Dear Sir:
Possibly setting a world speed record, Don Bolduc changed his position on both abortion and the Trump big election lie within minutes of being declared the winner of the New Hampshire Republican Senate Primary. After supporting abortion bans and Trump’s claim that the election was stolen, to get the primary votes of Trump Republicans, Mr. Bolduc had a miraculous epiphany as soon as the election was called. Both of these dramatic flip flops involve serious questions facing Americans, but his explanation for his reversal on the Big Lie is the most revealing of Bolduc’s lack of credibility and legislative/leadership qualities.
In his defense for changing his position on Trump’s Big Lie, Bolduc claimed that he had conducted extensive research over the two weeks prior to the election, and then concluded that the 2020 election was not stolen. It is no coincidence that the results of Bolduc’s research were not released until after the primary election.
The most alarming and problematic aspect of Bolduc’s explanation is that it took him two years to decide to conduct his own independent research on the Big Lie. From November 2020 until November 2022, Bolduc blindly accepted the Trump assertion that the election had been stolen, despite more than 60 court decisions, recounts, and audits, all showing that there was no credibility to Trump’s claims. You would have thought that on a matter so vital to our Republic, especially after the January 6, 2021 insurrection, that Bolduc might have initiated his extensive research much earlier than October, 2022.
This raises some troubling questions. Is this the manner in which Bolduc operated and made decisions as a General in the Army? Is this how he plans to operate as a U.S. Senator if elected?
Changing one’s position over time and as new information is gathered is praiseworthy. It is how people grow. However, in the case of Bolduc, these very sudden changes, timed as such after an election, raises serious questions about his sincerity, trustworthiness, and motivations. Will Bolduc change his positions once again on these issues if he were to be elected Senator? How can voters trust what he claims his position is today, based on his recent history? When you have lost the people’s trust, you have lost everything, especially the right to hold a position of great power and responsibility.
Rich DiPentima. LTC, USAF, Ret.
Portsmouth, N.H.
Rich:
The more one listens to Bolduc, the more one wonders: who else may be wandering the corridors of the Pentagon?
The Editor
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More of Ewing’s Exudations
To the Editor:
Democrats’ ads show that abortion is their top priority. Abortion is more important to Democrat politicians:
• than your ability to feed your family and pay your housing, heat, electric, phone, and tax bills, &c. (Democrat incompetence created shortages; their votes created inflation.)
• than protecting children and adults from the deadly drugs coming over our Mexican border that Democrats opened to drug dealers, criminals, and others.
• than protecting innocent people from the criminals that Democrat prosecutors release without bail, refuse to fully prosecute, and release early from prison.
• than your ability to fuel your car so you can get to work, shopping, doctor or dentist appointments, or do other needed or desired travel.
• than your dwindling retirement or other savings.
However, Democrats demand ultra-extreme abortion laws, far beyond Roe v. Wade. Only a few nations have such ultra-extreme abortion laws. Democrats reject moderate, democratically established, abortion laws like in Europe or New Hampshire, which limit unrestricted abortions to 15 weeks typically and 24 weeks, respectively.
Democrats demand legalizing, nationwide, the barbaric practice of killing healthy, full-term babies at the moment of birth. They demand that the rapists of underage girls be allowed to get them abortions without notifying parents. They outlaw requirements that states believe are needed to ensure that women’s abortions are done safely.
If ultra-extreme abortion laws are your top priority, vote Democrat knowing that Democrats will continue making all your other problems worse.
If you prioritize feeding and protecting your family, affording a comfortable modern life, and letting the people democratically decide the important issues regarding life and death, babies’ rights, women’s rights, and the kind of society we live in, then you better vote straight Republican in November.
Don Ewing
Meredith, N.H.
Don:
We hate to break this to you, but you’re wrong. You are broadly, deeply, thoroughly wrong. Let us count the ways.
