Dear Editor:
This week, a memo from the Veterans Administration (VA) indicated that it plans to cut 83,000 employees to comply with Mr. Trump’s orders to slash the federal government. (Military.com) These cuts are on top of the few thousand VA jobs already cut, along with hundreds of contracts that support veterans’ health care.
These cuts will have devastating effects on thousands of New Hampshire veterans who rely on the VA for their health care, including members of the local chapter of the Disabled American Veterans. In addition, about 25 percent of the VA workforce are veterans, many who have already lost their jobs. These cuts could impact the VA Hospital in Manchester as well as the VA Outpatient Clinics at Pease, Conway, Keene, Littleton, Somersworth and Tilton. The cuts will result in the inability to receive needed care, long wait times for care that is still available, patients getting sicker while they wait for care, increased costs to treat more advanced disease, and serious mental health consequences due to the inability to obtain mental health care or access the VA crisis hotline. Lives will be lost, and families will be devastated as a result of these heartless cuts.
There is a great deal of irony involved here. Many of the veterans who will be affected are disabled, many as a result of combat related injuries. How ironic that the man calling for these cuts avoided military service during Vietnam by getting a doctor who rented office space from his father to diagnose him with bone spurs granting him a questionable medical deferment. And what is even more ironic is that the same man, who called fallen heroes “losers and suckers,” now can obtain the best medical care that the military has to offer.
This is nothing less than a national disgrace and every American should be ashamed of how our government has betrayed those who sacrificed so much for the gain of those who have sacrificed nothing. And our Governor, Kelly Ayotte, who supported Trump, remains silent as thousands of her citizens have their lives put at risk.
Rich DiPentima
Portsmouth, N.H.
Rich:
Disgraceful treatment of veterans is one of mankind’s most ancient traditions. Our U.S. Revolutionary soldiers were paid in scrip which, after the war, was nearly worthless. Broke veterans sold their scrip for pennies on the dollar to survive. Speculators bought it up by the bale and made fortunes when Hamilton redeemed it at face value.
VA hospitals in the early 1970s were filthy and rat-infested. Since then—largely because a new era of veterans would not stand for that kind of treatment—conditions improved greatly.
Republicans, once expert at giving lip service to vets, began to drop their façade in 2004. Remember the Purple Heart band-aids at the GOP convention?
Today’s assault on veterans signals the completion of the Republican project to de-democratize the U.S. government. Those who hold the power are acting as if they no longer need to fear mere citizens.
Shut out of power thanks to bought elections, gerrymandering, bad court decisions, and a neutered press, citizens have a choice: knuckle under, or show the politicians they have miscalculated.
The Editor
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Is Rep. Goodlander Ex-CIA?
To the Editor:
Maggie Goodlander’s resume has all the signs of a CIA intel officer. If that is true, she must disclose it today:
As a Yale grad, a recruiting university for the CIA, Goodlander has all the pedigree signs of the CIA. Remember George Bush Senior, a Yale grad, was the former Director of the CIA.
“Goodlander served as an intelligence officer in the United States Navy Reserve and worked as a foreign policy advisor in the United States Senate. After law school, she was a law clerk for Chief Judge Merrick Garland and Justice Stephen Breyer. She served as counsel on the House Judiciary Committee during the first impeachment of Donald Trump.” [Here Frost quotws Wikipedia. – The Ed.] CIA can only deal with foreign intelligence operations legally. [Frost apparently intends to make the point that the CIA is purportedly prohibited from conducting operations in the U.S. – The Ed.]
Today [Goodlander] is [the] Democrats’ pick for the Arms [Armed] Services Committee. Yes, this is just my opinion, but it follows the ‘TDS’ [Trump Derangement Syndrome] and hate the Deep State backed by shadow sources embedded in our federal government that are used to go after people like Trump that get in the way of control. [With this sentence, our ability to make sense of Frost’s text fails us. – The Ed.]
The constitution [sic] prohibits dual jobs for elected officials. If my suspicions have substance, the public would still need to know their representative’s complete background. “Former CIA Officers” had no problems deceiving the public before the 2020 election regarding Hunter Biden’s laptop; I doubt they changed their character when they were active.
