Dear Editor,
It’s November 1st as I write this, 26 days before Thanksgiving. The fascist regime is currently under court order to release emergency funding to feed the tens of millions who rely on SNAP benefits to stay alive. This is funding the dictator’s sniveling lying hypocritical little ChristoNationalist lapdog, aka the Speaker of the House, denies is available, even as the dictator is marbleizing the Lincoln bathroom and bulldozing the East Wing while bellowing we owe the fat demented bastard $230 million for hurt feelings. As if that weren’t enough to boil your blood, the useless, feckless, wimpy leaders of what some refer to as the Democratic Party are nowhere to be heard on this or any other issue.
The aforementioned sniveling lying lapdog, however, holds a daily liefest, preening in front of a select group of complicit scribblers who dutifully write down every line of BS as if it were gospel for later publication to the tens of millions who uncritically believe every word of it.
It’s the Democrats’ fault your kids are starving!! Let them eat left-over Hallowe’en candy!
Happy Thanksgiving, indeed.
John C. Ficor
Richmond, Va.
John:
American Carnage: it did not exist—at least, not as Trump defined it in his first Inaugural Harangue—but he promised to end it. Translated, with help from our bootleg copy of The New Revised Mandatory Republican Official Dictionary of the American Language, that promise was a threat to create the hellscape he described. Hence the November 1st you so accurately depict.
On November 9th, less than a week after their party won several key off-year elections—eight Democrats bent the knee. Hell, they knelt down, facing away from the Despot-in-Chief, with “Kick Me” signs pinned to their own rumps. Typically we might attempt to end a note such as this on an upbeat note. Under the circumstances, the closest we can come to that is to refrain from further comment.
The Editor
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A Time to Be Bold
To the Editor:
In the October 17, 2025, edition of The New Hampshire Gazette (CCLXX, No. 4), a writer wrote about a Project 2027 for America. I concur with the writer’s findings due to the nature of the politics we live in.
President Donald Trump’s manifesto (known as Project 2025) was a roadmap to totalitarianism—a roadmap for the destruction of the Federal Government. Only one has to look at the former East Wing of the White House to see that.
A Democratic Project 2027 must be bold, refreshing, and more sweeping than President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. Indeed, the writer wrote about overturning Citizens United and removing money from politics. All good points. However, we must be bold: rebuilding the Voting Rights Act of 1965, banning members of Congress from stock trading, and fighting a war on poverty.
Americans are craving bold action, and the status quo of our politics is simply dull, airless, and uninspiring. Indeed, if Democrats learn from Presidents Roosevelt and Johnson when it comes to creating a new social safety net, Americans may have a better quality of life.
Aidan J. Bain
Elma, N.Y.
Aidan:
But… but… but… what if being bold offended the sensibilities—and the accountants—of the professional managerial class of influential Democratic donors? We musn’t scare them off!
Without them, the last bulwark against our ruling coalition of insane techno-fascists and Bible-thumping perve-forgivers would be a mere hundred million ordinary American voters who—and this is just a theory, mind you, it’s been decades and decades since anyone’s had the nerve to actually give it a shot—might, just might like to see federal policies that take their household budgets seriously and have the ’nads to make the one percent pay their dang taxes for a change.
The Editor
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N.H. GOP is Fine with Boozy Socialism
Dear Editor:
New Hampshire Republicans have a problem regarding their hypocrisy when it comes to their views on socialism and being “pro life.” Republicans often argue that socialism restricts individual liberties and choices, promoting government control over people’s lives and the economy. They advocate for limited government in the economy, favoring free markets and less regulation, which fosters prosperity and innovation more effectively than government-run systems.
I guess New Hampshire Republicans can embrace and enjoy the benefits of socialism vs. the free-market when socialism can work to protect the wealthy by producing enough revenue to avoid having a fair tax and revenue producing system that provides necessary state services. New Hampshire maintains a monopoly on the sale of distilled alcohol products and owns and operates 79 liquor stores which employ hundreds of workers. While other retail stores can sell beer and/or wine, New Hampshire has a monopoly on distilled alcohol. The top non-tax source of revenue in New Hampshire comes from the sale of alcohol, $165 million in net profits in 2023. When it comes to alcohol sales and the revenue it produces, New Hampshire relies on socialism to generate a major source of revenue to operate the state. It seems that free enterprise and the free market systems are not as efficient or innovative as socialism when it comes to liquor sales in New Hampshire.
