Featured Commentary category, Page 68
Point: Should the Supreme Court justices have a code of ethics?
Our nation’s highest court — the Supreme Court — should live by the highest ethical standards. Right now, no transparent code of conduct governs its nine members like there is for all other federal judges — one that requires judges to “avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all...
Naomi Cahn and Sonia: Two conflicting federal court decisions led to mifepristone ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court issued an emergency ruling on April 21 that allows continued access to the abortion pill mifepristone in states where abortion is legal. The court’s decision, which included few details and only indicated that Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito did not concur, follows a whirlwind legal...
Elwood Watson: In America, knocking on the wrong door will get you shot
A spate of recent shootings serve as a depressing reminder that accidentally ringing the wrong doorbell, driving to an incorrect residence, or mistakenly getting into the incorrect vehicle can be deadly. In Kansas City, 16-year-old honors student Ralph Yarl mistakenly arrived at the wrong home while looking for his younger...
Mark Nicastre: Shapiro’s impressive first 100 days
What can you reasonably expect to achieve in 3% of the time you have a job? For reporters and other observers, the 3% milestone is an important inflection point for assessing the performance of elected officials, especially executives like governors. One hundred days into his tenure as Pennsylvania governor, Josh...
Hunter Tower: Is Pittsburgh a blueprint for other union-dominated blue cities?
In 2021, Ed Gainey was elected mayor of Pittsburgh. His campaign was funded in part by SEIU Healthcare Pennsylvania, which made a generous $350,000 donation — more than all other contributors combined. SEIU Healthcare PA knew what it was paying for when it made this investment — a strong bargaining...
Kavvya Ravikumar: Will we leave legacy of shame for our children?
A year ago I was sitting at a desk staring at a blackboard when I heard my fellow classmates discussing how they had slept only three hours a night for two weeks straight. Just weeks ago I heard second-graders discussing how they were going to wait until the summer to...
Rep. Joe D’Orsie: Shapiro should deliver on most popular, bipartisan campaign promise — school choice
Save his comments on accelerating the reduction of the corporate net income tax in Pennsylvania, the only statement that garnered undivided and emphatic applause at Gov. Josh Shapiro’s joint session budget address back in March were his remarks about protecting and promoting options for Pennsylvania’s grade schoolers. Few other topics...
Marie T. Reilly: What’s next for Boy Scouts after creating $2.4 billion fund to pay abuse claims?
On April 19, 2023, the Boy Scouts of America declared that it has exited its bankruptcy case after clearing one of the last legal hurdles in its way. Some insurance companies and sex abuse claimants objected to the Boy Scouts’ plan to pay claimants, but the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court...
Jacob L. Nelson: Tucker Carlson’s departure and Fox News’ expensive legal woes show the problem with faking ‘authenticity’
For decades, Fox News thrived because the people behind it understood what their audience wanted and were more than willing to deliver: television news — or what Fox called news — from a populist perspective. Fox is consistently the most-watched cable news channel, far ahead of competitors like MSNBC and...
Paula Kane: Protecting and improving affordable housing in Pittsburgh
Finding an affordable place to live can be complicated, intimidating and frustrating. It’s one of the biggest decisions someone can make, and it’s something that impacts everything else in their lives: where their kids go to school, where they work, where they enjoy holidays and events, where they rest and...
Cal Thomas: In France, this should not be surprising
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron is behaving like many other politicians. Following massive demonstrations against his enactment of a law raising the retirement age in France from 62 to 64, Macron seems to be taking a page from America’s Democratic Party playbook — if you can’t beat them, bribe...
Dana Kellerman: It really is the guns
This week, the trial begins for the man accused of shooting and killing 11 people at my Pittsburgh synagogue 4½ years ago. Reports say he was motivated by antisemitism, white supremacist ideology and hatred for immigrants, but what made the attack deadly was the guns. On April 13 of this...
