To the Editor:
It’s a familiar cry for those of us who lived through the turmoil of the ’60s. Great things will happen “when the revolution comes.” One reason the revolution never came was money. The people in the street lacked the cash and time it would take to build a unified political machine!
On the other hand, for Kevin Roberts and the folks at the Heritage Foundation, time and money have been no object. Years of planning and billions of dollars have been invested in “2025,” and it is quite well documented who the biggest contributors are. All of which led Roberts to arrogantly boast: “We are in the process of the Second American Revolution which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Translated, Robert’s proclamation is a double dare suggesting any attempt to stop their machine will lead to bloodshed. So far, they’ve been very lucky. The so called “left” has remained docile and distracted, content to whine and finger-point at each other rather than fight.
The biggest distractor, of course, is extortioner-in-chief Donald Trump. He’s been incredibly successful at drawing attention away from the folks behind the curtain. But it’s not Uncle Don’s machine, and if he screws it up he could be out the door quicker than you can say “Epstein Maxwell Syndrome.”
If Democrats hope to defeat the 2025 MAGA machine, I’d suggest beginning by ignoring Donald Trump completely. He loves our attention, good and bad, and he sucks it up like a sponge. Instead, shine a bright white light on the people who hate public exposure more than anything—the corporate sponsors of the Second American Revolution.
Rick Littlefield
Barrington, N.H.
Rick:
Thank you for bringing up that “arrogant boast” by the architect of “the Second American Revolution.” It is truly a remarkable statement.
Strip out the euphemism and Roberts is saying, “We are overthrowing the government established 236 years ago under the U.S. Constitution.” Decode the false reversal of agency, and he’s adding, “We’ll kill anyone who tries to stop us.”
You’re right about Trump. He is, indeed, not much more than an unusually skillful—and, so far, lucky—carnival barker. If his luck, and ours, changes, and the pitchfork-and-torches mob decide he’s as guilty as Epstein, perhaps he himself will end up in Alcatraz. After enduring the endless grotesqueries of the past decade, Americans who were never part of his cult deserve to see such a denoument.
This project has been under way since the infamous Powell Memorandum* of 1971. Disgusted by the post-war prosperity of the white middle class, the wealthy mobilized to take it all back, and reduce everyone else to wage slavery.
Your suggestion is excellent. Corporations are backing this evil scheme. They need to be exposed, shamed, and boycotted.
The Editor
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Trump vs. the First Freedom
To the Editor:
In canceling “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert, CBS has decided to cater to the White House and refrain from any form of criticism of the President. One of the significant advantages of living in the United States is the freedom of speech and the press.
In a speech to Congress, President Franklin Roosevelt emphasized the Four Freedoms: “The first is freedom of speech and expression—everywhere in the world. The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way—everywhere in the world. The third is freedom from want—which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants—everywhere in the world. The fourth is freedom from fear—which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor—anywhere in the world.”
Over the last six months, the nation has witnessed horror that we have only imagined in our nightmares. Stephen Colbert used his platform to give us a sense of humor and levity at this hour. And Colbert, as true to form, spoke truth to power. CBS deemed the cancellation a “financial decision.” I beg to differ. After the announcement, President Trump hailed the decision and used the powers of the office to take a swipe at Colbert. Colbert then took a swipe at the President in classic fashion. In canceling The Late Show, CBS has decided to silence Colbert and to keep the President happy.
President Trump has decided to take a wrecking ball to all our freedoms, thus eroding the principles that President Roosevelt echoed in his speech to Congress in 1941. Readers may disagree with this statement, but this is a warning to the reader, and perhaps to the world.
Aidan J. Bain
Elma, New York
Aidan:
To add a little context, shortly before the 2024 election, candidate Donald Trump filed a ludicrous $10 billion lawsuit against Paramount—the fictitious “corporate person” who owns CBS—claiming that CBS’s show “60 Minutes” had deceptively edited an interview with Kamala Harris, so as to favor the Democratic candidate. After his inauguration, the Whiny-Baby-in-Chief jacked up his already-ludicrous demand to $20 billion.