What do we know about Maggie Goodlander? She has, and will most likely be, an attack person against Trump given her willingness to impeach him for doing his duty under the Foreign Aid Act not to support corrupt countries like Ukraine. Or, at the very least, get a president’s, Zelenskyy at the time, commitment to investigating known problems no matter where they exist, even if a high-ranking U.S. politician is involved. Goodlander, a trained lawyer, volunteered to go after someone on evidence no criminal court would recognize—hearsay second-hand opinions of a call—accusations. It tells her political bent and tactics to create and support a coup d’état of a sitting elected President.
I think it appears obvious Goodlander will vote ‘only’ the party leaders’—Pelosi’s—obstructing agenda against our interests in reforming our government back to our Bill of Rights.
Jeff Frost
Alexandria, N.H.
Jeff:
Thanks for dialing down the verbosity and taking a stab at coherency, thereby making it possible for us to address this mix of facts, fantasy, and paranoia.
You have successfully established that a Venn diagram of Goodlander’s career overlaps in places with the profile of a generic officer in a U.S. clandestine service—which proves nothing.
The rest of your letter does establish that you believe Trump’s canon of lies about Ukraine. We can’t help you with that.
Also: It’s time to update your Villains List—Pelosi turned the party over to Hakeem Jeffries on January 3rd.
The Editor
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U.S. Foreign Policy Flip-Flops
To the Editor:
For nearly a century, the United States has sided with democracies around the world. Recently, we watched the president and vice president of the United States switch sides on an ally, Ukraine, in the middle of a war. They adopted Russia’s talking points, even claiming that Ukraine started the war with its invader. If Putin wished to destroy NATO, separate the U.S. from its allies and oust the U.S. from its position as leader of the free world, he could do no better.
This development marks the end of the United States as the leader of the free world, a place we have held since WWII. It is in line with recent decisions of the administration to end USAID, to cut off all aid to Ukraine, including aid to keep its power grid operational, to levy tariffs on imports from our allies, and to fire those JAG officers who advise as to international and military law.
The result is that our allies will no longer trust us, and our enemies have learned they can manipulate us. This makes the world less safe, especially for the U.S. We will be isolated and weakened for decades to come. The American people must come together and demand better.
Lorriane L. Hansen
Rollinsford, N.H.
Lorriane:
Anyone who predicted in, say, 2016, that Trump would take U.S. foreign policy in this direction would have been buried under a mountain of mockery. And yet, here we are.
This situation defies explanation—and therefore engenders speculation. Do the answers lie in the Epstein Files?
The Editor
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Trump’s Goal: An Imperial Presidency
To the Editor:
Strategies may be formulated in two modes: deliberate and emergent. Deliberate strategy is a rational process of crafting long-term goals, developing plans designed to achieve those goals and allocating resources to implement the plans. It is how most people think of “planning.” Emergent strategies are found in environments characterized by uncertainty or rapid change where the traditional planning model is ineffective. It is not determined by a formal process of planning; instead, it searches for opportunities that may appear in fluid and unpredictable contexts. Successful emergent strategies rely on principles and values to guide decisions under conditions of uncertainty. These strategies are usually driven from the bottom up and often rely on a strong organizational culture to provide direction rather than top-down commands. Emergent strategy that is guided by a stable culture in touch with its external context can be effective and innovative but when it becomes reactive, driven by a rigid ideology or the idiosyncratic whims of an autocratic leader, it usually fails, leaving the organization adrift without effective direction.
Experience shows that Trump has little ability for deliberate strategy-making. This was illustrated during the presidential debates when he could not describe his plan to improve healthcare (although he claimed to have “concepts” for a plan). Most of his decisions have been disconnected from reality, driven by narcissism, ignorance and vengeance seeking. His tariff policy is inconsistent and based on falsehoods. He has claimed that tariffs will make America “rich” through payments from foreign governments or producers, ignoring the fact that tariffs are paid by U.S. importers and the added cost is almost always passed on to the American consumer through price increases. Moreover, his broad-based tariffs will affect U.S. producers that import raw materials or components, further increasing costs and prices. Trump also claims that tariffs will re-build U.S. manufacturing capacity. Although targeted tariffs can be effective in temporarily protecting critical industries, they need to be predictable and part of a broader strategy that facilitates investment and stimulates competition in the protected industry. The haphazard, on again, off again application of tariffs as a bargaining tool against Canada and Mexico simply does not make sense. It adds uncertainty to an already confused situation, alienating two of our closest trading partners and making it more likely that businesses on both sides of the border will withhold rather than provide investment.
