Featured Commentary category, Page 57
Patrick Dowd: Allegheny County’s progress on air quality
The op-ed “Environmental priorities for Allegheny County executive’s first 100 days” (Sept. 25, TribLIVE) by environmental activist Ashleigh Deemer, deputy director of PennEnvironment, contained a great deal of misinformation and bias. The Allegheny Health Department (AHCD) has made tremendous strides in air quality during the last decade. The next county...
Jeff Pedowitz: OpenAI lawsuit a watershed moment for AI ethics and intellectual property
The recent class-action lawsuit against OpenAI, led by the Authors Guild and a group of authors, is a watershed moment for the AI industry. It raises critical questions about ethics, intellectual property and the future of machine learning technologies like Chat GPT. As someone who has spent years in the...
J. Christian Adams: Automatic voter registration will lead to foreign nationals getting on voter rolls
With great fanfare, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro announced that the commonwealth will begin implementing automatic voter registration. Automatic voter registration means that when Pennsylvanians get driver’s licenses or state-issued government IDs they will automatically be registered to vote unless they opt out. Currently, people opt in to register to vote....
Maria Fotopoulos: Term limits needed now more than ever
San Francisco, one of America’s most iconic cities, is in decay. Smash-and-grab robberies and open shoplifting have forced businesses to close, law enforcement has tied hands, and urine, feces and the used syringes of zombie drug addicts litter the streets. Yet one of the leaders of the decline, former House...
Counterpoint: The impeachment to end them all
Our nation faced only two presidential impeachments during its first 222 years. Suddenly, in 2021, President Donald Trump was impeached for the second time, and now we’re facing a third impeachment in four short years. This flurry of impeachment activity requires us to ask: Is President Joe Biden facing impeachment...
Point: Biden impeachment inquiry is a shameless attempt at political retribution
The impeachment inquiry House Republicans have launched against President Joe Biden is a transparent, shameless and embarrassingly weak attempt at political retribution. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has launched the probe not because it has merit but because the most extreme members of his party demanded it to damage Biden’s reelection...
Jason Altmire: Manufacturers need pragmatism from EPA on upcoming air quality rule
When I was growing up in Western Pennsylvania in the 1970s and ’80s, the region’s rich industrial heritage was a point of local pride and known the world over. Many of the men and women working on the shop floors in and around Pittsburgh were your quintessential Nixon and Reagan...
Colin McNickle: Pa. taxpayers being railroaded again
A much-vaunted agreement to spend $200 million of public money to upgrade a Pennsylvania rail line — ostensibly to facilitate the expansion of Amtrak passenger rail service between Pittsburgh and New York City — sounds like a great deal. For the Norfolk Southern Railway, that is. But it’s a raw...
Christopher Baxter: Support of free and fearless journalism can help preserve our democracy
The challenges and threats facing our democracy can seem so enormous and systemic that you might think one person, one article or one vote couldn’t possibly make a difference. But the biggest threat of all is giving in and believing all is already lost. This month we celebrate Democracy Day...
Cynthia M. Allen: Aging leaders like Biden, McConnell could take another path. This pope showed the way
In February 2013, Pope Benedict XVI did something truly remarkable: He resigned the papacy. In his letter of resignation he explained that physical strength “has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.” At 85, the...
John M. Crisp: Capital punishment — 2 choices for America
You wouldn’t think that it would be that hard to kill someone. History indicates that we’ve always been good at it. It took only one generation before Cain killed Abel in a fit of jealousy over divine approbation. Murder had been invented and we’ve never looked back. In fact, we’ve...
Ashleigh Deemer: Environmental priorities for Allegheny County executive’s first 100 days
Allegheny County will soon start a new chapter with the election of its first new county executive in more than a dozen years. It will be a big change and a new opportunity to prioritize environmental protection and public health in Allegheny County government. That’s why, earlier this year, the...
Greg Fulton: Remembering Stan Musial, one of Pa.’s finest ballplayers
It was 60 years ago this month when Stan “the Man” Musial appeared in his final game for the St. Louis Cardinals. It was the end of a career that found him chosen as league MVP three times, winning seven batting titles, being selected to the All-Star team more than...