Last month, in a capitulation that will go down in infamy, in exchange for Trump dropping the suit, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to the Trump Presidential Library. Perhaps some gold toilet will bear their logo, rendered with Swarovski crystals. This shameful episode suggests that even the most successful mafia extortionists were really just a bunch of pikers.
Paramount execs will write off the $16 million as just another minor cost of doing business, as they pocket their share of the pending $8.4 billion merger with Skydance, now made possible by this “non-bribe”. At its essence, this is the theft of a public good for private gain. As such, it’s just the most recent example in a long line, going back to the land enclosures in the time of the Tudors.
The Editor
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So Many Questions
Dear Editor:
When you do not like the message, fire the messenger. That’s how Trump responds to bad information. When the jobs number for July came in 42,000 fewer than expected and the numbers for May were revised to 19,00 from 144,000 and June from 147,000 to14,000, and hiring in manufacturing fell to a 9-year low in May, Trump predictably fired the commissioner of labor statistics. (Fox Business, August 1, 2025) Unfortunately, firing the messenger is not going to change the reality that the economy is suffering as a result of Trump’s trade policy and assault on immigrants.
In another very questionable move, Ghislaine Maxwell, the Epstein children recruiter, who is serving a 20 year sentence for sex trafficking, was secretly moved from a maximum-security prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas. According to NBC News, “The Bureau of Prisons own designation policy makes Maxwell ineligible for transfer to a minimum-security prison because she is a convicted sex offender.” This raises serious questions as to why Ms. Maxwell was given this questionable transfer now, and who authorized this transfer and why?
Also of interest is that on August 1, 2025, Bloomberg reported that a FBI FOIA team redacted Trump’s name and the names of other prominent public figures from the Epstein documents. While the Republican House quickly decided to leave town early to avoid a vote on the release of the Epstein files, the problem is not going away. We need to know who was involved with Epstein regardless of who they are.
Rich DiPentima
Portsmouth, N.H.
Rich:
It’s all part of Steve Bannon’s “flood the zone” plan. Distract people from your previous sordid transgressions by committing weird, spectacular, revolting new ones.
The tragic and shameful thing is that this could all be stopped by a critical mass of Republicans in Congress. But they would have to muster up some courage and put their country before their careers.
What are the odds of that? You might as well buy a lottery ticket.
The Editor
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Israel is Starving Children in Gaza
To the editor:
There are children in Gaza who look like those rescued from Dachau and Auschwitz. They are not starving because Hamas is stealing food, they are starving because Israel prevented food from entering Gaza for three months and now has made food distribution centers a shooting gallery. This is a conscious act of genocide by descendants of a genocide.
Unfortunately, many in the diaspora continue to support Israel’s actions. Justifying starving, killing and forcing others they do not like into ghettos when their group is in the majority, encourages others to feel justified doing it to you when they are in the majority.
In my opinion the diaspora needs to say they stand behind Israel, but not Israel’s current government. More than half of Israelis are doing this. It is time to join them.
Walter Hamilton
Portsmouth, N.H.
Walter:
Exactly. What’s more, a U.S. government with any pretense of morality would have shut off the military aid long ago.
The Editor
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Recognize the Humanity of Palestinians
To the Editor:
On October 2, 2024, a group of 99 U.S. medical professionals who volunteered in Gaza sent an urgent letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. They witnessed malnutrition in mothers resulting in miscarriages and underweight newborns. Daily they saw babies starving to death because their mothers were too malnourished to breastfeed and there was no formula or clean water.
Moreover, on November 21, 2024 the International Criminal Court [ICC] asserted that there was reasonable evidence to conclude that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had “intentionally and knowingly” deprived civilians in Gaza of food and water, and therefore bore criminal responsibility for using starvation as a weapon of war.
Regarding Gaza, famine expert Alex de Waal explains, “I’ve been working on this topic for more than four decades, and there is no case since World War II of starvation that has been so minutely designed and controlled.”
