NH Legislature Overrides Some of Governor’s Vetoes

Federal Debt Under Trump Now Exceeds $40 Trillion

Newfound Memorial High School’s Class of 1971 will hold its 55th class reunion at Timberloch Lodge in Bridgewater on Saturday, September 19, at 3 p.m.

This is the class that (with notable help from the classes of ’72 and ’73) launched The Lead Balloon, an irreverent, student-run school newspaper at the high school (the building now known as Newfound Memorial Middle School, after the school district built Newfound Regional High School in Bristol to accommodate the growing school population at the time). In a sense, The News Café is a continuation of that newspaper with a little less irreverence but at least as much skepticism about what is going on in the world. (Yes, I was an editor of The Lead Balloon.)

Organized by classmates Candace Chase Skurnik, Bonnie Masi, and Dan Clark, the reunion will give everyone a chance to catch up with what other (surviving) classmates have been doing. They are asking for a $50 per person donation to cover “food, wine, beer and music” and are asking for a head count by September 12 so they can order the proper amount of food. “You do not have to send money now, just bring it to the event.”

Discussion: Note that another classmate, Jack Weir, is the proprietor of Timberloch, and has welcomed multi-class reunions in the past, so we can be confident of having a good time.

NH Legislature Overrides Some of Governor’s Vetoes

New Hampshire House and Senate members overrode seven vetoes Governor Kelly Ayotte had made, including increases in state park entrance fees and turnpike tolls and an exemption to allow convicted felons to seek a retrial if evidence emerges of their innocence.

Effective December 1, House Bill 2026 increases highway tolls except for those with New Hampshire E-Z Pass Transponders, which will be offered free of charge for 210 days after enactment of the new law. It also provides for periodic toll adjustments to meet projected inflation rates to support the state’s 10-Year Highway Plan, which now includes providing improved sight distance and bicycle and pedestrian access on US 3 in Plymouth, widening Interstate 93 in Bow and Concord, and an overhaul of exits 6 and 7 on Interstate 293 in Manchester.

House Bill 1102 allows the New Hampshire Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to set rates for campsite reservations and entry fees, requiring non-New Hampshire residents to pay at least twice as much as in-state residents.

In vetoing House Bill 1422, Ayotte wrote that she “understand[s] the need to pursue and deliver justice,” but allowing convicts to seek retrials based on new evidence would “create a novel approach” that she said was unnecessary. Representative Bob Lynn argued for an override of the veto, saying, “Obviously here we’re not in the business here of letting innocent people stay in jail, but the way the law stands right now, if the newly discovered evidence occurred beyond three years, you have that potential, and there’s no constitutional violation; you have the potential of saying, ‘too bad.’”

Discussion: The NH Legislature made the right decisions in overriding the vetoes. While it is wrong to penalize out-of-staters with the new toll rates, increases are necessary to maintain the highways; and ignoring evidence that could leave an innocent person in prison is certainly wrong.

Federal Debt Under Trump Now Exceeds $40 Trillion

Just five months after the federal debt exceeded $39 trillion, the US Treasury reported on August 19 that the debt had reached $40 trillion, now outstripping revenue by more than $2 trillion a year. The government is spending more than a trillion dollars a year on interest alone, with interest costs in the first 10 months of this fiscal year being 15 percent higher than they were in the same period a year ago. That debt now is the government’s second-largest expense after repaying the Social Security Trust Fund that Congress has raided for several decades.

The situation has led to a 19-year high on the yield for 30-year Treasury bonds, which raises borrowing costs for everyone else, since mortgage rates and other interest rates tend to follow. The average rate on a 30-year mortgage approached 6.7 percent last week, according to Freddie Mac.

President Donald Trump promised to eliminate the national debt by the end of his second term, but Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been forced to acknowledge that it is heading in the wrong direction. He blamed the war in Iran, tariff refunds ordered by the NH Supreme Court, and the tax cuts included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Acr.

Discussion: The Trump administration has been disastrous in many ways, and now Congress is considering reducing the Social Security benefits that Americans have paid into for decades, instead of removing the payroll tax cap and increasing the tax rate to make up for a smaller population paying into the fund.

Café Chatter

On TACO: Graham. Sheesh.

— Candace Skurnik

Darline Graham: ‘National Security Is Not My Thing’

NH Appeals Court Rulings on Education Funding

The bill came in ahead of President Trump’s announcement on August 18: “I have paused the 50% Tariffs against Canada, that were scheduled to kick in tomorrow morning for a three day period, based on the fact that Canada and the U.S.A., subject to the finalization of documents, have a DEAL.” The new tariffs on Canadian products were set to go into effect at 12:01 a.m. ET today.

The planned tariffs contained exemptions for Canadian oil, gas, and potash, and Canada-based Irving Energy did not say its new annual tank fee was linked to the tariffs Trump has been imposing on countries around the world, only that costs continue to increase; but the timing of the announcement suggests a correlation. Over decades of propane service, the company has never charged for the tanks necessary for it to conduct business, but now it finds that to be necessary, perhaps because nothing Trump says and no “deal” he announces can be trusted. His new Canada tariffs would have applied to products covered by his free-trade agreement, the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, negotiated during his first term as president.

While no new deal with Canada is certain, the Tuesday announcement reinforces the perception that “Trump Always Chickens Out” — TACO. He has canceled a number of the threats he made in moments of rage after realizing how much damage they would cause. Unfortunately, many more of his terrible decisions have remained in place.

Discussion: Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has said, “This trade dispute has raised costs for families, particularly in the US. Canada stands ready to engage intensively to address outstanding issues with the US to the mutual benefit of our citizens.” Carney said the two sides have made “substantial progress" and confirmed that Canada had agreed to a three-day delay while negotiations continued.

Darline Graham: ‘National Security Is Not My Thing’

Senator Darline Graham, who was appointed to temporarily fill the seat of her brother, Lindsey, who died July 11, is competing in a runoff election with Representative Ralph Norman in South Carolina. During an August 18 debate ahead of the election, a moderator asked, “Are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States, and if so, why or how?”

“I’m just going to be honest here,” she responded. “I’m not that informed on national security, but I do support the military. My brother was in the Air Force for 33 years, so I will do everything I can to support the military. My dad was in the Army. I’m not a polished politician up here; national security is not my thing, not my area of expertise, but I do support the military.”

That support included praising President Trump’s approach to foreign policy, saying he is the “strongest president we’ve had” against China and that the United States “cannot let” the Islamic Republic develop a nuclear weapon.

