Dear Editor:
Over the past couple of weeks we have learned of two more criminal actions by Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for President.
First, at a meeting last month at Mar-a-Lago with about two dozen oil industry executives, Trump offered to reverse all of President Biden’s environmental rules and stop any new rules from being put in place in exchange for a $1 billion campaign donation. This is nothing short of bribery.
Second, we have now learned the real reason Mr. Trump never released his tax returns that were being audited by the IRS. As reported in the New York Times, Trump claimed losses of $651 million for his Chicago skyscraper in 2008 then moved ownership of the building in 2010 and then claimed a loss of another $168 million. This is something called double dipping or more importantly, tax fraud. Tax fraud is what ended up getting Al Capone put in jail.
On top of his other four criminal indictments, his liability for civil sexual abuse, his bank fraud in New York, his fraudulent university and charitable foundation, both of which have been shut down, these new revelations are just two more examples of the complete lawlessness demonstrated by the life of Donald Trump.
And this is the man Kelly Ayotte, Chris Sununu and the Republican Party support for President.
Rich DiPentima
Portsmouth, N.H.
Rich:
It really is incredible, isn’t it? How is it even possible for one person to commit so many crimes? Does he think of nothing else?
We suspect, though, that it would be useless to try to get inside his head and analyze how it works. Besides, even if one were to succeed, consider the potential consequences for the mind and soul of the person so reckless as to make that attempt.
Thank you for contributing, with your final paragraph, to what we hope may survive as a permanent record of shame, for the edification of future generations—presuming that there are any, that former certitude now being increasingly in doubt.
The Editor
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Trump: An Innocent Victim of Persecution
To the Editor:
DA Alvin Bragg’s prosecution of President Trump is evidence of Soviet style “justice,” not American Justice. Bragg targeted Trump. Since Trump committed no obvious crimes, Bragg based his charges on novel (unintended) interpretations of laws. This is why most people can’t explain Trump’s actual charges, they don’t include paying “hush money.”
Democrat leadership lusts for Trump’s incarceration; for it they’ll:
Smear Trump to alienate voters and jury members,
Keep Trump in court and not campaigning,
Commit Prosecutorial and Judicial abuse to convict Trump and call him a “Felon,” even though the conviction(s) will be reversed… after the election.
There are many grounds for reversing a conviction. Judge Merchan should have recused himself; he is highly conflicted and prejudiced. Merchan allowed the trial to proceed without identifying Trump’s supposed crimes, delayed identification of prosecution witnesses to hinder cross-examination, hindered defense witnesses, gagged Trump to prevent his responses to lies and slanders by his enemies, refused to change the venue to a less biased location, and allowed Stormy Daniels to provide prejudicious but totally irrelevant testimony.
Also, Bragg apparently withheld exculpatory evidence and suborned perjury by Michael Cohen who lied on the stand, admitted hating Trump, and stole from Trump’s Company.
Democrat [sic] leadership is desperate. They don’t care that no objective person would consider this a fair trial; they don’t care that a conviction will be reversed. This trial smeared Trump, kept him off the campaign trail, and kept him from publicly defending himself.
This trial is evidence of Soviet “Justice,” not American Justice. Democrats are interfering with the election and abusing power against their political opponents. If successful, why would they stop?
Every American should reject partisan use of our Judicial System; you could be tomorrow’s target. Trump can fight false charges, can you?
Don Ewing
Meredith, N.H.
Don:
We hope you appreciate the placement of your latest bit of fan fiction: right after a bit of straightforward comment on a couple of your hero’s most recently uncovered malfeasances. Now, let us proceed with a bit of close reading.
“Bragg targeted Trump.” Well, he is the District Attorney. It’s his job to enforce the law. Trump’s been breaking the law in Bragg’s jurisdiction for decades. Go back and read some of the work of Wayne Barrett and David Cay Johnston. There’s enough dirt there to have kept an army of DA’s working overtime. The wonder is that this took so long.
