2/17/2026- The SAVE Act www.timesfreepress.com/news/2026/fe...

My doomer-worry about AI is not that the LLMs become omnipotent and take over the world but that the wealthy and powerful use it as a means to consolidate power and marginalize or lay off skilled workers and also everything about our technological and political and social life gets worse

Times Opinion: On immigration, local leaders are tying their own hands | Chattanooga Times Free Press When we think of the political process, more often than not, we picture the voting booth, where ballots are cast every few years to elect our leaders. Or the dimly lit halls of power — city hall, the ...

Wrote about how local leaders, far too often, fail to exert their influence and justify inaction when faced with protest
www.timesfreepress.com/news/2026/fe...

I don't know why it took a video posted by Trump for the media to realize he's racist when DHS is engaged in an ethnic cleansing campaign in Minneapolis.

Times Opinion: In Tennessee and the South, the small-government agenda has always been a con job | Chattanooga Times Free Press In this country, in the supposed land of the free, there's hardly anything we love more — or so we claim — than small-d democratic control, especially locally. But this ideal is an illusion, a conveni...

Wrote about Southern state legislatures, such as Tennessee's, and their autocratic posture toward their own cities
www.timesfreepress.com/news/2026/fe...

Police Ask For Public’s Help In Falsifying Report

🎯CHATTANOOGA — Times Free Press editor @bensessoms.bsky.social : “IRAQ, BUT DUMBER… It took only three days into the new year for Trump to continue the unmitigated mayhem of 2025, to further shame the country and Constitution he swore to protect and defend.” www.timesfreepress.com/news/2026/ja...

12/23/2025- Christmas Wishes www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/de...

The video has been taken down from YouTube. You can still download it here: is.gd/paU8Ko

More than anything else, this is what led some Senate Democrats to cut a deal: Trump’s willingness to hurt people exceeds their willingness to see people get hurt. I want to give them their due on this: They are hearing from their constituents and seeing the mounting problems, and they are trying to do what they see as the responsible, moral thing. They do not believe that holding out will lead to Trump restoring the subsidies. They fear that their Republican colleagues would, under mounting pressure, do as Trump had demanded and abolish the filibuster. (Whether that would be a good or a bad thing is a subject for another column.) This, in the end, is the calculation the defecting Senate Democrats are making: They don’t think a longer shutdown will cause Trump to cave. They just think it will cause more damage. If I were in the Senate, I wouldn’t vote for this compromise. Shutdowns are an opportunity to make an argument, and the country was just starting to pay attention. If Trump wanted to cancel flights over Thanksgiving rather than keep health care costs down, I don’t see why Democrats should save him from making his priorities so exquisitely clear. And I worry that Democrats have just taught Trump that they will fold under pressure. That’s the kind of lesson he remembers.

like this is basically it, the melts melted under pressure

Opinion: Tennessee’s lone Democratic congressional district is under threat | Chattanooga Times Free Press Just before the 2022 midterm elections, Democratic U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper had held his Nashville congressional district seat for nearly two decades. But the long-time incumbent didn't even bother to run...

www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/oc...

Opinion: Marjorie Taylor Greene’s turn reveals the Republican Party’s weak position | Chattanooga Times Free Press Once again, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is making national news.

www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/oc...

Opinion: This isn’t a game | Chattanooga Times Free Press It's day 18 of the government shutdown, and neither side of the political aisle is any closer to a resolution than they were on day one.

www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/oc...

Opinion: The quiet intent behind school vouchers said out loud | Chattanooga Times Free Press Spearheading the school voucher movement is this narrative that the best way to improve the education system is through expanded options for parents. As often repeated by supporters of school vouchers...

www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/oc...

Opinion: To upend the oligarchy, the Democratic Party needs more fight | Chattanooga Times Free Press In the decades preceding the Civil War in the 1860s, a nefarious force had taken root in Washington, D.C. — from the halls of Congress to the U.S. Supreme Court to the White House.

www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/oc...

Opinion: UTC — A safe space for conservatives | Chattanooga Times Free Press At the core of new state laws enacted to dissolve official public university groups and offices promoting diversity, equity and inclusion — or DEI — is, in part, a right-wing panic over so-called safe...

www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/oc...

Opinion: We need better public transit, not Waymo | Chattanooga Times Free Press In a 21st century world with rapidly advancing technology, from the smartphone to AI chatbots like ChatGPT, there's a growing anticipation of what sci-fi-esque invention is around the corner.

www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/oc...

Riveting stuff happening on the Senate floor while the government is shut down

Opinion: LGBTQ+ rights should not be up for debate | Chattanooga Times Free Press Over the past decade or so, a slew of U.S. Supreme Court cases has pushed the institution to the border of broader illegitimacy in the eyes of the public — a hack enterprise willing to use any and all...

www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/oc...

Opinion: Marsha Blackburn is lying to you | Chattanooga Times Free Press It's been nearly a week since the federal government shut down, and the Republican Party — the party which holds power over the House, the Senate and the White House — continues to absolve itself of a...

www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/oc...

Opinion: MAGA’s insatiable thirst for power | Chattanooga Times Free Press What should be a moment of mourning for the conservative movement — following the assassination of right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk two weeks ago — has instead become a moment of retribution...

As with this administration's other actions, the killing of Charlie Kirk is just another pretext for authoritarianism
www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/se...

It took two liters of water to generate that

As mentioned in this piece, I found this ChatGPT poem posted on M4L's Chattanooga chapter Facebook page. Quite odd
www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/se...

shit ain’t over til it’s over

Opinion: There’s nothing new about political violence in America | Chattanooga Times Free Press Over the past decade or so, and especially in recent years, there has been a growing chorus of pundits and political commenters identifying an alarmingly rising tide of political violence in our civic...

Sunday editorial: Political violence in a local and regional context
www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/se...

Opinion: Marsha Blackburn and the MAGA movement rely on fear | Chattanooga Times Free Press For a man who incessantly lies and almost never tells the truth, President Donald Trump, at times, can be brutally honest. Despite the MAGA political movement relying on deception and ignorance, Trump...

fear is the mind killer
www.timesfreepress.com/news/2025/se...

RFK Jr.-Backed Vaccine Panel Advises Against MMRV Vaccine for Young Children New members of a key committee tweak routine childhood vaccine guidance as some states and insurers go their own way.

RFK Jr. is objectively pro-disease, pro-illness and pro-child death.

My optimism here is limited, but I really hope centrist institutions like universities and major news organizations understand that the plan is for the govt to dismantle them. They do not care if you fire your columnists or discipline staff for accurately quoting Kirk. They just want us all gone.