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Keystone XL construction long overdue

The decade-long fight over Keystone XL, a 1,179-mile underground oil pipeline that would carry crude from Canada to Nebraska, just took another surprising turn. In June, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction and allowed the long-delayed construction project to move forward. But environmentalists quickly threw up new frivolous roadblocks. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had previously approved the project — but lawyers from the Sierra Club and allied groups petitioned a federal judge to rescind those approvals, alleging that the Corps failed to conduct adequate ...

Trump: Vote me, or else

During a December 2015 debate among Republican presidential candidates in Las Vegas, former Florida governor Jeb Bush said to Donald Trump: “You can’t insult your way to the presidency.” Never mind. The question for next year’s election is whether the insulter-in-chief can use the same tactic to win a second term. It depends on two other questions: who the Democrats end up nominating and whether voters see that person as too far left (as the leading candidates unarguably are) and two, whether enough voters who held their noses and voted for Trump last time will be sufficiently ...

Warning signs for Republicans

President Donald Trump has backed off tariffs on toys made in China. His commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, said the administration did not want to hurt Christmas. This is an admission against interest that the trade war with China is hurting the American people. Lately, the yield curve inverted. Normally, the yields, or interest rate, on long-term bonds are better than the short-term bond yields. The government is now having to pay higher rates on two-year bonds than on 10-year bonds because investors are losing confidence in the short-term economy. This “inverted yield ...

All-out ‘blitz’ marks opening of season

One of the credos of the newspaper industry is to “get through the J months, and then something magical happens in the fall.” Or so Circulation Manager Dan Slep, whose family’s Mirror roots date back to 1874, has long maintained. Vacation season is over, the oppressive heat of August (or in our case, torrential rain), will soon give way to the refreshing chill of the fall air, and the kids (or grandkids) are back in school. With all of that, football season arrives with more than a footnote. We welcome football because it brings with it passionate readership, be it eager to ...

Local pharmacies need protection

I write as president of a cooperative company comprised of independent community pharmacies, typical of the community pharmacies throughout our commonwealth. For more than a century, independent, community pharmacists have served generations of families all across Pennsylvania, providing their patients with the best in pharmacy care. Pharmacists and their staff care deeply for our local communities and take tremendous pride in the service they provide each and every day. Today, we find our pharmacies are under threat due to a variety of factors that require state legislative ...

Ensuring quality care important: Legislature needs to pass House Bill 853

By Dr. Ralph McKibbin There is nothing I enjoy more as a health care provider than seeing a patient make tremendous progress with their health. And as you might imagine, there is nothing more devastating than watching a patient’s health deteriorate when his or her treatment plan is turned upside down. You may not have heard of the term “non-medical switching,” but it’s an insurer-driven practice that puts money before patients and can have detrimental effects for Pennsylvanians. Commercial health insurance companies in Pennsylvania are free to abruptly remove coverage for ...