Trump lied about his property values in the course of keeping his payments to an adult film actress secret until after the 2016 election. That’s committing a crime in order to affect the outcome of an election. Bragg appears to have Trump in a box. His best hope of getting out? A juror with brain worms.
It’s not just Democratic leaders who lust for Trump’s incarceration—it’s 73 percent of Democrats. Granted, that poll was about the charges of stealing Top Secret documents, not lying to influence an election. Give us a break. His habit of breaking laws left and right makes it hard to differentiate one crime from another.
As for smearing Trump, the guy who’s doing the smearing is the guy with the orange makeup on his face. When he gets up on stage and talks like a brain-damaged fascist, simply quoting him does not constitute smearing him.
Besides, he’s essentially unsmearable. What could one accuse him of that he hasn’t done and bragged about?
Basta. Enough about that guy.
We wish you’d tell us more about yourself. We’d really like to better understand how you can look at this guy and see someone admirable and suitable for the nation’s highest office. How do you think like that and retain the ability to function in the real world?
The Editor
–=≈=–
They Want To Bury Independent Catalonia, But It Continues To Go Forward
To the Editor:
On May 12, 2024, there were elections to the Catalan Parliament. The Spanish and international press only highlighted the fact that Puigdemont did not come first. The winning candidate, Salvador Illa of the PSC (Catalan branch of the PSOE), is hardly mentioned, because he does not seem to have won because of who he is, but because he is in charge of the state campaign to try to electorally defeat Catalan independence, a movement that has won every election since 2012 with an absolute majority. And from “Catalan independence has lost!,” they want to conclude “Catalan independence is over!”, even though it is not clear that Illa will be able to form an anti-independence government (because he would need the participation of ERC, a pro-independence party). And ERC may rather support Puigdemont to form a pro-independence government or, if there is no agreement, we will go to new elections.
The PSC (pro-Spanish social democrats) got 42 MPs, Junts de Puigdemont (pro-independence social democrats and liberals) got 35 MPs, 20 for ERC (pro-independence social democrats), 15 for the PP (pro-Spanish right-wing), 11 for VOX (Spanishist extreme right), six for the Comunes (nationally undefined left), four for the CUP (pro-independence left) and two for Aliança Catalana (a new extreme right-wing pro-independence party, in line with what is happening in Europe, but contrary to the anti-fascist tradition of the pro-independence movement).
Despite the fact that an amnesty law is about to be passed to defuse the ‘lawfare’ (judicial dirty war) that Spanish nationalism has been using against Catalan independence, there has still been persecution in these elections: Puigdemont has had to campaign from Northern Catalonia (currently in French territory), unable to tour Catalonia, because he would have been arrested, and also unable to participate in televised debates. And despite this disadvantage (which in other countries would have annulled the elections due to the lack of equality between the contenders), Puigdemont’s result has been very acceptable: he has surpassed his previous result by 100,000 votes and has come within seven seats of the winner.
The pro-independence movement as a whole has maintained the votes of the previous elections, but has lost 700,000 votes compared to 2017. This loss was mainly due to ERC, which had already been losing votes for some time and has now lost 170,000 votes compared to the previous elections, but 500,000 compared to 2017. The electorate has punished the Catalan government of ERC for changing course, for wanting to stop the emancipation movement, for talking about postponing independence for more than 20 years, and for continually submitting to the designs of the Spanish government. This electoral setback has pushed the ERC leadership to resign and announce a process of self-criticism and redirection.
Therefore, anyone who wants to see in the loss of the absolute majority of the pro-independence movement that this movement is over will have difficulty understanding what is to come, because the yearning for freedom is still alive, and this has only been an electoral turbulence due to the difficulty of agreeing on how to manage Spanish hostility. So this electoral defeat, therefore, is not the defeat of those who are still at loggerheads with the state, but of the party that had relegated the struggle for independence to the management of domestic affairs.
And stretching this feeling of anger, many voters do not forgive that, in general, all pro-independence parties did not dare to undertake independence in 2017 (for fear that Spain would provoke a bloodbath), nor that, having had 52 percent of the votes in the Catalan Parliament, they have been inhibited from moving towards independence.