However, this hypocrisy pales in comparison to the hypocrisy where the Republicans, who claim to be “pro life,” are promoting and profiting from the sale of a dangerous substance that is responsible for many serious health consequences. In fact, a recent study in the American Journal of Medicine reported that alcohol related deaths in the U.S. has dramatically increased in the last 20 years. The mortality rate has gone from 10.7 per 100,000 in 1999 to 21.6 per 100,000 in 2020. The total number of alcohol-related deaths went from 19,356 to 48,870. And, unfortunately, New Hampshire’s liquor marketing seems to be working. New Hampshire has the highest per-capita alcohol consumption in the U.S. While overall liquor sales trends are declining nationally, New Hampshire still has high rates of excessive drinking among its adult population and a significant issue with underage binge drinking.
I have a difficult time reconciling the fact that the State of New Hampshire maintains a Socialist style distilled liquor monopoly that promotes the sale of alcohol, with all its related health problems as a means to generate revenue to balance its budget, while at the same time claiming to be pro “pro life” and pro-free enterprise. If this is not the height of hypocrisy I do not know what is.
Rich DiPentima
Portsmouth, N.H.
Rich:
What? Are we going to start gigging people for rank hypocrisy now? Do you have any idea what a massive undertaking that would be?
Our favorite factoid about New Hampshire’s monopoly on the booze racket is that some years back, one of the members of the Liquor Commission was a hard-core Libertarian.
In a similar vein, we’ll take this opportunity to remind the world at large that New Hampshire pioneered what is now an inescapable part of the national landscape. Our state liquor stores began selling Sweepstakes tickets in 1964. Since then, gambling fever has spread like the pox. You’re welcome, America.
The Editor
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Republicans Keep Americans Hungry
To the Editor:
SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) provides emergency food to 41 million Americans. The Republicans claim there is no money. They are lying. The USDA (U.S. Dept. of Agriculture) holds $6 billion in approved reserves specifically to fund SNAP in an emergency. Another USDA fund has more than $23 billion in it. The courts have ruled against the Republicans, but so far they won’t allow SNAP money to be spent.
Just a reminder: 48 percent of SNAP recipients work full time; 39 percent are children; 20 percent are seniors.
Because of the shutdown, and Republican stalling, as of Nov. 1st, there is no SNAP money available to help Americans get enough food. Make no mistake, the money is there, but the Republicans would rather people go hungry. This government shutdown is totally the fault of the Republicans.
Republicans control the House, Senate, Presidency and Supreme Court. They passed a budget (The Big Ugly Bill) with trillions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, while they defunded billions of dollars from programs for ordinary Americans, such as health care, and SNAP, all without consulting with or including Democrats.
The Democrats refuse to compromise on taking away health care funding. Republican politicians declare far and wide that the Democrats want health care money to go to illegal immigrants and that’s why Republicans are fighting it. They are lying, and they know it. Illegal immigrants are not eligible for health care benefits!
Michael Frandzel
Portsmouth, N.H.
Michael:
Since you wrote this, eight Democrats—including our own, to their eternal disgrace—have decided to take Sen. John Thune at his word: the Senate will, someday, vote on something.
So much for “refusing.” More like expressing a vague wish that Republicans might consider not kicking out quite so many teeth.
Republicans use lies to justify their cruelty; they have done so since approximately forever. Why wouldn’t they? They know that, under the media’s self-imposed stricture against calling liars liars, they can flim-flam enough voters to stave off the pitchforks and torches they so righteously deserve.
The Editor
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The “Greatest Generation” Were Terrorists?
