‘Online gambling has swallowed professional sports’
Dave Zirin at The Nation
Sports leagues plagued by an “aging and fragmenting television audience” partnered with legal gambling operations to refill their pockets, says Dave Zirin. They’re finding out they “ushered a fox into the henhouse.” In the last month alone, “players have allegedly used inside information to place bets, allegedly fixed individual and team outcomes, and not-so-allegedly damaged the credibility of their sports.” These scandals, “once incredibly rare,” are now part of the game.
‘Joe Biden, the (still) unpopular president’
Byron York in the Washington Examiner
President Joe Biden has been getting a boost from “a lot of wishful reporting” about his “political fortunes and reelection hopes,” says Byron York. “Biden gains on Trump in 6 battleground states,” said one headline. “Biden’s polling is improving,” said another. But that’s overstating a “recent modest uptick” that has excited sympathetic commentators. One of Biden’s “fundamental” problems hasn’t changed. “Most voters do not approve of the job he is doing as president.” Many never have.
‘Biden and Trump are both in a world of hurt. But Biden has the cash to fix his problems.’
Chris Brennan in USA Today
Former President Donald Trump, a “four-time indicted one-term former president with two crushing civil judgments levied against him this year,” needs a fundraising push focused as much on “paying for his defense lawyers as on retaking the White House,” says Chris Brennan. And the Republican National Committee’s money troubles are just as “grim,” as it twists itself into knots to back him, “perhaps at the expense of all those other Republicans seeking other offices in the Nov. 5 general election.”
‘The most troubling fact about America’s ports’
Ryan Petersen in The New York Times
“Our national supply chain is kicking into high gear to absorb the aftershock” of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse that shut down the Port of Baltimore, says Ryan Petersen. Ship traffic is being rerouted to nearby ports. The tragedy underscores the need to invest more in our supply chain infrastructure, dredging ports to accommodate the biggest ships and upgrading technology. This will make the system, which “is central to our country’s prosperity,” less “vulnerable when catastrophe strikes.”
Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
