Joseph Sabino Mistick: Trump and the Bible
Although it was widely reported at the time that Donald Trump did not place his hand on the Bible when he took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2025, that news was quickly eclipsed by other headlines he created that week. But it is getting a second look after...
Jay Sefton and Dr. Mark Basquill: Opening a window to protect children
Born, raised and sexually abused by priests in Pennsylvania, we are two licensed mental health professionals with a combined 50 years of experience in the field of psychology. We’re also the co-authors of “Unreconciled,” a solo play about a Pennsylvania survivor of childhood sexual abuse seeking healing and justice. As...
Mary McNamara: Am I the only one who hates delivery robots?
LOS ANGELES When I was a child, I watched “The Jetsons” and “Lost in Space” and imagined my adult self living in a world of high-tech ease: flying cars, self-cleaning rooms, high-speed trains, personal jetpacks and wise-cracking robotic companions capable of solving any problem in a trice. Instead I got...
Letter to the editor: Nonprofits need to step up and help Pittsburgh firefighters
This week, WTAE-TV aired a story regarding the Pittsburgh fire department’s vehicles and their condition (I should say their long-past-working condition). They need help. Thank you to the University of Pittsburgh for making a five-year commitment to the city of Pittsburgh. What happened to Carnegie Mellon University, Duquesne University, Allegheny...
Letter to the editor: Why do people need trucks?
High gasoline prices continue to frustrate drivers, especially as global instability has constrained supply, a situation unlikely to resolve quickly. The solution is to conserve. If we use less, demand decreases, and the price with it. A few suggestions follow. Pass a law that if you want to buy a...
Letter to the editor: Congress is the problem
Whether you love or hate President Trump, he is not the problem. Congress is. How many of today’s problems are due to Congress? Here’s some examples: Congress has passed all required spending bills on time only four times in the last 50 years. That’s a 92% failure rate. Congress has...
Editorial: How long is too long? A question of term limits
There are some jobs you just can’t have forever. In Pennsylvania, that’s written into law in some places and left entirely to voters in others. Governors are limited to two terms. That wasn’t always the case. It changed in 1967. Milton Shapp became the first to win a second term...
Lynn Schmidt: Trump’s screed against the pope desecrates our Catholic faith
As an American Catholic who has sat in a church pew my entire life, received the Holy Eucharist, marked more than 50 Lents with ashes and been taught from childhood that the pope is the Vicar of Christ on earth, I never thought I would have to say this: The...
Letter to the editor: Executive vs. judiciary
In his column “Rogue judges or a rogue president?” (April 4, TribLive), Joseph Sabino Mistick told only one side of the story when characterizing the Trump administration as the true rogue in disputes between the executive and the judiciary. Earlier this year, Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh...
Joe Battenfeld: Kamala Harris teases run with mob boss misfire
Just when you thought Democrats couldn’t sink any lower, along comes retread Kamala Harris to kiss the ring of Al Sharpton and adopt a fake mafia boss accent to tease another presidential run. You can’t make this stuff up. Harris, the failed 2024 White House nominee, said recently she just...
Sara Albrecht: When the government loses in court, but keeps charging anyway
At ports across the United States, something unusual is happening. Thousands of American businesses are now waiting for refunds on tariffs the courts have already ruled unlawful. At the same time, many of those same companies are being asked to pay a new round of tariffs — based on a...
Letter to the editor: A madman in the White House
In 14 months, President Trump has turned America into a country that people around the world hate, fear, feel sorry for, laugh at, are sickened by, no longer believe in and want absolutely nothing to do with. I suppose when you put a lawless, dishonest madman in the White House,...
Letter to the editor: Let’s make Westmoreland a safe haven for criminals
After seeing on the news that the
Allegheny County commissioners voted to defy federal law enforcement agencies and grant foreign criminals a safe sanctuary, it occurred to me we should call on our commissioners to follow suit and declare Westmoreland County a safe haven for certain other types of criminals...
Laurels & lances: Playoffs & no-shows
Laurel: To an ice-cold matchup. The Pittsburgh Penguins facing off against the Philadelphia Flyers in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs is everything a sports fan could want. It is the pure distilled essence of hockey — two teams that would gladly beat each other into the ice...
Letter to the editor: We should be able to trust ‘the news’
“Back in the day,” as the expression goes, when Walter Cronkite or Huntley-Brinkley delivered the news, the public had a high degree of confidence that they were telling the truth. Federal policies were in place to ensure that “news” was accurate. Until the 1980s, when the FCC started media deregulation....
Lori Falce: 2 things can be true at the same time
I have a friend I really don’t like very much. My husband argued this with me for years, telling me that my friend — who we shall call Jennifer because it’s the most ubiquitous 1980s girl name — was not my friend. If I didn’t like her, how could I...
Carrie Sampson: District school boards have become political hotbeds for book bans and more — here’s what they actually do
Election races for local school boards have become hotly contested in many states as they have become forums for debates over gender-identity discussions, immigrant students and even prayer at school events. Liberal candidates largely swept school board elections April 7 in politically contentious districts in Wisconsin, Missouri, Alaska and Oklahoma,...
Jonah Goldberg: What the end of Viktor Orban means for the New Right
Viktor Orban, the proudly “illiberal” prime minister of Hungary, beloved by various New Right nationalists and MAGA American intellectuals, was crushed at the polls this weekend. Over the past decade or so, Hungary became for the New Right what Sweden or Cuba were to the Old Left. For generations, various...
Letter to the editor: AI needs guardrails
The article “Southwestern Pa. is scouting the digital frontier” (March 31, TribLive) put a positive spin on advancing AI. For a different perspective, read TIME magazine’s April 6 article “The Most Disruptive Company in The World.” It tells of a company that is on the frontier of AI development and...
Editorial: Nuclear decay, bureaucratic delay
On April 7, a process 20 years in the making began. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers started excavation at a Parks Township nuclear waste site. This isn’t like other abandoned industrial sites. In Western Pennsylvania, those are familiar — old factories, mine sites, places with lingering chemicals or unstable...
Letter to the editor: Bring back some form of the draft
Is it time for the draft? Not the meaningless NFL Draft where the quid pro quo has already been determined. The city and county will have a financial windfall, probably only to give it up to Steelers owner Art Rooney for facilities improvements. We’ve seen this movie. I’m referring to...
Panini A. Chowdhury: Pittsburgh can’t subsidize its way to housing affordability
Housing affordability has become the promise of the moment. Every political and social campaign invokes it. Every local, state and federal government budget claim to advance it. But there is a harder question beneath the surface, one that rarely makes it into speeches: What if some of what we do...
Destenie Nock: This summer, your air conditioner is going to compete with a data center
Western Pennsylvania is on the verge of its biggest infrastructure wave since steel. Data center developers have announced billions of dollars in investments in Springdale, Homer City, Shippingport and Upper Burrell. At full build-out, the facilities planned for just three of those sites would consume enough electricity to power nearly...
Letter to the editor: Better uses for billions than space travel, war
As I write another big check to the federal government I am wondering who benefits by Artemis, the $4.1 billion “trip around the moon”? At $250 per visit, $4.1 billion could send 2 million Americans to the dentist for a checkup/exam/cleaning, but that would be socialism. How many “socialist things”...
Letter to the editor: Does Trump understand what’s at stake?
Notwithstanding the Iran ceasefire, “President Donald Trump’s … threat that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,’ cannot and should not be forgotten.” The author of those words, Lt. Col. Rachel E. VanLandingham (retired, Air Force), is a professor of law and president emerita of...