To the Editor:
The present administration has taken the position that “Antifa” is a “militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government… .” On September 22nd it was designated a “domestic terrorist organization” by the president. In fact, there is no evidence that antifa has an organizational structure. Rather, “antifa” is shorthand for “anti-fascist.”
During the Second World War, the U.S.A. joined the fight against the fascist governments in Germany and Italy and won. One could justifiably declare that the U.S.A. was “antifa” during WWII.
Today, those from the U.S.A. involved in WWII are referred to as the “greatest generation.” However, our president chooses to call anyone who honors their legacy by opposing fascism a “terrorist” and “enemy of the people.” We certainly have fallen down the rabbit hole.
Lorraine L. Hansen
Rollinsford, N.H.
Lorraine:
Whenever we see the term “greatest generation,” our hackles rise. Why? Because we once witnessed the stupidest war this nation ever fought, which was initiated, conducted, and extended for political advantage, by the generation to which you refer.
Despite this stubborn prejudice, we agree completely with what you say here. The Trump cult is anti-anti-fascist. Those two antis cancel each other out.
The Editor
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Rare Earth “Truce” No Victory
To the Editor:
Upon the conclusion of the recent trade meeting between Trump and Chinese President Xi, President Trump and Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent were quick to claim victory and extol Trump’s bargaining skill. There was little truth in their boasts. Although Bessent claimed that the negotiations produced a “substantial framework” for a trade deal, the outcome provided little more than a one-year truce that dealt with issues related to the trade conflict, and the terms were a tactical victory for the Chinese.
China has been one of a few countries that has resisted Trump’s global tariff assault. Following the April announcement of “Liberation Day” tariffs, China responded by issuing mandatory export licensing regulations on seven rare earth minerals. The rare earths are an essential input for semiconductors and many high-tech products. China dominates the mining of rare earth ores and controls over 90 percent of their processing. The licensing requirement slowed global supply chains, driving up the prices of the minerals and products made from them. Essentially, they bureaucratized Chinese influence over the supply and price of rare earth products.
Trump subsequently increased Chinese tariffs and threatened added restrictions on Chinese shipping and imports of products having Chinese parts. In October, China responded with a second round of rare earth restrictions. The new regulations added five more rare earths to the restricted list and extended licensing to the export of all technologies related to the processing of rare earths. Additionally, it was required that all countries gain Chinese approval to export goods having 0.1 percent or more of Chinese rare earths or for products manufactured with Chinese rare earth technologies. This set of restrictions extended Chinese control of the pricing, production and international movement of all Chinese rare earths and products containing them. The new regulations could have had a catastrophic effect on global commerce, and they immediately drew the attention of U.S. trade negotiators.
Within days of the Chinese restrictions, Trump and Xi announced their trade agreement. Trump cut Chinese tariffs and suspended constraints on Chinese shipping and tariffs applied to the transshipment of Chinese manufactured goods from other countries. It is notable that the tariffs on China are now roughly commensurate with those imposed on some U.S. allies such as Canada, Brazil and India. China agreed to suspend the rare earth export controls announced in October and to resume the purchase of American soybeans. Critically, the licensing requirements that China had enacted for rare earths in April remained in effect.
The major issue driving the negotiation from the U.S. perspective was preservation of access to Chinese rare earths and the protection of industries that require their input. Using the licensing requirements, Xi was able to leverage China’s near monopoly on the mining and processing of rare earths to check Trump’s trade attacks. The U.S. vulnerability in rare earths must have been known to Trump calling into question his negotiating strategy. How could he expect his bullying on tariffs to succeed given this critical weakness? Xi’s use of China’s position in rare earths was a tactical victory that diminished Trump and weakened him in future negotiations.
China’s two-phased introduction of their regulatory framework for rare earths displayed a high degree of strategic acumen. If the October regulations had been implemented, global manufacturing in several critical industries would have been devastated and U.S. defense capabilities hamstrung. The October regulations became a potent bargaining chip for Xi that checked Trump’s tariff onslaught protecting China’s capacity to export their manufactured goods. Moreover, since the April licensing requirements remain in effect, China retains the ability to regulate the supply of rare earths and their products through their licensing regime. This outcome is consistent with China’s long-term strategy which is focused on achieving global dominance in manufacturing and building strong competencies in critical industries. In the October negotiations, Xi used China’s almost insurmountable advantage in rare earth mining and processing to secure shelter from Trump tariffs while preserving both China’s influence on rare earth production and access to global markets. Xi demonstrated the value of a long-term trade strategy. If only the Trump administration would learn the lesson.
