News & Brews August 4, 2026
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Dems in ‘hot seat’ over education scholarships
The fact that the opportunity for kids to get scholarships is putting Democrat governors in the “hot seat,” per POLITICO, tells us all we need to know about Democrat priorities. The issue, of course, is the new federal tax credit scholarship program, and Democrats’ puppet masters—i.e. the teachers’ unions—”hate” the program since they care squat for kids and only want more money so they can push Medicare for all and other nonsense. (Prove me wrong.) So the vast majority of Democrat governors, Josh Shapiro included, find themselves caught between their union overlords and kids and parents begging for better educations. Are we even having this debate?
A better approach to data centers
Writing in RealClear Energy, the Commonwealth Foundation’s Joshua Schubert and the Cato Institute’s Travis Fisher note, “Pennsylvanians are worried that the artificial intelligence boom will drive up electricity bills, and for good reason.” But Gov. Shapiro’s plan to address data centers misses the mark by including “an escalating energy portfolio mandate … and a discretionary certification that lets the state decide which projects qualify for privileged tax exemption.”
Allegheny puts on-leave employee back to work
Last month, an Allegheny County spokesperson was placed on administrative leave after telling KDKA radio personality Colin Dunlap to jump off a bridge after she disagreed with something Dunlap said. Well, the employee is back to work. The Post-Gazette reports, “The county announced that it opened an internal investigation into the situation when [the employee] was placed on administrative leave, and it is unclear whether the probe remains ongoing.”
About the voter registration brouhaha
Much has been made in recent days about Pennsylvania’s voter registration numbers. And yes, compared with a decade or so ago, the gap between registered Democrats and registered Republicans has shrunk dramatically. Dems’ lead had fallen to as low as about 175,000, but recently they’ve begun expanding that lead again and it now sits at around 206,000. Some folks like to focus on “active” v. “inactive” voters, but this is rather meaningless as both these categories are still registered voters. What’s more, as WGAL reports, “About 37,000 voters have switched to the Democratic Party in 2026, compared with more than 24,000 who have switched to the Republican Party.” And as for supposed recent mass purges of Pa. voter rolls—it has not happened.
Tracing the roots of recent polling
Guy Ciarrocchi writes in Broad + Liberty that per a recent NPR poll, “55 percent of Democrats are not proud of America” and “only 42 percent of Democrats view capitalism positively — while 66 percent have a positive view of socialism.” How did this happen? Well, in a nutshell: “Remove faith from schools. Downplay the role of dads. Preach that it takes a village to raise a child. Deemphasize academic outcomes. CRT — dividing our children into ‘victims’ and ‘oppressors.’ Vilify the Founders. Cancel culture. Essentially force everyone into college, with a buffet of newly invented words and grievances, allowing them to stay five or six years — or even longer — leaving with ‘fuzzy’ degrees and six figures of debt. Everything is a ‘right.’ ‘Free’ healthcare, college, housing. And a ‘universal guaranteed income’ to deal with how ‘expensive’ everything is.” Whew. Spot on.