Discussion: Graham has received criticism for her response on foreign policy, but it is refreshing to hear someone “be honest here”. It does say something that someone without any grasp of foreign policy is willing to support the president’s foolish decisions in that arena.

NH Appeals Court Rulings on Education Funding

The State of New Hampshire, in a 125-page brief filed with the NH Supreme Court on August 14, has appealed Rockingham County Superior Court Judge David Ruoff’s ruling that “the total Adequacy Funding level and the funding level for special education differentiated aid are each insufficient for New Hampshire school districts to meet the demands of Constitutional Adequacy, and that school districts are forced to bridge the gap by relying in part on revenue from local property taxes assessed at varying rates.”

In an earlier ruling, in which the Contoocook Valley School District had sued the state, alleging inadequate state funding for public schools, Ruoff found that the state’s base adequacy grant, which then was about $4,182 per student, must increase to at least $7,356.01. The Supreme Court affirmed that finding, but left the remedy to the New Hampshire Legislature.

The Justice Department is arguing that “Claremont I & II [the two Supreme Court cases that established the need for the state to cover the costs of providing an ‘adequate education’] and their progeny are wrong as a matter of constitutional text, structure, purpose, history, and tradition; they are poorly reasoned, and have led to the impractical and unworkable state of affairs that exists today in our education funding law.”

It continues, “This case exists because this Court’s modern school funding jurisprudence has distorted Part II, Article 83 of the State Constitution beyond recognition, finding rights and mandates in it that do not exist, and fundamentally altering how the State and its political subdivisions may legally interact.”

Discussion: At issue is language in the state constitution that states, “It shall be the duty of the legislators and magistrates, in all future periods of this government, to cherish the interest of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries and public schools.” The Supreme Court interpreted “cherish” to mean “cover the cost” of public schools but not seminaries. Some constitutional scholars have disputed the “adequacy” finding. Doug Hall, in a report published by the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire where he served as executive director, traced the history of school funding. The study found that the state originally “cherished” education by dictating how much municipalities would raise through local property taxes to cover educational costs without providing separate state funding.

More Empathy, Less Ability To Properly Diagnose

Trump Again Supports A Dictator Over An Ally

Nearly 200 people showed up at a special meeting of the Keene City Council on August 17 in the wake of at least three arrests Immigration and Customs Enforcement made in the city last week. Longtime resident Sandra Whippie said, “I turned 90 a few months ago, and I can’t think of a time when I have been more frightened. It concerns me that our families, particularly immigrant families, are literally frightened to be in our community, and they have reason to be — that’s what scares me.”

City officials were cautious about responding to the concerns due to the Trump Administration’s threat to withhold federal funding from so-called “sanctuary jurisdictions” and New Hampshire’s passage of two state laws that attempt to prevent local communities from passing ordinances to interfere with ICE. Under one of the new laws, municipalities could lose as much as a quarter of their state funding and the attorney-general could file charges against them if they oppose the roundups. Keene Mayor Jay Kahn said, “We run a risk and we are also here to protect our taxpayers, and that is the vice they can put us in. We don’t want to be the first, and we don’t want to be an example. I think we need to figure out if there are tactics that improve the safety of our citizens.”

On August 11, ICE Boston said in a statement, “The Trump Administration is utilizing all lawful options to carry out the largest deportation operation in history, just as President Trump promised. Anyone who has been deported received full due process.”

Discussion: The ICE statement is clearly false; due process has been repeatedly ignored in the effort to meet deportation quotas, which also has meant arresting people with no criminal record, contrary to what the administration says. Furthermore, the US Constitution and case law have established that states do not have to assist federal authorities — the basis for “sanctuary cities”. The state laws that would force municipalities to cooperate are subject to lawsuits if such illegal action as withholding state funds were to take place. Cities and towns need to push back to protect their citizens and their taxpayers.

More Empathy, Less Ability To Properly Diagnose

Tim Burdick, who practices medicine at Dartmouth Health in Lebanon, and Dr. Sarah Preum, technical associate director at Dartmouth’s Center for Precision Health and Artificial Intelligence, have co-written a study on whether large language models (LLMs) being integrated into clinical workflow are useful. They conclude, “While LLMs demonstrate capability in drafting certain thematic elements, they struggle with clinician-aligned generation in other themes…. Our findings underscore the necessity of adapting LLMs to individual clinician preferences to enable reliable and responsible use in patient-clinician communication workflows.”

In plain language, they found that, when responding to real, anonymized patient messages, the six LLM models they tested introduced errors and over-diagnosed to the point where some participating physicians said they did not want to use artificial intelligence. The LLMs did not ask the important follow-up questions that physicians often do. Preum said that clinicians usually ask questions to narrow down a diagnosis, such as asking when pain started, and if a patient can rate the pain from 1-10. LLMs, she said, tend to go straight to diagnosing the pain’s cause and calling for treatment, while clinicians are more cautious about recommending solutions that may be unnecessary.

On the other hand, the study found that AI is tireless, unlike doctors who are often pressed for time and become fatigued, coming across as less empathetic. The LLMs can sound more compassionate and they are “pretty good with helping with tasks like scheduling and refilling prescriptions”.

Discussion: Preum concluded, “I would say that’s actually not an easy problem to teach large language models or AI to ask good followup questions. It can definitely ask questions, but it’s not probably as good as clinicians, but we are currently working on addressing that problem.”

Trump Again Supports A Dictator Over An Ally

President Donald Trump’s decision to scale back joint military exercises with South Korea while praising North Korean President Kim Jong Un adds to the concerns that the United States is realigning with traditional foes while abandoning longtime allies. He boasted of “my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un” and said the military exercises “send a signal that is totally inappropriate and hostile, to a Country that, as long as Donald J. Trump has been President, has been unthreatening and respectful.” He described South Korea, on the other hand, as an ungrateful recipient of US largess. Trump complained about the amount of money the United States spends on protecting South Korea, yet South Korea refused to take part in his war against Iran. “I called [South Korea’s president],” Trump complained. “I said, ‘Would you like to give us a little hand? We don’t need help with Iran, but if you’d like, give us a hand with Iran.’ He said, ‘No thanks.’ … We have 39,000 soldiers over there, guarding you, from Kim Jong Un, your next-door neighbor, and you’re not going to help us on a very easy military operation in Iran? That’s strange.”

