by James Downie | Sep 17, 2026 | elections, Opinion
Political conventions are supposed to give the party holding them a polling bounce, but President Donald Trump’s midterm convention has come and gone as if it never happened. From Michigan to Ohio to Texas, Democratic Senate candidates are holding or even growing their leads. And the GOP’s average deficit in the generic congressional ballot has deepened to over seven percentage points.
Perhaps the most visible of these strong polls was the New York Times/Siena poll released Tuesday.
“Likely voters favored Democratic candidates over Republicans by close to 9 percentage points,” the Times reported. “Voters see Republicans broadly as more extreme, more elitist and more corrupt than Democrats, according to the poll.” Remarkably, more voters trusted Democrats not just on the party’s traditional strengths (such as health care) but on “on the two issues that powered Mr. Trump’s 2024 victory: immigration and the economy.”
This bleak vision of a nation besieged by foreigners and infidels works better on the campaign trail and social media than when a movement is in power.
In the latter case, the president has simply failed to deliver on his promise to bring prices down “on Day One” — and in some ways made matters worse. But the Trump White House has largely done what it said it would do on immigration. So why are voters unhappy? Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor’s new book, “End Times Fascism,” offers an answer to that question.
After Trump returned to the Oval Office, the administration and the GOP Congress gave billions of dollars to immigration enforcement while slashing the rest of the government. They built new detention centers with names like “Alligator Alcatraz.” To meet
by Jill Lawrence | Sep 17, 2026 | elections, Opinion
When Democratic Sen. John Fetterman endorsed his Republican colleague Doug McCormick at the GOP midterm convention, I could only roll my eyes. But now former Sen. Joe Manchin has endorsed Sen. Susan Collins, and that’s infuriating.
Let me explain. I have a long record of defending Manchin — even when he attacked Democrats and voted with Republicans against former President Joe Biden’s nominees. But that was while he was representing ruby-red West Virginia in the Senate, possibly running for re-election and open to negotiations when Democrats desperately needed his vote.
Has the former senator missed the last couple of years? The import of the last few elections?
Manchin, now 79, did not run for re-election. And while Democrats don’t need his vote, they do need him to keep quiet if he can’t say anything nice about them. But the former senator, who registered as an independent two years ago, took a different path. He endorsed a woman known best for her expressions of concern and her furrowed brow even as she is almost always on Team Donald Trump — voting with the president 90% of the time in his first term and 95% in his second.
Collins voted yes last year on former Attorney General Pam Bondi. Yes on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, former National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and Education Secretary Linda McMahon. Yes on Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, an architect of Project 2025. Yes on Supreme Court Justices Brett Kavanagh and Neil Gorsuch, who have voted to overturn Roe v. Wade and legal abortion access, gut the
by Ja'han Jones | Sep 17, 2026 | Congress, Opinion, Sports
It’s hard to get a broad majority in the Senate to agree on much of anything these days — except, apparently, sticking it to college athletes.
Dozens of Democrats effectively sided with President Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and powerful lobbyists in voting Tuesday to move forward with a bill that stands to police college sports, largely by limiting athletes’ ability to make money and collectively bargain for important changes they desire. The Senate voted 74-24 to advance the Protect College Sports Act toward a final vote.
I’ve written about the bill before — and the numerous gripes that critics have with it. Basically, the legislation is co-sponsored by Cruz and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who have contended that college athletics, particularly sports that don’t generate much revenue, are at risk under the current rules, known as NIL, which authorize players to make money off their names, images and likenesses.
Trump — who has openly stated his desire to return college sports to the exploitative system that was in place before NIL — is a staunch supporter of the bill.
Meanwhile, the bill has been decried by labor associations, such as the AFL-CIO; social organizations like the NAACP; and Athletes.org, a players association for college athletes.
Among the bill’s heavily criticized provisions are parts that would afford antitrust protections to the NCAA, potentially undermine athletes’ ability to collectively bargain for improved conditions and institute caps on some player compensation. The bill has been backed by various college athletic conferences, powerful broadcast companies and numerous coaches — who don’t stand to see their earnings suppressed.
And as NBC News reported, “advocates for athletes have pointed to
by Brian Moylan | Sep 17, 2026 | culture, Opinion, White House
Vice President JD Vance took time out of his busy schedule this week to make a social media video about the most pressing pop cultural artifact of the moment: “Emily in Paris.” The show’s fifth season launched last December and the sixth (and final) season will premiere this Christmas Eve, but Vance had something he had to get off his chest right now.
