News & Brews October 8, 2026
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Takeaways from Shapiro-Garrity debate
PennLive reports, “In their only debate this year, Gov. Josh Shapiro on Wednesday sought to tie Republican challenger Stacy Garrity to Trump administration policies affecting Pennsylvanians while she countered that he has overseen four years of economic malaise and ‘backdoor deals.’” Separately, Spotlight PA reports, “Ultimately, the one-hour debate … revealed little about the candidates that they haven’t already publicly taken a position on.”
One notable thing is that Shapiro refused to commit to serving out a full term if re-elected, underscoring what everyone knows: He plans to run for president in 2028. Meanwhile, a new Quinnipiac poll of likely voters shows Shapiro leading Garrity 59% to 34%.
Legislature fails to act on skill games
On the last scheduled voting day before next week’s court-imposed deadline to act on skill games, the legislature failed to act. After the October 13 deadline, “The games must be completely removed from bars, convenience stores and social clubs like VFWs, not simply shut down, or police can seize the machines,” PennLive reports. Lawmakers have known about this deadline for months. You know, kind of like the kid who has known about a homework deadline for months and keeps procrastinating and then misses the deadline. Whose fault is that? Surely not the teacher’s.
The story continues, “Four lawmakers and a coalition of skill games manufacturers filed an emergency petition with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court asking the court to extend the enforcement deadline on skill games until February 2027.” But then, they quickly withdrew it. Honestly, the deadline was there, lawmakers missed it, and they have no one to blame but themselves.
Report: Tracking socialism’s national spread
The State Policy Network (SPN) has published a special report charting socialism’s spread across America. “The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are flexing their muscles in campaigns across the country in 2026, fueling the impression that the movement came out of nowhere. It didn’t. DSA built a national network chapter by chapter, over the better part of a decade.”
To create the report, SPN “reconstructed DSA’s geographic growth using 10 available chapter-list snapshots stretching from 2013 through 2026 … reconciled duplicates and name changes, tracked chapters state by state, and added current organizing committees and regional groups to capture activity that has not yet reached formal chapter status.”
The finding is that “DSA’s reach is not simply a story about New York City, members of Congress or a handful of high-profile candidates. Its network extends into state capitals, midsize cities, college towns and communities across the country.” Particularly notable is that much of DSA’s electoral wins come in state and local races.
Out-of-state donations fuel western Pa. lawmakers
The Tribune-Review reports on which congressional members from western Pennsylvania are getting higher percentages of out-of-state itemized donations compared with in-state donations. What’s interesting to me (and what’s not reported in this story) is that when it comes to federal races like Congress or U.S. Senate, both Democrats and Republicans garner out-of-state donors. But when it comes to state-level lawmakers and candidates, such as those for state House and state Senate, Democrats benefit the most from out-of-state donations. This is because the Left has developed a national infrastructure for funneling national money to specific state races, while the Right has not yet matched that system. You can read more about this here.
Lessons from 43 BC
I majored in history in college, but I admit my ancient Roman history is super rusty these days (Et tu, Brute? or something like that…). Anyway, perhaps that’s why this piece by “lifelong Pittsburgher” and former longtime CNX Resources Corp. CEO Nick Deiuliis caught my eye. Titled “When the state runs out of other people’s money: Lessons from 43 BC,” the piece looks at how the practice of “proscriptions” in Ancient Rome—in which individuals were deemed enemies of the state and stripped of their rights, property, and even lives—somewhat mirrors the “tax the rich” ideology today.
Although a bit different in execution, it’s quite similar in principle: “When a ruling class spends what it does not produce, it will inevitably treat productive enterprise as a quarry to be mined rather than a garden to be cultivated. History’s warning is clear: once a society decides that commercial competence is an offense to be plundered, it is only a matter of time before the machinery of civilization grinds to a halt.”
