Opinion category, Page 415
Editorial: Natural decline in population demands shift in priorities
Pennsylvania has a population problem. The problem isn’t that the overall population is shrinking. It’s not. According to the 2020 census, the number of people who call the state home grew by 2.4% — just over 300,000 — in 10 years. That’s not bad. Compared to neighboring West Virginia, which...
Letter to the editor: Green values vs. destroyed lives
The unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is shown every day on TV. War is ugly as peaceful, hardworking people are being maimed and killed. Rather than concern for the Ukrainian people, we hear comments from elites like climate tsar John Kerry of his concern that Russia may lose its focus on...
Letter to the editor: Rational curation of books vital in our schools
The Hempfield Area School Board is to be commended for attempting to model a framework for parents and educators to determine which materials are appropriate in public school libraries (“Hempfield school board shelves any changes to its library book policy and selections for now,” March 11, TribLIVE). The internet provides...
Tom Purcell: What is a woman?
I’m glad there’s widespread confusion about what a woman is. I’ve been confused my entire life. In the most basic sense, the difference between a male and a female is that a female has two X chromosomes and a male has an X and a Y chromosome — or, in...
Letter to the editor: Price on carbon will enable transition to clean energy
Patricia DeMarco’s outstanding op-ed (“Energy independence means good union jobs in clean energy,” March 16, TribLIVE) describes the disadvantages and risks of using fossil fuels and the benefits of switching to renewable energy to achieve energy independence. Unfortunately, the U.S. does not have the policies in place to accomplish this...
Editorial: Opioid prevention critical in cutting overdose deaths
In 2021, 168 people lost their lives because of accidental drug overdoses in Westmoreland County. Break that down over the course of the year, and that means just over every two days, someone’s high turned into a family’s worst low. It also means that drug overdose deaths are increasing at...
Editorial cartoons for the week of March 28
Editorial cartoons for the week of March 28...
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of March 28
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of March 28....
Mona Charen: Trans politics needs to slow down and wait for trans science
Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas recently used his executive authority to declare that puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries for those under 18 meet the legal standard for child abuse in Texas, a ruling that authorized the Department of Family and Protective Services to investigate parents who had sought such...
Letter to the editor: $19M verdict in pool injury is embarrassing
A 21-year-old man dives onto a raft in his best friend’s swimming pool, injures himself and sues his best friend’s parents, and the jury awards him $19 million (“Westmoreland jury awards $19M to swimming pool injury victim,” March 11, TribLIVE)? I’m embarrassed by you jurors. I thought Westmoreland County was...
Letter to the editor: Government a virtue, not a burden
“Our obligations to our country never cease but with our lives.” — John Adams Could these words possibly hold any more weight than they do today? It seems some have forgotten that government is meant to be a virtue, a symbol of the free, democratic process. Instead, it has been...
Letter to the editor: Disheartened by book banning in Franklin Regional
I was sad to see that our revitalized national obsession with banning books had reached Franklin Regional (“Franklin Regional ‘pauses’ teaching of novel about Iranian Revolution after complaints,” March 7, TribLIVE). I look back fondly at my years at FR and can say, unequivocally, that the teachers and administrators provided...
Letter to the editor: Oil company greed
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, in 2021, the U.S. imported 8.47 million barrels of oil a day to meet our energy needs. But U.S. oil companies also exported 8.63 million barrels of oil a day, indicating that our country would easily be energy independent if U.S. needs came...
Editorial: Tipped minimum shows wiggle room on issue
Gov. Tom Wolf has spent years pushing to increase the Pennsylvania minimum wage. The state’s minimum has sat at the federal bottom line of $7.25 per hour since 2009. But anyone who has done a gratuity-motivated job such as waiting tables knows that isn’t the least amount of money someone...
Letter to the editor: Why Putin didn’t invade during Trump presidency
Regarding Paul Kengor’s column “Why didn’t Putin do this under Trump?” (March 17, TribLIVE): Maybe the answer is as simple as Putin didn’t feel it was necessary and that Trump was doing all that was requisite to compromise and weaken the EU and NATO. In July 2016, and throughout his...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Putin reminds us of how we fight evil
It is a question as old as time, one for which there is no universally acceptable answer. Because of Vladimir Putin and his savage invasion of Ukraine, it is a question that is front and center again: How could there be such evil in this world? “Evil” is the only...
Sounding off: Book bans show that parents are concerned
The article “Hempfield is latest district to face book ban challenge” leads the reader to a conclusion that book challenges are wrong. The article states that 330 challenges were made in the last three months of 2021 compared with 156 in 2020, according to the American Library Association. What does...
Rep. Kerry Benninghoff: Pa. should take lead in hitting Russia in its budget
Russia’s unprovoked war against Ukraine has opened the eyes of the world to the true intentions of Russian President Vladimir Putin. It has also demonstrated the economic impact that can be made when democratic nations come together against those who do not share a commitment to national sovereignty and individual...
Greg Fulton: Diversity visa ‘lottery’ shows that we’re all lottery winners
Many of us dream of winning the Powerball or Megamillions jackpots and fantasize what we would do with the money — quit our jobs, travel to foreign places, buy a new car, help out family and friends, support our favorite charities. Few of us, though, realize that we already have...
Kyle Herrig: Blame greed for rising prices
Americans paying more at the grocery store and gas pump are told that supply-chain issues related to the coronavirus pandemic and the Russian war against Ukraine are fully to blame. But, in truth, corporate executives are also exploiting these crises to make record profits and line their pockets. Take the...
Letter to the editor: George Will’s Trump bashing
George Will’s column “A stray orange hair to be flicked off the nation’s sleeve” (March 6) used the surname Trump 15 times, but no mention of the floundering current administration. Will is already working on 2024. I would rather be called a Trump poodle than a Biden basset hound. Donald...
Letter to the editor: Biden moving backwards on immigration efforts
Letter-writer John Meyer (“The border is not ‘open,’ ” March 20, TribLIVE) states “this administration has maintained the border policies of the previous administration.” This is false. President Biden, in his first hours in office, signed numerous immigration-related executive orders and administration policy changes, one of which was to end the...
Editorial: A nomination isn’t a political promise
There is a difference between an appointment and a nomination. In an appointment, a government leader is able to place someone in a position with nothing more than their own say-so. Pick a chief of staff or a press secretary? That’s completely up to a governor or senator. A nomination...
Letter to the editor: Invest federal funds in lands, waters to boost economy
It has been almost a year since the American Rescue Plan Act became law, providing federal funding to boost state economies and help people recover from the financial toll of covid lockdowns. Now, the General Assembly is considering legislation that would prioritize using a portion of that funding to invest...
Gary Franks: Republicans have traditionally supported Black SCOTUS candidates; are you surprised?
History shows that Republican senators have supported Black candidates for the Supreme Court at a far better rate than Democrats. The list is very short: Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas. President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, nominated the first Black to serve on the Supreme Court in 1967. The Democrats had...
