News & Brews May 27, 2025
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How Trump remade America’s political landscape
The New York Times (no friend to conservatives) has a graph-laden story on how voters shifted to Donald Trump over the past three elections—and how the Democrats’ problems with the American electorate “run deep, nearly everywhere.” Of note: “Mr. Trump has increased the Republican Party’s share of the presidential vote in each election he’s been on the ballot in close to half the counties in America…. By contrast, Democrats have steadily expanded their vote share in those three elections in only 57 of the nation’s 3,100-plus counties.”
Trump approves U.S. Steel/Nippon Steel dea
POLITICO reports that on Friday, President Trump said he had approved the much-debated Nippon Steel / U.S. Steel deal. In a statement, U.S. Steel said it “will remain American, and we will grow bigger and stronger through a partnership with Nippon Steel that brings massive investment, new technologies and thousands of jobs over the next four years.” The NY Post reports, however, that questions remain, as “[i]t is still unclear whether ‘partnership’ refers to the full acquisition of U.S. Steel that Nippon Steel has been pursuing.”
Gov.’s mansion saw $600K in security upgrades before arson attack
The LNP reports that in the three years preceding the April arson attack on the governor’s mansion, the residence had received more than $600,000 in taxpayer-funded security upgrades. How did these upgrades still not stop an arsonist from scaling the fence around the house and entering the house? That’s the big question, and no one from the Shapiro administration is answering it.
Pa.: High gas taxes but bad roads
Bradley Vasoli writes, “A comparison of all state gasoline taxes by the nonprofit Tax Foundation shows Pennsylvania’s is 58.7 cents per gallon, the third highest, behind only California’s 69.82 cpg and Illinois’s 66.1.” But despite the high taxes, our infrastructure ranks low. “The commonwealth does about as badly or even worse in related categories: 37th in commute time, 43rd in infrastructure generally, 45th in bridge quality and 47th in transportation overall.”
Philly schools lost $700K to cyber fraud in 2023-24
On Thursday, Philly announced that its school district—which already spends nearly $30K per student in district-run schools yet continues to fail students—lost $700,000 in taxpayer dollars to a cyber scam in the 2023-2024 academic year. The Inquirer reports, “On four separate occasions in the 2023-2024 school year, the district made electronic payments to people posing as its vendors…. The district paid $563,151 to a scammer in March 2024, intended for flood damage repair at one of its buildings. It also paid $126,056 for compensatory educational services for students with disabilities in February and March of that year.” The money hasn’t been recovered.