Opinion

Dear Annie: I have been widowed for 1 1/2 years. I have well-meaning neighbors who want to include me in many social activities dinners out, movies, parties and meals at their homes.

The U.S. government this week released the list of the 10 medications that will be the first to be the subject of the new price negotiations under the Medicare reform bill, and my arthritis drug, Enbrel, made the list. To make the cut, you either had to be taken by millions of people, like Eliquis, or cost a fortune. Enbrel costs a fortune.

To the gun enthusiasts out there, only 5% of mass shooters have severe mental health issues. So that means, there are 95% other reasons why people decide to shoot others.

Pauline Kael knew she wasn’t a representative American. The onetime New Yorker film critic is famous in folk memory for having said she didn’t know anyone who voted for Richard Nixon in 1972, when he won a 49-state landslide.

Dear Annie: I’m 40 years old and tired of having my siblings always telling me what to do. This has come up recently because my mother has to move out of her home. I’ve lived with her in the past, and she treated me horribly. Now my siblings expect me to get up and help her move and pack her stuff. I’m not a child anymore.

Associated Press reporters were blunt about their latest poll: “Americans actually agree on something in this time of raw discord: Joe Biden is too old to be an effective president in a second term.”

With March 4, 2024, set for Donald Trump’s trial on federal charges related to his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, one might think that members of Congress, like other Americans, would sit back and let the judicial process proceed. But some House Republicans have a different idea: defunding the special counsel who is prosecuting the former president.

“These rich men north of Richmond, Lord knows they just wanna have total control.” So goes the refrain of singer and songwriter Oliver Anthony’s suddenly famous song. “Wanna know what you think, wanna know what you do, and they don’t think you know, but I know that you do.”

Dear Annie: Can you please offer me some advice about my sister? I am in my 60s and have dealt with her and her drama for more than 50 years. I am about ready to stop for good.

This November, Pennsylvanians will elect a new judge to the state’s Supreme Court. The contest is shaping up as another donnybrook pitting pro-life and prochoice forces against one another. It doesn’t require a Ph.D. in political science to guess how this one is going to turn out. Pro-choicers have won every single ballot contest since the Supreme Court handed down Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June of 2022.