Featured Commentary category, Page 140
John Stossel: Deconstructing Trump’s deregulation promise
President Trump promised he’d get rid of bad rules. “Remove the anchor dragging us down!” he said when campaigning for president. “We’re going to cancel every needless job-killing regulation!” Trump was a developer, so he knew that the thicket of rules government imposes often makes it impossible to get things...
Sally Pipes: Trump’s socialist price controls will harm patients
The Trump administration is planning one of the biggest changes to Medicare in decades. The draft rule would effectively bring socialist drug price controls to the United States. The change would threaten patients’ health and discourage companies from funding experimental treatments for deadly diseases. The rule impacts Medicare Part B,...
Pat Buchanan: Trump’s great gamble
President Trump’s reelection hopes hinge on two things: the state of the economy in 2020 and the identity of the Democratic nominee. The further left the Democrats go to select their candidate, the greater the probability Trump wins a second term. Thus Trump got good news last week. The verbal...
Jonah Goldberg: Epstein’s death reflects new age of conspiracy theories
Anyone who’s watched a courtroom TV drama has heard the phrase “Hard cases make bad law.” It’s a legal maxim that says really extreme — i.e., rare or weird — cases are not only hard to generalize from, they’re also a bad foundation for new legislation or policy. This also...
Doyle McManus: Trump’s silence on Hong Kong is making America weaker
WASHINGTON — As China and its unruly possession Hong Kong teeter on the edge of catastrophe, President Trump has issued a series of messages with a common theme: If his friend Xi Jinping decides to crack down on the city’s pro-democracy movement, the United States will understand. It’s the wrong...
Michelle Malkin: Who’s funding the wicked war on ICE?
All the gun control zealots out in full force this month have apparently gone to the beach. An alarming shooting took place at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in San Antonio on Tuesday. Local media reported that “multiple shots were fired on two floors targeting ICE officials.” The...
Colin McNickle: Attendance matters to students, schools
The nexus between school attendance and academic performance is well established. In general, the better a student’s attendance is, the better that student’s academic results. And, of course, the better the respective school’s attendance rate and academic results. But an updated analysis of Pittsburgh Public Schools by a scholar at...
David Urban: Trump has kept his promise to revive manufacturing
My late father was a lifelong steelworker at J&L Steel’s famed Aliquippa works. Growing up in Western Pennsylvania, I was witness to politicians of every stripe too easily accepting the death of the American steel industry, and manufacturing in general. We were told that it was simply the way of...
G. Terry Madonna & Michael Young: Will Trump become ‘new normal’ in American politics?
Paradigms, sometimes called “world views,” are the ways we experience, think about and often measure particular ideas, subjects and institutions. Paradigms are notorious for “shifting” as described by a generations of scholars dating back to Thomas Kuhn in 1962. Paradigm shifts are fundamental changes in the way we look at,...
John Stossel: Why shouldn’t we be able to sell our organs?
Have you volunteered to be an organ donor? I did. I just clicked the box on the government form that asks if, once I die, I’m willing to donate my organs to someone who needs them. Why not? Lots of people need kidneys, livers, etc. When I’m dead, I sure...
Walter Williams: How important is today’s racial discrimination?
There is discrimination of all sorts, and that includes racial discrimination. Thus, it’s somewhat foolhardy to debate the existence of racial discrimination yesteryear or today. From a policy point of view, a far more useful question to ask is: How much of the plight of many blacks can be explained...
Donald Boudreaux: Do business people make better government officials?
Is it better for high-ranking government officials to have experience in the private sector as business owners or executives? Many people answer “yes!” But my answer is that of the economist: It depends. The characteristic that, above all, is best in a politician is humility. Unlike business executives who must...
Jason Wilburn: USMCA is 21st-century enhancement America needs
Just like the unseen parts used to make automobiles and airplanes work, the contributions of the Keystone State are often experienced — even if not always seen — every day around the world. The products manufactured in Pennsylvania help make the world function, but all of that could slow down...
Pat Buchanan: China, not Russia, the greater threat
Ten weeks of protests, some huge, a few violent, culminated Monday with a shutdown of the Hong Kong airport. Ominously, Beijing described the violent weekend demonstrations as “deranged” acts that are “the first signs of terrorism,” and vowed a merciless crackdown on the perpetrators. China is being pushed toward a...
Sen. Wayne Fontana: Student loans are increasingly the only way forward for many students
Most college students look forward to summer break and a reprieve from the classroom, but few have the resources to take the “summer off” from one of their most difficult challenges: paying for their education. A postsecondary education can be expensive, but it is an investment worth making. Whether a...
Carl Hiaasen: Jeffrey Epstein’s wealth, power gave him protection that his victims never got
The more we learn about the late Jeffrey Epstein’s 13 months in so-called custody at the Palm Beach County Stockade, the clearer is the lesson: It definitely helped to be rich, even if you were a monstrous sexual predator. It didn’t help Epstein that much at the Metropolitan Correction Center...
Harry Hochheiser & Ray Roberts: Let’s talk about carbon fee & dividend
The doldrums of late summer may usually be sleepy times for our congressional representatives, with the August recess bringing a lull in legislative activity and fundraising trips back home. This year in Pittsburgh might be different, as U.S. Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Forest Hills, has scheduled a town hall session Aug....
Cal Thomas: Mass murders are a symptom
Politicians and pundits are promoting familiar explanations, excuses and demands following the tragic mass murders in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. From more gun laws to blaming President Trump, conservative talk radio and Fox News, we’ve heard it all before. A manifesto thought to be linked to the El...
Jonah Goldberg: Neither left nor right has proper remedy for America’s illness
America is sick. Just about everybody recognizes it, and we didn’t need two more mass shootings to convince anybody of anything. Most Americans think the country is on the wrong track, despite a roaring economy. You can blame Donald Trump, but Americans have been unsatisfied with the country’s direction for...
Peter Morici: Our cultural wars offer no value to newcomers
Mass immigration, low birth rates and China’s rise pose challenges our political and economic institutions appear ill-equipped to address. Rising to these challenges, however, will prove critical to sustaining our economy in the near term and ultimately the viability of our democracy. Some 750 million people would like to migrate...
Dan Warner: Extreme risk protection orders can save lives
Larry (not his real name) and his father hunted together his entire life, and he knew how much his father’s firearms meant to him. A firm “Second Amendment voter,” his father strongly believed in gun rights and would never easily part with these symbols of his individuality and freedom. This...
John Stossel: Stupid news, not fake news
“Fake news!” shouts the president. His supporters cheer. That drives my colleagues into a frenzy of self-absorbed handwringing: “Threats to press freedom … press persecution!” It’s silly. American reporters are hardly less safe because of President Trump’s hyperbole. (Trump is reckless when he uses the term in other countries. Authoritarians...
Walter Williams: Was Trump right about Baltimore?
Here’s what President Trump tweeted about Baltimore’s congressman and his city: “Rep. Elijah Cummings has been a brutal bully, shouting and screaming at the great men & women of Border Patrol about conditions at the Southern Border, when actually his Baltimore district is far worse and more dangerous. His district...
Guy Reschenthaler: Mueller show’s over; it’s time to move on
For nearly three years, the American people were told that President Trump colluded with the Russians in the 2016 election. They were also told that former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation would prove this, with House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., going so far as to say there was...
Cal Thomas: A plan to fix Baltimore
Former South Carolina governor and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has urged President Trump and Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings to stop exchanging insults over conditions in Baltimore. Haley scolded Trump for his recent tweet that appeared to mock Cummings for an attempted break-in at the congressman’s Baltimore home, tweeting “This is...
