by Ja'han Jones | Aug 12, 2026 | Congress, Opinion, Sports
Facing daunting poll numbers, President Donald Trump was desperate for conservatives to notch some kind — any kind — of legislative victory before Republican leadership sent lawmakers home for a weekslong recess. And ironically, the anti-transgender hysteria fueled by the president played a key role in derailing that possibility.
Trump failed to get Republicans to pass the voter suppression bill he’s backed, but that wasn’t the only bill he had homed in on. He had also set his sights on a bill to regulate college sports. I wrote a couple weeks back about the Protect College Sports bill that Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has been trying to push across the finish line. That bill has been broadly backed by college athletic conferences, although it was conceived virtually without the input of college athletes themselves — one major reason advocates who represent those athletes oppose it.
The bill is also opposed by the Congressional Black Caucus and the AFL-CIO.
Cruz spent the past couple weeks making alterations to the bill in hopes of garnering enough support for it to sail through Congress. Herding cats, basically.
But Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley threw a wrench into those plans by suggesting the bill would undermine anti-trans laws in states that restrict trans people’s participation in athletic programs. Hawley, alongside Republican Sens. Jim Banks of Indiana and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, introduced an amendment they said would “ensure the bill doesn’t overturn any laws” along those lines, but at the same time they did manage to overturn any hopes of the legislation passing before the August recess.
Hawley’s allegations apparently got Trump’s attention, given the president sought to downplay those
by Adam Johnson | Aug 12, 2026 | Article, Democratic Party, elections, Media Criticism, midterms, Opinion, Politics and Movements: US
As progressive, DSA, and DSA-adjacent candidates win primaries throughout the US, corporate media is rushing to prop up their favorite “centrist” and “moderate” critics—who, ostensibly, are just looking out for the wellbeing of the Democratic Party—to explain why these candidates people are voting for are actually dangerous and “unelectable.” What the media is refusing to do, on an institutional level, is disclose the glaring conflicts of interests these groups—backed by billionaires, health insurance giants, pro-Israel lobbying firms, and massive corporations —would have in attacking candidates who undermine their sponsors’ bottom lines and ideological agendas.
As progressive, DSA, and DSA-adjacent candidates win primaries throughout the US, corporate media is rushing to prop up their favorite “centrist” and “moderate” critics—who, ostensibly, are just looking out for the wellbeing of the Democratic Party—to explain why these candidates people are voting for are actually dangerous and “unelectable.”
As I noted in TRNN in June, certain personalities and parties with blatant conflicts of interest are being boosted by US media—presented as mere neutral observers who are Deeply Concerned About Electability—to dump on insurgent candidates such as Claire Valdez, Darializa Avila-Chevalier, Melat Kiro and, most recently, Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed. El-Sayed’s primary victory in Michigan signaled serious upward momentum for the latest progressive insurgency within the Democratic Party—and triggered a PR crisis for the Democratic establishment. That momentum was stemmed this week, if only for now, as DSA-endorsed candidate for Wisconsin Governor Francesca Hong was narrowly defeated—a defeat that was reportedly due, in part, to voter concerns over “electability.”
But who shapes “electability” perceptions in our media?
Let’s examine a recent article in The New York Times,
by Hayes Brown | Aug 12, 2026 | Congress, Opinion
South Carolina Republicans have had a Graham on their ballots for the last three decades. And after the blitzkrieg GOP primary race to replace the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, it looks like they will have one for at least one more election. Darline Graham, the late senator’s younger sister, advanced to the runoff stage of the special election Tuesday night with 33.8% of the vote alongside Rep. Ralph Norman, who took 24.2% of the vote.
There’s still much we don’t know about where Graham sits on the ideological spectrum, as she’s never held elected office before Gov. Henry McMaster appointed her to finish out her brother’s term just two days after he died in July. Although she has said in interviews that she has different priorities than her brother held, she has made clear that her brother’s devotion and capitulation toward President Donald Trump will be at the core of her burgeoning political identity.
She has made clear that her brother’s devotion and capitulation toward President Donald Trump will be at the core of her burgeoning political identity
At the lone debate between the GOP Senate candidates, Graham was far and away the person on stage who clung closest to Trump’s coattails. Graham “had several opportunities during the debate to at least shade her support of his policies,” The New York Times wrote in its coverage of the debate. “Unlike some of her opponents, she took none of them, casting herself as a solid Trump vote in the Senate.”
