trump is the popular, successful president of his imagination. In this world, Trump has a clear view of the political landscape. He knows he won a narrow victory, not a landslide. He knows that his key voters — the ones who put...
Commentary: Can AI fill out a winning March Madness bracket?
The end of the college basketball season is fast approaching. Selection Sunday is less than a week away, with dozens of teams waiting to see where they will be seeded and, for some, if they fall on the right side of the bubble. This also means that college basketball fans...
Aaron Brown: Strict new voter proposals have us searching for our true ID
When Kathy Magnuson was young, she signed her Social Security card with pride, if not precision, by her maiden name: “Kathy A. Brown.” She got married in 1963 and signed her new card more formally, “Kathleen A. Magnuson.” A later replacement card got the full treatment, “Kathleen Ann Magnuson.” These...
Austin Sarat: From moral authority to risk management — how university presidents stopped speaking their minds
Throughout the 20th century, college and university presidents spoke out on everything, from wars to civil rights struggles, with a sense of moral authority attempting to guide the course. Their language was typically direct and free of jargon. “Democracy is the best form of government. It is worth dying for,”...
Steve Kerr: The human cost of gun violence in America
I love coaching basketball. Being around young people, seeing their potential and helping them become the best versions of themselves is incredibly gratifying. But the job also offers a glimpse into how fragile it can all be. One injury, one bad break, a change in circumstances can shift everything for...
Chuck Collins: How billionaires worsen affordability crisis
Americans of all political stripes are concerned about affordability. Some politicians would like to change the subject. Billionaires and their allies in politics have tried everything, from falsely blaming the rising costs of food and housing on immigrants, to dismissing the entire concept of affordability as a “hoax,” as President...
Hal Brands: Israel has become America’s not-so-secret weapon
The ongoing war against Iran has raised a number of important issues: the ability of air power alone to achieve regime change, the ethics and effectiveness of targeting Iran’s leaders, the question of how much damage the war will cause in the region, and what its effects will be around...
Lauren Hall: Local governments provide proof that polarization is not inevitable
When it comes to national politics, Americans are fiercely divided across a range of issues, including gun control, election security and vaccines. It’s not new for Republicans and Democrats to be at odds over issues, but things have reached a point where even the idea of compromising appears to be...
Noah Feldman: Decades of presidents ignoring the War Powers Act led us here
When you bomb a country and take out its leader, that’s an act of war. Under the Constitution, Congress must declare war or otherwise authorize the use of force before the president may take such action. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Iran, where the joint U.S.-Israeli attacks that killed Supreme...
LZ Granderson: There are 2 Americas. Falling mortgage rates matter only to the wealthy one
There was a McDonald’s in my neighborhood that we would drive by often when I was growing up. Each time, I would read about the weekly sale advertised on the marquee underneath the golden arches. Occasionally, I would ask my folks if we could stop at that McDonald’s on the...
Jessica L. Schleider: If social platforms are harmful, don’t just ban kids. Regulate the harms
As major social media companies head to court this year to defend themselves against claims that their products have harmed young people’s mental health, policymakers are searching for decisive responses. The lawsuits, which focus on whether platforms knowingly designed addictive, psychologically harmful systems for youth, are bringing long-avoided questions into...
Jim Nowlan: Stop the world, I want to step off
At 84, I am an analog guy in a digital world. Sure, I do Zoom meetings and check my smartphone too often. Yet my mental health suffers, I swear, from the almost vertical rate of societal change; political mayhem; transition from a human- to digital-dominated world; and the sense that...
