News & Brews February 19, 2026
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‘How antisemitism took root in Philly School District’
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), founded in 1982, has released a report titled: “Shaping Minds, Spreading Hate: How Antisemitism Took Root in the School District of Philadelphia” (SDP). On investigating SDP’s curricula, CAMERA found that “the underlying ideological agenda of SDP has created an environment hostile to Jewish students.” Specifically, CAMERA notes, “Our in-depth investigation found that the hostile environment is the result of several factors, including SDP’s adoption of a social studies program with antisemitic teaching materials, a focus on the critical race theory model of dividing people into ‘oppressor’ and ‘oppressed’ categories, along with an anti-democratic and anti-capitalism curricula that disproportionally single out Israel and the United States for demonization.” Responding to the report, U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick posted, “This is outrageous. We must protect every student and ensure schools teach facts, not woke ideology. Our kids deserve better.”
Data center subsidies could cost Pa.
Spotlight PA reports that Pennsylvania could lose out on major revenue due to a sales tax exemption offered to data centers. “Under a nearly five-year-old change, data center developers can dodge the state’s 6% sales tax on purchases related to building and maintaining the tech hubs, including for the expensive servers and other equipment. Only companies that meet certain financial benchmarks are eligible….The actual cost to the commonwealth is unknown.” Now, we’ve long opposed corporate welfare. Picking winners and losers and applying different tax laws to them is hardly a good way to support economic growth. What’s more, corporate welfare subsidies rarely deliver the promised return on investment. A better approach is to lower taxes across the board.
What do reporters think of Shapiro’s book?
Spotlight PA hosted a reporters’ panel this week to discuss Gov. Josh Shapiro’s new book. Investigative reporters Angela Couloumbis and Stephen Caruso of Spotlight PA, along with Gillian McGoldrick of the Philadelphia Inquirer, “dissected the memoir and compared it to their own years of reporting.” Among the more interesting notes from the discussion are not what Shapiro included in his memoir but what he left out. Watch the discussion here.
ChatGPT & Pa.’s Right to Know
Here’s an interesting story from WITF. A ruling from Pennsylvania’s Office of Open Records (OOR) means “many state government employees’ conversations and prompts with artificial intelligence chatbots will likely remain shielded from public record.” WITF had requested “employees’ ChatGPT logs from more than two dozen state agencies.” Shapiro’s office denied the request, and OOR largely agreed. Interestingly, however, “There was a single chat log generated during the pilot program shared with WITF through its record request. And the information from that conversation matches some of what was included in Shapiro’s newly released Housing Action Plan.”
Podcast: Fraud, Pa., & solutions
Our friends at the Commonwealth Foundation have launched a new podcast, Freedom Rising. In the inaugural episode, CF President and CEO Andrew Lewis talks with John Hinderaker of the Center for the American Experiment in Minnesota about fraud in that state. Then, Andrew speaks with Pa. House Republican Policy Committee Chair Rep. David Rowe about policy solutions. Listen here.