Democrats do not, as a general rule, go around thinking, “This person needs an abortion, and that person needs an abortion,” like Oprah handing out Pontiacs. To the contrary, Democrats are trying to prevent theocrats such as yourself from denying womens’ bodily autonomy, and imposing on them a narrow and likely incorrect interpretation of a religious belief. That is to say, they are trying to uphold the Constitution.
You blame Democrats for families’ financial troubles. If Democrats are indeed to blame for those troubles, it is because they have failed to stop Republicans from instituting policies which have benefited the obscenely wealthy at the expense of all the rest.
You blame Democrats and immigrants for the country’s drug problems. Neither are to blame. Immigrants risk their very lives to get here. That’s dangerous enough without packing in drugs. The cartels bring in their products by other means. A Republican, since disgraced, created the War on Drugs as a bogus wedge issue, to divide his political opposition. Ever since, like most of the GOP’s signature programs, it has been a monumental failure.
You imply that Democrats are soft on crime, releasing hordes of recidivists. The GOP solution, of course, is to keep people imprisoned forever, which is how the U.S. earned the distinction of having the world’s second-highest rate of incarceration. For the record, we, too, would favor a more draconian justice system, provided that white-collar crime and petty crime got the respective amount of attention they deserve.
You actually have the unmitigated gall to suggest that Democrats are to blame for high gas prices. That’s simply too absurd to treat seriously. Oh, sure, there are Democrats in bed with the fossil fuel industry—Senator Joe, are you listening? But the entire GOP is submerged to the nostrils in that La Brea tar pit.
That last one was pretty crazy, but you topped yourself with that last bullet point—“your dwindling retirement.” Do you turn off your hearing aid when Republicans declare that they want to privatize Social Security? Those heartless bastards are threatening to gut the sole source of income for most retirees, to make up for tax cuts for fat cats.
As for “killing healthy, full-term babies at the moment of birth,” that is, quite simply, a lie made up by Bible-thumpers to raise your blood pressure. You should tune in to NPR once in a while. Listen to a woman explaining the consequences of carrying a fetus doomed to die in the womb, or shortly after birth.
Your deranged characterization of the “ultra-extreme abortion laws” demanded by Democrats includes a link to the website of the Association of Mature American Citizens, or AMAC.
Politifact has fact-checked two, and only two, claims made by AMAC: In 2019 AMAC claimed that “AARP backed ‘federal funding for Planned Parenthood.’” Politifact called that “False.” In 2012 AMAC claimed that “If you and I fail to defund ObamaCare now, some 16,000 new IRS agents will be begin prying into our private medical records, eyeing each and every one of our treatments and prescriptions for ‘violations’.” Politifact rated that claim “Pants On Fire.”
Your next paragraph of alarmist exaggerations and hallucinations also comes with a link. This one leads to the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal. Thanks to the legendary idiocy of that particular source, nothing more needs to be said.
The Editor
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It’s Not “Pro Life”—It’s Forced Birth
To the Editor:
Lindsey Graham: 67 year old, never-married, no children, male; obviously the ideal person to decide that women should be forced to give birth.
Graham’s proposed law would ban, nationally, all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy except to protect the life of the mother (many Republican Senators and Congressmen even object to this exclusion), and if the woman/child becomes pregnant through rape or incest (even more Republican lawmakers object to this provision).
It’s a sad fact that Senator Graham and his Republican colleagues are so much more qualified to make life decisions for women than the women themselves.
Luckily, this isn’t government overreach—not like the FBI getting back stolen top security documents to protect the country!
Michael Frandzel
Portsmouth, N.H.
Michael:
If only Don Ewing were as succinct. That, though, is something that we will never see.
It is through their logorrhea that the right wing is able to tie susceptible minds into knots. Their incessant blathering works to force upon us all certain sets of words and phrases. Their familiarity serves above all to disguise the depravity of their perverse policies.
The header you proposed: “It’s Not ‘Pro Life’—It’s Forced Birth,” is a prime example of the perfect antidote.
The Editor
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Pity the Poor Dog Owner?
