If electric vehicles (EVs) are as fantastic as claimed, why do they need so many government handouts? Proponents of EVs are increasingly using the “I Word” — inevitability. They say EVs make too much sense for consumers, not to mention the planet, for it to be any other way. They ...
As government officials discuss the affordability of broadband, some regulators are helping contribute to the problem by implementing sky-high pole attachment fees, the cost of which tend to be passed onto the end consumer. What are pole attachment fees? When an internet provider wants to ...
In a sense, it often seems sad or unfortunate when particular tributes to people are given after they’ve passed away. Isn’t it better to offer such tributes while people can enjoy them during their earthly lives? Maybe that’s part of what one local organization has in mind when it ...
As you drive over the Washington Street Bridge these days, you no longer see the big crane that was visible for much of the summer and fall. It was being used to assist in the repairs which now seem to be completed at the Warner Dam — though there is still construction fencing around the ...
Albany at the moment may best be described by a few lines from All The President’s Men, “It leads everywhere. Get out your notebook. There’s more.” In fact, there was a lot more at the State Capitol last Thursday night when reporters from the New York Post dropped a bombshell scoop ...
Every year, Medicaid loses more money to waste and fraud than the GDP of a small country. That’s among the takeaways from a new report from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The healthcare program for the poor made more than $86 billion in “improper payments” this ...
Inside President Biden’s expansive and expensive plan to combat COVID-19 are a few hundred billion dollars to increase vaccination. Despite the scientific triumph of developing, authorizing, and manufacturing millions of doses of two new vaccines for a new disease in under one year, the ...
Four times in recent decades, Congress has at least started down the presidential-impeachment path. For some, each episode has been at least substantially, if not primarily, about politics - sometimes partisan politics - not law. For example, after President Trump’s 2021 acquittal, U.S. ...
I’m all for skepticism but I have to take exception with a letter, Solar Makes No Sense, But It Makes Money, published on February 9 as it was filled with misinformation. An open discussion of the human response to climate change that examines the pros and cons of the various approaches for ...
It was cold this week, and it reminded me of the poem by Robert Service about the prospector in the Yukon who “hated the cold, but the land of gold seemed to hold him like a spell.” It is true that I don’t like the cold anymore. Yet, I am also gripped like a “spell” when it ...
Abraham Lincoln was born 212 years ago this week, on February 12, 1809, and it is tempting in these divided times to wonder what he would think about events now taking place in Washington, DC and its effects on national unity, a subject always on Old Abe’s mind. Lincoln no doubt would have ...
The inauguration is complete. Power has transferred. We are on to the next chapter of American political history. But as Republicans, are we? Do we have a way forward? If elections are the scores by which politics are measured, the last four years have been an unmitigated disaster. We lost the ...
The U.S. House of Representatives’ impeachment of President Trump one week before he left office was flawed. The House, for example, afforded the president no hearing. In the words of constitutional law, the House didn’t provide “notice and opportunity to be heard.” However, for ...
By Denny Bonavita The more things change, the more they stay the same. Thirty years ago, when I first came to work at the Courier-Express in DuBois, I suggested in a column that the country would be better off if state and national governments required sellers of soft drinks that came in ...
By Marshall Greenstein The first article we met May and Sol. Both are in their 60’s and came to the appointment concerned for their foster son, Andre, age 12. I requested the parent’s presence without Andre in order to obtain some history. Due to the Covid-19 virus, they formally ...
COVID kills us. We know that. Knowing is one thing. Having it brought home is something else altogether. COVID came home to me last Monday at the DuBois Christian and Missionary Alliance Church’s hall just south of DuBois’ city limits. Penn Highlands DuBois hospital sponsored a COVID ...
An unprecedented time. That’s what they keep calling this season we are in. Frankly, I’d like to see some precedented times. I’d be happy if I never heard the phrase “unprecedented times” again. I’d like to have some hum-drum, boring, completely normal times. I’m sure you all ...
Last Saturday morning, just before 7 a.m., I drove into the parking lot at Hogan’s Hut. I could hardly find a place to park. There were wall-to-wall pick-up trucks everywhere, including four filling up at the fuel pumps. Inside it was “mask-heaven” with a line properly distanced in ...
The discussions of climate change are shifting from denial to what to do about it. The National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration reports that there were 22 natural disasters each costing more than $1 billion in 2020. Costing the US in total $95 billion and taking 262 lives. Climate ...
When people drive down a beautiful street or walk into a gorgeous new building the last thing most think about is code enforcement. That’s likely because a lot of us have no idea what code enforcement entails or how it makes our lives better. If it weren’t for code enforcement officers ...