Trump’s incoherence distracts attention from a more organized danger. Strategies reveal themselves in the pattern of decisions and outcomes. Despite the fog of lies and incoherence generated by the Trump administration, an underlying pattern emerges that reveals a more coherent strategy. It is exemplified in the wrecking ball approach taken by Musk to the federal bureaucracy. Despite Musk’s claims, only the most gullible of MAGA Republicans believes that he will uncover fraud or inefficiencies in an amount that will significantly reduce the deficit. No intelligent observer believes that the willy-nilly smashing of the civil service will improve bureaucratic efficiency. Rather, mindless large-scale reductions in force as enacted by DOGE will hamstring agencies that are tasked with delivering essential services (e.g. Social Security, Medicaid, the IRS). The firings of critical workers who maintained nuclear weapons and scientists who tracked bird flu are canaries in the coal mine and we will not know what other capabilities have been eliminated until we experience the decline of essential services. Musk and Trump’s minions are surely aware of this. Their goal is not to improve efficiency, it is to eviscerate the administrative state and establish an imperial presidency. They are far-right zealots, enacting a strategy published in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025. The driving force behind the document, Russell Vought, is the head of Trump’s OMB and several other fellow travelers are ensconced in the White House staff. The Heritage agenda includes not only the destruction of the administrative state but also drastically decreasing government spending and re-invigorating an ultra-conservative social agenda. These goals are revealed in the efforts of the Trump administration to eliminate DEI programs and to illegally defund agencies without the consent of Congress. This is a strategy driven by a rigid ideology and implemented by true believers who will ruthlessly enact their beliefs. They are a danger to a democratic system and must be resisted.
Robert D. Russell, Ph.D.
Harrisburg, Pa.
Robert:
How can this be? Donald Trump assured us that he knew nothing about Project 2025! Of course, his denial only came after people began learning what was in it. Now that it’s being enacted, that lying denial can be filed alongside his other falsehoods.
Paul Dans directed Project 2025 from its founding until his firing last July. The Heritage Foundation said at the time he was fired for “repeated incidents of professional misconduct and mistreatment of colleagues.” Months later the right wing propaganda mill called stories based on its own statements “false and misleading.”
As the late, great Paul Krassner said, “The truth is Silly Putty.”
The Editor
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Let Us Consider the Source
To the Editor:
“The consolidation of power at the federal level in the guise of public safety is a national trend and should be guarded against at all costs. This erosion of rights, however incremental, is the slow death of freedom. We have reached a point where the power of the federal government is such that they can essentially target anyone of their choosing. Recent allegations that government agencies may have targeted political opponents should alarm all Americans, regardless of party affiliation. Revisionist views of the Constitution by opportunistic politicians and unelected judges with agendas that re-interpret the Bill of Rights to take power away from the people and consolidate it at the federal level threaten the core principles of the republic. As a free people, keeping power in check is something that should be of concern to us all. The fundamental value of freedom is what sets us apart from the rest of the world. We are citizens, not subjects, and we must stay ever vigilant that we remain so.”
Jack Carr, 8/6/17, Park City, Utah
The above narrative is from the preface of U.S. Navy SEAL, Ret. author Jack Carr’s novel, The Terminal List. It struck me as a clear and concise statement of current events worthy of sharing with you and all rational Americans.
George Patnaude
Merrimack, N.H.
George:
Carr assumes the pose of an alert patriot, concerned that others may not be aware of clear and present dangers. Note, though, that he uses nothing but abstract language.
Who is doing the government’s targeting? Who are the targets? We can attest that since FDR died, the government’s targets have mostly been on the left.
