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The most important 42 miles in American politics

BUTLER -- The drive between Butler, Pennsylvania, and the Ohio village of East Palestine is less than 42 miles long. In between are the villages and boroughs of Lyndora, Connoquenessing and Evans City on the Pennsylvania side before you cross the state line directly into the village of East Palestine. It is a stretch of geography that includes bucolic rolling pastures, the gentle slopes of the Appalachian Mountains, traces of what once was powerful Steel Valley between New Castle, Pennsylvania, and Youngstown, Ohio, and a mix of decay of what once was and a rebuilding of what may ...

The party of ‘falling in line’

It’s said that Democrats fall in love while Republicans fall in line. Look at what’s been happening on the Republican front. One word from Donald Trump and anyone who wants to remain in Republican politics snaps to attention and says, “Yes, sir!” Take Nikki Haley for example, a woman who was arguably the most likely of any female Republican to take a leading role. She was a successful governor of South Carolina and the former UN Ambassador from Trump’s administration. Her campaign for president in 2024 did better than most predicted and she had what appeared to be a very ...

Education needs more choices

Gov. Josh Shapiro and his administration chide the Pennsylvania legislature for hoarding cash with spending sights aimed at draining the commonwealth’s $7 billion Rainy Day Fund. However, Harrisburg’s budget “two-step” tends to forget others sitting on large reserves. Pennsylvania school districts continue to stockpile massive reserves while lobbying for more tax dollars. Recent data from the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) shows district reserve funds reached an all-time high of $6.8 billion in 2022–23, up $836 million from the previous year. PDE also reported ...

America came a half of an inch away from civil crisis

Had former President Donald Trump tilted his head the other way, the bullet that clipped his ear would have killed him. America was half an inch away from a major civil crisis. We don’t yet know the full details of this assassination attempt, but it is clear that Donald J. Trump has been demonized by his opponents for years. Of course, in politics, you sometimes say negative things about your opponents. But the rhetoric aimed at Trump has often gone far beyond normal political back-and-forth. Trump’s opponents have set out to delegitimize him. After losing to Trump in 2016, ...

Democracy, capitalism and the future

Democracy and capitalism in America - can they both survive in the direction we are headed? First of all, is it really about the ideologies of the left and right? If it is, we are lost. Most on both sides believe in capitalism in some form, but our hot button issues are many times societal, not monetary, but when elections come along…the biggest election issue is usually the “Economy, Stupid.” Most of us would also agree that we have not found a good replacement for some form of capitalism. We acknowledge that it is certainly not perfect. So… we continue to watch and listen to ...

Susceptible to something of a summer surge

I thought it was the same bad cold that others had–nasal congestion, sore throat, fatigue, and mild stomach upset. By the next day, I had tested positive for COVID-19, which roiled into slight fevers and a nagging headache. Catching COVID-19 came about despite my being fully up-to-date with vaccinations and even having gotten a Moderna Spikevax re-immunization as recently as the preceding month. It came despite donning an N95 mask at the time one of the people in my circle had become visibly symptomatic. My case turned out to be mild due to built-up immunity and taking prescription ...