Featured Commentary category, Page 78
Greg Fulton: Count your blessings and pray for Ukraine this Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is a time for us to be thankful for the gifts bestowed upon us. We may be worried about making it to Grandma’s house on time for Thanksgiving dinner or ensuring that the turkey is cooked perfectly, but these concerns are trivial compared to those faced by others in...
Kyle Sammin: One cheer for Josh Shapiro
If you believe President Joe Biden, democracy itself was at stake in the midterm elections earlier this month. This theme was more than just a new variation on the “most important election of our lifetimes” line that politicians trot out every two years. It was a cynical attempt to distract...
Dr. Andrew Smolar: Teaching kids to cope in social media world
I was a student for 32 years. That time was spent in classrooms, labs, hospitals and quiet offices. Countless hours spent learning the language of medicine and the mysteries of the mind. Such was the pathway for a psychiatrist who became a psychoanalyst. But I wasn’t introduced to psychology until...
Aaron Chapin: PSERS has delivered for school retirees — and Pa.’s economy
In a job interview, a good human resources manager will ask about your professional experience — all of it, not just the past six months to a year. When considering contractors to fix your roof, you’re going to look at how well customers rate them — not just now but...
Elizabeth Stelle: Remove barriers to increase health care access in Western Pa.
Nearly three years after the onset of the covid-19 pandemic, hospitals still struggle with significant labor shortages. Health care workers are facing long hours and massive burnout. Earlier this year, as many as 93% of surveyed Pittsburgh hospital workers were considering leaving the profession. Pennsylvania’s aging population has upped the...
Ayalla A. Ruvio and Forrest Morgeson: Retailers may see more red after Black Friday as consumers act as if US already in recession
Retailers are gearing up for another blockbuster holiday shopping season, but consumers burned by the highest inflation in a generation may have other ideas. Industry groups are predicting another record year of retail sales, with the National Retail Federation forecasting a jump of 6% to 8% over the $890 billion...
Sen. Wayne D. Fontana: Mail-in voting is the future
In the 2022 general election, more than 5.3 million Pennsylvanians voted. More than 1.4 million of them voted by mail. More people voted in this midterm election in Pennsylvania than in any other midterm ever before, and it’s safe to say that mail-in voting is a big reason why. In...
Matthew J. Brouillette: Time to move on from the Trump-inflicted wound
It was supposed to be a Republican red wave. Instead, it turned into a riptide that swept away the GOP’s hopes of reversing harmful Democratic policies. Across the country, red seats flipped blue, tight races broke away from midterm norms and toward the president’s party, and Donald Trump-backed candidates turned...
POINT: Support free speech? You should be rooting for Musk’s Twitter transformation to succeed
Everyone seems to have an opinion on whether an Elon Musk-led Twitter is good for free speech, and much of that debate is happening on Twitter. On the surface, this fact goes a long way to prove the point. While many people don’t like to engage with critics of their...
COUNTERPOINT: Elon Musk’s Twitter purchase harms democracy
Social media has gotten a bad name in recent years, much of it deserved, as it has played a sizable role in spreading right-wing backwardness and even authoritarianism in much of the world. This includes, most prominently, the reach and especially staying power of the world’s most powerful politician in...
Sheldon H. Jacobson: Supreme Court ruling on face masks is irrelevant
The Supreme Court ruling that the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) can require masks on airplanes, trains and buses will be welcomed by some and scorned by others. Will the Biden administration act on this ruling and reinstate transportation mask mandates, given the current surge in covid-19, influenza and RSV infections...
Cal Thomas: Mike Pence, a man of integrity
If former Vice President Mike Pence is ever in need of a character witness, he could not do much better than one statement former President Donald Trump made to him. In his new book “So Help Me God,” Pence quotes Trump as pressuring him to overturn the results of the...
Dr. Asif Ilyas: Opioid settlements, prosecutions are heartening, but education still necessary
A $26 billion settlement with opioid manufacturers in March. A $13.8 billion settlement with pharmacies in November. And jail time for prescribers across Pennsylvania and the nation over the past few years. These settlements with the manufacturers and purveyors of narcotics and the prosecution of “pill mill” doctors are heartening....