We recently watched two episodes of Amazon’s adaptation of Carr’s “The Terminal List.” Surprise, surprise: its purported hero, betrayed by his superiors, is forced to “do his own research,” which causes him to conclude that, if justice is going to be served, it’s up to him to dish it out.
Carr’s code sounds to us like an excuse for brownshirts to, as Trump has said, “do whatever the hell they like.”
The Editor
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Which Side Is He On?
To the Editor:
Soon after Pete Hegseth became Secretary of Defense, he fired the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff because he was African American and the head of the Navy because she was a woman. By law, the Chairman must be a four-star general or admiral. President Trump’s pick to replace the Chairman is a retired three-star general. This is a clear case of firing a highly qualified person of color to promote a white male who does not even meet the minimum standards. In short, the three-star general is a DEI hire in reverse.
These actions send a message to women and minorities that they can expect less qualified white males to be promoted over them. Women and minorities make up 40 percent of the military. Telling them they have to be much more qualified than white men to advance is a bad message to send.
It makes our country less safe as well. Maybe that is the point. If you look at the people Trump has appointed with the goal of destroying the departments they head, one has to conclude this is not about making America great, but weak. Given how often Trump talks to Vladimir Putin, one should ask, is his goal to help Russia instead of us?
Walter Hamilton
Portsmouth, N.H.
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Kennedy—So, So Wrong on Measles
Dear Editor:
As the disastrous measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico continues to spread, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. continues to spout misinformation about measles, relating it to diet and exercise. He continues to downplay this outbreak, claiming that there were 16 outbreaks last year and only two this year. That is true but very misleading. The 16 outbreaks last year were very small, some as few as three cases. The current outbreak in Texas and New Mexico already has many more cases than last year’s 16 outbreaks, and it is still far from being under control. As of March 8th, there were 198 confirmed cases in Texas, with 23 hospitalizations and one death. In New Mexico there have been 30 documented cases, with one death. There are reports of MMR vaccine shortages in Texas, hindering control measures.
The major cause of this outbreak is the large increase in the number of parents who decline to have their children immunized. This is directly related to the anti-vaccine movement, for which Mr. Kennedy was a major spokesman. For years, Mr. Kennedy has promoted mis- and dis-information regarding vaccines, especially the MMR vaccine. He has promoted the bogus and discredited claims that the MMR vaccine causes autism. Now, many children and their families are paying the price for his ignorance.
Measles is a very serious disease. One in five unvaccinated children need to be hospitalized, and almost 20 percent of children develop pneumonia. One in 600 babies, who are too young to be vaccinated but contract measles from those who contract measles from older unimmunized children, suffer from fatal neurological complications. About one in 1,000 children develop encephalitis which can lead to seizures, loss of hearing and intellectual disabilities. Measles can also cause immune amnesia, where patients’ immune systems “forget” previous infection and vaccinations putting them at risk of contracting those diseases again. (ProMed, March 8, 2025.)
Unfortunately, the problem of the anti-vaccine movement is not limited to Texas and New Mexico, it is a global problem. And right here in New Hampshire, the Legislature is moving forward on a number of anti-vaccine bills that will result in more disease, higher medical costs and social disruption. All of which could and should be prevented by using the safe and effective proven public health tools that are available.
Rich DiPentima, RN, MPH
Portsmouth, N.H.
Rich:
Thanks for concisely covering the hazards to which the Trump/Musk administration is exposing us in regards to measles. Would that that were the only contagion facing us. Until there’s a change in leadership, we’ll also be contending with rampant bird flue, tuberculosis, and who knows what else.
The Editor
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Tariffs – Good or Bad?
To the editors:
Are tariffs good or bad for our country? Consider the following.
For example, imagine I sell a manufactured item that I purchase overseas for $100 per unit. But when a 25 percent tariff is imposed, the cost goes up to $125 per unit. At that amount I realize I can manufacture those units stateside, so I set up a factory to make the units myself. However, making them myself, they cost me $125, so I raise the selling price by $25. While the tariff may have allowed me to create a few jobs, it also means that my cost per unit can never fall below $125 per unit—that the higher selling price must remain in effect if I am to continue to make a profit. How does that help inflation? It doesn’t!
