Opinion category, Page 580
Editorial: Toomey and Santorum are right about voting
U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey is the kind of Republican that needs to be heard right now. Toomey has been a reliably conservative Republican his entire political life. He has advocated for the Constitution and hewn close to the party’s bones when it comes to foreign policy, small government and fiscal...
Walter Williams: Blacks of yesteryear and today
I was a teenager, growing up in the Richard Allen housing project of North Philadelphia, when Emmett Till was lynched in Money, Miss., on Aug. 28, 1955, and his brutalized, unrecognizable body later recovered from the Tallahatchie River. From 1882-1968, 4,743 lynchings occurred in the United States. Roughly 73%, or...
Chad Forcey: Community solar offers bright spot of revenue opportunity
With Pennsylvania staring down a pandemic- induced $4.5 billion budget deficit, and just a few short weeks before our current budget expires on Nov. 30, the commonwealth is short on options. Without new revenues, Harrisburg lawmakers will need to enact painful cuts that will make our covid-19 recovery longer and...
Letter to the editor: Why the media can’t be believed
In a recent news clip about protesters, a reporter said at 2 a.m. that “the protesters were out but not as many as earlier in the day.” After watching them smash windows, take items and run, he said, “It looks like the protesters are going to have a long night.”...
Letter to the editor: IUP’s changes will hurt students
Indiana University of Pennsylvania has announced plans to restructure academic programs. Part of the plan is to eliminate 128 faculty positions, nearly one-quarter of current faculty. Eighty-one faculty members were notified last week that their jobs would be eliminated (“Indiana University of Pennsylvania notifies 81 faculty members of pending job...
Lori Falce: The virtual voodoo of political polls
So when do we decide polling is just the 21st-century version of witchcraft? Regardless of what happens with the ballots and counts and final tallies of the 2020 general election, one thing is clear. The way it ended up doesn’t look that much like what the predictions were. There were...
Letter to the editor: Enough is enough with political ads
I’m so glad that this election is over. I’m fed up with getting at least five political ads a day in the mail — wish I could put “return to sender” and mail them all back, plus the annoying phone calls and TV ads. Enough is enough. Keith J. Piecka...
Letter to the editor: Babies’ lives don’t seem to matter
Life is precious. God is the creator of life. Black lives matter. Absolutely. Blue lives matter. Absolutely. Handicapped lives matter. Absolutely. White lives matter. Absolutely. Baby lives matter. Well, not really. God creates lives, but politicians decide which babies live and which babies die. Insane! Francis P. Murrman Sr. Greensburg...
Jonah Goldberg: De-emphasizing politics may be the best way to mend fences
The day before Election Day, Reuters ran a story about the personal toll politics has taken on some peoples’ lives. Mayra Gomez told her 21-year-old son she’d be voting for Trump. He essentially disowned his mother in response. Gomez says he told her: “You are no longer my mother.” Gayle...
Laurels & lances: Duty, responsibility and generosity
Laurel: To doing your duty. Some people plan to vote but don’t get around to it because they get busy or they don’t feel well or the weather isn’t nice. But some people really put in the effort. Megan Walker of Tarentum is one of those committed voters who doesn’t...
Letter to the editor: Will we eliminate Columbus Day holiday pay, too?
I agree with taking down Columbus’ statue because the taxpayers will be saved millions of dollars. No city or county or federal employee will be off that day, right? I mean, surely we wouldn’t give a day off to government employees to celebrate a mass murderer, right? Peter A. Mamula...
Letter to the editor: License plate cost confusion
In 2017, my wife and I purchased a new car. The dealer gave us a new license plate. Within the next year, we noticed that the plate was starting to peel in strips. In August, the service manager at the dealer told us the car did not pass the yearly...
Letter to the editor: Appreciating animal shelters
The first full week in November is National Animal Shelter Appreciation Week. Animal shelters provide much-needed services to keep our communities healthy and safe. Animal shelters provide a bridge between homeless animals and people wanting to share their lives with an animal. We are very fortunate in the Alle-Kiski Valley...
