Featured Commentary category, Page 135
Benjamin Allison: Killing Baghdadi not defeat of ISIS
On the night of Oct. 26-27, the caliph (commander) of the Islamic State (ISIS), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, died in a U.S. raid on his compound in Idlib, Syria. The leader of the deadliest terrorist group in history is dead. Now what? For months, experts have warned against the notion that...
Ron Klink: Nancy Pelosi’s drug plan misses the mark
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has proposed one of the most ambitious health care reforms since the Affordable Care Act. She hopes her plan, the Lower Drug Costs Now Act, will reduce the “out of control” prices that are “crushing Americans at the pharmacy counter.” I served four terms in Congress...
Pat Buchanan: The day Nixon routed the establishment
What are the roots of our present disorder, of the hostilities and hatreds that so divide us? When did we become this us vs. them nation? Many trace the roots of our uncivil social conflict to the 1960s and the Johnson years when LBJ, victorious in a 61% landslide in...
Joel Pfeffer: ‘Public charge’ proposal could thwart hopes & dreams
Before Ellis Island was a museum that hosted tourists and middle-school field trips, it was a gateway to America for thousands upon thousands of hopeful immigrants — and the site of intense question-and-answer sessions. These early 1900s interviews included some fairly straightforward questions: What country are you from? What is...
Jonah Goldberg: Apology is Trump’s best option for avoiding impeachment
In l’affaire Ukraine, the president is guilty as charged. And the best strategy for him to avoid impeachment by the House and perhaps even removal by the Senate is to admit it, apologize and let voters make their own judgment. It’s also the best way to fend off a disaster...
Gary Alexander: New focus needed to end Pa.’s opioid epidemic
President Trump’s October 2017 national declaration to combat widespread deaths related to opioid abuse promised swift and pragmatic solutions. After all, drug overdoses killed a record-breaking 72,300 Americans during 2017, a 10% increase from 2016. This equates to more than the yearly death tolls from HIV, car crashes and gun...
S.E. Cupp: Trump defenders going after U.S. war hero is new low
Trying to keep up with the ever-changing positions of President Trump’s loyalists is hard work. Last week, Fox News hosts Laura Ingraham and Brian Kilmeade, Fox News guest John Yoo, CNN contributor Sean Duffy and others suggested that Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, a Ukrainian-born American, war hero and Purple Heart...
Peter Morici: Voters as responsible as politicians for dysfunction
In the snows of New Hampshire, yet another American president could emerge pledging to fix Washington — the political gridlock and the pervasive influence of “evil” special interests and K Street lobbyists. And relieve the worst burdens on middle class prosperity — skyrocketing health care costs, tuition and student debt,...
David Ayers: Marriage & the gender gap in higher ed
A significantly lower percentage of young men are now obtaining college degrees compared to women. We have known this for some time now. As Jon Birger pointed out in his 2015 book “Date-onomics,” , and as the mass media trumpeted widely, among Americans in their 20s with college degrees, women...
John Stossel: Rand Paul’s call to end America’s wars
Four years ago, the media were talking about a “Libertarian Moment.” I had high hopes! Sen. Rand Paul ran for president, promising to “take our country back from special interests.” But his campaign never took off. He “shouldn’t even be on the stage,” said Donald Trump at a Republican presidential...
Elijah Bray: Marsy’s Law dangerous to our freedoms
On Nov. 5, voters in Pennsylvania will face an important choice: whether or not to approve an amendment to the state Constitution. The benign title of the legislation, the Pennsylvania Marsy’s Law Crime Victims Rights Amendment, belies the dangerous language contained within the measure. Pennsylvania voters from across the political...
Walter Williams: Gun grabbers misleading us
Gun control did not become politically acceptable until the Gun Control Act of 1968 signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The law’s primary focus was to regulate commerce in firearms by prohibiting interstate firearms transfers except among licensed manufacturers, dealers and importers. Today’s gun-control advocates have gone much...
