News & Brews August 20, 2026
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Unions funnel millions to Democrat agenda
The Center Square reports that the nation’s largest teachers’ unions—the National Education Association (NEA) and American Federation for Teachers (AFT)—are directing major dollars towards Democrat lawmakers well as an anti-school choice partisan agenda. “The NEA spent more than $51 million on political activities and lobbying in 2025. The AFT spent more than $41 million.” What’s more “Unions are funded with dues taken out of teacher paychecks, so … the taxpayers are basically funding the lobbying and campaign contributions.” The story hilariously says that lawmakers receiving union donations “supported legislation favoring schools and teachers.” Actually, these lawmakers—such as Democrat U.S. Rep. Summer Lee from Pennsylvania—support legislation that puts more money into union coffers and fight tooth and nail against giving kids educational freedom.
Pa. state pension outsources $2B to fired firm
The Inquirer reports, “The $42 billion Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement System (SERS) last month unanimously agreed to end a $300 million foreign-stocks investment for failing to meet targets — then gave the same firm a fresh $2 billion to invest in U.S. stocks.” If you like pension investment talk, this story will interest you.
Data center developers and NDAs
Spotlight PA reports that public records show that at least eight nondisclosure agreements for data center projects have been “signed by township, county, and Shapiro administration officials.” The latter is particularly interesting as Gov. Shapiro has done an about face on data centers, first bragging about bringing them into Pennsylvania to the tune of $20 billion in investments and now calling them predatory. Shapiro’s administration—specifically Department of Community and Economic Development Secretary Rick Siger—signed an NDA with Amazon on data centers. This raises questions of transparency and the responsibility elected officials have to their constituents.
Shapiro aims to block CDL info release to feds
Gov. Shapiro has “joined a lawsuit alongside 21 other Democratic-led states, suing the Trump administration to stop the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) and Department of Homeland Security from obtaining the names, driving records, and other information about illegal immigrant truck drivers,” Broad + Liberty reports. The U.S. Department of Transportation says the CDL information must legally be provided to the government, but the Shapiro administration claims this is false. A judge has paused DOT’s request as the lawsuit moves forward.
Pa. skill games trace roots to this one event
As lawmakers figure out what to do about skill games following a recent Supreme Court ruling that they are, indeed, gambling, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reports that these “skill games that have spread to taverns, social clubs and corner stores all over Pennsylvania in recent years started with one arranged seizure in a small Beaver County social club.” At that event in 2013, “Pennsylvania State Police troopers entered Aliquippa’s American Italian Club … to confiscate what would later be deemed the state’s first skill game. The incident had been pre-planned to test the game’s legality in Pennsylvania, according to court documents and multiple sources….”
