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Celebrity roasts are about as funny as smallpox

Editorials

There was a time when celebrity roasts were built on the tiniest shred of wit, driven not by a desire to be as offensive as possible but to poke fun at uncomfortable truths packaged in genuine humor and delivered with enough intelligence to make even the roastee laugh. But today’s generation of roasts — now hosted by Netflix for ungodly amounts of money — are about as far from comedy as they could possibly be. No, they’re just algorithmic outrage factories, populated by attention whores. The latest example of this pattern was Netflix’s roast of Kevin Hart, who is clearly ...

Better choices needed to end poverty

Editorials

The left’s compassion has inflicted a terrible price on America’s poor. In 1964, former President Lyndon Johnson declared an “unconditional war on poverty.” He warned it “will not be a short or easy struggle,” but that “the richest Nation on earth can afford to win it.” He was right that it wouldn’t be a short or easy struggle. Johnson and Congress created a host of programs, including the Job Corps, Head Start and the Office of Economic Opportunity. His “Great Society” programs included Medicare and Medicaid. In 1965, he signed a housing bill with rent ...

Caps off to the Valley’s Class of 2026

Editorials

About 3,500 high school seniors in the Mahoning Valley will walk proudly across stages over the next month to collect their reward for years of dutiful attendance, responsible conduct and academic growth. The processionals actually began two weeks ago when members of the first high school commencement program for the Class of 2026 in the region — Youngstown Rayen Early College High School — ushered in the season of pomp and circumstance at Stambaugh Auditorium. There, those top-notch high-achieving students who attend high school and college simultaneously received their diplomas, ...

Ohio needs renewal of tariff

Editorials

As the U.S. Senate race between Jon Husted and Sherrod Brown intensifies, economic concerns are taking center stage. Voters are understandably focused on jobs, growth and the future of American industry. This makes it all the more urgent to elect leaders who understand the vital role of U.S. manufacturing, particularly as unfairly traded imports threaten to dismantle critical industries like mine, putting thousands of Ohioan manufacturing jobs at risk. As president of manufacturing at Pennex in Leetonia, I regularly walk the floor and meet with our great American workers, who are the ...

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s campaign against Supreme Court

Editorials

The call is coming from inside the house. The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais has made progressives even more determined to delegitimize the Supreme Court, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson is among them. In a dissent involving a post-decision procedural question, Jackson accused the majority of acting out of pure partisanship. Her opinion said that the court “unshackles itself” from all constraint and “dives into the fray” (meaning the partisan fray). In its jurisprudence, “principles give way to power.” It is acting with an “abandon” that is ...

Editorials

State lawmakers are not always in touch with what ordinary Ohio families are facing, but a bipartisan group of them is trying to make headway on an issue that touches many. According to a report by the Statehouse News Bureau, more than 75% of Buckeye State workers do not have access to paid leave to deal with medical emergencies, elderly or ill family members or even newborn babies. There are two efforts to change that. First is state Senate Bill 396, to “establish family and medical leave insurance benefits” by creating a program administered by the Ohio Department of Job and ...