Robert D. Russell, PhD.
Harrisburg, Pa.
Robert:
Thank you for patiently diagnosing and clearly explaining the latest self-inflicted wound visited on America by our ham-handed administration.
The dominant force in America today is a coalition of soul-less political hacks, plutocrats, tech fantasists, and fanatics looking forward to their version of the ultimate religious orgasm, i.e., being lifted heavenward as they watch their former neighbors being plunged forever into a lake of fire. Their avatar, their sword and shield, is a blubbery nitwit whose only business success was leveraging his tacky TV personna into the one job capable of ending life on earth.
We should count ourselves lucky if the downside of this debacle is no worse than handing the future to China.
The Editor
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Open a Serious Book, America
To the Editor:
People with a little bit of education in the Constitution—and I realize that’s not many folks—should be able to understand by now why the Founders did not want to concentrate too much power in the federal government, but rather only in the state governments of America.
When there is too much wealth (budget, taxes, spending), power, fame, prestige, etc. concentrated in the national capital, there is considerable temptation for power-hungry tyrants to grab it illegally and run. That is why the wife of our second President, John Adams, wrote to her husband, saying, “Remember, all men would be tyrants if they could.”
Men and women can only become tyrants when power is laid at their feet, or when they go where they are not supposed to go, grab it and run. Our Constitution lays very little power at the feet of presidents, but the job of executing the will of the Congress is still a very important administrative function when it is done correctly. It requires a higher level of knowledge and ethics than our politicians possess today.
When the “police power,” i.e. the power to establish and regulate health care, education, welfare, criminal justice, commerce and banking, etc., is distributed across 50 separately governed states, a tyrant may still illegally grab power here or there locally, but the damage is much more limited than when it is done on the national level.
In the history of our country, first a Democrat president, Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s and 40s, and later a Republican President, Donald J. Trump, succumbed to the temptation to grab all of the national power for themselves. FDR usurped power longitudinally over three and a quarter terms of office, and Trump has usurped power vertically, doing in less than a year more damage to republican government than even Roosevelt did in 13 years in office.
Limiting the power of the federal government originally was both a Republican and a Democrat priority. That all changed because of our Civil War, when Lincoln went bananas usurping power and got assassinated as a result. Later on, as a result of World War I and World War II, presidents of both parties adopted an incrementalist approach to stealing power away from the people. For the past 150 years or so, Presidents, little by little, derailed constitutional restrictions on both federal power and executive department power. It is said that President Grover Cleveland in the late 1880s was the last president to clearly and consciously respect limits on central power. He worked into the wee hours of the night executing, but not legislating, the nation’s business.
The big difference between democracy and tyranny is whether the people insist upon their national legislature exercising the national policymaking power, or whether they are too busy with work and entertainment to care about any of that and just sit idly by while the President usurps the powers of the Congress and the courts.
In a tyranny, the people are tired of the work that democracy requires of them. Democracy bestows rights but also requires citizen responsibilities. A tyrant relieves the people of their responsibility to lobby and legislate, which opens up much more time for them to just entertain themselves in their spare time. However, a tyrant also relieves the people of their speech, press, electoral and religious rights, which can become dearly bothersome to those who like to exercise a little power for themselves.
If the problem is easy to see with the right glasses, so is the solution. The solution when the executive department takes over the functions of the legislative branch is very simple—impeachment and removal of the President. Rome and Athens did it often, but America has done it not even once. America has become intellectually ignorant and politically lethargic. We no longer care about democracy, largely because we no longer know what democracy is. We think it consists only of voting. We’ve got to open some history books and do some reading folks. We must realize we have a vast responsibility not only to learn the lessons of history, but also to regulate society ourselves, and turn over something lasting to our children and grandchildren instead of a chaotic mess.
