Opinion category, Page 370
Letter to the editor: Why no gift ban for legislators?
As a former Pennsylvania state employee, my position as a law and regulation enforcer put me in contact with business and industry. I was not permitted to accept any gifts, meals or even a glass of water without documenting it with a receipt of payment for that item. This dispels...
Editorial: The dangerous side of social media
Words have weight. Ideas have gravity. And when the two join with action, there can be consequences. On Thursday, an angry man who appears to have reached his boiling point in the soup of social media made inflammatory statements online. He took a weapon and headed out to turn the...
Letter to the editor: Dems will help seniors with drug costs
Like the overwhelming majority of seniors, my 93-year-old mother and 85-year-old mother-in-law take daily prescription drugs. Happily, both are healthy, with annual out-of-pocket prescription drug costs under $1,000 a year. But for 1.2 million seniors, out-of-pocket drug costs exceed $2,000 a year, averaging $3,216 in 2019. And for the many...
Letter to the editor: Free school meals an investment in children
School meals are as important to learning as textbooks and teachers, but federal funding that provided free school meals to all students for the past two years has ended. This school year, only students from families who apply for and qualify will receive free school meals. The end of federal...
Tony Hunter: President Biden, where is the action for Austin Tice?
Ten years. An American, a veteran Marine, a man who became a foreign correspondent so that his fellow Americans would know what was happening in Syria, has been missing for 10 years. President Joe Biden knows about Austin Tice. So did President Donald Trump and President Barack Obama. Some of...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: The rule of law or a banana republic
After the legal search of Donald Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago last week, his supporters howled that the actions of the FBI were just what would take place in a banana republic. Author O. Henry first used the term banana republic to describe Central American countries that were exploited by American...
Kamakshi Balasubramanian: Oakmont resident caught in Russia’s penal system
Marc Fogel taught high school history for nine years in Moscow, Russia, an experience he found fulfilling. Now, he is a prisoner in the dark, impenetrable side of that Russia, under the iron hand of its absolute authority. All of Russia has lived for centuries in the shadow of that...
Sen. Joe Pittman: You can’t have family-sustaining jobs without employers
After so many years of Gov. Tom Wolf’s efforts to tie real, growth-producing tax reform to anti-competitive tax tricks, legislative Republicans were able to convince him, at the end of his term, to have a straight-up conversation about making some pro-growth adjustments to our state’s tax code. Thanks to the...
Letter to the editor: Not buying into global warming fear
Good fear, bad fear, birthed by truth, or, alternatively, lies. Good fear brings action and remedy. Bad brings chaos, fear and destruction. Global warming, truth or lie? Democrats say carbon dioxide levels are the greatest threat to life as we know it. To quantify the threat, think Heinz Field with...
Sounding off: Lessons from Kansas, Biden’s competence, guns, turnpike tolls, housing crisis
Lessons for Pa. from Kansas Kansas voters’ crushing rejection of the amendment that would have removed the right to abortion from the state’s Constitution sends a loud message to Pennsylvania’s GOP legislators. Underhanded tactics likely won’t play well here either, even with many conservatives. The Kansas amendment was deliberately worded...
Letter to the editor: Addressing housing crisis in Westmoreland
American Rescue Plan Funds are finally being used in Westmoreland County. Commissioners Gina Cerilli Thrasher, Doug Chew and Sean Kertes, thank you for your preliminary work. You now have a moral obligation to spend the remaining $70 million to help those most devastated by the pandemic. Allocating funds toward blight...
Editorial: Brackenridge proposal: Take your ball and go home
The lament about kids these days is often about laziness. They don’t get up. They don’t go outside. They’re always on their phones or video game systems or online. Remember when kids would actually run around and do things? There’s some truth in there, but there are also some problems....
Letter to the editor: Jefferson would not have supported violence against government
Regarding the letter “Jefferson may have OK’d Jan. 6 insurrection” (July 31, TribLIVE): Thomas Jefferson was a revolutionary. He wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776. He wrote the Virginia Statute of Religious Liberty in the 1780s. His friend James Madison codified citizens’ liberties in the 1791 Bill of Rights....