Trump also threatened to bomb another ally, Oman, saying, “If Oman gets in the way [of a peace agreement between the US and Iran], we’ll bomb the s*** out of them.” Oman has been serving as a neutral party in negotiations with Iran over the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has effectively closed in response to the US and Israel’s aggression. Iran is refusing to speak directly to the US because of Trump’s demands for unconditional surrender. “There are no talks taking place between IRGC officials and the Americans, and this lie by Trump is merely fantasies caused by the delusions and nightmares he has suffered as a result of defeat and desperation in the war,” Iran’s Tasnim News said.

Further evidence of Trump’s disdain of traditional American values is his dismissal of concerns by families of those aboard the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, which has been kept overseas without adequate supplies of food and other essentials, while experiencing maintenance problems. When a reporter began asking, “Family members of US service members are concerned about the conditions on board the USS Lincoln —,” Trump interrupted to say, “No they’re not.”

Discussion: Trump’s concern is achieving adulation and amassing a fortune. “Kim understands that Trump is an incompetent, erratic, weak-willed president who can be manipulated by dime-store flattery,” Robert Hubbell writes. Trump and his family amassed $2.2 billion in 2025 through cryptocurrency holdings, wealthy foreign interests, Truth Social, and more, and now, Trump has received preliminary approval to operate a federally chartered trust bank. How long will he be allowed to continue to undermine the country’s welfare to enrich himself?

By The Way

By The Way

A Better Option

The farm-to-table movement, in which good dining is linked to local farmers, both supporting their efforts and bringing fresh, wholesome produce, meat, and other homemade products to the table, can be traced to the 1970s, when people began to rebel against a food industry that was able to deliver food from diverse locations, but only after it had been in transport for days, shortening its useful life — unless it was highly processed or filled with preservatives…

Read more

10 days ago · T.P. Caldwell

By The Way

A Rock and a Hard Place

BRISTOL — Four weeks after teachers in the Newfound Area School District learned that the contracts they signed in April were invalid, and with three weeks to go before classes are scheduled to begin, they still have no certainty that their jobs will be there…

Read more

9 days ago · 1 like · 1 comment · T.P. Caldwell

By The Way

Things Change

BRISTOL — As the Newfound Area School District faces unexpected financial challenges, its new business administrator is asking the school board to take a longer-term approach to decisions such as building consolidation…

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7 days ago · 1 like · 1 comment · T.P. Caldwell

By The Way

Preparing for a New Year

BRISTOL — The Newfound Area School Board has appointed a new member from Bristol to fill the vacancy from Joe Maloney’s resignation when he became School Administrative Unit 4’s assistant facilities manager. Of three candidates seeking the position, the board chose Jake Corneau to serve until the March elections…

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5 days ago · T.P. Caldwell

When President Donald Trump attempts to dictate how state elections will be run, Democrats are quick to point out that the US Constitution’s Elections Clause (Article I, Section 4, Clause 1) gives states the right to prescribe the “Time, Places and Manner” of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, subject to congressional oversight. Yet the Democratic National Committee has decided to overrule election law in New Hampshire — which stipulates that the Granite State will hold the first primary elections in the country — and has dictated that South Carolina will go first.

Under what authority?

The US Congress in 1845 set the date of federal elections on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, but each state sets its own dates for primary elections, general state elections, and special elections. Special elections are called to fill vacancies in state legislatures or statewide offices and typically are set by the governor, Secretary of State, or a state election board, with the timing subject to statutory deadlines. They can occur at any time of year.

Yet, in 2024, the DNC, with backing from then-President Joe Biden Jr., announced that South Carolina would hold the first primary election, arguing that the southern state is more racially diverse and better represents the party’s future. New Hampshire went ahead with its “first-in-the-nation” presidential primary because state law requires the primary to take place at least seven days ahead of a similar election. The conflict and confusion were devastating to Democrats, leading some people to avoid voting in that consequential election.

New Hampshire Democratic Party Chair Ray Buckley said, “New Hampshire is the place that ensures our candidates have a nominating process that challenges candidates to answer tough questions face-to-face.” After this year’s DNC vote, Buckley said, “Today’s vote shows that many party insiders have learned nothing from 2024. This committee’s vote does not change the realities governing New Hampshire’s primary, which are beyond the control of both this committee and our state party.”

Scott Maltzie, chair of the NH Republican Committee, also weighed in. “The DNC continues to prove it has no respect for New Hampshire voters or our First-in-the-Nation primary. The good news for Granite Staters is that New Hampshire law, not the DNC, determines when our presidential primary is held.”

Secretary of State David Scanlan said, “The bottom line is New Hampshire has a state law, at this point a 106-year-old tradition of holding the first primary, so that will continue. We are going to defend our law and the tradition.”

So, again, under what authority does the DNC decide when a primary election can take place?

The Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee hold national nominating conventions at which state delegates select the party’s nominee for president, ostensibly based on voter preference, and they help determine which delegates will vote at the national nominating convention. They establish their own delegate guidelines. While the DNC chose not to allocate delegates based on the NH Primary in 2024, the New Hampshire Democratic Party went ahead and held its own primary for delegate allocation.

This is not a presidential election year, so it is unclear what role the DNC has in congressional races. I have found nothing to indicate any authority to intervene in 2026.

Groton Man Faces New Burglary Charge in Grafton County

Valid Concerns Voiced About ICE Use of ‘Shock Gloves’

President Donald Trump announced August 12 on social media that White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt “will be departing her role at the end of the month so she can spend more time with her beautiful young children and family, a decision I totally understand and respect! Karoline will now be one of my top outside advisors, and an influential voice within the Republican Party, as we work to defy History, and conclusively win the Midterm Elections.”

A native of New Hampshire who graduated from St. Anselm College and ran in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District in 2022, losing to Representative Chris Pappas, Leavitt, 28, has a two-year-old son and had taken a work leave after the birth of her second child, a daughter, in May. She was the youngest person to serve as White House press secretary.

Leavitt said on social media, “The truth is since returning to the White House after the birth of my daughter, I have felt in my heart that I cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House Press Secretary — and that is why I have ultimately made the bittersweet decision to depart the White House and embark on a new chapter in my life.”

Discussion: Leavitt had planned to have a career as a reporter, saying, “Like, growing up, my family still has home videos of me pretending to be a reporter.” However, interning at WMUR during her college years, and writing opinion columns for the St. Anselm Crier, she voice politically conservative views, complaining about the “liberal media” and criticizing her professors for their criticism of the president. Her conservative stance captured the president’s attention.