While there’s never been a sibling to enter the Senate this way, there’s a long history of spouses taking up the “widow’s succession” after
by Zeeshan Aleem | Aug 12, 2026 | Congress, elections, Opinion
On Sunday, ABC News anchor Jonathan Karl asked Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., to weigh in on how Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong — a fellow democratic socialist who was leading the polls ahead of Tuesday’s Democratic primary — might struggle to “get around” some of her past progressive positions on abolishing policing and canceling Thanksgiving.
Ocasio-Cortez’s response was both surprising and opaque. She noted that Hong has moved away from those positions before saying, “I have a local city councilman that has this saying, ‘Woke one was crazy’” — and let out a hearty laugh.
Karl followed up, “Did the movement go too far, with some of those positions? You briefly supported the idea of defunding the police.”
Ocasio-Cortez’s response is worth quoting at length:
During this time and especially during Covid, there was a huge opening of the Overton window. We were shut down. There was some of the highest unemployment rates that we have seen because of those shutdowns, and I think that the doors were really open in trying to entertain any and every policy that was going to get us to a better place, and I actually think that the discussions that had that were had in that time were quite fruitful. I think that when we talk about crime today, it’s fundamentally different than the way that we talked about crime in bringing crime down, right? And I think that we all share in the goals of having as low a crime rate as possible. I think that you know during lockdown, of course, rhetoric in that time is not rhetoric that we would use today.
The congresswoman’s longer response
by Michael Tisserand | Aug 12, 2026 | Opinion, Politics
UPDATE (Aug. 11, 2026, 11:31 p.m. ET): On Tuesday night, despite Trump’s best efforts, Mike Lindell lost his GOP primary to fellow Republican Lisa Demuth. Demuth will face Sen. Amy Klobuchar in November.
After hearing news that MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has taken a lead in polls ahead of Tuesday’s Republican gubernatorial primary, a rural Minnesota Democrat told me with certainty, “Amy would smush him.” She was referring, of course, to Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who has been endorsed by the state’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, faced no serious opposition after announcing her bid for governor and is expected to easily win the party’s nomination. Lindell, on the other hand, faces two formidable opponents: Minnesota House Speaker Lisa Demuth and businessman Kendall Qualls, who’s been endorsed by the state GOP.
To that woman’s point, Klobuchar has won every statewide race she has entered by double-digit margins. Not surprisingly, Klobuchar isn’t commenting on Lindell’s rise in the polls. But when the DFL Facebook account posted news of Donald Trump’s endorsement, some who are among the party faithful couldn’t contain themselves. “I am thinking he doesn’t have a pillow’s chance in a snowball fight,” read one post. Another was more tempered: “I’m not going to curse this one by putting my inside thoughts outside.”
Klobuchar has won every statewide race she has entered by double-digit margins.
Any giddiness about candidate Lindell should be tempered by the possibility, however remote it might seem, of a Gov. Lindell. After all, Hillary Clinton’s campaign’s infamous “pied piper” strategy of focusing attention on her most extreme opponents in the 2016 presidential election helped launch one of the most improbable and destructive political careers
by Mike Wise | Aug 12, 2026 | Opinion, Politics, Sports
Culture war dopamine, that euphoric feeling that follows making an outrageous statement on the controversy du jour, is clearly a dangerous drug. Addicts are known to swap logic and reason for Fox News appearances. They become nonsensical, lend credence to the absurd and eventually stage full-blown clown shows.
Take Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White, two 30-something former NBA players who recently declared themselves eligible for the 2027 Women’s National Basketball Association draft.
Citing the current WNBA guidelines, which state “Only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA” (and don’t explicitly exclude transgender women players in their collective bargaining agreement), Freedom and White have capitalized on the recent anti-trans comments made by Indiana Fever role player-provocateur Sophie Cunningham. Her anti-trans statements, which she claims are motivated by her desire to “protect young girls,” have led to small protests on both sides of the issue.
Freedom and White have capitalized on the recent anti-trans comments made by Indiana Fever role player-provocateur Sophie Cunningham.
These aren’t merely political stunts mocking the league and the women who play in it, but malicious attempts to demean a marginalized population in the apparent hope that a NewsNation or Fox News producer will call for an interview so these budding hot-takers can be given some attention on what is a non-issue.
For the record, no openly transgender athlete has ever competed in the WNBA or any of the nation’s other women’s professional sports leagues. State bans on transgender athletes in women’s sports have been held up by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Olympics now clearly forbids transgender athletes in female events. And the number of trans
