Featured Commentary category, Page 3
Imran Khalid: America’s 2 economies — soaring stocks and slashed food stamps
The close of the 2025 holiday season has revealed a stark divide in the U.S. economy. As 2026 begins, the United States appears to be operating in two financial realities: record corporate profits and soaring stock values for the wealthy, alongside deepening hardship for millions of ordinary households. For many...
Llewellyn King: The rule of law is the foundation of civilization
The men you see in masks on your television savagely arresting people may not seem like your affair. But they are your affair and mine, and that of every other American. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operates outside the law. It doesn’t disclose charges, and no one arrested sees a...
Jonah Goldberg: Trump’s globalist era is going to make everyone poorer
I’m not sure what to call the new era we seem to be entering. But I am sure it will make people poorer. Let’s start with some basics. Imagine you inherit a thriving department store chain. Rather than listen to experts on consumer trends, supply-chain logistics, human resources, etc., you...
Cal Thomas: Sports gambling, a bad bet
It wasn’t that long ago when sports betting was illegal. Then suddenly it was as though profit, rather than controlling this vice, became paramount. It was inevitable, given human nature, that bad things would follow legalization. Last week, The Wall Street Journal carried a front-page story that reported “one of...
Hugo Balta: Washington loves blaming Latin America for drugs — while ignoring the American appetite that fuels the trade
For decades, the United States has perfected a familiar political ritual: condemn Latin American governments for the flow of narcotics northward, demand crackdowns and frame the crisis as something done to America rather than something America helps create. It is a narrative that travels well in press conferences and campaign...
Erika Strassburger: Clean energy provides jobs, consumer savings
It’s a challenging and uncertain time for America’s clean energy industry. Congress repealed the federal clean energy tax credits through President Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” last summer, and Trump has made his love for fossil fuels and disdain for renewable energy clear through his statements and his policies. In...
Colin McNickle: Is Pittsburgh trading one vacancy problem for another?
It is a deeply troubling number by any accounting: Nearly a full quarter of all classes of downtown Pittsburgh office space was vacant through the third quarter of 2025, concludes the latest report from the Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) real estate firm. “Keep in mind (that) one year ago, the...
Jason Lias: High school theater politics — Democrats take stage against ICE
Some Democrats treat Immigration and Customs Enforcement like the villain in a high school play — except they forgot they’re in the real world. Lots of yelling. Fake crying. Dramatic gasps. Signs, hashtags and calls for “resistance” everywhere. Meanwhile, most Americans are just trying to get through the day. Front...
Talla Mountjoy: ‘This is the time the regime will fall.’ Iran’s protests as seen through my family’s group chat
A WhatsApp group serves as a lifeline for my maternal family, including my aunts and uncles, all still in Iran, and my cousins, who have left Iran. With the protests in Iran growing by the day, the conversations in our chats changed to signs of hope even amid grave concerns...
Joseph Pollino: With high deductibles, even the insured are functionally uninsured
I recently saw a patient complaining of shortness of breath and a persistent cough. Worried he was developing pneumonia, I ordered a chest X-ray — a standard diagnostic tool. He refused. He hadn’t met his $3,000 deductible yet, and so his insurance would have required him to pay much or...
Frederic J. Fransen: America’s ‘Common Sense’ revolution
While Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence turned the smoldering embers of rebellion into the glorious fireworks of independence and revolution, it was a short pamphlet published six months earlier, in January 1776, that ignited the colonies’ revolutionary zeal and crowded out any notion of rapprochement with Britain. Thomas Paine’s “Common...
Bill Dudley: Attacking Powell only undercuts Trump’s goals
If President Donald Trump thinks piling pressure on the Federal Reserve will further his goal of lowering interest rates and stimulating economic growth, he should think again. On the contrary, it’s likely to have the opposite effect. It’s hard to see the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of Fed Chair Jerome...
Aaron Riggleman: AI needs national guardrails
Artificial intelligence (AI) is already transforming how Pennsylvanians work, learn and deliver essential, everyday services. From manufacturing shop floors and health care systems to small businesses and startups, AI tools are improving productivity and expanding opportunity. But the benefits of this technology depend on clear, consistent rules. Without federal leadership,...
Matt K. Lewis: The year’s new political fault lines are already forming
That escalated quickly. We’re barely into 2026, and events are already unfolding that could meaningfully reshape the political landscape. The death of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother and U.S. citizen who was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis last week, has the potential...
Barbara McQuade: The DOJ suing for voter data is dangerous on many levels
Uncle Sam wants you. And now he wants your voting data, too. The law — and long-standing policy — say he shouldn’t get it. The U.S. Department of Justice has filed lawsuits in 23 states and the District of Columbia seeking access to detailed voter information for the purpose of...
Ruth Johnston: Assisted outpatient treatment is a gift
It’s the season for thank-you notes, as we contemplate gifts given and received. Allegheny County just gave a wonderful gift this year to me and families like mine. In 2026, the county is going to opt into the newest provision of the Mental Health Procedures Act: We’re going to try...
Colin McNickle: Follow this blueprint, Mayor O’Connor
New Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor must hit the ground running by spearheading five action items that represent the first steps to improve the city’s financial, economic and business climate situation to promote private-sector growth and healthy finances, says the research director of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “In order...
Carl P. Leubsdorf: Trump’s action in Venezuela — gunboat diplomacy on steroids
Like his domestic policy that seeks to roll back the civil rights revolution and other 21st-century advances, President Donald Trump’s imperialist foreign policy is invoking the kind of unilateral approach that marked an earlier era. That’s the bottom line on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and his threats...
Russell Jeung: Deaths of Asian immigrants in ICE custody reveal a community under threat
More than 30 people died while being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2025, marking it as the deadliest year for those held in custody by the agency in two decades. At least five of the detainees who died were Asian nationals: Chaofeng Ge, Nhon Ngoc Nguyen, Tien Xuan...
Rep. Mandy Steele: Listen to teachers — restrict cellphones in schools
In a 2024 poll conducted by the National Education Association, 90% of teachers said students should be required to put their phones away during instructional time, while 75% believe phones should be off-limits for the entire school day. Teachers cited several concerns, including impacts on student learning, mental health, safety...
Philip Martell: The significance of Greenland
In American life, Greenland feels distant, an icy expanse far removed from daily routines in Pennsylvania or elsewhere in the continental United States. But in national security terms, Greenland is anything but remote. It sits on the front line of America’s homeland defense, and how the United States approaches Greenland...
Sheldon Jacobson: Football teams that squander great start are the exception, not the rule
The NFL playoff picture has been set. Fourteen teams are preparing to battle for a spot in Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara on Feb. 8. Then there are 18 teams that will have an early off-season, each hoping that this year could have been different. One tipped pass, one...
Andreas Kluth: Trump is tying his legacy to whatever happens in Venezuela
Possibly, just possibly, Donald Trump just scored a foreign-policy success that could define his legacy. By striking Venezuela and whisking away Nicolás Maduro (along with Maduro’s wife), the president removed a patently illegitimate dictator and, in theory, opened the door for a wretched nation to return to democracy and stability....
John S. Brenner: A call for civility
As we mark the fifth anniversary of the insurrection that took place Jan. 6, 2021, let us pause and reflect, not just on the unnecessary events which unfolded and included the worst kind of political violence, but also ask ourselves how we’ve grown from it. Our civil discourse has become...
Mark Z. Barabak: Democrats are on a roll. So why not fight one another?
Democrats are starting the new year on a high. A series of 2025 victories, in red and blue states alike, was marked by a striking improvement over the party’s 2024 showing. That over-performance, to use the political term of art, means candidates — including even some who lost — received...
