Featured Commentary category, Page 2
Ron Klink: Democrats should go bigger on insurance reform
Healthcare costs are crushing Americans. The average premium for an employer-sponsored family health plan now exceeds $26,000 a year — and families are then still on the hook for ever-higher deductibles and out-of- pocket bills. Nearly four in 10 Americans have delayed or skipped care because they couldn’t afford it. When...
Sheldon H. Jacobson: The ‘need for speed’ is slowing us down
Summer will soon arrive, and people will take advantage of warmer weather and more outdoor events. Indeed, our highly connected digital economy places a premium on getting things done fast. That is why smartphones are the primary tool many use to plan and interact, with texting the preferred method of...
Scott L. Bohn: Good intentions, flawed policy in Allegheny County’s police ordinance
I am writing to express my strong opposition to the proposed ordinance concerning restrictions on face coverings and mandatory personal identification requirements for law enforcement officers within Allegheny County. While I appreciate the intent to promote transparency and maintain community trust, the proposed approach raises serious concerns regarding officer safety,...
Thomas Kelly: Promoting civic literacy for America’s 250th
We Americans have always felt anxious about our democracy. As Benjamin Franklin famously said, ours is only “a republic, if you can keep it,” and we’ve been plagued by a nagging feeling ever since that we can’t. The latest bout of handwringing is brought on by declining literacy and the...
Jonah Goldberg: Some MAGA loyalists have turned on Trump. Why the rest haven’t.
I recently watched “A Face in the Crowd” for the umpteenth time. I had a better reason than procrastination to rewatch Elia Kazan’s brilliant 1957 film exploring populism in the television age. It was homework. I was asked to discuss it with Turner Classic Movies host Ben Mankiewicz at the...
Mary Ellen Smith-Glasgow and Kymberlee Montgomery: America relies on nurses, so why are we limiting their future?
As we mark National Nurses Week May 6-12, the country will do what it does every year. We will thank nurses for their contributions. We will celebrate their compassion. We will call them heroes. Nurses have been ranked the most trusted profession in America for 22 consecutive years. No other...
Solomon D. Stevens: 3 things we can learn from the Declaration of Independence
As a people, we feel lost. Our political life is full of division and animosity. Our society struggles to find its sense of meaning. Violence erupts far too often. And beyond our borders, we find ourselves embroiled in conflicts with enemies and allies. We are a nation divided and adrift....
Cal Thomas: Who is monitoring the debt?
People of a certain age will recall a lyric from the Tennessee Ernie Ford song “Sixteen Tons”: “Another day older and deeper in debt.” I thought of that song as Secretary of War Pete Hegseth asked Congress to approve a $1.5 trillion budget for fiscal year 2027 to put the...
Erwin Chemerinsky: Supreme Court’s decision against Voting Rights Act will be devastating
The Supreme Court has again dealt a devastating blow to voting equality in the United States. On Wednesday, in Louisiana v. Callais, six justices effectively nullified a 1982 federal statute that prohibits states from running or establishing election systems, such as election districts, that have a discriminatory effect against voters...
David M. Drucker: Money can’t buy you voters’ love
No amount of advertising money can sell a bad product — or at least, a product that consumers have determined they don’t want (see: New Coke). This time-tested business principle also applies to American politics. That’s helpful to remember as midterm elections proceed. The Democratic and Republican parties, their candidates...
Stephen L. Carter: Free speech means Kimmel has the right to ridicule you
Here’s one of those remarkable coincidences: Immediately after the president and first lady called for late-night host Jimmy Kimmel to be kicked off ABC’s air after he made a cruel joke at their expense, the entirely independent investigators over at the Federal Communications Commission, in an entirely unrelated move, have...
James Stavridis: Hungary’s shift unlocks new opportunities for NATO and Ukraine
The ousting this month of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in a landslide electoral defeat has generated a flood of commentary. Much of it has been about the implications for far-right populism in Europe. Others have focused on the potential impact to U.S. politics, given the close ties of President...
