Featured Commentary category, Page 35
Terrie Baumgardner: Fracking and Harris — how close is too close?
Kamala Harris’ change in position on banning fracking has been a hot topic of discussion, and for good reason. On the one hand, political 180s are hard to justify; but on the other, for most of our history, Americans have expected their presidential candidates to gain pragmatic wisdom through political...
Matthew Levitt: Hezbollah’s deadly rockets aren’t the most serious threat to Israel’s northern border
After nearly 10 months of constant rocket and drone attacks across the Israel-Lebanon border, Israel and Hezbollah stand at the brink of full-scale war for the first time since 2006. But more dire than Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal is the threat that it will launch an Oct. 7-style ground incursion into...
Tyler Cowen: Want more moderate candidates? Demand ranked choice voting
Ranked choice voting is on many state and local ballots this year, so it’s worth considering how it works in practice. Or, as we economists like to say: It’s time for some game theory. There are many ways to run a ranked choice system, but they all basically allow voters...
Chris Hunter: Amid growing mental health crisis, why are a third of Western Psych beds closed?
There’s an ongoing national conversation about the spiraling mental health crisis — which was aggravated by the pandemic — and the urgent need to put more resources toward our faltering behavioral health system. Here in Pennsylvania, this health care emergency is in many ways more dire than the U.S. overall....
James P. Pinkerton: Hanwha and Nippon deals are good for Pa.
There’s so much bad news that it’s sometimes hard to spot the good news. But here’s some: An economic and strategic win-win between the United States and South Korea, injecting capital, jobs, and tech knowhow into eastern Pennsylvania. Yes, that’s good news. And we can have more win-wins, if we...
Robet Weiner and Olivia Ardito: What the U.S. can learn from Canada about ending gerrymandering
Over the past few years, the legitimacy of American elections has been called into question by Democrats and Republicans. Both sides can point fingers and claim the opposing party might try to cheat, scheme or tamper with the election results in some way. At all levels, American elections have been...
Jackie Calmes: Reports of the death of Trump’s Project 2025 are greatly exaggerated
This summer, more and more voters have gotten to know the gist of Project 2025, the policy opus intended to guide a second Trump administration, and they thoroughly dislike it. Which explains the project’s purported demise in recent days at the Trump campaign’s hands, just as Democrats have jump-started the...
Ralph J. Cecere Jr.: Solar for Schools can power — and empower — school districts
This year’s state budget may have arrived 11 days late, but it wasn’t without some important wins for Pennsylvania schools. Headlines have highlighted $526 million to improve education funding inequity and $100 million for school facilities repairs. But another exciting opportunity lies inside the fiscal code bill: the Solar for...
James Coltella: What America might learn from elections in Europe
As America ponders its political future, the dynamics of politics in Europe offer U.S. lawmakers interesting food for thought — the change there isn’t necessarily about a movement to political extremes but a different kind of shift. While America has a very real fascination with the Old World, observing but...
Richard Forno: Social media and political violence — how to break the cycle
The attempted assassination of Donald Trump on July 13 added more fuel to an already fiery election season. In this case, political violence was carried out against the party that is most often found espousing it. The incident shows how uncontrollable political violence can be — and how dangerous the...
Sheldon H. Jacobson: Who will pay for the Crowdstrike outage?
Crowdstrike did not have a good day on July 19. During a routine software update, the file that the cybersecurity firm issued triggered a logic error that prohibited Windows machines from rebooting. Microsoft estimates that about 8.5 million computers may have been affected by the event. This created a tsunami of...
Elisabeth Rosenthal: Why many nonprofit (wink, wink) hospitals are rolling in money
One owns a for-profit insurer, a venture capital company and for-profit hospitals in Italy and Kazakhstan; it has just acquired its fourth for-profit hospital in Ireland. Another owns one of the largest for-profit hospitals in London, is partnering to build a massive training facility for a professional basketball team and...