Returning to the present, it remains to be seen who will end up forming a government in Catalonia, but even if the pro-independence parties are unable to do so, it will continue to advance because (unlike what they think in Madrid) the parties are not the driving force behind independence, but rather it is a transversal social movement born of a real and historically omnipresent yearning in Catalonia. However, given that this struggle also needs institutional force, if the electoral penalty serves to break the deadlock and causes the movement to advance together, the road to independence will once again be inexorable.
Jordi Oriola Folch
Barcelona, Catalonia
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Will Anyone Stand Up For Us?
Dear Editor,
Does anybody in pint-size America have the courage to stand up to big-belly corporate America? We first gave up on curbing corporate monopoly and straightening out corporate income taxes. We next rolled over and allowed corporations to buy up soulless public servants at election time.
With the goal of a two-class America now in sight, the latest coup of the new American aristocracy has been to take daytime TV by storm. Corporate sponsors have virtually forced daytime news and talk shows into “deal of the day” or “steal of the day” segments that eat well into program content time just like the ever-expanding commercial breaktimes do.
It used to be that oil, railroad, steel, telegraph, utilities, and meatpacking were the hardest-working white-collar robbers in America, but today retail product companies and banks have taken over the railroading of folks into their consumer graves. We must have what we don’t need, and we must go deeply into debt to pay for it all.
Our TV celebs and commerce moguls just can’t get enough millions and billions to satisfy their personal needs for luxury. They must turn the middle class into the working poor to get the job done.
Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross, Utah
Kimball:
We share your enthusiasm for standing up to corporate America, of course, and “straightening out corporate income taxes”—as in, making them pay something for a change.
We’re considerably less engaged with what sounds like a campaign to do something about daytime TV. Perhaps we should give it some attention, but we’re pretty well distracted by other matters that seem more salient.
We are a bit confused by your lumping together “TV celebs and finance moguls.” Today’s lords of finance are certainly the modern day successors of late 19th century robber barons, but we’re less clear on how celebrities figure in. Like top athletes, they’re primarily figureheads, however highly compensated.
We certainly endorse the gist of your letter, if we understand it: at least a third of Americans today are living in virtual peonage.
The Editor
–=≈=–
Shame on Haley—Vote Boros!
Dear Editor:
Nikki Haley is such a loser for promising to vote for Donald Trump! I mean, how low can she go? Like, would she vote for Lucifer if he were ahead in the polls? Hey, why not, right?
Whatever it takes to get ahead with her dead-in-the-water political career, apparently. But how can she live with herself, now that she simply overlooks the unquestionably racist mass shooting that took place when she was governor—a mass shooting carried out by a deluded young man who absolutely loved waving the Confederate battle flag like a symbol of pride, not shame.
Shame on Haley for recently endorsing the unabashedly pro-Confederate Trump! What the hell is she thinking? Whatever the hell she’s thinking, it sure as hell makes me want to vomit. Vomit is, I do believe, the correct and proper response to such callous disregard for basic human decency.
Fear not. Bright red “SAGA” hats are in the works: stands for “Sadly, America Groans Again.” The SAGA hat, I’ll have ya’ll know, will be a perfectly acceptable fashion statement at all my future press conferences, as I run as a write-in candidate for U.S. president.
By the way, let’s just do away with the letter “T” in the name “Trump” when referring to the former president, for doing so shall result in a far more accurate description of his character (or, rather, lack of character). Therefore, “rump” (all lowercase) shall henceforth be his new name. Nothing to be ashamed of, of course, for we are but describing, not denigrating.
Yessir, we gonna thump the rump! Yeeeee-hah!”
Sincerely,
Alex J. Boros
Rochester, N.H.
P.S. – I’m recovering slow but steady from my open heart surgery at Portsmouth Regional Hospital on May 2, 2024. I had a quintuple bypass. Basically, that just means I now have an almost brand new heart—something that the rumpster desperately needs, especially given that he apparently has no heart! ❤
Alex:
We’re alarmed and dismayed to hear of your recent medical challenges, and glad to hear you’re recovering. We just hope that your better health does not come at the expense of the end of democracy as we know it.
