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Remember who builds U.S., what fuels their work

Labor Day is a celebration of the people who build America. They are the workers who wake before dawn, put on a hard hat and steel-toed boots, and head to a job site. They build the roads we drive on, the buildings where we work, the power plants that keep the lights on and the pipelines that deliver the energy that makes modern life possible. But workers need something to build. Right now, America has a tremendous opportunity to put both its resources and its workers to work. After years of delays and uncertainty surrounding critical infrastructure, the country is confronting ...

Rounding Third

I need a tissue just thinking about it. Sniff, sniff. It wasn’t until I realized that Labor Day is THIS WEEKEND that it hit me. Summer is almost over. How did that happen? Wasn’t it the first of August just last week? With the sun setting earlier, suddenly the evenings have became ...

State must update Charitable Gaming Law

The Veterans of Foreign Wars Department of Pennsylvania, with a membership of nearly 60,000 combat veterans encompassing more than 400 posts in the Commonwealth, is a vibrant and vital member of our local communities. We provide safe havens for our Veteran population -- venues for active-duty, honorably discharged, and retired military personnel to congregate, socialize, and bond -- while also assisting our veterans with accessing critical support in the local communities and vital federal benefits. Beyond supporting our combat veterans, individual VFW Posts across Pennsylvania also ...

Nicknames I have known

Marcy is not my real name. I’ve been Marcy for 67 years and I have no plans for going back to the original. My parents gave me the name Marcia, (pronounced like Marsha) which was a perfectly nice name – until I was in my mid-teens. In 1951 Stan Freberg made a record entitled ...

District 65 race all about representation

There is an election coming in November that I believe deserves more attention than it is getting. U.S. Rep. Kathy Rapp has represented Pennsylvania's 65th Legislative District for many years, and Destiny Howard is challenging her for the seat. District 65 isn't some distant political district on a map. It is Warren County, Forest County and part of Crawford County. The person we elect will go to Harrisburg and make decisions that affect our hospitals, our families, our communities and our individual freedoms. That is why I have been looking more closely at the differences between ...

Hidden inflation drives up state costs

When most people think about inflation, they think about groceries, gasoline, housing, or electricity. But another form of inflation is quietly making Pennsylvania more expensive, and most people have never heard of it. It does not happen at the grocery store. It happens in the courtroom. A major new academic study by researchers from Georgia State University and Brighthouse Financial has confirmed that lawsuit costs are increasing faster than normal inflation and that the biggest reason is rapidly growing jury verdicts. The researchers analyzed more than 74,000 jury verdicts and ...