Featured Commentary category, Page 43
Harry Litman: Will Trump be tried for Jan. 6? After Supreme Court arguments, it’s more uncertain than ever
For those rightly concerned about the timing of Donald Trump’s federal Jan. 6 trial, the oral arguments before the Supreme Court last week gave plenty of reasons for worry. Moreover, the court’s conservative majority seemed inclined to define presidential immunity from prosecution in a way that could undermine some of...
Point: Perverting God’s word for politics is a sin
In March, former President Donald Trump began hawking a “God Bless the USA” Bible online for $59.99, a King James Version that also includes the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Pledge of Allegiance. “Let’s make America pray again,” he said. “We must defend God in the public square...
Counterpoint: Bible blasphemy or act of godliness?
Donald Trump was recently accused of “Bible blasphemy” for selling a version of the Bible, which prompted me to write this article on his motivations for such an act. Is this truly blasphemy? Or is it a way to encourage his followers to study the Holy Scriptures to “Make America...
Stephen L. Carter: Should Donald Trump’s jury really remain anonymous?
What are we to make of the anonymous jury in former President Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York? The practice has long had its critics. First, let’s get technical: Trump’s jury is not actually anonymous. Unlike the practice in some organized crime cases, the parties and their lawyers know...
Sen. Scott Martin and Rep. Jesse Topper: Grow PA plan helps solve economic, higher education challenges
Young people graduating from high school face tough choices about what to do next. For many, college costs too much. But that problem is just one among many that threaten the future of our commonwealth. Higher education is expensive. College enrollment is declining. Kindergarten classes are shrinking. Our population is...
Tom Croner: Conservation funding helps keep family farms viable
I’m an 81-year-old, seventh-generation farmer working with my son T. Richard on a multigenerational grain and hay farm in Somerset County. We grow corn, soybeans, wheat, rye and hay. I’m proud to see him out there by himself at night, and regret that I can’t always join him. As the...
Mark Gongloff: Wildfire smoke is coming for the U.S. again. We’re not ready.
Many Americans were surprised last year when smoke from wildfires hundreds of miles away turned their air toxic. There’s no excuse for anybody to be surprised when it happens again — possibly in just a couple of months. Canada’s emergency preparedness minister has warned repeatedly that an unusually dry and...
Reps. Lindsay Powell and Aerion A. Abney: Bridging Pa.’s digital divide
Covid-19 not only resulted in immeasurable loss of life, it also permanently altered life as we knew it. The base of operations that is home shed its more proverbial association and became the place where business in all its forms got done. Computers and internet access represented a lifeline for...
Fernanda Santos: Stop saying ‘immigrants do jobs Americans don’t want to do’
The deaths of six immigrant workers in the collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26 sparked the kind of collective empathy that usually follows tragic events. President Joe Biden was among the many who offered his prayers. In news reports, the men have been called “kindhearted,” “humble”...
Laura Chu Wiens: Shapiro addressing climate crisis head on through good transportation policy
The climate crisis is not coming: it is here now. It is already impacting our communities, our economy and even our national security. The transportation sector is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions leading to climate change in the United States, and so meaningful climate solutions must involve carefully...
Barbara Thomas: Breaking the silence of infertility
Preparing to have children can be a joyous time for many families — hopefully looking at baby clothes, picking out nursery colors, and even rearranging homes and lives to make room for a new little life. But for some, it takes longer than expected to fill that nursery with giggles...
Jason W. Park: The Crumbley case — who else should go to jail?
Jennifer and James Crumbley, the parents of Ethan Crumbley, who killed four students in a 2021 school shooting in Oxford, Mich., were each sentenced April 9 to 10-15 years in prison, weeks after being convicted of manslaughter. They are the first parents to be held criminally responsible for a mass...
Joanne Kilgour and Alison L. Steele: This Earth Day, let’s work together to build a better future for Pa.
