Featured Commentary category, Page 124

While Lt. Gov. John Fetterman crusades on legalizing recreational marijuana, one poll released last fall suggests Pennsylvanians may not be eager to jump on the bandwagon. They’re right to be cautious. Lost amid the legalization hullabaloo is the chaos unfettered pot will wreak on labor practices, workplace litigation, employer liability,...

Allow me to take you back. The year is 1957 and “Leave it to Beaver” debuts in black and white on CBS. The earnest and playful family comedy offers up solvable moral dilemmas and a heaping spoonful of unvarnished optimism in the American dream for six years and remains for...

The Center for Organ Recovery & Education’s mission is to save and heal lives through organ, tissue and cornea donation. This mission guides CORE’s every step, every initiative and every interaction. And it was the driving force behind a record-breaking year in 2019 for donation in Western Pennsylvania and West...

As the impeachment trial fizzled out, I’m left wondering if the GOP has lost its mind, because the only other choice is that I have. I’m not referring to the Republican senators’ collective decision not to remove the president from office. I’ve always argued that this was a question reasonable...

Dear Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, My mother has long threatened to disinherit me if I continue to vote Republican. You also have recent experience with noncompliant family members. I think that for a lad in my difficult circumstances, I see a way to satisfy both my mother and you. Now...

I have been teaching economics since 1967. During that interval, economic reality has not changed. Just as Galileo’s law about the independent influence of gravity on falling objects has not changed, neither have the fundamental principles of economics. Economics is fun and simple. It’s made complicated by some economics professors...

A law in South Carolina bans playing pinball if you’re younger than 18. That’s just one of America’s many ridiculous laws restricting freedom. “There is a role for the government in keeping people safe from actual criminals, people who commit murder, robbery,” says Rafael Mangual, a “tough-on-crime” guy at the...

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is once again recognizing merit in filmmaking — and once again there are no women among the nominees for best director. In fact, only five women have ever been nominated for best director in the 92-year history of the Oscars and only...

Troy Polamalu, who played safety for the Pittsburgh Steelers from 2003 to 2014, has been elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. He will enter the hall with Bill Cowher, who coached the team for his first four seasons, and defensive back Donnie...

In 1868, President Andrew Johnson was impeached for violating the Tenure of Office Act that had been enacted by Congress over his veto in 1867. Defying the law, Johnson fired Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, without getting Senate approval, as the act required him to do. In his 1956 Pulitzer...

Pennsylvania businesses remained bullish in late 2019, according to the Lincoln Institute of Public Opinion Research. But a generally healthy state business climate comes with a host of other challenges mirrored in national findings, says a researcher at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. Thirty-eight percent of respondents to the...

Dear Republican senators, I will not try to convince you how to vote in the impeachment trial of President Trump. I won’t even lecture you about the need for witnesses, in part because by the time you see this it will probably be too late. My request is far more...

Andrew Yang is a viable candidate for the Democratic nomination for president. He is not a member of the first grouping (Biden, Sanders, Warren, Buttigeig) but if they falter, Yang might well be in the running for the top spot on this ticket. His signature policy is universal basic income....

I don’t know about you, but I’m sick of feeling sickened. Our nasty politics of revenge, our unabating obsession with hating the other side, our too-quick-to-cancel culture and our fetishization of extreme purity is not only exhausting but it’s making us sick. It’s in President Trump’s puerile tweets and anger-drenched...

“You are what you eat,” the old adage goes. But are you also what you watch? In a media-saturated world, it is worth considering the degree to which our exposure to media about food choices can — either directly or in more subtle ways — shape our own food beliefs...

Pennsylvanians realize that natural gas plays a significant role in the state’s economy. However, the state’s energy resources should be developed responsibly by minimizing natural gas waste and air pollution from new and existing oil and gas infrastructure. To that end, we applaud the administration of Gov. Tom Wolf as...

Last month’s reintroduction of a proposed ordinance by the Allegheny County Council to create a civilian police review panel is sharply dividing the community between those who believe it necessary to prevent or detect misconduct on the part of county law enforcement officers and those who believe such a civilian...

During President Trump’s impeachment trial, we’ll hear a lot of talk about our rules for governing. One frequent claim is that our nation is a democracy. If we’ve become a democracy, it would represent a deep betrayal of our founders, who saw democracy as another form of tyranny. In fact,...

The Iowa Caucus, the real start of the 2020 presidential primaries, is next week. Who’s favored to win? Sadly, the smart money says it’s the candidate who’s promised Americans the most “free” stuff. Six months ago, my staff and I tallied the candidates’ promises. All wanted to give away trillions...

Elected and appointed government officials have a troubling habit of engaging in what we’ll call “sound bite promotion.” They go on a radio or television program making wondrous claims of economic progress yet offer only vague support of those claims and seldom are challenged by their interviewers. Thus, for the...

“I’m with the Bush-Cheney team, and I’m here to stop the count.” Those words were bellowed by John Bolton in a Tallahassee library in December 2000, when he was part of a team of Republican lawyers trying to stop the Florida recount of votes cast in the presidential race between...

“Nobody likes him, nobody wants to work with him, he got nothing done. He was a career politician.” So says Hillary Clinton of her former Senate colleague and 2016 rival for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders. Her assessment of Sanders’ populist-socialist agenda? “It’s all just baloney and I feel so...

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf launched a campaign earlier this month aimed at expanding access to mental health services for all Pennsylvanians. As president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, I applaud Wolf’s commitment to combating this growing issue. While strengthening insurance parity and network adequacy serve as essential solutions, an equally...

I’ve long argued that Donald Trump’s presidency will end poorly because he’s a person of bad character. I still think that’s true, though I very much doubt the impeachment trial now underway will result in his removal. Regardless of its outcome, his impeachment illustrates the damage bad character can do...

When Republicans threatened to call Hunter Biden, the embattled son of former Vice President Joe Biden and walking political cautionary tale, as a witness for the impeachment trial of President Trump, at least some Democrats seemed open to the idea. So long as it meant Democrats got to hear from...