OP-ED: Democrats get better at making their impeachment case

With few exceptions, Democrats followed a just-the-facts, this-is-serious-business strategy, showing their intention to speak to those beyond their strongest supporters.

by Jonathan Bernstein  | 5 days ago

OP-ED: House articles of impeachment could be history’s takeaway on Trump

The articles’ content, the exact way they focus the effort to hold Trump accountable, could possibly sway the eventual verdict, as senators ponder individually the moral choice between party loyalty and the rule of law.

by James Reston Jr.  | 6 days ago

OP-ED: U.S. needs to cure the health-care cost disease

Why is it so hard to agree on a health-care plan? One obvious possibility: Reform plans feel as intolerable as the status quo while lacking the promise of lowering costs.

OP-ED: The Supreme Court is thinking about giving police a new excuse to pull you over

Last week the justices heard arguments in a case that could make it even easier for the police to stop — and potentially search — a car. Ominously, the majority seemed likely to give police an additional benefit of the doubt.

OP-ED: Words mattered in Kentucky campaign. Words will matter in the days ahead

Attorney General Andy Beshear appeared to win the Kentucky governor’s office Tuesday by about 5,100 votes in unofficial totals, but Gov. Matt Bevin refused to concede, citing numerous irregularities without providing any examples.

OP-ED: This boomer is OK with ‘OK boomer’

I’m tempted to dismiss OK, boomer but the term has become ubiquitous while I was taking yet another of those naps I love/need so much.

OP-ED: Gun control may be the big winner in Virginia’s elections

Much of the focus on results from Tuesday’s off-year elections has been on whether they might be proxies for the 2020 prospects of President Donald Trump and many of his fellow Republicans. But in Virginia, the bigger takeaway might involve a potentially seismic shift in gun policy.

OP-ED: Bipartisan hope emerging on climate change

As impeachment proceedings ratchet up the partisan tension in Washington, there’s still hope that progress can be made on the pressing problems of the day. It appears Republicans and Democrats are coming together on one issue that seemed intractable not long ago: climate change.

OP-ED: The reality of everyday racism

It’s hard not to be reminded, on a daily basis, that racism in America is alive and well. One recent instance to make the news took place on Oct. 26 at a Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant near Chicago.

OP-ED: Why we shouldn’t let deficits drive up our taxes

There’s a good reason that most political debates are so frustrating: They often present us with false choices.

OP-ED: One year until the most important election in U.S. history

Given the president’s performance during his first term and his opportunities to cement and then expand those changes in another four years, it’s not an exaggeration to say that the 2020 election is the most important one in our nation’s history.

OP-ED: Warren’s health care plan will cost more than she says

Elizabeth Warren claims she can pay for her 10-year, $52 trillion health care plan without increasing taxes on the middle class. But both she and her critics are approaching the question wrong.

OP-ED: ‘We play loud’? Oh, please don’t

Permanent and cumulative hearing damage begins at around 85 decibels. In short, if you are spending much time at modern ballparks, your long-term ability to hear is taking a beating.

OP-ED: The NCAA solved one problem — and maybe more

The NCAA recently announced it will allow college athletes to profit from their names, images, and likenesses beginning January 2021. The landmark decision is long overdue. The question on everyone’s mind is, “What happens now?”

OP-ED: Trump and friends revive loyalty attacks

In Donald Trump’s America, it seems that anyone who speaks against the president, even if they are speaking for their country, will be accused of treachery. These attacks, reminiscent of others waged in our nation’s past, reveal how little today’s conservative commentators understand patriotic devot

OP-ED: With the impeachment vote official, the heat shifts from Schiff back to Trump

An anonymous whistleblower’s complaint about President Trump’s July 25 phone call with new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy teed up two questions for lawmakers in September: What exactly did Trump do, and how bad was it?

OP-ED: Why I still love Facebook

Unlike many folks I know, I’m staying on Facebook despite the fact that Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg is making choices I wouldn’t make.

OP-ED: Dems take away favorite Trump talking point

President Trump and Republicans in Congress have railed against House Democrats for pursuing an impeachment inquiry without a vote on the floor to authorize the probe.

OP-ED: Trump takes his insults to a new low

The commander in chief of America’s armed forces took to Twitter on Tuesday morning to shred the reputation of one of his own soldiers — Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, an Army officer with more than 20 years of service, including a tour in Iraq in which he was wounded and awarded a Purple Heart.

OP-ED: Hold prescription drug ‘middlemen’ accountable

Pennsylvania’s Medicaid program is paying significantly more than it should for prescription drugs, due to the growing influence of pharmacy benefit managers.

OP-ED: Honoring our Pennsylvania’s heroes

Throughout Pennsylvania and the United States, our veterans are unfortunately not having their housing needs met, and our fire and ambulance agencies are falling behind with fewer volunteers and evolving challenges.

OP-ED: Is this the end of Trump?