James Alwine and Elizabeth Jacobs: Let’s get ready for the next pandemic
Nobody wants to think about it, but another pandemic is inevitable. We don’t know when, but it is coming, and could well kill millions when it arrives. Pandemics are existential threats to society and our way of life. In the past 108 years, novel viruses with pandemic potential have arisen...
Salewa Ogunmefun: SAVE Act is a solution in search of a problem
As the midterm elections in November draw closer, renewed attempts to undermine our democracy are on the rise. Instead of creating confusion and introducing prohibitions that make voting more difficult, we should be considering ways to make voting more accessible for all eligible voters. Recently, Sen. Dave McCormick called for...
Joe Palaggi: War, morality and the questions we keep confusing
When Pope Leo XIV speaks about war, his message is clear: Violence degrades human dignity, and peace must remain the goal even when it feels out of reach. When Donald Trump speaks about conflict, his clarity takes a different form: Threats must be confronted, adversaries deterred, and, at times, force...
Bruce Ledewitz: Violating the conscience of the taxpayer
Recently, a Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court decision struck down Pennsylvania’s statutory ban on Medicaid benefits for abortions. Around the same time, the U.S. Supreme Court granted review of Colorado’s denial of public subsidies to two Catholic preschools. Both actions threaten the conscience of the taxpayer. There is a healthy tradition in...
Rick Siger: Draft was just the beginning for Downtown Pittsburgh
Two years ago, a broad coalition of public and private sector leaders from across Pittsburgh came together with Gov. Josh Shapiro to announce a 10-year, $600 million strategy to revitalize Downtown Pittsburgh, which had been struggling in recent years with a lack of affordable housing, empty office buildings and public...
Cal Thomas: Do we know our enemy?
President Trump canceled a delegation of U.S. negotiators about to head to Islamabad for continued negotiations with Iran because it appeared no one from the Iranian regime planned to show up. It’s past time to consider whether the American side truly knows the goals of the Iranian side. Such knowledge...
Daniel DePetris: Will King Charles’ visit help soften the animus between U.S. and U.K.?
King Charles III is Donald Trump’s opposite in every way. The former is a master of protocol: Everything he does daily is scripted to a T. The latter despises a script, hates giving formal speeches and prefers to ad-lib in front of his supporters. Due to his bloodline and the...
Elijah Williams: Drug courts fail women, but there’s a solution
When Susan Burton lost her 5-year-old son after he was struck by a police vehicle in Los Angeles, her grief drove her into addiction. Crack cocaine became her way to cope, and California’s response was to lock her up again and again. Over two decades, she was incarcerated six times,...
Chris Bryant: Your SUV habit is killing off my favorite car — the station wagon
For motoring enthusiasts like me, station wagons are a near perfect package, combining spaciousness with sleek looks, exciting driving dynamics and decent fuel efficiency. Unfortunately my love of no-nonsense wagons (or estates as they’re called in the UK, Kombis in Germany and “breaks” in France) is no longer widely shared....
Jessica Melugin: Social media bans bring problems and don’t work
Bans on social media for minors are having a political moment. Parents’ sincere concerns and politicians’ instincts to capitalize on those fears are driving federal and state legislation like the kind already in effect elsewhere in the world. But no amount of good intentions makes these efforts good policy. At...
Atom Ariola: We need to stop confusing diplomacy with making ‘deals’
Something strange has happened to the language of politics. Everything is now a “deal.” Not a framework, not an accord, not a negotiated architecture — just a deal. The word appears everywhere, from headlines to cable news chyrons, as if it were the most natural way to describe diplomacy. But...
Jay W. Richards: Why universal basic income is still a bad idea
Elon Musk recently posted a pronouncement on X: “Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI.” Andrew Yang cheered. Sam Altman concurred. Their message: AI is coming for your job, and only the government can save you....
Catherine Thorbecke: AI is coming for our aging parents, ready or not
At first glance, AI companions for lonely seniors can seem dystopian, looking less like innovation than a bleak sign of social failure. Spending a couple days recently in Tokyo nursing homes, I watched plushie robots the size of human babies being handed to aging parents and grandparents, and prototypes of conversational...
