Mash Notes, Hate Mail & Other Correspondence

To the Editor: Having blogged often about the Russian mafiocracy’s expert use of troll (or bot) farming techniques, I was surprised to happen upon an entry in the Gazette’s May 14 edition’s this-day-in-history section. Under the heading “Tuesday, May 21” for 2016 it noted that, “In Houston, hundreds rally to support Islam. Hundreds more rally, armed, to oppose it. All have been duped by a Russian troll farm.” A quick search revealed many accounts of the incident. How on Earth did I miss that? I thought I was on top of all the nefarious activities of the Russian trolls to get us to believe whatever …

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To the Editor: W.D. Ehrhart’s thirteen suggestions for coping with an administration headed by a convicted felon got me to thinking. Obviously intended as a bit of humor, it was missing a more serious option, one in which we Americans should be engaged now. NATO allies were reported a few days ago as planning on how to trump-proof the alliance. We should be doing the same for our democracy. Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and Project 2025’s disgustingly arrogant spokesman was crowing the other day about how his coming Second Revolution would be bloodless as long as “the left” rolled over and let …

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Dear Editor: Donald Trump has the luck of a Satan’s child! The U.S. Supreme Court, that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and President Donald Trump packed with a conservative majority, lets Trump escape the law. This court of his sends the precedent-setting case back to the federal trial judge, to determine whether Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021, when his supporters attacked the Capitol, were official or unofficial. Time is on Trump’s side. Nothing will be decided before November’s election. At a Plymouth State University Sidore Lecture, history professor Bill Blum once told his audience that “history is made of surprises.” Still lots of room …

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To the Editor, Regarding “A $600 Billion Swindle: Study Makes Case to ‘Abolish’ Medicare Advantage,” by Jake Johnson, reprinted in The New Hampshire Gazette for Friday, June 14, 2024, Wikipedia cites references for each of the following statements. “In 2019, Medicare Advantage Organizations denied 13 percent of prior authorization requests that would have been accepted if the beneficiaries were in original Medicare. In 2019 alone, Medicare Advantage plans cost tax-payers $9 billion more dollars than if beneficiaries were in original Medicare. This is due to a financial incentive for physicians associated with these plans to manipulate diagnosis codes…. As a result of labeling beneficiaries with …

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To the Editor: Is your view of the world “conservative,” meaning you have an aversion to change or innovation that might threaten traditional values? Or, is your world view “primitive,” meaning you favour a return to an earlier stage in the evolutionary development of society? It’s a relevant question because in MAGA world, the Supreme Court, and the U.S. Congress, the needle has swung past conservative and points squarely at primitive. Facing a daily gusher of fear and loathing dished out by politicos, persuaders, and propagandists, no wonder we’re losing our bearings. Hell, what harm does a little dose of coercion and cruelty do, if …

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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 …

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