To the Editor:
You are the mother of a baby or an infant, perhaps of two or three. You push their stroller while your unleashed dog accompanies you. After all, you find it difficult to maneuver just the stroller, plus you are regularly attending to your young one(s). Are you aware that in the City of Portsmouth what you are doing is illegal?
You are the mother or father of one or more toddlers, and you are out walking and holding their hands while teaching them to walk. Your totally well-behaved family dog is accompanying you. She has learned how to be safe and not a nuisance in your human, urban world, so she is walking off-lead. Of course, you have poop bags and a leash with you, just in case. You are now breaking the law—in Portsmouth.
Your youngster is either physically, mentally, or behaviorally disabled. They are a real handful, and you often need to use both of your hands and arms to help them. Several years ago you adopted a dog, in part to provide your child with that comfort. You trained your dog for 18 to 24 months, perhaps with professional help, to safely and as a good canine citizen walk off-lead, because your dog is a part of your family and your challenged youngster benefits from your dog’s companionship. In Portsmouth you are breaking the law.
Your spouse is disabled, i.e., handicapped. They always or often cannot walk without your help, and at times there may be an event you have to deal with on the spot. Your very good unleashed dog is accompanying you. You are in violation of Portsmouth’s 2005 dog ordinance.
Is this right? I say it is not. City council needs to remedy this.
Robert E. Newby
Portsmouth, N.H.
Robert:
Your dog is a good dog, of course. That goes without saying because every dog is a good dog—in the eye of the person who is required by city ordinance to leash said dog when walking it in a public place.
You are suggesting that because that may be inconvenient in certain circumstances, the ordinance should be remedied. How, exactly?
If the matter is brought up for broad reconsideration, it could, conceivably, be overturned completely. At that point the safety of infants and the infirm depends on the judgment of the “owner” of the animal in question.
On a summer afternoon in our quaint little tourist trap, Market Square is filled with all manner of humanity. Not to be snobby about it but, from time to time, we’ve seen some sketchy goings-on. How many bowled-over geriatrics would it take before this matter came up for re-relitigation?
The Editor
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How Can We Counter Insatiable Greed?
To the editor;
If you have been following the financial news lately, you are aware that the Federal Reserve has recently raised the federal funds interest rate for the fifth month in a row in an effort to tame high and persistent inflation. Three of the five increases have been by 75 basis points which are considered to be aggressive boosts. Investors, fearing that the rise in rates will cause a recession, have responded by initiating a major selloff in the stock market which has driven the Dow-Jones index to a yearly low. Some pundits predict greater declines in the index.
Increases in the federal funds rate eventually work through the economy causing other interest rates to rise. Mortgage rates, credit card charges and interest rates for business loans climb. Consequently, investment declines, fewer homes are bought and consumers spend less as aggregate demand decreases to match supply. Prices decline to ease inflationary pressures but at the cost of reduced wages and employment. Economists stress the importance of reducing the wage component of inflation in order to avoid the “wage-cost spiral” where the rise in wages increases producer’s cost which are passed on to consumers through increased prices in a continuing loop.
Interest rate increases take time to work throughout the economy and they fail to target specific causes of inflation. For example, two of the factors that are causing the current global inflation are restricted supply chains which still have not returned to normal since the worst of the pandemic and food and energy disruptions caused by the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. The Fed’s interest rate increase will do nothing to directly address either of these problems. They are a blunt instrument that cures inflation by bringing pain to the entire economy. This seems especially cruel to the working class whose wages have only recently begun to raise after a forty year period of stagnation.
There is an element of current inflation that could be managed directly. It is excess profits being taken by corporations under the cover of rising costs. There is no doubt that inflation has increased costs for producers and it is not unusual for them to pass increased costs to consumers. Recently, however, many corporations have reported record profits as well as rising costs. This indicates that companies are using their pricing power to mask profit-taking in price increases. This is unlikely to occur in competitive industries where market rivals would undercut inflated prices in order to gain market share. Clearly, this is not happening.