The move to manufacture the units stateside—at a $125 cost—limits selling my units only to markets that are protected by tariffs, and only as long as tariffs are in place. How does that help my ability to grow my business? It doesn’t!
Worse, once the tariff is lifted, I am left with a manufacturing facility that cannot profitably produce units for less than $125, so I have to close the doors and lay off the few workers I hired. How does that help unemployment? It doesn’t!
In order to divest myself of my vacant factory, I have to sell it for much less than it cost me to build. This forces me to declare bankruptcy, and the community to lose tax dollars. How does that help the economy? It doesn’t!
And as the government collects tariff dollars, where do they go? Into the federal treasury, of course, where they are then available for the administration to use as they see fit—possibly to fund tax cuts, and we know who benefits most from those.
Using this simplistic example, it is clear that tariffs help foreign manufacturers sell anywhere protective tariffs are not in effect; tariffs raise inflation; tariffs stifle domestic growth; tariffs provide a mechanism for increasing economic disparity; and if the protections tariffs provide are removed, tariffs may cause unemployment and even bankruptcies.
These are just a few of the ill effects of tariffs. Tariffs don’t make America great again; tariffs harm our economy and our country.
Paul Cully
Dover, N.H.
Paul:
Big business moguls stumble on a firebrand who can agitate the rubes. They decided to back him because, amid all the uproar, they can finally ram profitable but unpopular policies down the public’s throat. They’re rich, they figure, so we’ll be alright. And that lunatic? It’ll be OK, we can control him.
Hey, it worked, sort of, from 1933 to, oh, about 1939… .
Yeah, and it worked from 2016 to 2025, too.
The Editor
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Is the Rule of Law Now Obsolete?
Dear Editor,
Let’s talk about opposition tactics.
Should Lauren Boebert be censured like Al Green was for disrespecting the rules of the House in her recent media rant? Many Democrats say maybe no, because we want to show how much we respect free speech.
But others say the time has come for the loyal opposition to stop playing patty cake and start playing grown-up politics.
Republicans have clearly thrown the rule of law playbook out the window and are now using naked force in everything they do, leaving ethics/niceness in the dust.
Democrats must remember that they know how to subvert the rule of law too. Their President Harry Truman overthrew perhaps the most important rule-of-law principle the history of democracy has ever known—the legislative department declares war not the executive department. Check out Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution.
Truman declared war in Korea on his own. Republicans were too nice to say anything about it. That turned out to be a big mistake because every president since Truman has followed suit.
Democrats need to grow a pair (testicles, or ovaries) or else their party is going to be buried six feet under by MAGA.
Kimball Shinkoskey
Salt Lake City, Utah
Kimball:
To what degree do you suppose Harry was motivated by the fear of what Republicans would do it if he let Korea fall to the commies without putting up a fight?
The Editor
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Inadvertent Neglect, Remedied
To the Editor:
I am the cartoon perpetrator for this august publication, but before a cartoon sees the light of day, I submit a rough before the Board of Sages to consider its fitness for publication.
Several editions ago the cartoon I submitted to the board was the Hansel and Gretel cartoon with the iconic Brothers Grimm “cottage of cakes,” the familiar gingerbread house. But my rough submission did not include the proverbial witch who eats the children. The board felt the cartoon was acceptable, but one board member, Rose Eppard, suggested it could be improved maybe if I add the witch and label her “ICE”. All of a sudden the cartoon jumped up from, I dunno, a C to a B+.
Normally, I would have added Rose’s name as a co-conspirator to the cartoon in the bottom corner of we call the Scribblation, but I inadvertently neglected to do so. Therefore, to remedy my ineptitude, know all men by these presents that R. Eppard is co-conspirator of the drawing dated 21 Feb., ’25.
M. Dater, Starving Artiste
Portsmouth, N.H.
M.:
We suspect that Rose Eppard [Official title: “Business (Such As It Is) Manager”], if she even noticed this omission, was not unduly troubled by it. After all, she does embody the principle, “It’s amazing what you can get done if you don’t care who gets the credit.” Who are we, though, to stand in the way, if you care to enter this into the Permanent Record?
The Editor