Groton Man Faces New Burglary Charge in Grafton County

State Police have charged Angelo Fiaschetti, 30, of Groton with a felony count of burglary and misdemeanor charges of theft by unauthorized taking, criminal trespassing, and prowling/loitering following an investigation that began on August 12 when Troop F received a report of a suspicious male driving a gray Kia Soul and going door-to-door on Pine Top Lane in Hebron. Troopers also received a report that the same man was approaching homes and perhaps stealing property on Valley View Road.

Troopers arrested Fiaschetti on Hobart Hill Road. Their investigation determined that Fiaschetti had entered several properties in the area and at one point entered a home illegally. Fiaschetti was out on bail at the time, stemming from a previous arrest by the Tilton Police Department.

Fiaschetti was held on preventive detention at the Grafton County Department of Corrections jail until his arraignment in the Second Circuit Court-District Division-Plymouth on August 13.

Valid Concerns Voiced About ICE Use of ‘Shock Gloves’

The Department of Homeland Security announced that Immigration and Customs Enforcement will spend as much as $20 million by March on nonlethal Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter (GLOVE) devices manufactured by Compliant Technologies LLC of Lexington, Kentucky. Also known as “shock gloves”, they have been in use by some jails and police departments in recent years. The notice said the solicitation for a no-bid contract could be published as early as today.

Compliant Technologies says the devices function as a normal pair of patrol gloves until officers press a switch to activate their electrical mode. The gloves must be applied directly to someone’s skin to deliver a pain stimulus that typically helps an officer gain compliance within seconds, according to the company. It warns, however, that the devices should not be used as punishment, against people merely exhibiting “verbal defiance or belligerence”, or on children, pregnant women, the elderly, or disabled people.

Jenn Rolnick Borchetta, deputy project director on policing at the American Civil Liberties Union, said, “ICE spent the last year showing this country they are too quick to use force. Now they will be able to deploy electric shocks with the slight push of a button that maybe nobody else can see them do. Introducing gloves that can so easily be used to deliver terrible pain in encounters is a recipe for harm to the public.”

Discussion: The concerns are valid, given the brutal tactics that ICE has used across the country. Compliant Technologies warns that the device should not be used for longer than 15 seconds; no more than one pair should be used at the same time on one person; and they should be used only on arms or legs, strictly avoiding head, face, throat, chest, and groin. Otherwise, use of the technology can constitute torture, and may be lethal.

Café Chatter

On Things Change: The district needs new lawyers! Always being caught off guard.

— Patrick Toy

Fighting For Americans’ Right to Debate and Decide

Both Political Parties Support Solving Transportation Deficit

Two letters published by the Laconia Daily Sun demonstrate what the Democratic Party is doing wrong. At a time when the Republican Party has been hijacked by an ideology sustained by a series of myths that create perpetual feelings of desperation and panic — and a leader with no interest in public welfare or serving the people, instead seeing the presidency as a vehicle for private enrichment for himself, his family, and his allies, and to solve his legal, financial, and other problems — it is important for Democrats to work together and restore our democratic republic.

Instead, Democratic Party leaders are trying to dictate who gets into office and which state should be the first to vote. That is repugnant and alienating to those they attempt to disenfranchise.

Read on:

And…

It makes no sense to support a Republican candidate while the party remains entrenched in MAGA lunacy, but Democratic candidates who are willing to go along with efforts to sideline certain candidates of their own party, and who accept the idea of defying New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation election law, are blind to the damage they are doing.

While I cannot vote for any Republican at this time, Rich Logis points out that we should not assume that, because someone once embraced the Make America Great Again creed, they still hold those views. President Donald Trump has failed them, as well, and Rich has acknowledged that fact. He established Leaving MAGA to assist those disillusioned by what has transpired since Trump’s re-election and whose views have alienated family members:

Fighting For Americans’ Right to Debate and Decide

The Steady State is a nonprofit 501(c)(4) organization advocating for constitutional democracy, the rule of law, and the preservation of America’s national security institutions. In today’s piece, the former officials from the CIA, FBI, Department of State, Department of Defense, and Department of Homeland Security who make up the Steady State explained their focus: “We are not silent on Gaza or climate change or abortion or immigration because we think those questions don’t matter. We are silent because we believe the structure through which Americans have the right to debate and ultimately decide those questions is itself in danger.”

Our membership is composed largely of people who spent their careers in intelligence, diplomacy, national security, law enforcement, the military, and government oversight. And that gives us a particular reason not to believe that we should be deciding the great questions of domestic policy.

We have seen what happens in other countries when people from backgrounds like ours decide that ordinary democratic politics is inadequate to the task. Intelligence officers, generals, police officials and national-security professionals begin intervening in political questions because they believe the stakes are too high, the politicians too incompetent, or the public too divided to handle them.

History offers plenty of examples of where that road can lead.

It does not want intelligence officers deciding climate policy, generals settling questions of reproductive rights, or law-enforcement officials determining tax policy. However honorable their intentions or distinguished their service, people entrusted with the instruments of national security and state power have no special democratic entitlement to decide those questions.

Indeed, one of the principles many of us spent our careers defending was precisely the opposite: in a democracy, members of the national security institutions serve the elected government and the Constitution. They do not govern.

The piece continues:

We are participating, as a group, in domestic political life because we believe the threat to the democratic system itself has become extraordinary. Growing autocracy is an existential threat to our democracy. …

The second reason for our narrow focus is simpler.

We don’t agree.

The Steady State includes Democrats, Republicans, and Independents; conservatives, liberals, and people who fit comfortably into none of those categories. Ask our members about Israel and Gaza, climate policy, immigration, taxation, abortion, or any number of other questions, and you will hear vigorous disagreement.

But there is one thing on which we have reached an extraordinary degree of agreement: American democracy itself is in danger.

That agreement is what brought us together.

Our purpose is not to tell Americans what policies they should choose. It is to help preserve their ability to choose them.

Both Political Parties Support Solving Transportation Deficit

Leaders in both parties are hoping to overturn Governor Kelly Ayotte’s veto of the Ten Year Transportation Improvement Plan due to its provision for raising turnpike tolls to cover the increasing cost of road improvements. The Senate added the revenue measure to the 10-year plan, prompting Ayotte’s veto.

The toll-hike proposal would double the turnpike toll rates for drivers without a New Hampshire E-ZPass transponder, including those with an out-of-state transponder or those paying with cash. As part of the change, the state would provide free New Hampshire E-ZPass transponders to anyone applying within the first 10 months.