Eight months have passed. Each day brings new images of emaciated children and desperate masses queuing for food. During this period, have U.S. statements and actions protected civilians, or have they shielded our government from accountability and moral urgency?
Law without universal application is a tool of power, not justice. Recognizing the humanity of Palestinians is not just a moral imperative—it is an act of resistance against the logic of genocide.
Terry Hansen
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Terry:
Biden could and should have stopped this ongoing crime. The evidence was overwhelming, long before that ICC decision, and before that October letter. But apparently there’s some mechanism in the minds of the highly-placed that allows them to overlook certain basic facts; the pertinent fact in this case being that Palestinians are human beings.
Could Trump stop it? He famously lacks the usual internal restraints which govern the rest of us. Maybe if the Palestinians were to make a generous “donation” to the Trump Presidential Library… who are we kidding? How could Trump see the Palestinians as human beings when he’s so dazzled by the potential of their oceanfront real estate?
The Editor
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Heating Cost Double Whammy Coming
To the Editor:
If you are on a fixed income, you had better be ready for a tough winter. According to a recent news item on WMUR, the Canadian consul general in Boston indicates that, annually, N.H. imports approximately $444 Million in fuel from Canada. With expected tariffs, the cost of home heating oil is bound to rise significantly this winter.
Now, a pending cut in the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which supplies assistance for heating, cooling, and weatherizing, will seriously affect the low income households in N.H. The entire staff administering the program at the national level has been fired, and the funding is drastically cut. According to a government source, the cut may be as high as 74 percent.
LIHEAP served approximately 28,000 N.H. households in 2024. During the 2024–2025 winter season, the Community Action Partnership of Strafford County spent more than $3 million to help households in Strafford County with their fuel needs. Many elderly or disabled on fixed incomes receive funds on an emergency basis when they run out of fuel in freezing weather.
Freezing the low income, elderly, and disabled is cruel, particularly when done to extend tax cuts for the rich.
Lorraine L. Hansen
Rollinsford, N.H.
Lorraine:
Hold on. Quiet, please. We’re getting a faint transmission from a listening device planted in the living quarters of the White House. It’s a woman’s voice, speaking with a Slovenian accent: “Let them burn MAGA hats.”
The Editor
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A Correction on Henderson’s Point
Dear editors,
In your July 11th 2025 edition, under the history trivia for July 22nd, 60,000 tons of TNT is asserted to have been used to reduce Henderson’s Point, as opposed to the actual amount of 50 tons. Some have said that the Rye N.H. school board feared the Earth would wobble off its axis. In either case, I get an excuse to write and thus thank you for a wonderful newspaper.
An admirer
Location Unspecified
Dear Admirer:
Thank you very much. That particular error has been rectified. Our reservoir of fallibility being inexhaustible, please do keep reading, and correcting our course when we go astray.
The Editor
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ABC News Has Gone Downhill
To the Editor:
ABC News with David Muir is the most watched nightly news program for a reason, and it is not a good reason.
On a recent program, in no particular order, Mr. Muir entertained his audience like a circus impresario with news of the largest great white shark ever tagged in the Atlantic, one of the Menendez brothers suffering from a kidney stone, a drowning on a beach famous for rip tides, a brief life history of Ozzy Osbourne, king of heavy metal, a Delta Airlines jet nearly getting clobbered by an AeroMexico jet landing on the same runway over top of it, the killer Brian Kohberger’s possible prison destination, Trump accusing Obama of treason, and Billy Joel looking through the window of a New York City pedicab to the delight of two of his fans.
All of this deliciousness took the place of what might have been serious news analysis of, for example, what’s going on in state legislatures, the demise of judicial independence, America’s new tariff imperialism, the insufferable destruction of life in Gaza. But, alas, not to be.
Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross, Utah
Kimball:
What the heck? You’re asking a lot, here. Considering the ownership, you’re lucky Muir isn’t wearing a Mickey Mouse hat.