Each year, Earth Day marks a chance to imagine a better, brighter world. Picture a Pennsylvania with bountiful clean water, skies unclouded by pollution, a strong, diverse economy and an equal opportunity for all to be healthy and thrive. Today, that vision is closer than ever to reality. Billions of...
Beau Breslin: Brown v. Board of Education at 70
American history is replete with paradigm- shifting, landscape- altering, game-changing moments. Brown v. Board of Education is one of them. Little of what we knew or understood before May 17, 1954 — 70 years ago next month — resembles what came after. Good thing. Dismantling America’s system of educational apartheid was long...
Elwood Watson: What you might have forgotten about O.J. Simpson and his trial
For those too young to fully remember the O.J. Simpson trial, it was a television spectacle with all the makings of a Hollywood blockbuster. Sex and violence, interracial relationships and marriage, infidelity, alcoholism, sexual deviancy and a host of lurid details that titillated and fascinated the public. Stories covering the...
Cal Thomas: Needed — regime change in Iran
Every approach to curtailing Iran from its threats and behavior toward Israel and other countries has failed. In 2023, the Biden administration imposed sanctions on Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officials accused of planning assassinations overseas. In 2024, it “reapproved a sanctions waiver that unlocks upwards of $10 billion in frozen...
Leonard Greene: O.J. Simpson ex-teammate says trial showed ‘Black man can buy justice like a white man’
If there is anybody with a unique perspective on the O.J. Simpson saga, it’s Boston lawyer Eddie Jenkins. Not only is Jenkins, a former president of the Massachusetts Black Lawyers Association, well versed on the subject of jury nullification, he had a front row seat to the vanity show as...
Cheryl Allen: Retail marijuana would hurt Pa., especially our young people
Government officials should refrain from promoting a predatory industry whose very existence relies upon drug dependency. This was my message to state representatives in Harrisburg as I was invited to share testimony during a recent committee hearing on marijuana legalization. I have extensive experience with young people and their parents...
Cal Thomas: It’s a taxing time
Was it as bad for you as it was for me? Sending Washington money we earn, but Washington doesn’t, I mean? It’s not just being part of half the nation that pays taxes while the other half doesn’t that bothers me. It’s the waste and unnecessary programs and agencies that...
Ashleigh Strange: Shapiro administration will remain stalwart for LGBTQ+ Pennsylvanians
“Be Who You Are” by Todd Parr, a picture book for children that encourages them to embrace who they are inside, was selected for a drag queen story hour at the Lancaster Area Public Library. Lancaster Pride had made plans to host on March 23 — just a week before...
Aviva Lubowsky: A progressive Jew’s take on the PA-12 race
Back in the 1990s, I was in Poland visiting a concentration camp. As I exited the gas chamber, I looked across the camp to the barbed wire fence. Immediately beyond it were the backyards of the residents of the town in which the camp was situated. “Were those houses there...
Cindy Black: Remove foreign-influenced corporate money from our elections now
Federal law is clear: Foreign money is prohibited in U.S. elections. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC created a loophole allowing corporations with significant foreign ownership to use their corporate coffers to spend unlimited amounts of money in U.S. elections. With the next presidential election...
Point: IRS Direct simplifies tax filing, saves money
If there’s one thing we should be able to agree upon, it’s that everyone should pay the taxes they owe without having to pay for the privilege of doing so. This year, for the first time, residents of 12 states who file simple tax returns can file online for free...
Counterpoint: IRS shouldn’t be trusted with Direct File
Tax Day looms, and the taxman cometh. It is a certainty, as Ben Franklin said. This year, the Internal Revenue Service has launched a pilot program dubbed “Direct File” through which Americans can opt to have the IRS prepare their taxes for free (well, except for the billions of taxpayer...
Zach Kennedy: The pathway to preserving Pittsburgh’s steel industry
Throughout America and internationally, Pittsburgh is recognized as the Steel City. From the namesake of our storied pro football franchise to the production of the tanks that defeated the Nazis in World War II, steel is in our DNA and remains a cornerstone of our culture. It should come as...