Imagine this scenario: It’s November, 2024. The election is close. New Hampshire’s four electoral votes will decide the election, thanks to a complex and idiotic procedure dictated by a bunch of slaveholders, the last of whom died two centuries ago.
The election is close in New Hampshire, too. Voters are split down the middle—almost.
A vote that might have gone against a would-be dictator who has already attempted one coup—and who may be, by then, a convicted felon—has gone, instead, to a write-in candidate.
The odds against such a scenario may be cosmically huge, but do you really want to court such a calamitous result? Hell, we’re a little nervous just running your letter.
The Editor
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Slaughter in Gaza
Dear Editor,
The Israeli slaughterhouse, Gaza
Heavy with 2000 lbs bombs buckles
Bends from the onslaught of hypocrisy
Bombast pledging concern for civilians
As they shred the UN’s decrees
Outlining humanitarian law, bulldozers
Scoop-up rubble intermixed with body parts
Palestinians, members of an ancient race
Dismembered as Israeli Settlers attack aid
Trucks lit ablaze light the fire of hatred
Hospitals strafed with tank shells terrorized
As snipers pick off the fleeing then bulldoze
Their remains, dust settles as dusk approaches
Drones fly above, hover like angels of death
Hungry for annihilation.
Genevieve Harris-Fraser
Orange, Mass.
–=≈=–
A Dishonorable Commander-in-Chief
Dear Editor:
This weekend the nation celebrates Memorial Day, the day set aside to honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice to their country. My wife and I take this day extremely seriously, both having served on active duty during Vietnam, she as an Air Force nurse and I as a munitions officer. I went on to serve 28 years in the military, in active duty and reserve capacities, including being returned to active duty during Desert Storm.
While neither I nor my wife were ever asked to serve in a combat zone, although we were prepared to do so, we both have many friends and family who had done so going back to the Civil War. We both have had friends and relatives who were wounded in combat and some who lost their lives in service to their country. We will never forget them.
While we consider those who served their country and gave the ultimate sacrifice heroes, Donald Trump considers them to be “losers and suckers.” A man who avoided military service during Vietnam through a number of deferments, including a suspicious medical deferment because of bone spurs, openly defiles the memory and the sacrifices made by these brave men and women. No person who considers those who shed their blood in service to their country to be “losers and suckers” should ever have been allowed to be the Commander in Chief of the military, yet Trump was granted that undeserving honor and is once again trying to regain it. If Trump returns as Commander in Chief, it would represent the most indelible stain and disgrace on the nation’s honor and on the memory of those who sacrificed so much to save democracy from men like Trump.
Rich DiPentima, LTC, USAF, Ret.
Portsmouth, N.H.
Rich:
It may be blasphemous to write such things—particularly today, which happens to be Memorial Day—but the automatic reverence which is so often applied to service in the U.S. military strikes us as dangerous.
We would not willingly return to the 1970s, when underfunded VA hospitals were infested with rats. But the cure for that situation—reactionary Ronald Reagan’s praise, and draft-dodger Sylvester Stallone’s perverse portrayal of Rambo—was almost worse than the disease. As many Vietnam veterans suspected when Reagan called Vietnam a “noble cause,” once again we were being used: this time to rehabilitate the use of the U.S. military to further the designs of the American Empire.
Grenada and Panama let people feel good again about foreign adventures. Desert Storm then celebrated the apotheosis of our military-industrial complex: yellow ribbons tied around every stationary object in sight, and half the dogs.
After 9/11, Afghanistan was inevitable. But Iraq? That was sheer madness, brought about by a distorted image of what can be done with industrialized murder.
With Vietnam so far back in the past, its image so blurred and distorted by politicians and Hollywood, that, to some who weren’t there, it might now seem like… well, something other than what it was: an epically stupid crime of vast proportions, the true cost of which we deny to this day.
Honor our war dead by making no more than are absolutely necessary.
The Editor