Editorial: Pennsylvania is more than 20 electoral votes
Late night humor is often political, frequently gleeful and generally a fluid blend of accurate and exaggerated. That’s comedy. Stephen Colbert may be the reigning king of the savage political snark, but Tuesday, he took a Twitter stab at the Keystone State that might have seemed like humor but could...
Brandon Arnold: Trump drug rebate gambit rests on shaky legal authority
$7.9 billion might not seem like much money when measured against the trillions of dollars the federal government has spent in response to covid-19 — and the trillions more it might soon spend. But President Trump has a $7.9 billion drug rebate proposal that almost certainly violates his administration’s authority...
Mark Hendrickson: Why fracking is a big issue
The “paradox of prosperity” is the strange tendency of many people who have benefited from economic advances to denounce and vilify the source of their prosperity, a sort of “bite-the-hand-that-feeds-you” phenomenon. One example of this syndrome is the perplexing (some would say “perverse”) antipathy that many Americans have toward fossil...
Letter to the editor: Where’s equality, diversity in sports?
BLM, equality, diversity: Baseball, football, basketball — I want to see the same number of white players as there are Black players. I want some Catholics, Muslims, Jews, Chinese, Japanese … . Silly? You bet! Frances Olyarnik Hempfield...
Letter to the editor: Beware masked men in high places
Once upon a time in America, bad men wore masks and robbed people. Today in America, bad men wear masks run for high political office, then use governance to rob people. The eighth Commandment is: “Thou shalt not steal.” David Scandrol Lower Burrell...
Letter to the editor: Columbus statue removal is not erasing history
On Columbus Day I was thoroughly amused by Larry Richert’s interview on KDKA Radio with Italian Sons and Daughters of America President Basil Russo, during which both host and guest expressed the belief that by removing the Christopher Columbus statue in Schenley Park, the city is erasing history and depriving...
Editorial: FirstEnergy shell switch should be explored
Big companies can be like Russian nesting dolls with layers upon layers of organization and ownership. The bigger the parent company, often the more companies are contained within other companies. Pennsylvania electric consumers could deal with a new middleman company in 2022. That’s when Keystone Appalachian Transmission Co. takes over...
Letter to the editor: Love, respect will guide us
To our beloved community of Monroeville and beyond, The Monroeville Interfaith Ministerium reflects the diversity of our community, nation and world. Each of our faith traditions — Hindu, Unitarian Universalist, Baha’i, Sikh, Jewish, Jain, Christian, both Catholic and Protestant, and Muslim — share a common core of love and respect...
Pat Buchanan: Can a disintegrating America come together?
On the last days of the 2020 campaign, President Donald Trump was holding four and five rallies a day in battleground states, drawing thousands upon thousands of loyalists to every one. Waiting for hours, sometimes in the cold, to cheer their champion on, these rallygoers love Trump as few presidents...
Terri Shields: Shuttle service would bring opportunities to Hazelwood
The City of Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility and Infrastructure (DOMI) conducted a public Zoom meeting Oct. 21 on the proposed Mon-Oakland shuttle service. The new service, using electric vehicles, would connect Oakland with parts of Greenfield and Hazelwood, such as development at the Hazelwood Green site. The majority of the...
Colin McNickle: Hiked permit fees latest shale industry hurdle
A massive hike in the cost of new shale gas well permits raises serious questions about the operations of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and could imperil the very industry that has contributed so much to the Keystone State economy, says a scholar at the Allegheny Institute for...
Letter to the editor: Questioning covid-19 death numbers
I keep reading about all the deaths that covid-19 has caused, and it is a staggering number of deaths in this country. My concern is whether these deaths are being reported accurately. I’ve dealt in the past with deaths of family members and how death certificates are completed. I have...