The Editor
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Bursting the Affordable Housing Bubble in Portsmouth
To the Editor:
Let’s stop perpetuating the myth that Portsmouth can create affordable housing for anyone who wants to live in Portsmouth.
It is important to know that there is no legal definition for “affordable housing.” There is only “market-rate” housing (whatever the market can bear), “below market-rate” housing (lower than market-rate) and subsidized senior and income-qualified housing which includes units that Portsmouth Housing Authority builds and operates.
Within the past two weeks local media has published three pieces about affordable housing. In one piece, Gerry Duffy insists that our city is just not trying hard enough to build affordable housing and pleads with the city to go faster. On the other hand, Alan Forbes states that our city has done more for housing than any other municipality on the Seacoast and expects adjacent towns to increase their housing. Finally, a study presented on July 10th by RKG Associates, the city’s housing consultants, concludes that the incentives provided by the city to developers have been disincentives for building “workforce housing.”
Within the last 25 years, our city has been flooded with new housing units. (see realtor.com). But as Mr. Forbes points out, almost all units have been market-rate housing.
Portsmouth is a great city to live in. However, just because someone from another town or state wants to live here, does not obligate the citizens of Portsmouth to subsidize their housing.
We do have a nationwide housing crisis. Developers apparently are not building starter homes anymore. Neither the federal nor the state government has a program to help build homes that most people can afford. Furthermore, Portsmouth, as a municipality in N.H., has very limited ability to provide housing that is affordable even though they are trying.
Underlying the entire affordability crisis is the fact that wages nationwide have stagnated while housing prices have continued to rise.
Three years after arriving in America as refugees without a penny to our name, my family purchased a home in Pennsylvania that cost approximately the same amount as my father’s yearly income. It was the American dream come true for us. Because of wage stagnation, 65 years later that dream is gone.
When neither the State of N.H. nor the federal government is helping to build workforce housing, the only way to build such housing is through a non-profit such as the Portsmouth Housing Authority (PHA). The city provides the property at a very low fee (losing some property tax revenue), so that workforce housing is affordable.
Funding for the project comes from investors who are guaranteed a fixed return for a fixed number of years along with tax benefits. However, residents of such housing only qualify if their incomes are below a certain level. This type of housing is the only type of housing that can guarantee affordable rents in our city. Promises by developers to build below market housing are not enforceable under N.H. law.
So, faced with these facts, why do city officials and housing champions continue to insist that our city can create more affordable housing? Perhaps, some are just fishing for votes, others may be friends or supporters of developers who offer “height and density” as a solution in our small city and some are just not familiar with the laws and zoning rules in N.H. Our state does not allow control of rent or the price of a home.
I have lived in two U.S. states and three different countries, and have seen four ways to provide affordable housing:
1) Rent stabilization (see NYC).
2) Housing built by states or the federal government controlling rents and home prices.
3) Businesses getting creative and pooling resources to build housing for their employees (e.g. Dartmouth Health in Hanover, Harmony Homes in Dover and Service Credit Union in Portsmouth).
4) Governments providing subsidies to keep rents affordable, or providing matching funds to home-purchase savings programs run by banks.
Peter Somssich
former N.H. State Representative
Portsmouth, N.H.
Peter:
This problem is huge, and it’s only getting worse. The negative consequences are well known, and require no further elaboration from us.
As for these specific but divergent approaches to solving the problem, we’ll adhere to the old adage that it’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt. But we will say this.
For half a century we’ve heard it preached: the Invisible Hand of the Marketplace is the magical solution to any and all problems. Meanwhile it has relentlessly picked the pockets of people of modest means, while the wealthiest have flittered in their private jets from one glittery mansion to another.
The Editor
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Another Dissatisfied Reader
Dear Editor,
The last time I wrote to you was to castigate you for ignoring the genocide in Gaza. I think that letter was published, but I didn’t get a chance to see it or your reply since I took ill and spent the next 4 weeks in the hospital.
