Featured Commentary category, Page 82
John Eckenrode: Pa.’s state prison staffing crisis shows no sign of ending
Pennsylvanians are getting back to work. The economy is on the rebound. Pennsylvania’s unemployment rate is now lower than its pre-pandemic level. That’s great news, but not for everyone, including those who work some of the most dangerous jobs in the commonwealth. Right now, the commonwealth’s prison system continues to...
Veronika Dolar: Does raising the minimum wage kill jobs?
California’s new fast-food law is expected to lead to a higher minimum wage for the industry in the state — as high as $22 in 2023, up from $15 as of September 2022. While backers say the law is necessary to ensure fair wages and treatment in California’s fast-food industry,...
Dennis Roddy: Queen’s death sends Britain into muted mourning
LONDON — Queen Elizabeth’s death came off flawlessly, a passing anticipated for so long that it was code-named for a landmark the British sold to a wealthy American who moved it to Arizona and turned it into a tourist attraction 50 years ago. London Bridge still stands, albeit in Arizona....
Steve Corbin: Citizens are united and legislators don’t represent us
According to the most recent data from Pew Research Center, National Election Studies, Gallup, ABC/The Washington Post, CBS/New York Times and CNN polls, only one-fifth of Americans say they trust the federal government to do what is right. The June 12 headline from a NBC News article sums it up:...
Joel Kotkin and Marshall Toplansky: Can space save Earth?
The world economy is in the doldrums, pessimism is rife around the world and most young people, according to one survey, believe climate change means the end of human life on Earth. Yet, a better future beckons, if we can only begin to look outside ourselves and even beyond our...
Bincheng Mao: Gorbachev valued positive change over power and inspired generations
When East Germans defied Soviet domination with the Leipzig march in 1989, they were chanting an unlikely slogan. “Gorbi, Gorbi!” they shouted in a celebratory tone, referring to then-Soviet Union President Mikhail Gorbachev. The brave demonstrators were hungry for democracy and freedom. Yet, they chose to voice their ideals using...
Cal Thomas: Britain has lost its rock
Watching BBC and Sky News coverage of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, one is struck by the adjectives used by reporters, commentators and people interviewed outside Balmoral castle and Buckingham Palace: sense of duty, virtue, integrity, service. What astounds is that these and other character traits the late queen...
Christopher Beem: Virtue signaling isn’t same as virtue — it actually furthers partisan divide
In a speech on July 23, 2022, before the Conservative Political Action Committee, or CPAC, Sen. Ted Cruz introduced himself to the audience with the words, “My name is Ted Cruz and my pronoun is kiss my ass.” In 2019, the Vermont College of Fine Arts appealed to a different...
Sen. Scott Martin: Bipartisan education reforms set up students for success
As a father, one of my highest priorities is ensuring my kids have real opportunities to chase their dreams and achieve whatever they can possibly imagine. Most parents I know share these same feelings. To help all families meet those goals, state lawmakers need to make sound policy decisions that...
Baruch Stein: Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump
Donald Trump is currently targeted by more than 15 separate legal proceedings, including proceedings in Georgia pertaining to election interference, financial cases in New York, an FBI investigation reportedly pertaining to his handling of classified information, and cases brought by police officers, members of Congress and the NAACP over the...
Jane Ladley: How my 8-year lawsuit helped settle public employees’ rights
This Labor Day felt different. For the first time in eight years, I celebrated with family and friends without also battling the state’s largest labor union in court. My long journey through the legal system ended this spring — and its result is relevant to thousands of public employees across...
Sen. Ryan Aument: To curb student debt, reduce college costs
Opponents of President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan are missing the mark on why it’s a bad idea. Complaining that it is unfair to those who paid their loans, or to those who didn’t attend college, while correct, merely empowers the other side to slap back with a major dose...
Nathan Benefield: Government unions are outsized bullies holding workers, taxpayers hostage
As we enter election season, it’s time we address the elephant in the room. It’s an elephant with an outsized influence on Pennsylvania politics — and few people realize who holds the purse strings and the puppet strings behind the scenes. Government union executives. These union executives enjoy a host...
Paul F. Clark: Today’s workers want a voice at work
It has been a very eventful 12 months for American workers since last Labor Day. At that point in time, the “Great Resignation” was well underway. Spurred by covid, millions of American workers had quit their jobs in the months before Labor Day and millions more would resign in the...
Kenneth J. Broadbent, David Callahan and Jim Snell: Pa. natural gas and labor, forging a reliable, sustainable energy future
While President Grover Cleveland did not make it a federal holiday until June of 1894, Labor Day was first celebrated in New York City on Sept. 5, 1882. Nearly 400 miles away that same year, natural gas from the historic Haymaker No. 1 well in Murrysville was delivered to consumers...
Point: Unions have a stake in ending minority rule in the United States
In 2021, just 10.3% of American workers were members of unions, less than half the proportion we had four decades prior. This collapse in union membership didn’t happen in Canada; it occurred in the United States for reasons specific to this country, including unpleasant changes in labor law and the...
Counterpoint: A free marketeer’s love of Labor Day
One hundred forty years ago, the first Labor Day parade almost ended before it began. On Sept. 5, 1882, thousands of union workers, police officers and gawking onlookers gathered at City Hall in lower Manhattan. Everything was in place, the route was set and the marchers were ready to go,...
Joshua Andy: Gorbachev was Khrushchev’s successor as a reformer; Russia is still waiting
Together, the Russian invasion of Ukraine Feb. 24 and Mikhail Gorbachev’s death Aug. 30 serve as a bookend on Russia’s post-Cold War epoch and the end of the possibility of an era of reform. Born in 1931, Gorbachev was a young child when both his grandfathers were arrested and sent...
Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez: Young voters can save the planet
For America’s young voters, famished for positive action on climate change, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 is cause for celebration. The passage of this landmark legislation is a signal to young climate activists across the country that unprecedented progressive change is possible. For the millions of young Americans who...
Clarence Page: ‘Quiet quitting,’ work and worth
Just as I was wondering whether various crises were coming too fast to allow our usual “silly season” of oddball late summer news, an appropriately weird-sounding social trend popped up on social networks and intriguingly struck a nerve. It’s called “quiet quitting.” Put simply, it refers to the act of...
Cal Thomas: Will Youngkin be No. 9 in Va. presidents list?
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has been in office only seven months and already he is listed at No. 5 in a Washington Post story about possible 2024 GOP presidential candidates. In an interview, I asked him to respond to suggestions in some quarters that he might be well positioned to...
Stacy Garrity: When the ‘cure’ becomes torture
The men and women who put their lives on the line shouldn’t have them placed on hold by a Veterans Administration that kept hundreds in isolation long after the rest of our state emerged from covid lockdown. Yet that’s exactly what happened at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Wilkes-Barre,...
David Chavern: Big Tech is trying to cancel local news
Facebook and Google have become the de facto regulators of news and speech — deciding what content people see and when. Their dominating control over how we communicate has serious implications for freedom of the press and our broader rights under the First Amendment. To be sure, the First Amendment...
Alexis Leondis: Biden’s student loan plan neglects older borrowers
There’s a group of student loan borrowers who may need relief more than anyone else: retirees and others who are smothered by student debt in their senior years. Sadly, President Joe Biden’s student debt forgiveness plan doesn’t do enough for them. Like the whole topic of loan forgiveness, it’s difficult...
Greg Fulton: A covid victims’ memorial?
Should there be a national covid-19 memorial? While some small memorials have been constructed around the country, there may never be a national site to remember the over 1 million people who died from covid during the pandemic and those who were essential in helping our country survive it. The dictionary...
