OP-ED: Trump’s wall is bulldozing the borderlands

Wildlife, ecosystems and sacred indigenous lands are being destroyed, not for security, but to appease Trump’s vanity and pad the swollen pocketbooks of a few wealthy corporations.

by Dan Millis  | 6 days ago

OP-ED: Buttigieg wants to be the Goldilocks candidate. It just might work

Pete Buttigieg has cast himself as the Goldilocks candidate: younger and more progressive than Joe Biden or Amy Klobuchar, but more moderate and less combative than Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.

OP-ED: Pelosi brought ‘Jerry Maguire,’ ‘Thelma and Louise’ and all our favorite rule-breakers to lif

Pelosi shredding that speech spoke to something both timeless and timely — our need to draw a line and refuse to normalize the chaos around us, even when we feel powerless to contain it.

OP-ED: Can our politics possibly get any uglier? Of course they can

The challenge for Trump’s critics and political opponents is not to get beat on the stage the president has chosen. Because we’re going to be stuck there for a while.

OP-ED: Impeachment loses its constitutional gravity in Trump case

Long before anyone split an atom, the founders created the political equivalent of a nuclear weapon, with the fate of the nation in the balance. This time, it just didn’t feel like it.

OP-ED: As Trump’s impeachment trial ends, a thank-you to Rep. Adam Schiff

How this trial is remembered by future generations isn’t known yet, but it’s a safe bet that when it’s recorded for posterity some of Adam Schiff’s remarks will be highlighted in the official record.

OP-ED: Trump’s State of the Union was a campaign speech

But even if a snarl seemed to lurk under the calls for national unity, Trump offered a message designed to appeal to the sort of Democrats who defected to his cause in 2016.

OP-ED: Iowa’s Democratic Party picked the worst possible time for an epic fail

Yes, the Iowa caucuses were a Democratic Party event and not a state-run election, but to not have results available because of an apparent technical problem invites even further skepticism from a public already concerned about election security and reliability.

OP-ED: The 15th Amendment and the black vote, or the lack thereof

As the youngest of my parents’ four children by more than a decade, I spent a great deal of my time as a child with “old folks” — my parents, my grandmothers and older babysitters who became my adoptive “Big Mamas” and “Ma Dears.”

OP-ED: House advances landmark bills to combat human trafficking

Since 2007, more than 1,200 human trafficking cases have been reported in the Commonwealth.

OP-ED: Just how dark a day was Jan. 31, after all?

How bad was it, really? Was it the day the sky began to fall? Will we someday associate Jan. 31, 2020 with dates like Dec. 7, 1941 or Sept. 11, 2001?

OP-ED: Want a revolution? It’s easy: Vote

Estimates vary, but data from the U.S. Census Bureau and research from the Sentencing Project indicate that 60.4 million eligible Americans haven’t bothered to register to vote.

OP-ED: Yes, we have to talk about the Kobe Bryant rape case

Felicia Sonmez, a national political reporter for the Washington Post, was vilified online for tweeting about the rape case against Kobe Bryant. Subsequently, she was placed on administrative duty by the newspaper (which has released a statement saying Sonmez is under investigation for possibly viol

OP-ED: Trump’s conservative overhaul of Medicaid is a loser all around

American voters consistently name health care as one of the issues they care about most heading into the presidential election. That’s bad news for President Donald Trump, who gets bad marks on health issues after his party’s attempt to gut the Affordable Care Act failed and backfired. Instead of ch

OP-ED: ‘Doomsday Clock’ keeps winding down

We are now ticking off humanity’s remaining time to avert apocalyptic conflagrations in seconds, not minutes.

OP-ED: Birth control should be available over the counter. How Congress can make that happen

Congress should revoke the Food and Drug Administration’s power to require women to obtain prescriptions to purchase hormonal contraceptives, a change that would reduce the price of birth control pills and finally allow consumers to buy them over the counter.

OP-ED: Bolton rolls a hand grenade into Trump’s impeachment trial

John Bolton’s appearance at the impeachment trial would be a spectacle unseen since Watergate: a former senior White House official testifying under oath against the president for whom he worked.

OP-ED: Election must focus on voter needs and future

One of the few things most voters agree on is that political campaigns too commonly devolve into personality feuds rather than substantive, issue-driven debates. That’s unfortunate, because most voters have concrete needs and issues propelling their votes in 2020.

OP-ED: Census is crucial, but many people may go uncounted

The 2020 census is an opportunity for immigrants and all marginalized groups to be counted. An accurate count can further justify demands for political, health care, public health, education and systemic changes.

OP-ED: Republicans wanted to impeach Trump from the start

In more courageous days, Republicans started this impeachment. Too bad they won’t see it through.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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: 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.