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The virus at the core of our politics

Donald Trump is a cock of the walk with authoritarian tendencies.As I watched the presidentĢƵ State of the Union performance — and it was a performance, equal parts Oprah, Ellen, Jerry Springer, The Price Is Right, and going way, way back, Queen For A Day — I was struck by the ...

Getting the pros back into politics

As Democrats slip-slide their way through a plethora of men and women who would be president — the actual selection process starts tomorrow in Iowa - and as Donald Trump wiggles his way out of impeachment — and in the process trashes the Constitution — it might be worthwhile to consider ...

Squabbling Dems cross line at peril

Many years ago, in the middle of a spat over a presidential nomination, former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt leaned in from the sidelines.The wife of Franklin D. Roosevelt said she found watching the back-and-forth between the candidates “a little painful” inasmuch as “men in the heat of ...

Winless Fillies at top of league

If you’re not a fan, you probably aren’t aware that this yearĢƵ girls basketball team at Laurel Highlands has been on the receiving end of quite a few lopsided defeats.There have been games - too many to count - in which the Fillies have scored in single digits.In what was the worst ...

Flash: The coke king is (still) dead

It would be remiss of me, while on the topic of the Connellsville Coke Region, to fail to mention the centennial of the death of Henry Clay Frick.Frick, a native West Overton, was a little shy of 70 when he died at his palatial Fifth Avenue home in New York City.Having amassed one of the ...

In the land of coke: Three takeaways

In the land of coal and coke, the H.C. Frick Company reigned supreme, which is not to say the company had the entire Connellsville Coke Region, stretching from Latrobe to Fairchance, to itself.There was, for instance, the Oliver and Snyder Steel Company, which operated, early in the 20th ...