Kimball Shinkoskey
Woods Cross, Utah
Kimball:
Not their fault, but the framers could not have imagined the future size and complexity of the nation they were building. If you want an example of the virtues of states’ rights, consider the Jim Crow South.
You write as if our problem is that people are too lazy to participate in government. You’re not entirely wrong, for the most part, they are.
Far more trouble now, though, is coming from those who are too energetic in their clamoring for the tyrant now in power.
The Editor
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GOP: Work? No. Protect Pervs? Yes.
To the Editor:
The House of Representatives had nine months to write the bills necessary to run the government, but the Republicans could not be bothered to do their job. They took off the entire month of August and did nothing in September except vote for a bill to give them until November 20th.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has prevented the House from meeting since the start of October because he does not want a vote to release the Epstein files. In September, Johnson thought it would take seven weeks to write the bills necessary to run the government. Still, he has prevented House members from meeting and doing their job. Members are being paid for not working while federal workers are working without getting a paycheck.
It is time the GOP put the American people ahead of the President and the Epstein files.
Walter Hamilton
Portsmouth, N.H.
Walter:
That’s the only good we can see coming out of the Democrats’ capitulation: Rep. Grijalva forcing the release of the Epstein Files.
The Editor
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Demanding Health Care is “Silly”?
Dear Editor:
Our former Gov. Chris Sununu, now CEO of Airlines for America, the leading aviation industry lobbying group, had an NPR interview on this 38th day of the government shutdown. He characterized our House Democrats’ holding out for secure health insurance for the people as “silly.” He blithely dismissed our endangered health-care-costs/coverage as a need “do-able in parallel.” Pleasant man that he can be, he overlooks that Republican House members (still not at work, staying away) want big, beautiful tax cuts for our country’s wealthy. They get a cut of that in the form of campaign donations later. A favor gets a favor.
Granny D, bless her heavenly soul, foresaw this back in 1999 – 2000 when she walked 10 miles / day across the U.S.A., calling for campaign finance reform—big money out of politics. The bad scene then has evolved to worse now. A positive note—the Democrats in Tuesday the 4th’s elections did very well; many seats around the country. The people are speaking with their votes.
Lynn Rudmin Chong
Sanbornton, N.H.
Lynn:
And here we thought that we’d heard the last from this human chipmunk. But nooo… .
The Editor
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Our Relatable Cabinet
To the Editor:
This is, by far, the richest Cabinet ever in U.S. History. If we needed more evidence to help us understand why the Trump Administration doesn’t relate well with a majority of the American people that they are supposed to represent and work for… here is what Forbes magazine estimates the Cabinet members’ Net Worth to be:
Donald Trump: President; $5.5 billion.
Howard Lutnick: Sec. of Commerce; $3.3 billion.
Linda McMahon: Sec. of Education; $3.3 billion.
Scott Bessent: Sec. of the Treasury; $600 million.
Doug Burgum: Sec. of the Interior; $100M+.
Chris Wright: Sec. of Energy; $100 million.
Lori Chavez-DeRemer: Sec. of Labor; $35 million.
Brooke Rollins: Sec. of Agriculture; $15 million.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: Sec. of Health and Human Services; $15 million.
JD Vance: Vice President; $12 million.
Pam Bondi: Attorney General; $5 million.
Kristi Noem: Sec. of Homeland Security; $5 million.
Sean Duffy: Sec. of Transportation; $5 million.
Scott Turner: Sec. of Housing and Urban Development; $4 million.
Pete Hegseth: Sec. of Defense; $3 million.
Marco Rubio: Sec. of State; $1.5 million.
Doug Collins: Sec. of Veterans Affairs; $1 million.
With this massive wealth and the accompanying life-style it engenders, it would also likely be difficult for many wealthy Americans to understand the plight of a single Mom who has just lost the government SNAP benefits that has kept her family fed, and seen her family’s cost of medical insurance, if she had any, double or triple!
Herb Moyer
Exeter, N.H.