Charles McElwee: Midterms reveal trouble for GOP in Pa.’s suburbs
This past week, Pennsylvania voters once again defied prognostications, rejected the status quo, and exhibited how demography has realigned the state’s politics. An unpopular Democratic president (born and initially raised in the region that delivered Donald Trump’s 2016 statewide victory), surging voter registration numbers for Republicans and economic disaffection failed...
Albert Eisenberg: Mastriano a case study in not building a coalition
It was shortly after viewing the clip of the wife of Doug Mastriano — Pennsylvania’s ill-fated Republican nominee for governor — jumping in front of a press conference microphone to tell reporters that they “probably love Israel more than a lot of Jews do” that I thought to myself: Are...
Cal Thomas: Toxic Trump must leave the stage
“I don’t believe in living in the past. Living in the past is for cowards. If you live in the past, you die in the past.” — Football legend Mike Ditka “The future is now.” — Football legend George Allen Former president Donald Trump appears ready and eager to announce...
Evan W. Wolfson: Social Security benefits and long covid
The article “People with long covid face barriers to government disability benefits” (Nov. 10, TribLIVE) suggests it is difficult to obtain Social Security benefits on the basis of disability. This is certainly true, as a majority of applicants are denied at the initial determination level. What is misleading is that...
Michael Skiba: Insurance fraud costs $309 billion a year — nearly $1,000 for every American
What would you do with an extra $932.63 in your pocket? That’s how much insurance fraud costs every American a year — $309 billion in total, according to the findings of a recent research study that I led. For a family of four, that adds up to nearly $3,800 —...
Guy Ziv: A stunning political comeback for Israel’s Netanyahu may give way to governing nightmare ahead
Israel’s political magician has done it again. Having been turned out of office in 2021 as the first sitting Israeli prime minister to be indicted — and with his corruption trial still underway — Benjamin Netanyahu has made another stunning comeback. After four inconclusive elections in just four years, a...
Greg Fulton: Alejandro Villanueva, a Veterans Day story
“Duty. Honor. Country.” Alejandro Villanueva followed the U.S. Military Academy at West Point’s credo when he was there and when he served in the military, and he adhered to it when he played with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Villanueva defied the odds to make it to the NFL, and became one...
Lois Bower-Bjornson: We all want clean air
I grew up along the Monongahela River in the once thriving coal town of Fredericktown, where coal barges, orange water and mine drainage were the norm. Eighteen years ago my husband and I moved back to Washington County to raise our four children, despite it being the most heavily fracked...
Darrell Owens: Responding to veteran suicide crisis
Over the past several years, most Americans have learned that veterans face a suicide crisis. We have been told that veterans take their own lives at a rate of 17 per day. The numbers resonate deeply with people across the country. Here in Pennsylvania, 240 veterans reportedly took their lives...
Brian Callaci: Reining in UPMC’s monopsony power key to addressing workforce crisis in Pittsburgh hospitals
What do self-proclaimed freelance writer Stephen King and UPMC registered nurse Jodi Faltin have in common? They’re both fighting back against corporate monopsony power that eliminates competition in the labor market and allows employers to dictate terms to workers. Whether you’re selling horror stories or expertise in providing patient care,...
Garen Wintemute: How a divided America splits on QAnon, racism and armed patrols at polling places
There is much talk about political violence in America these days. Garen Wintemute, a University of California, Davis, scholar who researches firearm violence, has recently led a nationwide survey research project on political violence. The Conversation U.S. asked him for a portrait of what Americans think about political violence as...
Cal Thomas: A ‘sure thing’ election that wasn’t
MIAMI — If Republicans could not score their “red wave” victories predicted by many pundits — and even some Democrats — in these midterm elections, what’s next for them? All the issues were on their side — inflation, high gas and food prices, an open border, underperforming schools. If they...
