LETTER: Article mischaracterized Boy Scout background checks

Nothing is more important to the Boy Scouts of America than the safety of children in our programs. Your Jan. 16 Spotlight PA article mischaracterized the New Birth of Freedom Council’s management of adult leader background checks and state-mandated clearances.

by Ronald Gardner  | 3 days ago

VIDEO: Vote Smart — check the facts on politicians

Vote Smart — a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to providing "free, factual, unbiased information on candidates and elected officials to ALL Americans" — offers this video to help you check the facts on nearly 40,000 politicians.

EDITORIAL: Blurring the mission of the National Archives

The National Archives decided it didn't want to offend the president and his supporters, so it changed an image.

by York Dispatch Editorial Board  | 4 days ago

OP-ED: Give new director chance to run elections (it’s not rocket science)

Ignore Jeff Piccola, Joe Gothie and the York County Republican Committee’s call for the firing of Elections Director Steve Ulrich. At this point, Ulrich has done nothing wrong except run a fair and smooth special election (for the 48th Senate seat) and, as a newly hired individual, deserves the chan

by Steve Zorbaugh  | 4 days ago

OP-ED: School meal nutrition rollbacks are far from ‘common sense’

A well-balanced diet high in fruits and vegetables and whole grains helps prevent diseases like obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and many cancers. Children from low-income households are at risk for these diseases in part because of a lack of access to nutritious foods.

by Joanna Buscemi  | 4 days ago

EDITORIAL: Agendas and minutes a must

The Senate should immediately, and unanimously, ratify Bernstine's legislation and send it to Gov. Tom Wolf for his signature.

by The Dispatch Editorial Board  | 5 days ago

LETTER: College education prepares students for workforce and life

The suggestion that a college education is outdated misses the point that college prepares students for life as well as for the workforce.

by Dr. Pamela Gunter-Smith  | 5 days ago

OP-ED: I donated my kidney to a stranger — and more of us should

It may have never crossed your mind that you, too, could donate a kidney to someone who is in desperate need. If you are healthy, the risk is quite minimal. But the benefit to the recipient is tremendous, adding roughly 10 years to that person’s life.

by Sam Trejo  | 5 days ago

OP-ED: Founding Fathers’ hard work is lost on Donald Trump’s impeachment

The procession route laid out in 1868 during President Andrew Johnson’s impeachment gave gravitas to what the nation was about to endure. It remains a solemn rite that demands the full attention of every American.

by Dahleen Glanton  | 6 days ago

OP-ED: Senators aren’t impartial ‘jurors.’ But they shouldn’t be partisan hacks either

Reporters who cover Congress are rightly protesting restrictions on press coverage of President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial.

by Michael McGough  | 6 days ago

EDITORIAL: Nix Pa. GOP plan to ‘gerrymander’ court

From voter suppression to gerrymandered political districts to deep-sixing the U.S. Senate filibuster on Supreme Court nominees, Republicans have made an art of bending, breaking and changing rules that might keep them from power.

by York Dispatch Editorial Board  | 6 days ago

EDITORIAL: Don’t rush to judgment in PSU case

In the hazing lawsuit vs. the Penn State football program, there's cause for some healthy skepticism.

OP-ED: The high cost of the White House’s drug pricing plan

A Trump administration plan might trim the costs of today's medicines, but tomorrow's medicines would never make it to the market, as such a scheme would obliterate our research industry.

OP-ED: Why Trump’s impeachment trial makes Senate Republicans squirm

As long as Republicans maintain institutional political power, and a thriving right-wing propagandaplex, there is little reason to believe the party or its base will make accommodations to reality or the rule of law.

EDITORIAL: MLK Day finds progress stalled

From all-out assaults on voting rights to inequities in education and housing to new spasms of white-nationalist nonsense, the America entering the third decade of the 21st century is not so far removed from that embroiled in the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

OP-ED: Trump says he broke no laws with Ukraine. The GAO just found otherwise

One of the core defenses of President Trump’s behavior toward Ukraine is the “no harm, no foul” argument, and it goes something like this: Regardless of anything he or his minions said or did, Ukraine got its security assistance without having to announce an investigation into Joe Biden.

OP-ED: Martin Luther King Jr.’s fight for health care equity must continue

Perhaps King’s greatest threat was to recognize that, from Chicago to Dallas and to other cities and towns across the land, we are more alike than different. He dared to criticize health inequities embedded in

EDITORIAL: Bad timing for a Warren-Sanders split

The ending of the yearlong truce comes at a bad time.

OP-ED: Cut losses with ‘grossly unqualified’ York County elections director, reopen hiring process

Retaining Steve Ulrich in this role is election malpractice. It is a potential catastrophe in the making. His hiring and retention threaten to do grievous harm to the public’s perception of the integrity of our election this fall and well into the future.