Since the 80’s American industries have become significantly more concentrated through mergers and acquisitions. Industry consolidation has left many firms with significant power to influence price well in excess of their costs. For example, consolidation in the meat and poultry packing industry have left only four producers who control 85 percent of the market. Wall Street mergers have left just five large banks in control of much of the financial industry. Airline consolidation has reduced the industry from twelve airlines in the 80’s to four today. It should come as no surprise that many corporations today can report record profits during a period of persistent cost increases.
Although the Federal Reserve has no tools to directly influence excess profit-taking, legislation can help to solve the problem. A temporary excess profits tax would remove the incentive to powerful corporations of profit-taking during inflationary periods. Temporary and targeted price ceilings could eliminate profit-seeking price-making. Such legislation may provide additional tools to tame inflation beyond the blunt instrument of interest rate increases. Of course, the likelihood of any such legislation being enacted in our current dysfunctional political environment is infinitesimal. We will be condemned to slog through our current economic problems as best we can—as has usually been the case.
Robert D. Russell, Ph.D.
Harrisburg, Pa.
Robert:
For about forty years now the exalted individuals who operate the arcane systems which control our economy have been doing their level best to pare down the share that goes to the working person—that is to say, the one who makes it all work.
Could these lofty bosses ever pare it down to nothing? Of course not. The gears and wheels—being lubricated by the blood and the sweat of the workers—would soon come to a creaking stop.
The way the big wigs are running this joint, though, we’re not sure they understand that.
The Editor
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Some Ancient Truths Still Apply
Dear Editor,
Throughout time, people who had large amounts of money or land deemed themselves above any form of regulation. They had a right to exploit, bully, and disenfranchise others.
In ancient Rome the wealthy patricians seethed with indignation when common folk or freed slaves fought for civil rights like the ability to give testimony, sign as surety on loans, inherit estates, and sign contracts.
In Athens the aristocracy couldn’t bear to allow people with less than a certain amount of property to vote, or to obtain a jury trial, or to be free of debt slavery.
In England, the nobility hated having to share their monopoly economic privileges with others. They also did not want commoners to get an education.
In America, the one percent class are imitating the sins of the ancients by fighting regulation and the raising up of others at every turn.
Too much money in one’s hands is the root of all evil.
Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross, Utah
Kimball:
It’s a pleasure to hear good sense from the Great Basin.
The Editor
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Punish The Worthy, Reward the Corrupt
Dear Editor:
Most Americans, who care about their country, and who vote faithfully, want desperately to believe that the candidates for whom they cast their vote will not only win but are honest and principled and will represent the time-honored values most of us were brought up to believe in. Have I been sorely misinformed about that, or am I just hopelessly naive?
The New York Times reported in September (this year) that stock-trading conflicts were rampant in Congress (that’s a shocker there). The Times exposed, that from 2019-2021, 97 sitting senators and House members reported more than 3,700 trades by themselves or their family members in financial assets related to their committee assignments. Keep in mind, this was what was reported—how many transactions went unreported—only God knows.
Congress has debated, for decades, tightening the rules for lawmaker investing. Let us pause while you pick yourself up off the floor from laughing, and give you time to pour yourself another stiff one.
The New York Times highlighted several ethically (shall we say) dubious moves. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) traded contracts tied to cattle prices while his committee investigated cattle markets. Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-Ohio) bought shares in a pharmaceutical firm while his committee investigated that firm’s high drug prices. The wife of Rep. Alan Lowenthal (D-Calif.) sold Boeing shares a day before his committee released damaging findings about the company’s two fatal crashes.
These rather questionable activities inside the United States Congress do manage to slip into the headlines from time to time. There are approximately 540 members of Congress at any given time so 97 would be, what, about 18 percent, and again, these are only the ones we know about.
This violation of what my generation regarded as principled ethical practices is likely (given the present day political setting) not very high on any voter’s list of things to worry about. However, it is one of those pesky, persistent little items that stubbornly crawls across the pathway obstructing sound governance every now and again and causing those who are sworn to represent the people to forget why they’re there and who sent them.
