Ben Sessoms

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...

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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.

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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.

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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...

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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.

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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...

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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.

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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...

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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...

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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.

My latest — JB Pritzker serves a Chicago TACO — was just sent out to Democracy Docket premium members. Join now to read the full version, receive DD’s premium content, access to special events and support Democracy Docket's vital work. hubs.ly/Q03jcjqP0

The Trump administration on Monday announced that it would inject nearly $500 million into historically Black colleges and tribal universities, a windfall funded largely by cuts to programs elsewhere for minority students. The administration will also redirect money to other political priorities for President Trump, including an extra $137 million for American history and civics education and $60 million more for charter schools. The increases follow a White House request for a 15 percent budget cut to the Education Department next year, as President Trump seeks support to permanently shutter the agency. History programs will now receive about seven times their expected funding for this year, and charter schools will see a 13 percent increase. To pay for the changes, the administration cut money from other parts of the education budget The details of the changes were described by three people familiar with the department’s plans who insisted on anonymity to speak about private discussions. The biggest cut, announced by the department last week, is a $350 million hit to programs that support minority students in science and engineering programs, schools with significant Hispanic enrollment, and other federal grants at minority-serving institutions. The administration also cut money from gifted and talented programs, which it said use racial targeting in recruitment in some cases, and from magnet schools, which have been used as a tool for combating school segregation.

what this sounds like to me is the administration is cutting money for efforts to support integration and sending some of the cash over to HCBUs, under the view that this is where black students ought to go www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/u...

It's also "political violence" to steal years off people's lives by depriving them of shelter, stripping away health care, and gutting environmental protections — while funneling more and more wealth to the ultra-rich.

When Trump's Brain Broke Sometime Around 1989

definitely something to this www.unpopularfront.news/p/when-trump...

An Ohio City Faces a Future Without Haitian Workers: ‘It’s Not Going to Be Good’

i remember when jd vance blamed the haitian immigrants to springfield for rising home prices. well, the prices will come down, because a mass departure of haitian workers will crash the local economy.

"Newspaper readers will vote Dem." Not according to the reader emails I get

The plan? Change none of Pete Buttigieg's policies but give him a beard and run him again in 2028

no one wants to hear it but the main obstacle to new housing is affluent incumbent homeowners using the state to protect their investments

I wish journalists would stop framing political news as wins or losses for politicians or political parties. It’s an abrogation of our mission. Why do we keep doing this? Is the spending bill a win or loss for the American people? Who does it help? Who does it hurt? Is it sound policy? Fiscally?

Frost: Tonight the people stealing are not folks with tattoos and hoodies but people wearing suits and ties and congressional pins sitting in the capitol now, not in some alley wrapped in darkness but the United States congress wrapped in the flag. It is disgusting and we will never forget this.

U.S. Military Bans Men With Girl Names From Participating In Combat