The times call for us to sprinkle impeachment references in our conversations. Let’s assume the era of “fake news” is over (although nobody told Donald Trump), so we need to make sure little impeachment bon mots we distribute like after-dinner mints are accurate.

OP-ED: Human ‘hand grenade’ Giuliani wants Biden’s work in Ukraine investigated. What about his own?

John Bolton’s most accurate threat assessment when he was President Trump’s national security adviser may have been his description of former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani as a “hand grenade who is going to blow everybody up.”

OP-ED: President Trump wants you to get your flu shot

Influenza — the flu — is more than a bad cold. Seasonal outbreaks mean not only misery but increased hospital admissions and deaths. The last flu season, from October 2018 until May 2019, caused up to 42.9 million illnesses, up to 647,000 hospitalizations and up to 61,200 deaths, according to prelim

OP-ED: Warren’s pregnancy discrimination story isn’t exactly hard to believe

Half a century removed, it may be hard to imagine, but back in the early 1970s, employers openly and regularly hustled women out the door when loose clothing could no longer conceal their expanding bellies.

OP-ED: We’re one step closer to seeing Trump’s financial records. That’s a win for oversight

There’s plenty of politics involved here, of course. But park your opinions about Trump and his antagonists for a moment to consider the fundamental questions the president’s lawyers are raising about power in Washington.

OP-ED: Reclaiming the center in Pennsylvania politics

It is an understatement to say that Pennsylvania has lagged behind other states in good government reforms. But that may be about to change, as legislators in Harrisburg are working with citizen reform groups across the state to craft meaningful legislation that has the potential to move Pennsylvani

OP-ED: Will the judiciary bow to Trump?

As the House conducts an impeachment inquiry into the president’s actions, it will rely on the judiciary to enforce subpoenas. Analysts have suggested that courts will likely to fast-track these requests now that impeachment is on the table. I wish I were more confident that would be the case.

OP-ED: Demand more from transportation bill

Americans now face the impacts of climate change in our everyday lives. Flooding and wildfires endanger us from Miami to Houston to Los Angeles. Rising seas will now inevitably impact our coasts, while rising temperatures threaten the habitability of cities nationwide.

OP-ED: Trump builds stonewall as support for impeachment grows

There are several ways to interpret the White House decision to bar Gordon Sondland, U.S. ambassador to the European Union, from testifying before a joint session of three congressional committees Tuesday morning. But the simplest explanation is the most likely one: The president is, once again, see

OP-ED: How Erdogan backed Trump into a corner on Syria

The new U.S. posture in northeastern Syria is a response to the obduracy of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, U.S. officials tell me, who was unmoved by the pleading and pressure of U.S. diplomats and generals to forgo a planned invasion.

OP-ED: Grandparents raising grandchildren need help

All across Pennsylvania, grandparents are stepping up to provide care for their grandchildren as a result of the devastating opioid crisis or other difficult circumstances. In fact, there are currently an estimated 89,000 households statewide where older Pennsylvanians are caring for approximately 1

OP-ED: Shattering suicide stigma through sharing stories

As a special advisor to the secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services, I have the honor of heading up the statewide Suicide Prevention Task Force, along with my dedicated colleagues at the Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services, state Rep. Mike Schlossberg, various st

OP-ED: Education isn’t one-size-fits-all model

On Monday, Sept. 16, Reach Cyber Charter School students, parents, teachers and staff lined up inside the state Capitol rotunda to make our voices heard in regards to Gov. Tom Wolf’s proposal to impose new rules on charter schools.

OP-ED: Schiff’s riff on Trump’s Ukraine call was more truth than parody, but still unwise

The ratcheting up of the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry has pushed President Trump to new extremes of craziness, as my colleague Jon Healey wrote recently. Consider the president’s deranged attack Monday morning on Rep. Adam B. Schiff, unaffectionately known to Trump as “Liddle’ Adam Schiff.”

OP-ED: Economy could be the issue that does in Trump

When the history of the Trump presidency is written, impeachment proceedings may be the least salient fact.

OP-ED: Forget the ‘deep state.’ What Trump hates is the state itself

President Donald Trump’s suggestion last week that the Ukraine whistleblower and his sources were no better than spies, and hinting at treason and the death penalty, has been variously described as despicable, terrible, un-American and reprehensible. I am here to tell you that it was actually worse

OP-ED: History will be cruel to those who enabled Trump’s treachery

There’s been a lot of failure in American politics these last four years, but has there been any more miserable and embarrassing than the alleged and, we now know, probably mythical “Resistance Inside the Trump Administration”?

OP-ED: After 45 years, another 18-minute gap

The “transcript” of the Trump-Zelenskiy phone call of July 25 raises an interesting question: Where’s the rest of it?

OP-ED: Is there anything America’s powerful can’t get away with?

A lot of stuff had to happen before Donald Trump could stand in front of Iowa voters on a chilly yet somehow more innocent day back in January 2016 and make his famous declaration that “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn’t lose any voters, OK … ”