Aside from the fact that congressional members are using their positions to acquire wealth, something else should disturb us even more.
Men and women like Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), Adam Kinzinger (R-Ohio), and Rusty Bowers (R-Ariz.), presently Speaker of the House in Arizona, are ostracized by their own party, beaten deliberately in their primaries, receive death threats, not because of wrongdoing but because they had the courage to stand tall and tell the ruth, because they refused to grovel to a liar, conman and president who incited a deadly armed attack on his own Capitol.
These men and women were chastised for doing the right thing where as those who violate ethical laws of the United States Congress, and their oath, go on their merry way, unscathed. The moral decay of this once great nation is abominable and needs desperately to be addressed.
David L. Snell
Franklin, N.C.
David:
It is, indeed, a sad measure of our times that such blatant corruption barely registers on the average citizen’s radar.
The Editor
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If He’s For Her, That’s a Problem
To the Editor:
I am happy to endorse the candidacy of Cathy Stacey for Rockingham County Register of Deeds. I have been involved in county affairs in all the 28 years that Cathy has been the Register of Deeds. She has had to cope with many challenges as the building where she works has had a series of plumbing problems, mainly in her office suite. She has had to deal with these leaks while recording a record number of deeds and documents. She is responsible for recording all the deeds in the county, even back to the 1600’s, so that they are now available on line. She has coped with a complicated budget with minimum staff. The fees she collects, not only pay for her office, but also, she is a collector for all the recording fees. This has resulted in her collecting for the state 70 million dollars, and for our county almost six million dollars. The latest service Cathy is offering county residents is Property Fraud Alert System. Similar to TitleLock, this is designed to alert us if someone is illegally trying to use our property for a financial gain. The service is being offered free. Cathy is the longest serving county officer, and is the best informed. We are well served by Cathy Stacey as our Register of Deeds. Please vote to reelect her.
Rep. Ken Weyler
Kingston, N.H.
Ken:
We are in a real quandary here. We know as much about the Rockingham County Registry of Deeds as the average voter, we suspect, which is to say, not much.
We do know that Stacey is a Republican. Is she a Trump™ Brand Kool-Aid guzzler? We don’t know, but judging from that party’s recent performance, voting for any Republican seems imprudent.
We also know that you, Rep. Weyler—a Republican—put the New Hampshire House in the national spotlight recently, and not in a good way. You promoted among your colleagues the Vaccine Death Report, which claims, among other things, that Covid vaccines contain microscopic tentacled creatures, and turn humans into “patented transhumans.”
Who would foist such horrors on our unsuspecting populace? According to the Death Report, it’s the three Popes—one is White, one is Black, and one is Grey—lurking within the Vatican City. Of the three, the Grey Pope is the most dangerous: “This supreme puppet master operates entirely in the shadows, from where he yields enormous power over the world. If you want to understand how all this originated historically, you have to research the dark spiritual origins of the Jesuits. I will leave it here, for now, as this topic can easily lead us too far.”
Our First in the Nation™ Presidential Primary Election® is New Hampshire’s big meal ticket. By demonstrating an appalling level of gullibility, you have given other states—we see you, Nevada—reason to challenge our primacy. You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and we won’t have it!
Cathy Stacey faces a Democratic challenger on Election Day. That’s November 8th. Need we say more?
The Editor
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Save the Climate—Cultivate Meat
To the editor,
Animal agriculture is a leading cause of climate change. Any serious response to the environmental crisis would address that. And, yet, our feckless leaders have no plan to do so. We must substantially increase federal funding for cultivated-meat research. For those who aren’t familiar with the term, cultivated meat is grown from animal cells, without slaughter.
This revolutionary protein requires a fraction of the greenhouse-gas emissions that raising livestock does. Committed environmentalists should push their senators and representatives to support more public money for cellular-agriculture development. This will help bring cultivated meat to market faster, at a competitive price with slaughtered meat.
