Times Commentary - Chattanooga Times Free Press

Opinion: RFK vs. health — COVID vaccine announcement continues kook’s assault

Striking a blow for deadly disease and against public health, our dangerous Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., flanked by doctors including National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya – handpicked for his vaccine-skeptic approach – decreed that the COVID vaccine would no longer be recommended for children and pregnant women.

By The New York Daily News Editorial Board (TNS) June 2, 2025

Photo/John McDonnell/The Associated Press / Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears before a Senate committee at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Washington.

Opinion: If Trump walks away from Ukraine now, he looks weak, and Putin wins

For all the disarray and unfairness of President Donald Trump's approach to the war in Ukraine, he is right about a few big things.

By The New York Times Editorial Board June 1, 2025

Photo/Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via the AP / Russian President Vladimir Putin attends a meeting of the Russia — Land of Opportunities Supervisory Board at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, on Tuesday, May 27, 2025.

Opinion: Donald Trump is immensely vulnerable

In a previous column, I recounted lessons from other countries where popular movements have made headway challenging authoritarian rulers.

By Nicholas Kristof / The New York Times May 31, 2025

Photo/Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press / President Donald Trump attends the 157th National Memorial Day Observance at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday, May 26, 2025, in Arlington, Va.

Opinion: Sports stadiums are monuments to the poverty of our ambitions

People who say that the United States can't build anything anymore must not be sports fans.

By Binyamin Appelbaum May 31, 2025

Photo/Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press / Washington Commanders controlling owner Josh Harris, from left, District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announce a new home for the NFL football team on the site of the old RFK Stadium on Monday, April 28, 2025, at the National Press Club in Washington.

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Opinion: The Christian nationalist lie behind work requirements

Within President Donald Trump's so-called "one big, beautiful bill," narrowly passed by U.S. House Republicans, are $880 billion worth of cuts to health care and food stamps – cuts estimated to rob 13.7 million of health insurance and 3.2 million of SNAP benefits.

By Ben Sessoms May 31, 2025

Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson/The Associated Press / President Donald Trump, center, surrounded by Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, and Rep. Lisa McClain, R-Michigan, speaks to reporters before a House Republican conference meeting on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.

Opinion: How the ravages of age are ravaging the Democratic Party

Now is the time for the Democratic Party to get serious about its oldsters problem.

By Michelle Cottle / The New York Times May 29, 2025

Photo/Jose Luis Magana/The Associated Press / Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Maryland., speaks during the House Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, oversight hearing of the U.S. Department of the Treasury on Capitol Hill in Washington on Tuesday, May 6, 2025.

Opinion: Bible lesson in Austin: Texas Ten Commandments bill is lawsuit-bait

The Republican-run Texas House of Representatives has passed a bill mandating the placing of a minimum 16-by-20-inch framed display of the Ten Commandments in each public school classroom in the state.

By The New York Daily News Editorial Board (TNS) May 28, 2025

Photo/Gerald Herbert/The Associated Press / Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott speaks to the media outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington after arguments were heard inside over two cases involving Ten Commandments displays in public courthouses on Wednesday, March 2, 2005.

Opinion: Republicans can’t hide Medicaid cuts in a ‘big, beautiful’ bill

President Barack Obama's signature achievement, the 2010 expansion of health insurance known as Obamacare, has proved successful and popular.

By The New York Times Editorial Board May 28, 2025

Photo/House Television via The Associated Press / In this image from video, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, announces the final vote total after the House of Representatives passed President Donald Trump's bill of tax breaks and program cuts after an all-night session at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Thursday, May 22, 2025.

Opinion: Trump’s big budget bomb

We live in an age when the only truly bipartisan idea is that landmark legislation demands triple-B alliteration. President Joe Biden's signature proposal was Build Back Better.

By Ezra Klein / The New York Times May 27, 2025

Photo/Jacquelyn Martin/The Associated Press / President Donald Trump gestures as he departs the White House on Friday, May 23, 2025, in Washington.

Opinion: The GOP’s latest reverse-Robin Hood tax scheme will test its populist rhetoric

It is with a typically Trumpian focus on packaging that supporters have dubbed the Republican tax-cut legislation the House passed early Thursday "One Big, Beautiful Bill."

By St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board (TNS) May 26, 2025

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