In her veto message, Ayotte wrote, “I do not support raising the tolls. I will continue to focus on making New Hampshire more affordable for all and a destination for tourists in the region.”

Discussion: In response to the state’s highway revenue shortage, the Executive Council eliminated 34 projects, valued at $106 million, and delayed another $199 million worth of projects, as well as pausing municipal grants for bridge repairs and other projects. The toll hikes would allow improvements on Interstate 93 in Concord and Manchester to proceed, while building revenue for other projects. Unfortunately, the plan unfairly targets out-of-state travelers, just as calls for a sales tax would serve as a way of forcing out-of-state residents to pay for New Hampshire expenses — classic taxation without representation. A toll hike is necessary, and it’s good to see the two political parties coming together to solve the problem, but they could do so while treating all E-Z Pass holders the same.

Laconia Man Faces Charges After High-Speed Chase

Janoo Wins Democratic Gubernatorial Primary in Vermont

When he won 20 tickets to New Hampshire Fisher Cats baseball games during the June superintendent’s conference, School Administrative Unit 4 Interim Superintendent Brian Connelly decided “it might be nice to give them away to the community” and he made that suggestion during the August 10 meeting of the Newfound Area School Board.

Business Administrator Michal Limanni had the perfect suggestion for doing that: “Guess what’s happening this week,” he said. “The Penny Sale.”

The Bristol Rotary Club is holding its 73rd annual Penny Sale at Newfound Regional High School on Thursday, August 13, at 6 p.m. Proceeds from the sale go toward scholarships and programs to benefit youths in the Newfound area.

“They give a $6,000 scholarship to a graduate here in Newfound,” Limanni said. “They do a lot in the community, as you will know soon.”

Discussion: The Penny Sale involves three rounds of drawings, each offering 100 prizes, with each ticket costing $1 and each ticket that is drawn going back into the drum to be eligible for future wins — hence a penny a ticket. At the end of the three rounds, the grand prize-winning tickets are drawn. The Rotary also has a silent auction for items on the tables.

Laconia Man Faces Charges After High-Speed Chase

Massachusetts State Police arrested Joshua Joyce, 30, of Laconia, following a pursuit that began in Manchester and ended in East Boston. According to NH State Police, Trooper Brian Knell observed a gray 2014 Toyota Camry traveling 113 mph on Interstate 93 North at 11:38 p.m. on August 10 but, when he attempted to stop the vehicle, the driver continued speeding away.

The Toyota continued onto Interstate 293 North and Route 101 West into Bedford, then made a U-turn at 101 and 114, traveling south on I-293 and I-93 before crossing into Massachusetts at the state line in Salem.

Massachusetts State Police took over the pursuit and ultimately stopped the vehicle near Boston Logan International Airport.

Discussion: Joyce will be facing charges in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts.

Janoo Wins Democratic Gubernatorial Primary in Vermont

Amanda Janoo, a 38-year-old economist who previously worked internationally for the United Nations, defeated Aly Richards to become Vermont’s Democratic nominee for governor during the August 11 state primary election. She will face Republican Governor Phil Scott, a five-term incumbent, in the general election.

Janoo campaigned on providing publicly funded universal primary care, funded by a surcharge on household income exceeding $250,000, as well as tax hikes on second homes and short-term rentals. She said after Tuesday’s election, “[A]s an economist, I know that money is power, but as a Vermonter, I know that money is not the only kind of power.”

Outside the Montpelier City Hall polling station Tuesday morning, Capital City resident Eli Robinson called Janoo “the most refreshing activist we’ve had run for political office since Bernie.”

Discussion: Paul Dame, chair of the Vermont GOP, said that Janoo’s campaign promises were an asset during the primary, but they will be a liability in the general election and that, while Vermont voters have a history of sending progressive candidates to Congress, they want those with “common-sense fiscal responsibility” in statewide offices.

Café Chatter

On A Rock and a Hard Place: So. Are you saying that the teachers do not have a contract? Why would they show up on day 1?! Except, of course, they care about their students.

— Candace Skurnik

Trump’s Secret Plane Escape Left Others Vulnerable

Former Syrian President Sentenced for War Crimes

Housing prices across the nation have begun to stabilize amidst rapid construction and high mortgager rates, and values in states such as Florida and Texas have fallen; but in New Hampshire, the cost of housing reached new heights in July, with a median sales price of $580,000 for a single-family home, according to the New Hampshire Association of Realtors®. That median is 5.5 percent higher than in June 2025, and 36 percent higher than in May 2021, when sales first passed the $400,000 mark.

The number of homes sold in New Hampshire increased 10.4 percent from a year ago, and pending sales increased 7.2 percent, despite national mortgage rates in 2026 being 6.66 higher, due in part to the resumption of the Iran war and the Federal Reserve’s decision not to lower rates.

Properties in lake-and-mountain communities have led the increases, with sales in Belknap County rising by 45 percent in July, with the median price increasing 33 percent, to $615,000. In Grafton County, the increase was 41.9 percent, and in Sullivan County, it was up 90.3 percent. Even Coös County, with a median home price of $269,000 — up from $225,000 last year — saw the number of sales increasing by 36.4 percent.

Discussion: The 2,992 new single-family homes built in the state do not meet the demand for housing, and the state’s median household income is 47 percent less than the median cost of a home in New Hampshire home. Median income has not matched the median home price since 2021.

Trump’s Secret Plane Escape Left Others Vulnerable

The Washington Post, citing a US official and another person with knowledge of President Donald Trump’s travel, as well as “material reviewed by the newspaper”, reported that the president secretly flew out of last month’s NATO summit in Ankara, Türkiye, on an alternate military aircraft while using Air Force One as a decoy in the face of Iran’s assassination threat.

According to the report, Trump boarded the old Air Force One jumbo jet in view of television cameras, with official reporting explaining that intelligence officials had raised concerns about the ability of his new Qatari-gifted and retrofitted plan not having the capability of avoiding a potential attack on the president. Ahead of the plane flying to Royal Air Force Mildenhall in the United Kingdom, the president exited Air Force One off the far side of the aircraft inside a catering lift without being seen, and was driven to a military C-32A for the flight to England. After Air Force One landed in Britain, Trump was quietly driven back to it, boarded it clandestinely through another entrance, and then walked down the stairs in front of the waiting press as though he had been aboard all along.

While the ruse was successful in protecting the president, it left the journalists and White House staff members aboard Air Force One vulnerable to a potential attack by Iran, which had been led to believe that the president was aboard. When asked at the time if the threat was credible, Trump replied, “Well, I have a threat all the time. I’m number one on their list, before you, but if I go, you go.”

