Opinion category, Page 531
Eric Falk: Not all Westmoreland residents want mail-in voting eliminated
Westmoreland County Commissioner Doug Chew’s statement before the Pennsylvania Senate committee on election integrity and reform is a classic case of starting with a valid point and then wildly overswinging to argue that no-excuse mail-in voting must be limited if not eliminated. He begins with the need to educate voters...
Tom O’Brien: Raises linked to filibuster death
Joe Biden did something no other president has. He extolled the virtue of unions and told workers that corporations do not have the right to prevent them from joining a union, and he did it on video. After four decades of U.S. labor productivity rises that have gone unrewarded with...
Letter to the editor: Hypocrisy of Newsome signature review
Californians have gathered more than the 1½ million signatures needed to recall Gov. Gavin Newsome from office. Isn’t it interesting that the Democrats all of a sudden want to scrutinize these signatures for discrepancies of any kind? Similar handwriting, color of pens used, proper addresses and other details. What hypocrisy!...
Letter to the editor: Americans could use the jobs held by immigrants
Letter-writer Matt Smith (“Immigration reform will rebuild our economy,” March 26, TribLIVE), can you tell me if the 70,000 undocumented immigrants working in essential roles in the state pay taxes to the IRS/U.S. government/Pennsylvania? Can you tell any unemployed American citizen where he or she can obtain an essential-role job?...
Editorial: A death in county prison is public information, in real time
Government often seems to have the same attitude toward transparency that children do toward report cards. When a kid gets a good grade, it is turned over promptly and with lots of fanfare. Look how good this is! Look at my gold star! Can I have cookie? When a kid...
Letter to the editor: Racism isn’t automatically to blame
Kudos to the Tribune-Review for publishing Mona Charen’s column “Covid-19’s large non-surprise” (March 12, TribLIVE). In case you missed it, there is a well-known correlation between obesity and covid-19 mortality. It also is well documented that obesity is more prevalent among Blacks than whites. Charen presented the novel theory that...
Letter to the editor: E-Verify jobs process would help end border crisis
Regarding Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto’s support for the American Dream and Promise Act (“Peduto endorses bill to provide pathway to citizenship for ‘dreamers’,” March 15, TribLIVE): He’s conveniently confused on his facts. Peduto compares the deferred action for childhood arrivals (DACAs) to Pittsburgh’s immigrants who “settled here seeking to build...
Letter to the editor: Westmoreland commissioners not to blame for lack of vaccines
I’ve read a lot of misleading letters recently trying to pin blame on Republicans for a lack of vaccines getting to Westmoreland County. It smells like an organized effort from Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf’s Harrisburg propaganda machine to deflect blame for his fumbling of the vaccine distribution in the commonwealth....
Letter to the editor: Solution for mail-in voting issues
Homebound, nursing home or military should be the only reason to vote by mail. If voting absentee, a request and reason should be necessary. If you can go to Walmart, Home Depot or the grocery store, or play the lottery, then you can vote in person. All absentee ballots are...
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of March 29
Mallard Fillmore cartoons for the week of March 29....
Editorial cartoons for the week of March 29
Editorial cartoons for the week of March 29....
S.E. Cupp: Politics aside, humane plan needed now for migrant children alone on the border
After facing weeks of pressure from Republicans and Democrats, the Biden administration finally released photos and videos from inside two Texas detention centers where unaccompanied children are being held. An ABC News report of the government-sanctioned video describes the conditions as “crowded but orderly,” and boasts of shelves “stocked with...
Letter to the editor: End of the virus or end of Trump letters?
Which happens first? The covid-19 pandemic ends and life returns to “normal,” or tear-stained letters from pouty President Trump fans disappear from the pages of this newspaper. My money is on the virus. Dan Skantar North Fayette...
Letter to the editor: Giving stimulus check back to government
In response to Cheryl Rossetti’s letter “Disagree with election results? Return stimulus checks”): This is a great idea to try to “pour money back into the Treasury.” I’m ready to lick the stamp to send it back. Before doing that, however, I propose the following caveats: In return for my...
Letter to the editor: Learn, take action on anti-Asian racism
Given the rise over the past year in anti-Asian racism and racial incidents, here are just a few resources for learning and action. If you experience bullying, intimidation or violence related to being Asian and/or Pacific Islander (API), go to stopaapihate.org and standagainsthatred.org/ report to report the incident so that there...
Editorial: 1 million covid cases, and a path forward
One million. It is the kind of number that we think we can understand because it is thrown about with such abandon. The price of a big house. A mere sliver of a school building project. The top prize on a really good lottery ticket. But it’s a huge number...
Letter to the editor: More guns means more shootings
As people are tiring of covid, the mass gatherings are resuming, and so are the mass shootings. No other country has this problem, and no other country is so saturated with guns. Coincidence? I hear all the gun advocates’ arguments and scoff, like guns don’t kill, people do. It’s as...
Letter to the editor: Democracy for all people, not just the powerful
In the 1800s the Republican Party championed the democratic principles of freedom, liberty, justice and equality for all. The Democratic Party stood for the wealthy and powerful, the plantation owners, the captains of industry. It was a tug of war between democracy and oligarchy. Today we are in that same...
Joseph Sabino Mistick: Not yet ready to take down the pandemic table
I started to take down the pandemic table last week, but I just couldn’t finish the job. A year ago, in those first days of quarantine, I set up an 8-foot table in the middle of the garage and loaded it with things that our family and friends might need...
Elizabeth Stelle: Emergency powers amendment would restore transparency in Pa. government
For over a year, Gov. Tom Wolf has dismissed calls for transparency as he enforces restrictive emergency executive orders. His disaster declaration for covid-19 — renewed four times since last spring — has allowed him to exert a level of control like nothing our commonwealth has experienced in its 340-year...
Howard Dean: Biden must restore seniors’ access to essential medicines
On Jan. 19, Medicare officials announced a new payment model that could wreak havoc on the chronically ill. The proposed model — technically put forward by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation — affects Medicare’s Part D prescription drug benefit, which relies on private insurers to administer seniors’ drug...
Sounding off: George Orwell, Ray Bradbury warned us; thanking Trump; stimulus checks and election results
Have you seen and heard enough yet? I certainly have. I never thought that we would witness big tech silencing free speech or de-listing books whose subject they disagree with. A “woke” administration and Congress that appear more intent on advancing socialism and rewarding their friends than helping to make...
Letter to the editor: Did non-supporters return Trump’s stimulus checks?
From the tone of Cheryl Rossetti’s letter “Disagree with election results? Return stimulus checks.” (March 24, TribLIVE), I’m guessing she did not support President Trump. When she received the first two stimulus checks while Trump was president, did she follow her own advice and return those checks? To paraphrase her,...
Letter to the editor: Republican votes reason for vaccine shortage?
Regarding the article “Westmoreland receives fewer covid-19 vaccine doses than smaller counties; talks begin about regional health department” (Feb. 26, TribLIVE): It seems rather odd that since most voters in Southwest Pennsylvania voted Republican, except for Allegheny County (Little Philly), we are being left short on our allocations of vaccine....
Editorial: A third path to let abuse victims seek justice
Pennsylvania has been increasingly involved in the ugly issue of child sex abuse since the 2011 charges against retired Penn State football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky were unveiled. That prompted a number of reforms to the way reports were handled and clearances were issued. Multiple rounds of grand jury cases...