Cal Thomas: Charlie Chaplin’s philosophy — no more billionaires
He was the Bernie Sanders of his day. Charlie Chaplin, the iconic actor and at the time a well-known political leftist (some said communist), delivered a speech in San Francisco in 1941 prior to America’s entry into World War II. As recounted in the biography of her parents, actress Fay...
Pat Buchanan: When will we leave the Middle East?
“Let someone else fight over this long blood-stained sand,” said President Trump in an impassioned defense of his decision to cut ties to the Syrian Kurds, withdraw and end these “endless wars.” Are our troops in Syria, then, on their way home? Well, not exactly. Those leaving northern Syria went...
Adele Caruso: Nurse practitioners provide access to quality care
Pennsylvania has an opportunity to expand access to health care for thousands of its residents through legislation now before the House of Representatives’ Professional Licensure Committee. Senate Bill 25, which gives nurse practitioners full practice authority by removing a mandate that requires a collaborative agreement with two physicians, passed the...
Jonah Goldberg: Missing-server conspiracy theories convenient smokescreen
The impeachment drama is already a three-ring circus, with a full complement of clowns to the left and the right. I want to focus on one detail that hasn’t gotten enough attention: the “missing” DNC server that President Trump believes might be in Ukraine. If you’ve paid any attention to...
S.E. Cupp: Trump’s race-baiting pays, as usual
Donald Trump has been president for nearly three years. He’s been on Twitter for more than 10. Yet the only thing more surprising than his increasingly awful, hideously unpresidential, deeply divisive tweets is that we still manage to be surprised by them. The latest, in which he called the impeachment...
Mark Hendrickson: Is the Federal Reserve apolitical?
President Trump has had (what else?) a publicly tempestuous relationship with the Federal Reserve System. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell has adhered to the Fed’s official traditional position of being apolitical. Typical of Powell’s statements is the unequivocal assertion that “olitical considerations play no role whatsoever in our discussions or decisions...
Dana Kellerman: Community seeks action on guns from legislators
One year ago a man armed with assault-style weapons and fueled by anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant and white nationalist hatred attacked our synagogue. He murdered 11 innocent people and seriously injured two worshipers and four dedicated Pittsburgh police officers. Our community has been changed irrevocably. All of us have been harmed, though...
Sen. Kim Ward: It’s time to reform emissions testing
Millions of Pennsylvanians are paying for an outdated vehicle emissions testing program in counties that already meet federal air quality standards. As chair of the Pennsylvania Senate Transportation Committee, I believe the time to change that is long overdue. Pennsylvania’s federally sanctioned Vehicle Emissions Inspection and Maintenance (I/M) program requires...
John Stossel: A better solution to student debt
Student loan debt keeps growing. There is a better solution than the ones politicians offer, which stick the taxpayer or the loan lenders with the whole bill. It’s called an income share agreement (ISA). Investors give money to a college, and the college then gives a free or partially free...
Walter Williams: William Barr was right about our moral decline
Earlier this month, U.S. Attorney General William Barr told a University of Notre Dame Law School audience that attacks on religious liberty have contributed to a moral decline that’s in part manifested by increases in suicides, mental illness and drug addiction. Barr said that our moral decline is not random...
Welcoming the stranger: A Christian worships with Tree of Life congregants
On Oct. 27, 2018, a gunman entered a synagogue in Pittsburgh and shot 11 people dead while they were worshipping. Almost a year later, Jews from that same synagogue enter Pittsburgh’s Calvary Episcopal Church to celebrate the High Holy Days. They come from Tree of Life-Or L’Smicha, one of three...
Jonah Goldberg: For Trump, alliances are strictly business
“Integrity lowers the price of capital.” An extremely successful investor once told me that. The context at the time was Donald Trump’s impending takeover of the GOP. This person meant it as an investment rule, an insight into Trump and a life lesson. The investment part is easy. Say you...
David Spigelmyer, Matt Hammond & Anne Blankenship: Policies & priorities for natural gas industry
Pennsylvanians are realizing more than $2,000 in annual home energy savings; Ohio’s air quality progress is accelerating faster than the national average; and West Virginia experienced the country’s highest economic growth rate earlier this year. This economic and environmental success across the broader tri-state region is being enabled by the...
