We've said it before. Women will not go back. Nor will plenty of men. Kansas just proved it.

Whew! County elections are over.

What a wild end to an oddly entertaining county mayor's race.

Adding insult to injury as we desperately and unsuccessfully - so far - hope to be free of COVID-19, we now learn that we also have three cases of monkeypox confirmed in the Chattanooga area, according to a Tuesday announcement from the Hamilton County Health Department.

Early voting in Hamilton County was down 9% for this year's county general and state primary compared to 2018. And in 2018, early voting was down 8.85% from four years before in 2014.

If you slept any at all last week, you might have missed news of the proposed new Lookouts baseball stadium in the South Broad Street area barreling ahead among local officials — even while much of Chattanooga and one of Hamilton County's mayoral candidates question the expenditure of nearly $80 million in public money to build a new sports temple. All this while developers and the Lookouts commit nothing upfront more than about 10 acres of donated land and standard yearly sports lease payments once the stadium opens.

Local and Tennessee Republicans are showing themselves to be just as low, disgusting and deceitful as national Republicans.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee just can't help himself - he keeps adding insult to injury for teachers and public schools in our state.

We've gotten loud. Now it's time to vote loud.

Already, we have seven decided school board members: Rhonda Thurman, District 1; Marco Perez, District 2; Tiffanie Robinson, District 4; Joe Wingate, District 7 - who were not up for election this term - and Gary Kuehn, District 9, who won in May and has no Democratic opposition in the Aug. 4 general election.

John Allen Brooks, an attorney in private practice here for 30 years and and a former Hamilton County commissioner, is far and away the best choice to be the next Hamilton County District Attorney.

Come September, the Hamilton County Commission will bump from nine seats to 11 seats — thanks to the 2020 Census and the commission's vote to add seats thanks to redistricting.

Can't you almost smell the change in the political air at the Hamilton County Courthouse?

For three-and-a half months, Hamilton County and Chattanooga taxpayers have been getting the hard sell by our mayors and other officials trying to persuade us that spending $80 million in public money up front for a new Lookouts' sports palace is a good idea.

Three cheers for Memphis Republican Mark White, the Tennessee House Education Administration Committee chairman who said exactly what needed to be said about the Hillsdale College president who spent two hours belittling teachers and educators during a June appearance with Gov. Bill Lee in Franklin.

It becomes increasingly obvious that the game is all but over on the proposal to put a new Lookouts stadium on the former U.S. Pipe/Wheland foundry site on South Broad Street using $80 million in public money.

As much as we'd like not to say this, COVID-19 is not gone.

It's great to see the results of people getting feisty when they don't like what politicians and civic leaders are doing. Take for example the aftermath of a recent reveal of teacher insults from Hillsdale College President Larry Arnn — and the silence from Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee.

The big headline on the Chattanooga Times Free Press front page Thursday was clear: "Scenic City lands $4.9M in EPA money."

You must know something is wrong in Tennessee when Republicans can't find Republicans who are Republican enough for them. Even Republican teachers.

Go ahead, get mad. Get loud. Then vote.

Just as with abortion, our dangerous new majority Supreme Court didn't have to go beyond the case in front of it to decide a clean air case and endanger the earth. But it did.

Finally the community is getting more of a look at the proposed new Lookouts Stadium plan that calls for using a lot of our tax dollars - nearly $60 million based on a rundown in Thursday's paper - in the name of catalyzing "development" in the South Broad area of Chattanooga.