Greg Fulton: The surprising John Fetterman
Many people, like I, viewed Sen. John Fetterman as merely a lesser version of Bernie Sanders when he was running for Senate. Progressives in the Democratic Party felt he was one of them and thought he would unwaveringly support their agenda, a “back bencher” who would sit quietly and follow...
Jess Ward: The discrepancy in Pa.’s unemployment — a call for reform
In Pennsylvania, we find ourselves in quite the conundrum: a low unemployment rate coupled with a sizable number of unemployment claims — 127,000 at the end of December 2023. This contradiction should serve as a wake-up call for policymakers. After all, if we can’t figure this out, what’s next —...
Jim Burn: Shapiro is best VP pick for Harris
Think like a coach. That was one of my fundamental tenets when I chaired the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. This approach was and remains important to evaluate candidates based upon who is the best person to put on the field to be successful. That is not often easy as many times...
Dan Morain: What Kamala Harris’ run for California attorney general can tell us about this campaign
Smart Republicans could see a day like this coming — and tried mightily to prevent it — back in 2010. That was the year Kamala Harris, a bright, young, charismatic prosecutor from San Francisco, ran her first statewide campaign, for California attorney general, and ultimately won. The race presaged the...
Mark D. Schwartz: Once journalists, now merely jackals
Once again Sen. John Fetterman uniquely spoke the plain truth, criticizing those elected phonies who knifed President Biden in the back one day from reelection and then lauded his legacy the next. Deceitful politicians are nothing new. However, they were aided and abetted by what is falsely labeled as “cable...
Kathryn Anne Edwards: Women are America’s working class now
It’s an election year, which means we’ll be hearing a lot from Democrats and Republicans claiming their party is the one true champion of working-class Americans. Sure, but what does it mean to be part of the working class in America these days? It means being female. If there’s one...
Patricia Lopez: Tim Walz is the opposite of Vance. He should be Harris’ VP
An unlikely — and mostly unfamiliar — name has catapulted onto the short list of potential Democratic running mates: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Walz seems to be everywhere lately, with a rapid-fire, folksy style that brings the heat to Republicans, articulates what matters to Democrats and corks off on GOP...
Jules Boykoff and Dave Zirin: The Olympics promise to be socially responsible. How’s that working out?
Olympic host cities make promises that are all but impossible to keep, and in recent years, the organizers’ wishful thinking about housing and neighborhood redevelopment has been one of the cruelest Olympic disappointments. As the 2024 Paris Games commence, we are seeing it all over again — displacement, gentrification and...
Counterpoint: Bad policies, not gender, will cost Kamala Harris the presidency
Now that Vice President Kamala Harris is heir-apparent for the Democratic presidential nomination (chosen by party elites without a democratic process from her party’s voters), the next step we’ll see from the left is whipping out the women’s card. We’ve seen this in numerous other races, including with former presidential...
Charles Mitchell: Shapiro failed on school choice — again. There’s hope despite him
The state budget is finally done, but Pennsylvania families should be angry. That’s the most important takeaway from the budget that Gov. Josh Shapiro and state lawmakers passed this month. Last year, Shapiro failed our most vulnerable kids by vetoing his promise to enact Lifeline Scholarships, which would have saved...
Rev. Erik Hoeke: Climate action is a moral imperative
Climate change is one of many significant moral challenges we face today as a nation, requiring a committed response. The social principles of my own faith tradition, the United Methodist Church, express moral imperatives to address climate change, protect the most vulnerable in society and promote human health. Humans have...
Solomon D. Stevens: When our politics turns apocalyptic, we all lose
The assassination attempt on Donald Trump was terrible and a stain on our republic. In our government, “we the people” are responsible for choosing our leaders. No individual has the right to take that away. But, as wrong as the assassination attempt was (and it was wrong), it is essential...
Jeff Coleman: Trust elections and good neighbors
It was 1986 when a presidential election first captured my imagination — the contest between incumbent Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos and challenger Corazon Aquino. As an 11-year-old American living in the Philippines, for me it was the ultimate master class in democracy. Marcos risked his dictatorship by declaring a snap...