Jon Hochschartner
Granby, Conn.
Jon:
Without meaning in any way to denigrate the merits of your argument, we eagerly await the right wing response to the notion of meat that is grown without animals, without cowboys, and without slaughter.
The Editor
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5th Anniversary Of The Referendum On The Independence Of Catalonia
To the Editor:
This October 1st, the Catalan pro-independence movement has summoned tens of thousands of people to Barcelona for the anniversary of the 2017 referendum on self-determination. And three weeks ago, on Catalonia Day, the movement also summoned hundreds of thousands of people in the same city.
The 2017 referendum came after a sustained popular demand since 2010, which Madrid had systematically refused. So when the Catalan government decided to hold the referendum unilaterally, the state sent 10,000 police to prevent it. However, the referendum was held and 2,286,217 people voted, 43 percent of the census, with 90 percent in favor of independence.
Afterwards, the Catalan government tried to negotiate with the Spanish government, but they refused and activated the judicial system that imprisoned nine people. They were almost four years in jail until the pressures of the Council of Europe forced the pardon of these political prisoners. But we have been judicially persecuted for 4,200 people, 720 of whom are still awaiting trial.
Right now the Spanish government is trying to ignore the conflict and, in Europe, they are also looking the other way. But ignoring the most powerful social movement in Europe is irresponsible because such a movement, which knows it has the right to defend itself against ultranationalist Spain, will not renounce independence by Spanish imposition.
The most militant part of the independence movement knows that it must force a solution because, the current unacceptable situation, with a social-democratic nationalist Spanish government (PSOE and Podemos), will worsen when the ultra-nationalism of the right (PP) plus the extreme right (VOX) wins. Faced with the lack of a democratic path, independentism is realizing that it will have to organize a peaceful insurrectional process of more than two million people to overwhelm the Spanish State, which will foreseeably react with a lot of violence. Before this happens, it would be desirable that Europe forces Spain to accept a referendum of self-determination to solve the conflict democratically.
Jordi Oriola Folch
Barcelona, Catalonia
Jordi:
Our first thought upon reading this was that the world doesn’t need another conflict. On the other hand, we have to ask: by what right could the world ask Catalonia to submit to Spain?
Here at the Gazette we only seem to hear from pro-independence Catalonians. Can anyone out there provide us with a second opinion on this matter?
The Editor
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A Capitalist Confesses
“I am a capitalist, and after a 30-year career in capitalism spanning three dozen companies, generating tens of billions of dollars in market value, I’m not just in the top one percent, I’m in the top .01 percent of all earners. Today, I have come to share the secrets of our success, because rich capitalists like me have never been richer…. Over the last 30 years, in the U.S.A. alone, the top one percent has grown 21 trillion dollars richer while the bottom 50 percent have grown 900 billion dollars poorer, a pattern of widening inequality that has largely repeated itself across the world. And yet, as middle class families struggle to get by on wages that have not budged in about 40 years, neoliberal economists continue to warn that the only reasonable response to the painful dislocations of austerity and globalization is even more austerity and globalization.
“Greed is not good. Being rapacious doesn’t make you a capitalist, it makes you a sociopath. And in an economy as dependent upon cooperation at scale as ours, sociopathy is as bad for business as it is for society…. Neoliberal economic theory has sold itself to you as unchangeable natural law, when in fact it’s social norms and constructed narratives based on pseudoscience. If we truly want a more equitable, more prosperous and more sustainable economy, if we want high-functioning democracies and civil society, we must have a new economics.
“And here’s the good news: if we want a new economics, all we have to do is choose to have it.”
– Nick Hanauer, from his 2019 TED Talk, “The dirty secret of capitalism—and a new way forward.”
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“Don’t loaf and invite inspiration; light out after it with a club, and if you don’t get it you will nonetheless get something that looks remarkably like it.”
– Jack London
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“If you were to add crimes committed by the police to crime stats, I bet every city’s crime rate would more than double.”
– @aspiringpeasant