Discussion: As Michael Sellers wrote while reporting on the success of the operation, “What made it okay to put all those other people on a flight that was deemed to be targeted by Iran to be presumably blown out of the air? If it was dangerous enough to spirit Trump away, wasn’t it dangerous enough to protect everyone else?”

Former Syrian President Sentenced for War Crimes

The Fourth Criminal Court in Damascus, Syria, has sentenced ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, his younger brother, Maher, and his maternal cousin, Atef Najib, to death for crimes during Syria’s 14-year conflict that left about half a million people dead. Bashar and Maher fled to Russia for political asylum after the government’s fall in December 2024, but Syria’s new rulers have asked Russia to hand the Assads over.

Judge Fakhareddine al-Aryan convicted the two in absentia today for crimes against humanity and war crimes, while Najib, standing inside a cage wearing a prisoner’s uniform, was convicted of overseeing the crackdown in the southern province of Daraa that led to the uprising and later the civil war.

Attorney Adnan al-Masalmeh, who represented families of Najib’s victims, said, “Today is the day of justice for all the wounded, martyrs, detainees, and Syrians who were forced to leave their country. Today marks a victory of right against injustice, a victory of the Syrian people against the ousted regime.”

Discussion: The Assad family had been in power for five decades until Bashar al-Assad’s downfall.

They apparently have been around for more than three decades, but I had never heard of the Colorado-based jam band known as the String Cheese Incident, which is famous for its blend of bluegrass, trance, and folk rock tunes, or as Wikipedia describes it: “Their music has elements of bluegrass sounds, as well as rock, electronica, calypso, country, funk, jazz, Latin, progressive rock, reggae, and psychedelia. All members write original compositions and sing.”

My introduction came when 92.5 The River notified me that I had won a pair of tickets to their performance at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom on August 7. I often enter into the radio station’s contests, but frankly, I don’t remember entering that particular drawing, but there it was.

With my wife scheduled to work that evening, I contacted a friend in Vermont, knowing it would have been a long trip for her, and then a friend who lives in Nottingham, but she also was unavailable. With a short timeframe between learning of the tickets and the time of the show, I ended up going alone.

Although Lee has attended a KC and the Sunshine Band performance at the Casino Ballroom, I had never been there and didn’t know what to expect. I also didn’t take into consideration the heat of the day which would have attracted a lot of people to Hampton Beach; I figured that arriving 20 minutes in advance would give me time to find a parking space and get to the venue. I ended up having to drive around for 25 minutes before finding an empty space — several blocks away from the ballroom. (That turned out to be fortuitous, because it was a short distance from the route home.)

Fortunately, the band was 20 minutes late in taking the stage, so I had time to get inside and find my way to a seat with a clear view of the stage, safe from the cramped ballroom floor that afforded little room to move.

The roar of the crowd as the musicians took their places signaled that it would be a good show. Guitarist and co-founder Bill Nershi, along with Michael Kang, Keith Moseley, Kyle Hollingsworth, Michael Travis, and Jason Hann did not disappoint. Their high-energy performance, with extended pieces that sometimes blended from one song to the next, kept everyone moving to the music. I suspect that, had I been accompanied by anyone, I would have embarrassed them and they would have had to pretend they did not know that wild dancer who couldn’t sit still.

Perhaps it was Nershi’s white hair and beard, Kang’s mandolin, and the band’s lengthy instrumentals that repeatedly reminded me of the Grateful Dead, while Travis’ frequent calypso beats brought Jimmy Buffet to mind. But it was more than that: The musicians’ range of influences showcased a broad set of skills that their live performance accentuated. Listening to their recorded music later brought back those memories, but the recordings could not capture how enthralling it was to hear them live.

The crowd? It ranged in age from people in their 40s to 70s, weighted to the elders, but they all shared in the energy and friendly vibe of the evening. Indeed, reviews of the band always mention the friendliness of the fans. For me, it was like attending the music festivals my youth or, more recently, the MoonGroove Art and Music Festival with younger crowds and a feeling I imagine to be like Woodstock, which I missed attending.

Music brings people together like nothing else. Political rallies and social causes bring people together in solidarity over important aspects of life, but music unites everyone in the joy of living.

Politics can intrude on that joy of living, and it is important to make time to ensure the health of the country. For that, we can rely on the songwriters who tackle that reality, including Leonard Cohen, as Steve Schmidt points out in his column:

The Warning with Steve Schmidt

They forgot to leave

Last night, I went to the theater — or as they spell it in Canada, the “theatre” — in Toronto, and saw “The Secret Chord: A Leonard Cohen Experience…

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10 days ago · 80 likes · 10 comments · Steve Schmidt

St. Clair Severely Injured in Motorcycle Crash

EPA Signals Approval of NH’s End to Vehicle Inspections

The New Hampshire Judicial Conduct Committee has issued a five-page statement alleging that former NH Supreme Court Justice Anna Barbara Hantz Marconi violated state law by failing to comply with the Code of Judicial Conduct and “failed to act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the independence, integrity, and impartiality of the judiciary and … avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety” in her appeal to then-governor Chris Sununu in July 2024 to intercede in the criminal investigation of her husband, former state ports director Geno Marconi.

Sununu has told investigators that he did not believe Hantz Marconi had violated the law, but he did find the conversation “awkward”. She subsequently pleaded “no contest” to a misdemeanor charge associated with that meeting, and she left the bench when she reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 in the spring.

Hantz Marconi said of the Judicial Conduct Committee’s investigation, “[I]t appears the Committee prefers a trial despite my acknowledgments, despite the resolution of the matter in court, despite Governor Sununu’s statements that ‘there was no request’ or ‘anything illegal,’ and despite the fact that I did not attempt to influence the AG’s investigation of my husband. I am disappointed that I am being subjected to this unnecessary process.”

Discussion: Hantz Marconi’s attorneys had argued that NH Supreme Court Chief Justice Gordon MacDonald had advised her before meeting with Sununu, “I think you can do that. You are a constituent and have concerns.” However, MacDonald denied any advance knowledge of the meeting between Sununu and Hantz Marconi, saying he first learned of the meeting when Sununu called him to report the conversation. The Judicial Conduct Committee has scheduled three days of hearings on the ethics charges, beginning December 7, but with her having retired from the court, the likelihood of any disciplinary action is unclear.

