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Editorials category, Page 66

Pope Francis, first Latin American pontiff, dies at 88
Editorial: Is Purdue Pharma settlement enough?
Every court case that comes to a plea deal is a game of poker. Who has the better hand? Who has the better bluff? Who has the most to lose or everything to win? In the case of Purdue Pharma and the part its massively successful pain medication OxyContin played...
Editorial: Supreme Court shows importance of a single vote
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a challenge to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s Sept. 17 ruling on mail-in ballots. The state high court ruled that ballots cast by mail could be counted if they were received as late as 5 p.m. Nov. 6, three days after the...
Editorial: Pipeline protection needs common sense update
There is a difference between security and secrecy. Security is making sure that dangerous things are protected. Secrecy is making sure things — dangerous or otherwise — are hidden. Those might seem related, but they aren’t the same. A $5.1 billion pipeline that transmits millions of gallons of natural gas...
Editorial: Registered to vote? Today’s the day
This is your last chance. If you want to vote in the November general election, Monday is the last day to register. Pennsylvania is not one of the handful of states that allow you to just decide that you want to participate in your government with five minutes to spare...
Editorial: Pa. budget brawl starts again
Once again, fall is here and Pennsylvania has no plan for how the money will be spent and where it will come from for the next seven months or so. It’s like a rerun of a show you didn’t even like the first time around. It’s a tragic sitcom where...
Laurels & lances: Honors, arts and marts
Laurel: To honoring service. James Wilson of Herminie was a U.S. Marine and a World War II veteran, but he was more than that, too. He fought another battle as one of the first Black men to serve in the Marine Corps. In 2011, President Obama signed the legislation that...
Editorial: Election vendor problems demand solutions
The other day, we said that the various hurdles this year’s voting has been experiencing aren’t reasons to give up but challenges to overcome leading toward the 2020 elections. We stand by that — even though additional problems have cropped up since then. We already knew Westmoreland County was having...
Editorial: The triumph of a healthy Kiski River, bulging with mussels
Is anything ever too far gone to be redeemed? A freshwater shellfish says no. The Kiski River was so polluted for so long with the runoff from mining and the discharge from industry, it seemed too far gone to ever be home to life again. In 1909, A.E. Ortmann, curator...
Editorial: Gisele Fetterman, an American in every way
You do not have to like Gisele Barreto Fetterman. Maybe you do not like her husband, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, or his politics or his boss, Gov. Tom Wolf. Maybe you don’t like the Democratic ticket they ran on or the Democratic administration they run in Pennsylvania. Maybe you don’t...
Editorial: Penalize illegal checking in politics
There’s no place for violence in hockey. At least not outside of getting the puck to the net. While hip checks and shoulder checks, cross checks and stick checks happen all the time in the rink, that’s part of the game. When it happens after a whistle has blown, that’s...
Editorial: Election hiccups shouldn’t shake faith
Ideally, the closer we get to Nov. 3, the more election issues should be ironed out. Problems should have been anticipated, solutions planned, outcomes corrected. Preparations, after all, have been underway for years. In Westmoreland County, the $7.1 million elections machines were ordered in 2019. They had verifiable paper trails...
Editorial: Hogging credit shouldn’t be politics as usual
If government does something good for the people, what is the most important aspect? Is it what happened and how it will help? Or is it who gets to take the bow? Too often, politics focuses more on the credit. This week, Allegheny County was awarded a $2 million grant...
Laurels & lances: Returning, reclosing, remembering
Laurel: To being back on the job. On an October 2018 morning, Pittsburgh Police SWAT Officer Timothy Matson suffered multiple gunshot wounds responding to the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Squirrel Hill. Eleven people were killed and seven wounded that day. It has been almost two...
Editorial: Consistent policies remain Wolf’s hobgoblin
“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. He was probably right about those times that people cleave to one set of rules without thought. A speed limit is a speed limit, but if an ambulance or a fire truck has to go faster, that...
Editorial: Toomey is example to Senate successor
U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey isn’t going to run for reelection in 2022. Toomey has represented Pennsylvanians in the Senate since 2011. A committed conservative — he was president of the fervent free-enterprise Club for Growth — he took over the seat of Arlen Specter after the longtime senator turned his...
Editorial: County numbers show changing nature of covid
Despite the force and weight with which it has dropped on the United States, the coronavirus pandemic isn’t a meteor. It is a mistake to treat it as such, unmoving and unyielding. Instead, it has to be approached as the wild animal that it is — constantly moving and changing....
Editorial: Remove mystery from Westmoreland elections office move
This is the homestretch. The 2020 election is one month out. Two years — possibly four, depending on how you count it — of campaigning for the top office in the country is about to come to a head in the presidential election. So can we please stop doing things...
Editorial: UPMC says covid-19 vaccine will take longer. That’s normal.
We need a vaccine for covid-19. But we need a vaccine that will work. Maybe it would be something that would be done annually like the flu shot, tweaked every year to address new strains. Maybe it would be like a tetanus shot that would work for a certain number...
Editorial: Trump’s diagnosis shows covid-19 is nonpartisan
President Trump now is one of the 7.2 million Americans who have tested positive for covid-19. Everyone should be able to put themselves in these shoes. Maybe everyone doesn’t have a grandma in a nursing home or a husband working in a hospital. Maybe everyone doesn’t work frontline in a...
Laurels & lances: Super sandwiches, sincere thank-yous, and needless noise
Laurel: To a tasty treat. We know that Primanti’s multitasking sandwiches of meat, french fries, coleslaw and tomatoes between pillowy Italian bread are highly superior to other cities’ staple sandwiches. That’s just logic, right? But it’s always nice to have someone from out of town verify that for the Steel...
Editorial: Balance keeps life rolling along
Just like riding a bike. It’s how we describe things that are so easy a child can do them. Things that take a little practice and a lot of balance. Things that can’t be forgotten because the muscles remember. The Rev. Doug Boyd’s whole life is like riding a bike....
Editorial: Halloween tricks and treats in pandemic
Coronavirus pandemic recommendations and decisions are a mixed bag. You never really know what you will pull out. Reach in and you might get a real treat — something fact-based and commonsense that everyone should be able to realize is the way to go. Don’t cough on Grandma, for example....
Editorial: Electoral votes are people’s voice
Voting is generally seen as a very simple equation. Yes or no. This one or that one. Separate. Count. Whoever has the most votes wins. Easy, right? And yet very, very much not what always happens. For some places, you might be looking for a majority of the vote —...
Editorial: Honesty, action justify confidence at Westmoreland Manor
Westmoreland County seems to have learned from what happened elsewhere. On Sept. 21, officials announced that 20 residents and two staff members at the county nursing home, Westmoreland Manor, had tested positive for covid-19. Most of those tested were asymptomatic and the tests were conducted as part of the routine...
Editorial: No naked ballots allowed
Nakedness is a problem. Not at home, of course. Just when out in public. So please, make sure your ballot is properly dressed when it leaves the house. There is a lot of concern with how this year’s general election will go, and much of it is valid. We are...


Editor's Picks

Front Porch Theatricals’ musical ‘Baby’ is a labor of love

Washington townhouse on the market for $1,225,000
Folk legend Bruce Cockburn gives uplifting performance at City Winery
‘Champagne & Chapeaux’: Westmoreland Symphony’s annual soiree for a good cause
Jimmy Stewart’s P-51 Mustang stops in hometown for museum anniversary
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