Featured Commentary category, Page 73
Elwood Watson: Police interaction with young Black girl had happy ending
Last month, the Yale School of Public Health held a ceremony to celebrate Bobbi Wilson, a 9-year-old Black kid from Caldwell, N.J., who efforts to eradicate spotted lanternflies was seen as an environmentally progressive gesture. The ceremony also recognized Wilson’s donation of her personal spotted lanternfly collection to Yale’s Peabody...
Dr. Andrew Smolar: The balancing act of parenting adolescents
The task of parenting adolescents has changed a great deal, given how fast the world is moving. For one, information is plentiful and immediately accessible. When I was 17, we checked card catalogs and descended into the library’s catacombs to research a subject. Now, with the stroke of a thumb,...
John Hinshaw: Where is the Latino vote headed in Pa.?
Nationally, Latinos are flexing their growing political muscle. They now make up 11% of the U.S. House, for example. In Pennsylvania, however, Latino voters essentially sat out the last election. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, turnout in the state’s most heavily Latino districts was less than half that of 2020....
Cal Thomas: Trial balloons
KEY LARGO, Florida — Say the words “espionage” and “communism” to a younger generation and they might think you’re talking about spy novels and Cold War history. Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo thinks both words describe contemporary threats. During a visit to a town made famous by the 1948...
Tracey L. Rogers: Teach Black history — don’t ban it
When Republican President Gerald Ford officially recognized Black History Month in 1976, he called on Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans.” He also acknowledged that Black Americans had shown “courage and perseverance” when our country had failed to live up to its...
William D. Hartung: Can Biden keep sending Ukraine weapons without provoking Russia?
The Biden administration announced last month that the U.S. will provide 31 Abrams M-1 tanks to Ukraine, and Germany said it will send 14 of its Leopard tanks to Kyiv. The tank deal and the first anniversary of the start of the war in February offer an opportunity to evaluate...
Jim Warren: NewsGuard tested ChatGPT’s potential for misinformation. Here’s what we found.
The Oscar-nominated short film “An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It” could be the name for Silicon Valley’s latest gift to Western civilization — and to many practitioners of misinformation. The artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT has been heralded as if it’s a techno-...
Neil Hare: Winning GOP strategy in 2024 – back to business with immigration reform
The recent GOP attacks on the business community, including its leading advocacy group the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, arguably contributed to a poor showing in the 2022 midterms and is not the answer for success in the presidential and congressional elections in 2024. The main policy targets for these attacks...
Alexis Karteron: Tyre Nichols’ death prompts calls for federal legislation to promote police reform — but Congress can’t do much about fixing local police
The severe beating of Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old Black man, by five Memphis police officers — leading to his death three days later — has sparked renewed calls for federal measures to combat police violence and racism. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, a package of reform initiatives aimed...
Maggie Rose Macar: George Santos is a bad role model for the LGBTQ+ community
The 118th Congress, who have finally been sworn in after a nightmarish House speaker election, is composed of more LGBTQ+ lawmakers than at any time in history — 13 — including two senators and 11 representatives. Unfortunately, in the midst of what is set to be a record-breaking and glass-ceiling-shattering...
Peter Morici: WTO no longer serves U.S. foreign-policy interests
The World Trade Organization no longer serves U.S. foreign policy interests. The U.S. and its allies established the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to limit tariffs and quantitative restrictions and to promote trade in goods. Rechristened the WTO in 1995, agreements were added to cover trade in services and...
Guy Ciarrocchi: Pa. Republicans must solve the suburban puzzle
Political pundits rate Pennsylvania among the swing states. Reviewing the Keystone map, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are overwhelmingly Democratic strongholds. Rural Pennsylvania — what political pundits call the “T” — has always been Republican and now has gone super-red. So, the critical battle concerns Philadelphia’s suburbs, with about 22% of the...
Elwood Watson: Tyre Nichols’ death shows how racism even impacts Black officers
The death of Black people at the hands of law enforcement has become so commonplace that it’s easy to feel both outraged and psychologically numb. Over the past few decades from Rodney King to George Floyd, we have become front-row spectators to grainy and, in some cases, graphic footage of...