St. Clair Severely Injured in Motorcycle Crash

The Laconia Motorcycle Association has announced that Charlie St. Clair, executive director of Laconia Motorcycle Week, sustained severe injuries in a motorcycle accident on Aug. 4, in Avon, Ohio, as he made his 50th consecutive trip to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota. The accident was due to a “tire malfunction” that was witnessed by a friend who was riding with him, according to Motorcycle Week Deputy Director Jenn Anderson.

Anderson told the Laconia Daily Sun that no other vehicle was involved, and two nurses in cars behind him came to his aid. Charlie is being treated at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, and Anderson flew to Cleveland to be at his side as he recovers from injuries. “There is a lot of assessment that is still to come, because of swelling, but it is extensive,” Anderson said on August 6.

Laconia Mayor Mike Bordes, who has served with St. Clair as a representative in the State House and a member of the Belknap County Delegation, said, “The whole community is pulling for him to get through this. We all know Charlie. He’s done a lot for Laconia, and I think this community is well aware of that.”

Discussion: St. Clair had sustained injuries in a previous motorcycle crash while traveling to promote Laconia Motorcycle Week.

EPA Signals Approval of NH’s End to Vehicle Inspections

The US Environmental Protection Agency has “formally proposed to approve” New Hampshire’s termination of vehicle inspection requirements, with public comment being the last step in ratifying the change that was included in the state budget.

Police already have stopped enforcing the requirement in anticipation of the federal government’s approval. The EPA had signaled its intention to approve the request after the state formally submitted its request in December.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said on August 6, “EPA is committed to working collaboratively with states to reduce unnecessary regulatory burdens while maintaining strong environmental protections and following our statutory obligations.”

Discussion: Even without the inspection requirements, motorists are required to have basic safety features in place, and they could face fines for driving with bald tires or cracked windshields. The federal government is now accepting public comments on the change, and it will hold a public hearing at a future date. The EPA intends to issue a final decision by the end of the year.

By The Way

By The Way

Sharing Knowledge

The loon is a migratory species, breeding on inland rivers and lakes in the spring before spending the winter months on the ocean where the water does not freeze. Its ethereal calls on New Hampshire water bodies serve as a sure sign of warm weather and sooth the spirits of visitors and residents alike…

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23 days ago · T.P. Caldwell

Expansion of Military & Veterans Campus Is Underway

Committee Seeks Criminal Charges Against Fauci

The weather was perfect for a couple of days of river journeys while the New Hampshire Department of Transportation was repaving Route 16 in Errol and Wentworth’s Location.

Having been away for three weeks while attending festivals in Pennsylvania and assisting my daughter as she recovers from a broken ankle, I was curious about the eaglets we had been checking upon near Lake Umbagog. I thought that, by now, they may have left their giant nest in a tall tree near the lake entrance, but they were still there, at the edge of the nest and on a nearby tree branch. Their calls cheered us up as we drifted slowly past.

I had just remarked that we had not seen the herons that usually inhabit the waterway when we spotted one; then we encountered many more, including having one fly alongside the pontoon boat and then up into a treetop — something we had never seen a heron do before. They typically stand perfectly still at the water’s edge until they see a fish and quickly gobble it up.

Then there were the loons. There had been several loon nests on the river during previous journeys. By now, the chicks have hatched, and we sometimes see them riding on their parents’ backs. One loon swam upriver past our cottage, and we soon heard its distinctive call in the distance.

It was good to get to the North Country again, where during mid-week, we rarely encounter other humans on the river — just a boat here and there, and sometimes a flotilla of canoeists making their way to the lake, not always with paddling skills. I can say that, since I am no good as a canoeist, as my wife can attest. Kayaking is another matter, and I have yet to take my kayak out on the river this summer. (Better do so soon, I tell myself.)

It also was a good thing we were at the cottage as the road crew came by with all its heavy equipment. As they were replacing a culvert at the edge of our property, I inquired whether they were going to give us a driveway apron to avoid the two-inch edge of the pavement that made it difficult to get onto the road which has the local nickname of the Rangeley Speedway (cars ignoring the 30 mph speed limit on that section of the road). The DOT rep at the scene said it was not in their plan, but he arranged to have them dump a load of dirt and grade it so we could get out of our driveway.

Because we were “trapped” by the trucks lining the road in front of our cottage, I was unable to make the drive into Errol where the library’s WiFi system would have allowed me to post to the News Café yesterday, but we’re back home now with a high-speed broadband connection.

Expansion of Military & Veterans Campus Is Underway

Phase II of the Easterseals Military & Veterans Campus in Franklin is underway, with a groundbreaking ceremony on August 4, although construction had started in June. The new Solinsky Empowerment Center and the Solinsky Equine & Recreation Center are being built adjacent to the Werner Mazda Challenge Course.

Easterseals promises equine-assisted services, service dog training space, art and music therapy, care coordination, classrooms, and other wellness initiatives with the new construction. District 1 Executive Councilor Joe Kenney praised the effort, saying, “To have a place to go to receive clinical treatment, a place to recreate, and a place to call home coming off active duty means so much. It’s a proud day.”

Support from Grace and Ken Solinsky made the Phase II expansion possible. Maureen Beauregard, president and chief executive officer of Easterseals NH & VT, also recognized the late Hope Makris of the NASWA Resort in Laconia by naming , who did so much for veterans over the years. In her memory, Beauregard said a soon-to-be-built road will be known as Hope’s Way, recognizing Makris’ years of raising money for Veterans Count after the death of her husband, Peter, a World War II veteran.

Discussion: There was no mention that the Military & Veterans Campus has been roiled by controversy since its opening last year, with four members of its leadership team resigning last December, citing a range of concerns, including Beauregard’s alleged mismanagement and poor treatment by Easterseals. Some of the veterans living on the campus complained that Easterseals was prioritizing the site’s money-making hotel and conference center while disregarding their needs, including the denial full and free access to the therapy programs, including the planned pool and recreation center. It will be telling whether those concerns remain when the Phase II work is completed.

Committee Seeks Criminal Charges Against Fauci

The Senate Homeland Security Committee voted today to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress over his refusal to answer questions during a committee hearing last week. Fauci had repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Committee Chair Rand Paul said, “Holding a witness in contempt is a serious thing, and it should be rare, but the contempt power exists for precisely this circumstance.”

The committee voted, 8-5, to hold Fauci in contempt, with all Democrats on the committee opposing, with two more opposing by proxy vote. Paul told CBS News that he intends to send the contempt resolution directly to the Justice Department as a referral, rather than sending it to the full senate for a vote.