OP-ED: A letter to my ‘son,’ Tommi

My anger rages. Your loss was not your doing or mine, but here we are, the victims of thoughtless reaction and child-like leadership.

EDITORIAL: Banning gambling devices seems wrong

The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court will likely decide the issue, but a ban on newly proliferating gambling devices seems wrongheaded.

OP-ED: It’s hard to live like Marie Kondo when I hate the things that ‘spark joy’ in my spouse

Marie Kondo and her theories of tidying up have introduced some conflict into my marriage. I can’t be the only one. Her idea is simple: First, pick a category, like clothes; next, put all of them into the middle of the room; finally, pick out and keep only the ones that “spark joy.”

OP-ED: Let’s fight preemption of local control

Over the last decade, state legislatures across the country have used preemption to restrict rights, degrade the environment and otherwise strip local communities of the power to control events.

OP-ED: Cory Booker falls victim to the curse of the big field

Some people will no doubt complain about the rapidly dwindling number of minority candidates in The Party That Looks Like America — the only other nonwhites still in the field are Andrew Yang, the son of Taiwanese immigrants, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), who is Samoan American.

EDITORIAL: A lion of the Civil Rights movement

From the earliest days of the Civil Rights movement to the most challenging days of the current administration, Rep. John Lewis has been a prominent and forceful voice on the national stage – for equality, for justice, for fairness and for reason.

OP-ED: On Prohibition’s 100th anniversary, should we expect the same fate for marijuana?

What lessons do the demise of alcohol prohibition provide for modern-day marijuana advocates? The circumstances are not as similar as you might think, and we should not expect a federal marijuana policy reversal in the near future.

OP-ED: Join Women’s March for York

Equality, clean water, clean air, access to livable wages, affordable childcare and health care, women’s rights and other concerns are impeding women, and the communities in which they live, from reaching their full potential, nationwide.

EDITORIAL: How seriously do York County officials take elections?

What, pray tell, were county commissioners looking for in the interview process, anyway?

OP-ED: We can’t afford another war

A war with Iran would cost the United States and the world dearly. Experts say a full-blown conflict could easily kill hundreds of thousands if not millions of people. Other costs are less obvious, but nonetheless devastating.

EDITORIAL: York JCC shows the right level of caution by increasing security

In this era, that easy access can be a liability as anti-Semitic hate crimes rise and threats become actions. And so the JCC is taking action of its own.

OP-ED: 3 easy ways to preserve your serenity during the toxic political year ahead

It’s worse than a waste of time to argue with aggressive, angry people online. Not only does it get you nowhere, but it also risks throwing more kerosene on the raging partisan fires certain to burn hotter than ever in 2020. It can make you part of the problem.

OP-ED: What American voters can learn from Boeing

After Boeing’s board fired its CEO, the company admitted that it can’t assume that pilots typically respond to emergencies in mere seconds. It is a clear admission that it should have gone with new training for pilots when it first introduced its new MAX plane.

EDITORIAL: Revisit and revive ERA

If you thought the Equal Rights Amendment was dead and gone, well, one could hardly blame you. Congress passed the measure in 1972 and the majority of states that ratified it — including, we’re proud to note, Pennsylvania — acted within the next two years.

OP-ED: Iran’s retaliation is more conventional than expected

There is good reason to doubt that Iran’s response will be limited to this attack. Iran has fought its wars through proxies since the 1990s.

OP-ED: Make fiscal policy a priority in 2020

On Jan. 1, Pennsylvanians awoke to not only a new year, but a new decade. Little did they know that on New Year’s Eve the checking account of the commonwealth was overdrawn by $904 million.

GUEST EDITORIAL: Australia burns as the planet bakes

It’s not a mystery why events like these have grown more common and more destructive: Global temperatures have crept upward. Last year is expected to rank as the planet’s second-hottest year on record, after 2016. Last July was the hottest month ever.

OP-ED: Brace for the unintended consequences of killing Soleimani

“The law of unintended consequences is the only real law of history.” So says my good friend, the distinguished historian Niall Ferguson. We are seeing the wisdom of that line playing out in the days since a U.S. drone strike killed Iran’s most important military commander, Qassem Soleimani.

EDITORIAL: Colleges lacking bang for buck

There’s a crisis in higher education. There’s no doubt about that. Each year, fewer students are enrolling in college.

LETTER: Have confidence in future elections, York County’s former board says

The County of York would like to respond to The York Dispatch’s inclusion of the Nov. 5  municipal election as a top story of 2019.

OP-ED: Good riddance to Qassem Soleimani

As leader of the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and puppet-master of militias and terrorist groups across the Middle East, Qassem Soleimani had the blood of hundreds of thousands on his hands