Athan Koutsiouroumbas: Can Chat GPT3 make Pa. a red state?
In the past three weeks, policymakers had their worlds rocked by generative artificial intelligence. The problem is that they don’t know it — yet. First, a team of researchers demonstrated that Open AI’s Chat GPT3 can pass the stringent United States Medical Licensing Exam. Days later, Chat GPT 3 passed...
Colleen Hronich: Pa. celebrates Catholic Schools Week
I still remember celebrating Catholic Schools Week in my elementary school. We had a grandparents’ breakfast, special dress-up days, an open house where we showed off special projects for our families and a school night at the roller-skating rink. It was a special time and helped us appreciate how lucky...
Jordan Clark: Graham Spanier’s so-called ‘rush to judgment’
“A scheduled on-campus appearance by former Penn State President Graham Spanier was canceled Wednesday after the university canceled classes and some school activities because of wintry weather. Spanier had planned to promote his book, ‘In the Lion’s Den: The Penn State Scandal and a Rush to Judgment,’ in an appearance...
Cal Thomas: Inhumanity in Memphis
No adjective is sufficient to describe the reaction one gets from watching five Memphis police officers beat 29-year-old Tyre Nichols to within an inch of his life. He later died of his injuries in a local hospital. “Inhumane” and “senseless” are as close as it comes. While Nichols was accused...
Carl P. Leubsdorf: Debt ceiling showdown is probably not what Congress imagined in 1917
It began as a way to make it easier for the federal government to sell bonds to finance the U.S. role in World War I. Now, more than a century later, the requirement for a legal ceiling on the federal debt has become something totally different: a political time bomb...
Michael Reagan: Biden’s lost docs and losing war
It’s a stretch, but I think I know the real reason the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago. We’ve been told for months that the DOJ ordered a search of Donald Trump’s home in Florida because he was not turning over a bunch of classified documents to the National Archives fast enough. Supposedly,...
Viewpoint 1: Bipartisanship is alive and well, but that’s not necessarily a good thing
Old habits die hard, as the saying goes. But myths and legends do, too, as Hunter S. Thompson famously said. When it comes to government, there is one idea that endures despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It is that bipartisanship is inherently good but essentially dead in our polarized...
Viewpoint 2: Is bipartisanship good? That depends
Bipartisanship is the solution to some problems, but it also helped create them. On the one hand, if you are a classical liberal with a strong preference for fiscal responsibility, bipartisanship generally gets you nowhere. Big Capitol Hill deals mean big spending. On the other hand, the only path to...
Jerald McNair: When a 6-year-old is accused of shooting his teacher, it’s time for a paradigm shift
Six-year-old children should be learning to read, identify new words by matching letters to sounds, count to 100, and do basic addition and subtraction. But now we have a 6-year-old who allegedly shot his teacher in Newport News, Va. Unfortunately, school shootings are not uncommon. There have been more than...
Phil Kerpen: Biden’s 2nd student loan bailout scheme is even worse
President Joe Biden isn’t waiting for the Supreme Court to decide on his last $400 billion student loan bailout before rolling out another, even more costly plan. (Oral arguments on the first one are scheduled for Feb. 28; it’s been blocked by lower courts for now). Biden’s new plan to...
Paul Muschick: Pa. House closed for business, but lawmakers still getting paid. Here’s how much gridlock costing taxpayers.
If you couldn’t perform all of your duties, would your boss still pay your full salary? We all know the answer. In the real world, you get paid based on what you can accomplish. In the world of Pennsylvania politics, you get paid regardless of how little you may do....
Presley Gillespie: Equity and inclusion in action in Pittsburgh
Equity and inclusion are ongoing efforts that are integral to organizational success. They are not one-off activities or training. They are not afterthoughts or buzzwords. They are more than simply showing up or involving everyone. Equity and inclusion are forging more robust connections and cultivating a greater sense of belonging...
