Opinion category, Page 403
Editorial: Nelson’s college voucher bill leaves many questions
Pennsylvania needs to find a solution to funding its state and state-related universities and addressing the crippling student loan debt Keystone State students receive with their diplomas. It has been a growing problem for years as tuition costs climb. Many people blame the universities themselves and a top-heavy increase in...
Letter to the editor: Lies endanger our society
Years ago, when Walter Cronkite presented the CBS news, you had a high degree of confidence that what you were watching was accurate. The reason for this was a little-known FCC policy called the Fairness Doctrine, which stated that since the airwaves belong to the public, a certain percentage of...
Letter to the editor: Pittsburgh’s accessibility, affordability set it apart
It’s the inaugural Saturday night of my new residency in the Roosevelt apartments here in the City of Bridges. The streets, four floors below, bellow with discordant beats and samples that waft through my window. The accessible pedestrian crosswalk signal beeps off tempo to the live jazz at Con Alma...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: A second chance to save our children
After Sandy Hook, many people thought that surely Congress would act. The slaughter of 20 6- and 7-year-olds at their school by a 20-year-old mentally disturbed male was impossible to comprehend. The killer used a military-style weapon and high-capacity magazines to kill innocent babies. In an address to the nation...
Dr. Andrew Smolar: Guns shouldn’t be in teachers’ arsenal
Mrs. Bird didn’t speak a word of English in our first day of seventh-grade French. It’s one thing to sign up for a language that celebrates pastries and bicycle races, but it’s another thing to feel totally lost. Such was my plight for the first week of French. But I...
Sounding off: Where is our decency and common sense?
I am a gun-owning wife of a military veteran, daughter of a lifelong member of the NRA and mom to a son who was on his school’s rifle team. I would never relinquish our weapons. However, as a responsible gun owner, I am appalled that those on the right have...
Kate Centellas: Decades after Winnetka school shooting, the trauma remains
When I glanced at my phone and saw the notification of a school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, my hands started to shake and I turned my phone off for a few hours. I was one of many children impacted by a school shooting when I was the age of the...
Gene Barr: Turning Pa. around means meaningful tax reform
The late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously said states are the “laboratories of democracy.” That still being the case, policymakers in Harrisburg would do well to note how the current state of affairs is being scored by governors of other states — and, in turn, chart a new...
Letter to the editor: Consider a rescue for Adopt a Cat Month
They may be America’s most popular pet, but our country’s felines desperately need our help. Not only are thousands of newborn kittens joining the millions of cats already in shelters across the country during spring’s “kitten season,” but a decrease in funding and supplies at many shelters further threaten these...
Letter to the editor: Protecting children from authorities
I believe that every day, Family Court judges knowingly send children to be sexually abused, physically abused, mentally abused. I came to this conclusion because statistics show that 60% of the children found to be sex trafficked in the United States come directly through the child protective services (CPS) system;...
Editorial: McCormick-Oz debacle is lawmakers’ fault
The counting of the ballots ground the neck-and-neck race to a near halt, becoming contentious as the candidates argued over whose votes would be counted and whose wouldn’t. If you think this is about David McCormick and Dr. Mehmet Oz and the Republican nomination in the U.S. Senate battle in...
Letter to the editor: Open primaries would benefit all
Regarding the letter “Keep Pa.’s primary as is”: Pennsylvania voters should not have to just “join the party” for a choice between something better than the lesser of two evils in November. In 2020, I can’t have been the only one who wondered why, with 330 million people in this...
S.E. Cupp: Buffalo, Uvalde and the American psyche
Over the past two weeks, we have all mourned and grieved, reeling from a double-whammy of horrific mass shootings — one in Buffalo and another in Uvalde, Texas. The first targeted a Black community, and was, according to the murderer, motivated explicitly by racism. The second, inexplicably, targeted elementary school...
Gary Franks: School prayer could stem mass shootings
It is truly the minds, hearts and souls of those who kill people that must be altered. Due to Supreme Court decisions rendered in 1962 and 1963 that prevented American children from doing what every member of Congress does every day — have a prayer before commencing the day or...
Kathi Boyle: GOP agenda dangerous for area seniors
Republicans are finally being honest about what they intend to do: raise taxes on lower- and middle-income Americans and sunset federal programs like Medicare and Social Security after five years. The GOP plan not only threatens my financial security, but the health and security of all Americans. It is cruel....
Leonard Pitts Jr.: So much for the good guy with a gun
So much for the good guy with a gun. That, you will recall, was NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre’s preferred solution to America’s epidemic of firearms violence. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun,” he said, “is a good guy with a gun.” He said this on...
Letter to the editor: Babies have no choice
I agreed with letter-writer Wanda Rader that it’s “A sad time for women in our world” (May 23, TribLIVE), especially in the Middle East, until she mentioned Roe v. Wade and her being a feminist. That’s when my temper flared! Does she condone babies being aborted, killed and dismembered, with...
Letter to the editor: Shame on those opposing sensible gun reform
Shame on the NRA and the gun lobbies. Shame on all the spineless politicians who take blood money from them. When the forefathers enacted the Second Amendment, they could never have envisioned the weapons we have now. Weapons that have no other purpose than to shoot as many people as...
Letter to the editor: ‘Liberal’ sounds like what we all believe
I’m a 78-year-old liberal and proud of it. I read the piece “What liberal really means” (May 10, TribLIVE), written by my favorite columnist, Leonard Pitts Jr. I want to thank him for his views because they are exactly where a liberal stands. If you look up the word “liberal”...
Letter to the editor: Why can’t we all just get along?
“When your home is ruined by other people, you leave.” This was my husband’s closing remark during our last household debate. “I brought this up four years ago … life is becoming untenable here,” he says. I feel anguish. Certainly, it pales in comparison to that of Buffalo, N.Y., and...
Lori Falce: What’s the real outcome of Depp-Heard trial?
Our long national nightmare is over. The Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial has come to an end. OK, I’m going to confess. I have been caught up in the weeks of testimony. The drama. The endless analysis of movie stars emoting in a courtroom and just as endless criticism of lawyers’...
Letter to the editor: Charles Koch’s plan for public education
Charles Koch of the Koch brothers is part of the uber-wealthy with a net worth of over $63 billion. He spends millions to influence our government, and they gave $20 million to get President Trump’s tax cuts passed. The money was well invested, for in 2018 alone, the brothers saved...
Letter to the editor: Why is Biden trying to destroy us?
I look at this president and ask myself why anyone who has been able to live a lifestyle envied by millions would be doing everything in his power to destroy the people who enabled him to live such a lifestyle. Our IRAs are in dire straits with the Dow Jones...
Laurels & lances: Honor, celebration and relaxation
Laurel: To giving honor. Across the region, this week began with solemn celebrations remembering the commitment and sacrifice of fallen soldiers. Memorial Day was commemorated with parades, with services and with a blizzard of red, white and blue decorations at area cemeteries. Even the mothers who lost their soldier children...
Geralyn Ritter: Balancing needs and risks in pain management
Recently, the CDC published proposed new clinical practice guidelines for the prescribing of opioids. These update the agency’s 2016 guidelines intended to address the crisis of addiction and overdoses. Unfortunately, the 2016 guidelines also caused many physicians to throw well-managed pain patients off their medications, and a significant number of...