Michelle Lockette: We should not tolerate loss of identity in education
I teach in a district that supports culturally affirming practices, which made it all the more surprising when I was asked to remove the word “identity” from a unit title in a ninth grade course. Even though I was not asked to change the curriculum, I could no longer call...
Anne M. Litz: Celebrating National Library Week
April 23-29 is National Library Week! But maybe you haven’t been to the local library in a while. Quite a while. Your library card expired, say, a couple of decades ago. Maybe you remember having to pay for a card back then. Maybe you’re not “into” books that much. Maybe...
Michael Zoosman: The Tree of Life — and a plea for life
Editor’s note: Many family members of victims of the Tree of Life shooting have advocated for prosecutors seeking the death penalty. Robert Bowers faces 63 federal charges in the case; jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday. We, the thousands of members of L’chaim! Jews Against the Death Penalty, are...
Zach Shamberg: Access to long-term care depends on workforce solutions
It seems like every industry is struggling with workforce challenges. In the industry of long-term care — nursing homes, personal care homes and assisted living communities — staffing challenges are nothing new. Long-term-care providers were battling a shortage of caregivers well before the covid-19 pandemic. But the last three years...
Elwood Watson: We don’t need to mandate ‘trigger warnings’ in college
Amen to Cornell University President Martha Pollack and Provost Michael Kotlikoff for refusing to ratify a proposal introduced by the student senate to mandate trigger warnings into syllabi and course content. In a statement, Pollack and Kotlikoff said such a mandate “would infringe on our core commitment to academic freedom...
Peter Morici: Silicon Valley Bank’s failure is no reason for stricter bank regulation
Silicon Valley Bank’s failure rattled confidence in small- and mid-sized banks across the U.S. and once again ignited cries to more tightly regulate banks. That’s wrong-headed. We need to step back and examine how non-money center banks, which are essentially depositories, get into trouble and better apply the tools we...
Jason Altmire: Pennsylvanians deserve real Medicaid solutions
More than 12 million people live in Pennsylvania, and 3 million of them — nearly one-quarter of the state’s population — depend on Medicaid. That’s why it’s so concerning that the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) recently issued new guidelines that will add an extra burden to Pennsylvania’s...
Dr. Andrew Smolar: Medicine and humanity
Doctors have known for some time that we are falling short of our humanistic ideals. It was my turn to learn it firsthand. I had avoided covid until February. Although I had a short course — mitigated by Paxlovid— some weird lab results surfaced after I recovered. My internist wanted...
Sally C. Pipes: Price controls in Medicare will kill new cures
President Biden just released his budget plan for the next fiscal year. It purports to extend Medicare’s solvency by decades and reassure the millions of Americans who rely on the program. But once they realize his approach will grind drug research to a halt, perhaps they’ll come to a different...
Sean Beadle and Teyah Spangler: Conquering the disease of addiction
Drug and alcohol addiction is a growing problem that continues to cause wreckage in the lives of individuals and families across the country and especially in our local communities. In 1987 alcohol and drug addiction was added to the list of known diseases, and in 2011 addiction was defined as...
Rachel Marsden: How Washington is losing its control of the world over Ukraine
PARIS — CIA Director William Burns hightailed it to Saudi Arabia last week, reportedly frustrated, according to the Wall Street Journal, that peace was on the verge of breaking out — the kind that could end the Global War on Terrorism in the Middle East, which has been the pretext...
Madeleine Para and Bruce Cooper: As Earth Day approaches, climate solutions have never been more appealing
As we gear up to celebrate Earth Day, it’s now easier than ever to reap the rewards of embracing a cleaner, greener world. The annual spring event, which reminds us to protect the planet that sustains us, is especially poignant this year. It follows the passage of the 2022 Inflation...
Colin McNickle: The solid case for an Allegheny County reassessment
The next Allegheny County chief executive must make a critical decision on property assessments, says the research director of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. And it’s clear — as a matter of the state Constitution, basic fairness and repeated litigation, the latest of which is wending its way through...
