102 and counting
Populist critics have gone after the new $40 billion in aid to Ukraine hammer and tongs. Donald Trump has complained that we are sending billions to Ukraine “yet America’s parents are struggling to even feed their children.” Republican Sen. Josh Hawley calls the assistance “unfocused globalism.”
Some of my recent columns have criticized Democrats’ approach to inflation, both their reluctance to take steps that could be modestly helpful (repealing tariffs, accelerating legal immigration applications); and their flirtation with policies that could be actively harmful (such as price co…
To the editor: We, the Kulpmont Cruise Association, would like to thank the people who supported our show Sunday, May 15, at the Mount Carmel Area High School auditorium.
Thank you, MCA
In the candidates who will represent their parties in November, and in those who came close, we can see a new political culture taking root in the commonwealth — a nationalized one that’s replacing Pennsylvania’s distinctive one.
Republican politicians, including some of the party’s top leaders, openly espouse versions of a white supremacist conspiracy theory holding that an orchestrated effort is underway to displace white Americans. A recently published poll found that almost half of Republicans believe that immigr…
Pretty Republican Primary. Wasn't it great to see a fantastic slate of Republican candidates in this year's primary? We got to brag about our future governor, a veteran 30-year military career, who will secure our elections.
Sickened
Methamphetamines can kill.
Every speaker has their favorite stories. If someone ever decides to compile, “The Best of Pastor Rudy,” this illustration will definitely be part of the pack. I, especially, love sharing this narrative with young people as this is one of my number one “go to baccalaureate challenges.” If yo…
Of all the columns this space has hosted through the years, abortion has received plenty of ink.
When I was teaching a class in 2001, one of our hot topics was genetically modified organisms and world trade. No one could predict what might befall agriculture if food crops were dependent on seed restricted by trade secrets, if farmers were suddenly liable to prosecution for GMO seed ming…
I want to share with you my community college experience. It’s a part of a larger success story. It’s the story of my family. The story is one of generational change from poverty to success. The success is a result of an excellent education, an important part of which came from community colleges.
Far more Americans died from COVID-19 on Joe Biden’s watch than when Donald Trump was president, yet that hard truth didn’t stop Dr. Anthony Fauci, the purported infectious disease “expert,” from smearing the former Republican president during a recent TV interview saying he’ll quit if Trump…
Believe the science?
Those numbered balls that you see bouncing around in televised Pennsylvania lottery drawings aren’t just painted ping-pong balls. They might make you a fortune but, as it turns out, they cost a small one.
This week, a racist mass shooter massacred 10 people and wounded three others at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket. The shooter was a white supremacist; his hate-filled 180-page screed about why he had committed the shooting was replete with neo-Nazi sentiments. According to the shooter, he h…
Right-wing terrorism
The ugly truth is that while Americans, especially those in the white establishment, shake their heads and maybe even shed some tears over the 10 Black people gunned down in Buffalo over the weekend in another apparently racially motivated attack, we’re growing accustomed to the virulent whi…
Conservative conspiracy
Imagine a successful small-business owner who wants to run for Congress. To jump-start his campaign, he might lend it some money. Once fundraising gets going, it can pay him back. But the law says donations arriving after Election Day may repay only $250,000 of candidate debt. If the busines…
Non-populist, “neoliberal” economist types are not exactly known for their political instincts. But in retrospect, they’ve been more prescient on the politics of Democrats’ economic agenda than the politicos realized.
To the editor: Who are our frontline heroes? They’re the people who respond to the scenes of dangerous accidents and incidents. They’re the ones who are always ready to put their lives at risk for someone else. The brave group closest to my own heart are our emergency medical services (EMS) …
To the editor: The Democrats are using the abortion issue to demonize the Republicans and save the election for 2022 because President Biden and his administration have been a disaster for this country, in my opinion. This is another means to deflect the failure of the Democratic Party on th…
Mine money
It’s time for state lawmakers to expand a program that would keep the records of formerly incarcerated people out of public view.
Imagine that every state were free to choose whether to allow Black people and white people to marry. Some states would permit such marriages; others probably wouldn’t. The laws would be a mishmash, and interracial couples would suffer, legally consigned to second-class status depending on w…
It’s great that so many of us took to our porches and balconies to bang pots in support of nurses during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. They deserved these salutes.
Same price, more complaints
Watsontown residents certainly have a right to question the sudden departure of police Chief Rod Witherite.
With the Pennsylvania primary election upon us, the clarity of the November mid-term elections will begin to emerge and loom even larger. With good reasons, expectations of a Republican rout are running from sea to shining sea.
When I was growing up, I was excited on Election Day.
Give up salary
A third member of the extremist Oath Keepers group pleaded guilty Wednesday to seditious conspiracy, admitting his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack. The pleas provide more proof that the right-wing campaign to whitewash Jan. 6, playing down the extent to which the participants sought…
Fauci lied; people died.
I know that if you just mention the word abortion, like it or not, you have lit a stick of dynamite. If someone desires to polarize a room into two passionate camps of strong feelings and cries of emotional angst, just bring up the topic of Roe vs. Wade. And like it or not, look at what is b…
To the editor: We have many unsung heroes and most don’t get the credit they deserve. Sometimes we never think of them until there is an emergency and we need their help. Our volunteer firemen, who not only save lives and property but also suffer injuries and even death for helping their nei…
Bad idea
About two million private sector workers in Pennsylvania — more than 40% of the workforce — don’t have access to an automatic retirement savings plan from their employers. The resulting retirement shortfall is expected to cost Pennsylvania about a billion dollars in social services every yea…
In the aftermath of a leaked Supreme Court draft majority decision prospectively overruling Roe v. Wade, the Left in the United States has gone into full-fledged panic mode. That outsized panic has manifested as a variety of unconvincing or blatantly immoral arguments: the argument that abor…
WASHINGTON — Protesters outside Brett Kavanaugh’s house warned the Supreme Court justice this weekend, “If you take away our choices, we will riot.” They marched on Justice Samuel Alito Jr.’s home chanting “Abort the court!” and stood outside the home of Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. (who a…
A new ideology
Pennsylvania’s corporate tax rate is higher than those of 42 of the other 43 states that tax corporate income. At 9.9%, it’s lower only than that of neighboring New Jersey’s 11.5%.
To the editor: I read an article in the Saturday, April 23, edition of The News-Item by Sandy Field. She wrote about the efforts and accomplishments in protecting our environment since the first Earth Day held in 1970. I was a student at Penn State University studying forest sciences at that…
Emotional response
Justice Antonin Scalia was among the most prescient Supreme Court justices in American history, and the firestorm over the leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion overturning Roe is a reminder of it.
A group of senators met last week to try to prevent anyone from stealing the 2024 presidential election or from once again inciting an armed mob to attack the Capitol. The bipartisan band, led by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), aims to update the 1887 Electoral C…
Just like that, tyranny has descended on Florida.
To the editor: The coming days bring two significant events that have special meaning to many of us in health care.
Today, Thursday May 5 at or about 4:45 p.m., I was driving home on U.S. 15 when I experienced an event I could not believe happened.
Term limits, anyone?
Pennsylvania property owners need better friends in Harrisburg.
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