Breaking News

Other Commentaries

America does not need a king

The Founding Fathers, the people who wrote our Constitution, were very concerned about who was to have power in their new country. They had lived under a king whose word was absolute, and they didn’t want to create another monarchy in the United States of America. Over the past hundred years, there haven’t been many all-powerful kings in the world, but there have been many governments run by just one man. Italy under Mussolini, Germany under Hitler, Libya under Gadaffi, Russia under Putin — countries run by one person, who has been able to pretty much impose his will upon ...

Republicans are keeping their promises about school choice

Republicans in Washington are on the verge of keeping a historic promise to America’s families. In the “one big, beautiful bill” that the House of Representatives just passed, Republicans included an unprecedented school choice program based on a successful initiative in my home state of Pennsylvania. This transformative measure would help children nationwide get the best education for them. Republicans have made school choice a mainstay of their platform for years, and last year, President Donald Trump said at a rally in Pennsylvania that he would support “universal school ...

Public media is under attack

Imagine turning on your TV or radio and finding silence where “Sesame Street,” local news, and emergency alerts used to be. No more “Our Town” stories celebrating your neighbors in Lycoming County. No more trusted voices guiding your children through their earliest years. No more WPSU. That’s the future we could face if Congress approves the rescission package recently submitted by the White House. Among its sweeping cuts is the elimination of critical funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — the lifeblood of local stations like WPSU. This funding represents ...

We cannot negotiate with terrorists

As negotiations continue over the release of hostages held by the terrorist organization Hamas in Gaza, and calls grow louder for an end to the war between Israel and Hamas, many are now asking: “Who the hell is Hamas anyway?” Hamas is willing to make this deal or that deal. They will not release the hostages or end the war unless the war is permanently over, unless Hamas survives to fight another day, and unless Israel leaves the Gaza Strip so the terrorists can once again assert their domination and control. In other words, some hostages, presumably not all of them, go free if ...

Opioid epidemic takes enormous toll

It isn’t an exaggeration to say Pennsylvania’s opioid and fentanyl epidemic is the public health challenge of our time. Across our commonwealth and America, opioid use disorder (OUD) continues to be a crisis that requires our constant attention. Overdose deaths inflict a toll on families, workplaces, communities and state economies. Fortunately, there is some good news to report: We are making progress. Nationally, 224 Americans died every day from an overdose in 2022. Two years later, that number fell to 150. But it doesn’t erase the horrifying reality that OUD continues to be ...

Unwinding conservatorship risks another economic crisis

The movie “The Big Short” -- dramatizing the reckless behavior in the banking and mortgage industries that contributed to the 2008 financial crisis -- captures much of Wall Street’s misconduct but overlooks a central player in the collapse: the federal government, specifically through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These two government-created and government-sponsored enterprises encouraged lenders to issue risky home loans by effectively making taxpayers cosign the mortgages. This setup incentivized dangerous lending practices that inflated the housing bubble, eventually leading to ...