Gary Franks: Socialists/Democrats — is there a difference?
We are Americans. We are hardworking people. We fight in defense of our values. We love our freedoms. We do not have to be told what to think — what cars to buy, what jobs to seek, what leaders to choose. We want our leaders to be the best and...
S.E. Cupp: The FBI raid is terrible news for Trump. Why is Trump World unable to contain its excitement?
“When you’re attacking FBI agents because you’re under criminal investigation, you’re losing.” That 2016 tweet from Trump campaign adviser, and future White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, then referring to Hillary Clinton and Democrats, took on a special irony Monday, as former President Donald Trump and his allies spent...
Letter to the editor: Why aren’t unpaid turnpike tolls collected?
Why is the turnpike raising tolls when they have almost $150 million of tolls that are past due (“Pa. Turnpike tolls to go up for 15th straight year,” Aug. 2, TribLIVE)? Sen. Kim Ward and her staff have known about this for several years and haven’t done anything about it....
Letter to the editor: New Kensington intersection needs safety upgrade
For a while now, I’ve notice highway markings around the valley have been missing, unnoticed or disappearing. The public works departments are great and hard workers, especially in the winter when roads are snow- or ice-covered. But the markings at Route 366 (Tarentum Bridge Road) and Leechburg Road in New...
Letter to the editor: Lessons for Pa. from Kansas
Kansas voters’ crushing rejection of the amendment that would have removed the right to abortion from the state’s Constitution sends a loud message to Pennsylvania’s GOP legislators. Underhanded tactics likely won’t play well here either, even with many conservatives. The Kansas amendment was deliberately worded to confuse voters and hide...
Lori Falce: The crippling cost of insulin
Insulin is not just a drug. It’s a hormone that is produced in the pancreas. It is part of how the body controls blood sugar. When you talk about it like that, it doesn’t seem like that big a deal. But it is — because the sugar in your blood...
Letter to the editor: Shapiro will deliver results for Pa.
We need to elect a leader for governor who will take the initiative to get things done. But, wait, what sorts of things? Josh Shapiro, as attorney general, stepped up when a fight between health industry behemoths UPMC and Highmark threatened the care of thousands of Pennsylvanians. He brokered a...
Letter to the editor: Joe Biden and the Peter Principle
To understand Joe Biden, you must understand the Peter Principle. Laurence J. Peter developed The Peter Principle, which states that a person rises to the level of their incompetence. In a hierarchical management system, a person is promoted due to past success until they reach a level where they can...
Laurels & lances: Fuel, funds, a dog and guns
Laurel: To trying new things. The Westmoreland County Airport Authority is pondering a proposal from Kilocharge, a Rostraver-based company, that would designate up to 16 parking spots at the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport to a specific purpose. The idea is to have eight charging stations at the airport, allowing people...
Colin McNickle: PIT’s post-pandemic passenger recovery falters
One thing is clear: Passenger traffic at Pittsburgh International Airport (PIT), which had been rebounding as the covid-19 pandemic subsided, faltered in June. But another thing is quite unclear — the reason for that slippage, concludes an analysis by the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy. “PIT is struggling to get...
Rep. Eric Nelson: Pennsylvania is Exhibit A for why election integrity matters
The recent fiasco that was the Pennsylvania Republican primary for U.S. Senate is Exhibit A on why every state needs to make election integrity a priority. It took nearly three weeks to determine the winner of the election. Imagine attending the Super Bowl and having to wait three weeks, or...
Letter to the editor: Cheney’s integrity admirable
I share letter-writer Maria Maliszewski’s concern for Liz Cheney’s future (“Liz Cheney won’t get reelected,” July 30, TribLIVE). Not that I’m her biggest fan; we couldn’t be much farther apart on the political spectrum. And if the people of Wyoming would elect a reasonable replacement, perhaps someone more centrist, I...