“You have to watch ‘Emily in Paris,’” he told his legions of fans. “It is, at the risk of overstating it, the Shakespeare of our time.”
For those without a Netflix account or a teenage daughter, “Emily in Paris” is the story of Emily Cooper (Lily Collins), an American marketing executive who moves to France to take a job meant for her boss when said boss gets pregnant. She shares a tiny apartment with Chinese nepo baby Mindy (Ashley Park) and meets her neighbor Gabriel (Lucas Bravo). There is instant chemistry between the two, but Gabriel has a girlfriend. So instead, Emily and Mindy date a string of incredibly handsome and fabulously wealthy gentlemen while going to brand activations and pop-up events in the chicest villages across Europe. There is singing and occasionally berets. It’s a frothy, wannabe influencer’s dream. (But is it Shakespeare? TBD.)
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Despite its relatively simple premise, “Emily in Paris” is a surprisingly polarizing show. The series has plenty of detractors and a steady, albeit sometimes self-conscious fandom. But Vance doesn’t love this hit for its stunning locations, its comedic storylines or the outrageous outfits (OK, no one loves it for the Carrie Bradshaw fashion roadkill outfits). He loves it because
by Kavitha A. Davidson | Sep 16, 2026 | Opinion, Sports
Saturday night, after the Texas Longhorns stormed back to score 21 unanswered fourth-quarter points to beat the top-ranked Ohio State Buckeyes, 24-23, ESPN’s Holly Rowe attempted to get a standard postgame interview with Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian on the field. But instead of speaking with her, Sarkisian yelled into the mic, flashed the “hook ‘em horns” sign and stormed off, leaving Rowe looking understandably perplexed and frustrated.
Sarkisian snubbing Rowe, who is universally respected in the industry, was enough by itself to spark a conversation about disrespect toward women sports journalists. But then came an artificial intelligence-generated video of Sarkisian not snubbing Rowe but slapping her so hard she hit the ground. At Monday’s media availability, when Texas quarterback Arch Manning was asked if he had seen any of the AI edits, he responded excitedly: “That’s a good one. Of him slapping Holly Rowe? That’s hilarious.”
At Monday’s media availability, when Texas quarterback Arch Manning was asked if he had seen any of the AI edits, he responded excitedly: “That’s a good one. Of him slapping Holly Rowe? That’s hilarious.”
The room, mostly full of men reporters and football admins, appeared to laugh along with Manning. Fans and commentators responded almost immediately with understandable anger that a star quarterback and a group of ostensibly professional men thought the image of a woman being slapped simply for doing her job was, to use Manning’s word, “hilarious.” On Tuesday, Manning issued an apology on Instagram.
“In my press conference yesterday, I made an insensitive comment about an AI video,” he wrote. “There is nothing funny about it. It’s easy to say I didn’t mean it,
by Jacques Berlinerblau | Sep 16, 2026 | Business, culture, Opinion
“South Park,” or, per recent rebranding, “South America,” kicks off its 29th season Wednesday night. The name change, according to the show’s creators, was “inspired by the bravery and patriotism of Apple and Google,” tech giants who valiantly obeyed President Donald Trump’s decree that we henceforth refer to Lake Ontario as Lake America.
If “South America” stays true to “South Park” form, I predict three things will transpire in the new season. First, Trump, his administration and his enablers are going to be ceaselessly, mercilessly skewered. Second, the skewering is going to be of the oh my God I can’t believe they just joked about that! variety. And third, the mockery will be so relentlessly vulgar that we will all wonder if “South Park” is daring this government to retaliate.
What makes me nervous is that this government just might.
The mockery will be so relentlessly vulgar that we will all wonder if “South Park” is daring this government to retaliate.
I’m a little less concerned (but concerned nonetheless) about the effects that such relentless partisan sniping may have on the quality of the comedy itself. Then again, it would likely be even more troubling if the animated series suddenly stopped dropkicking its target in the White House; that would be an example of the same “capitulation,” in the words of the show’s creators, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, that they see in their parent company Paramount’s engagement with the Trump administration.
So, roast or retreat? If the series keeps up its pace of lampooning Trump, it risks falling into an obsessive rut of comedic predictability. If it backs off, it’s a dereliction of artistic