Guy Ciarrocchi: The Cavalcante escape — a case study on the impact of Democratic policies
For weeks, the nation had its eyes on Chester County, Pa. — my home. The hunt for double-murderer Danelo Cavalcante captivated viewers, especially in suburban Philadelphia, because for us it was real life: helicopters zooming overhead, 911-alerts to shelter in place, body-armored police manning checkpoints and searching cars, schools closed...
Joe Guzzardi: Republicans have rare opportunity to secure U.S. border
Congress is back from its August recess, the weeks-long period away from its always contentious, mostly unproductive business. The House and the Senate have less than a week until the Sept. 30 deadline to pass a federal budget. On Oct. 1, a new fiscal year begins. If lawmakers cannot push...
Michael Reagan: GOP can’t survive the Only Trumpers
Too bad Donald Trump won’t attend the second Republican presidential primary debate Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Library. His friends and enemies in the media will miss him and the high ratings he automatically generates, but he’s leading by a huge margin in the polls and he doesn’t need the...
Shauna Shames: Moms for Liberty could have serious impact on presidential race
Motherhood language and symbolism have been part of every U.S. social movement, from the American Revolution to Prohibition and the fight against drunken drivers. Half of Americans are women, most become mothers, and many are conservative. The U.S. is also a nation of organizing, so conservative moms — like all...
Matthew Valasik and Shannon Reid: How local police could help prevent another Jan. 6-style insurrection
Some of the most prominent members of the Proud Boys, a far-right militant group that functions more like a street gang than a militia, have been sentenced to long terms in federal prison for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Experts...
Klaus W. Larres: Ransom or realism? A closer look at Biden’s prisoner swap deal with Iran.
Five American detainees have been released from imprisonment in Iran as the terms of the swap that set them free is drawing criticism. The Biden administration’s agreement with Iran for the swap could be seen as a simple business transaction to free five Iranians from imprisonment in the U.S. and...
Russell Zerbo: EPA/DOE money should be wisely spent on plugging wells
Pennsylvania has an opportunity to receive $33,695,097 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Department of Energy (DOE) to plug small, conventionally drilled oil and gas wells with known owners. This federal funding could significantly reduce climate-changing methane pollution as well as smog-causing volatile organic compounds (VOC) and...
Jason Killmeyer and Erin Koper: Which way, Western Pa.?
Walking through downtown Pittsburgh, the words “Reduced Rates” above so many “For Lease” signs catch our attention. Our downtown feels worse, and it is worse. Shootings, public drug use and vagrancy have surged. But so do other parts of the city and county: West End. Banksville. Duquesne. McKeesport. We’re not...
William Enyart: Planned cut to VA funding for ambulances would harm our nation’s veterans
Unless stopped, the Department of Veterans Affairs is set to knock over a domino that might drastically harm veterans’ health care and then spread to the general community. In a cost-cutting measure on track to take effect early next year, the VA plans to sever a critical link between veterans...
Rich Fitzgerald: Pa. leaders and presidential hopefuls should commit to aiding America’s caregivers
Pennsylvanians have a long tradition of taking care of our neighbors, all the way back to our founding. Today we continue that tradition, especially when it comes to caring for those who can’t take care of themselves. A little over a million Pennsylvanians act as caregivers for their friends and...
Cal Thomas: British to be forced to drive electric
LONDON — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has rejected appeals from the Conservative Party to extend the deadline for requiring all new car sales in the UK to be electric by 2030. The Tories say the goal is impossible to meet. Government ministers, who have embraced the “climate change” faith...
Elizabeth Kryder-Reid: The importance of shining a light on hidden toxic histories
Indianapolis proudly claims Elvis’ last concert, Robert Kennedy’s speech in response to Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, and the Indianapolis 500. There’s a 9/11 memorial, a Medal of Honor Memorial and a statue of former NFL quarterback Peyton Manning. What few locals know, let alone tourists, is that the city...
