All Writings

Pennsylvania’s mobility laws are built around outdated categories that cannot keep pace with rapidly changing technology. Rather than regulating devices by labels, wheel count, or propulsion type, the state should focus on the risks that matter: vehicle mass, speed, and operating capability. A modern framework should apply across e-bikes, scooters, emerging devices, and cars regulating the risk, not the label.

Allegheny County’s pension crisis was created by years of underfunding and budget choices that favored visible spending over structural obligations. County Council should require every proposed budget to disclose the full actuarial need and present a pension-first baseline before discretionary spending is considered.

Allegheny County’s pension crisis, America’s deteriorating infrastructure, and the push for broad property-tax cuts are symptoms of the same failure: we want the benefits of a functioning society without paying the full cost. Earlier generations built through collective investment. We are now consuming that inheritance. The result is not real savings, but decline, and middle- and lower-income families will bear the greatest cost.

“We the People” is not merely a declaration of who governs. It is a statement of who is responsible. Democracy depends on citizens willing to speak, listen, organize, persuade, serve, and return after defeat. Liberty cannot be preserved by laws and institutions alone; it must live in the habits of a people who refuse to become spectators.

America at 250 does not need another branded performance. It needs citizens who refuse to give up on the country simply because its politics have become ugly. It needs leaders who understand that public service is not self-promotion. It needs communities willing to rebuild trust from the ground up. It needs people who can tell the truth about our failures without losing sight of the promise that has pulled generation after generation forward.

AI is not the end of work, creativity, or human responsibility. It is the next disruptive technology humans must learn to govern, adapt to, and use well. The real challenge is not whether AI will replace us, but whether our institutions have the capacity, judgment, and courage to shape it responsibly.

Pittsburgh should enjoy the Draft, but taxpayers should not be asked to subsidize professional sports facilities. Stadiums are not economic development, and they do not create long-term regional resilience. If the public owns these assets, lease revenue should fully cover operations, maintenance, and capital needs. If that cannot happen, private owners, investors, sponsors, or philanthropies, not taxpayers, should close the gap.

The future of Western Pennsylvania will not be secured by pretending that every inherited structure is still well-matched to present reality. Nor will it be secured by stripping communities of their voice and identity. It will be secured by making a more mature distinction: local democracy should remain close to the people, but the operating systems underneath modern life must often become more coherent, more durable, and more intelligently shared.

Trump may declare victory in Iran. The harder question is what America actually won. If the result is a more unstable Gulf, a more resilient Iranian regime, and a weaker sense of U.S. strategic credibility, then this was not a demonstration of strength. It was spectacle mistaken for strategy.

Donald Trump wants Americans to believe that strength is measured in decibels. Raise the threat level. Escalate the rhetoric. Humiliate an ally. Drop a bomb. Declare victory. Move on. That is not statecraft or leadership. That is performance dressed up as power.