So now I have re-upped my subscription and what do I behold: a witty put down of Trump, very witty indeed by Steven Fowle and a bunch of articles on other subjects but nary a word on the continuing slaughter in Gaza in which Israel is now luring starving Palestinians to aid centers and then shooting them down when they appear. They have already murdered 100,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, including 50,000 children killed or injured (UNICEF) and turned Gaza into a smoldering ruin.
This is also true of the next issue, the current one. Again more advice to the Democrats: get rid of your leadership and pretend once more you’re on the side of workers the better to keep them in a fog as the US commits terrorism such as the recent Iran strike, maintains over 1,000 bases around the world, overthrows governments by cunning or force and gives lip service to gay and human rights while actually violating them every day.
The evil of Israel and its Israeli Defense Force (IDF) is beyond belief unless you have studied the Nazi Holocaust. Many of the same techniques the Nazis used prior to the extermination camps have been carried out by the self-proclaimed Jewish state with one possible exception: the Nazi troops who carried out exterminations were burdened with what they had done and had to be replaced by more industrial means (like Auschwitz) whereas the reports from Gaza by Israeli papers indicate that the IDF troops revel in shooting children and civilians and, whereas the Nazis kept their atrocities from the German people, the Israeli government does not and has a majority supporting their genocidal acts.
During the Nazi Holocaust, Jewish organizations, led or influenced by Zionists, hushed up the Holocaust and prevented it from being widely publicized. The reason: they were in negotiation with the Nazi’s who in return, for their silence, would save the Zionist top leaders and a few thousand Jews who could emigrate to Palestine. The fate of the mass of Jews who were being deported to the camps did not concern them. They acted as agents of Nazi propaganda minimizing the harm being done to European Jewry in every country they were in and sabotaging the international boycott against German goods which had a good chance of putting Hitler out of business before the Holocaust could occur. Thus, when American troops liberated concentration camps, they were amazed at what they found.
No effort was made to bomb the rail lines to the camps with the Jewish “leaders’” assent. They helped prevent immigration to the US and Britain because they wanted all Jews to go to Israel and fight the Arabs, who were the original inhabitants of that land. With this as the only option many Jews rejected going to such a place despite the Hitler threat. Hitler and the Zionists had similar views of the so-called “Jewish problem,” namely that Jews were an excrescence in any country except Israel and had to be deported. When deportation failed, Hitler ordered their extermination.
I was looking at the “Northcountry Chronicle” available on your website. That paper appears to have constant coverage of the genocide in Gaza. Why doesn’t the N.H. Gazette have anywhere near such coverage? Is it so you won’t embarrass the Democratic Party most of whose politicians and officials (not just the DNC) vote to send more and more arms to Israel to be used against the Palestinian people, Lebanon and Iran?
In the next to last issue you feature a front page article suggesting to the Dems what they must do to save their party, which is in the s***ter. Nowhere does it mention their role in the genocide. In my opinion the Democratic Party should disband itself in shame making way for a real second party led by rights activists and unionists, a labor party
Ultimately that’s the only way to stop Trump and Trumpism; although the Dems may resurge during the mid terms due to voter disgust with Trump and the Republicans. The voters will soon grow weary of the Dems once they experience, again, their war-mongering, genocidal, anti-union ways, not to mention their attacks on free speech.
You told me that in response to my original letter you agreed that covering the genocide was important; but you have not made it an important part of your paper. You reminded me that readers should not be choosing what subjects appear in the Gazette. Fine. But an ongoing genocide in our time rises above such reasonable concerns.
Sincerely,
Roger Rudenstein
Durham, N.H.
Roger:
You sent us this letter July 6th. We replied the next day, explaining that it had come too late to appear in our paper of July 11th.
We also tried to explain that W.D. Ehrhart’s writing about Gaza does, in fact, appear in the pages of our printed paper, and that “on our website, his work appears under the heading ‘Northcountry Chronicle’ for reasons that have to do with website layout and are just too tedious to relate.”
We added, “If you feel moved to recast your letter, or write another, we’re right here.”
Our effort to explain the situation by email appears to have been wasted. Perhaps print will work better, as it usually does.
The Editor