Discussion: Fauci’s right to “plead the Fifth” does not mean that he was guilty of lying about the origins of the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, but it can legitimately be seen as an admission that he had something to hide. After all, his denial that the EcoHealth Alliance was using National Institute of Health money for gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology — genetically modifying bat coronaviruses — was found to be false. At least one experiment at the institute produced viruses that behaved more aggressively than expected in laboratory mice, and EcoHealth failed to report certain results to NIH in a timely manner. His public statements asserting that the pandemic originated in an open-air market clashed with private correspondence in which he admitted the possibility of a laboratory origin. Such statements were certainly misleading, but they were not lies because, despite the possibility, he did believe that it was of natural origin. He likely pleaded the Fifth because he knew any statement he made could be used by his political opponents to bring criminal charges against him.

Two images sum up President Donald Trump’s second term in office. The most symbolic is the photo of the White House with the East Wing torn down, perfectly illustrating the effects of the Trump administration’s efforts to destroy the US heritage.

Classmate Candace Chase Skurnik described it this way after spending time in the area around July 4: “We didn’t make any plans to go visit one of the places that we love because we wanted our memories to be the DC that we loved. Just seeing the destruction of the White House was more than we could deal with. We kept thinking, what do visitors, especially foreign visitors think. We feel so ashamed and betrayed.”

The other image is of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, which illustrates the president’s inability to admit his incompetence and the lies he tells to place the blame elsewhere. The US Justice Department had to dismiss all the charges it had filed against David Hearn, who had been accused of vandalizing the pool, after reviewing the construction records, engineering reports, internal government emails, and photographs of the pool renovations.

In dismissing the charges, the Justice Department wrote, “[I]t was not until after the return of the indictment, that the [Department of the Interior] provided additional documents to the USAO-DC indicating that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor, Atlantic Industrial Coatings (AIC), and the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026. It was not until after these documents were produced that USAO-DC first became aware of information showing that the damage was the result of a botched installation and not vandalism as initially represented by DOI. Indeed, USAO-DC could only rely on the information provided by DOI that the damage was entirely caused by vandals, including the defendant in this case, David Hearn.”

Michael Sellers provides a detailed report on what the DOJ found. “Rather than asking the court simply to accept its conclusion, the Justice Department reconstructs the renovation almost day by day,” he writes.

The chronology begins in early May, when Atlantic Industrial Coatings began installing the new liner.

Almost immediately, delays mounted.

Heavy rain repeatedly interrupted work.

Sealant tests failed.

Material shortages developed.

Internal emails discussed the project falling behind schedule and revealed growing concern about completing the work in time for planned events surrounding America’s 250th anniversary celebration.

Then comes the first key date.

May 20.

While installation was still underway, a quality-control inspector documented blistering in portions of the newly installed coating and instructed the contractor to make repairs. …

On June 11, a National Park Service engineer reported that portions of the liner were already peeling.

The engineer’s email is one of the most important pieces of evidence in the filing because it introduces a technical explanation that never appeared in the public discussion.

The engineer recorded the contractor’s explanation that the peeling resulted from “overspray.” He also warned that the overspray around the pool’s perimeter could leave a one-to-two-foot strip vulnerable to additional peeling.

Importantly, Sellers notes that the report “does not portray Hearn as entirely innocent. To the contrary, prosecutors recount witness statements that he tugged at already-loose material after photographing it and ignored warnings from National Park Service employees to stop.” Media reports have ignored that aspect of the case; however, “this conduct occurred against the backdrop of a coating system that was already failing”.

Ignoring the facts, President Trump publicly attributed the damage to vandals, claiming they made a 250-foot gash in the liner, later saying it was a 350-foot cut made with a knife or box cutter. On June 25, he blamed “radical lunatics” for the damage.

Sellers writes, “Whether that decision [to drop the charges against Hearn] reflects unusually careful lawyering, a determination to protect the integrity of the prosecution, or an effort to place responsibility elsewhere — particularly on the Department of the Interior — is something reasonable people may debate. What seems much harder to debate, after reading the filing itself, is this: The government’s explanation of what happened at the Reflecting Pool on July 31 is dramatically different from the explanation the American public heard throughout June.”

The Department of the Interior did not take kindly to being blamed for withholding information. “Interior Secretary Doug Burgum took to social media to contradict [US Attorney Jeanine Pirro] outright, insisting his department ‘provided the US Attorney’s office expert and eyewitness testimony to the damage done by vandals and provided every piece of evidence they asked for’,” notes Harry Litman of Talking Feds Substack.

Trump, of course, will never he is wrong, and doubled down on his lie that vandals had caused the problems with the reflecting pool. “I disagree 100% with Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, on the Reflecting Pool. I don’t know what she was thinking? To me, it was a pure case of VANDALISM…. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS! President DJT”

And here we are today, with the US Senate preparing to advance its nomination of Todd Blanche’ as US Attorney-General. To gain the backing of senators John Cornyn and Thom Tillis, Blanche issued a statement claiming to end the “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that would reward insurrectionists and other criminals loyal to Trump, but it preserved the “settlement agreement” with Trump, his family, and his businesses, that grants immunity from IRS audits and penalties for defrauding the government and its taxpayers.

Café Chatter

On ‘New Crisis for Newfound’: Quoting a 2025 graduating senior who is not yet a taxpayer, seems apropos to the fiasco of running this small, less than 1,200 students school district. Along with declining enrollments with the 3 town reductions have necessitated closing a tiny (less than 65 students) elementary school whose maintenance and operating costs are not sustainable in this financial climate. Enrollment reductions likely means smaller class sizes as well.

The high turnovers of the school Business Manager position since the 2023 financial hacking of data and 5 superintendents within 6 years is curious as to the management ability of the School Board to oversee this small district. These financial procedural errors further complicate taxpayer trust with those of the School Board and Budget Committee who have fiduciary responsibilities, but as of yet, doesn’t provide the right kind of oversight this district needs. Forced spending cuts is the only necessary remedy at this time.

— Linda Phillips

New Hampshire Does Well in WalletHub Rankings

Fauci’s Diary Entries Preview Today’s Senate Testimony

New Hampshire has the ninth highest home vacancy rate in the country (14.3%), 70% of which are seasonal, recreational, or occasional-living buildings, such as vacation homes. Vermont has the highest rate of seasonal homes (75%).

The study by LendingTree noted that it may mean that, although there is a thriving seasonal tourism industry, local residents trying to find year-round housing are unable to do so. Matt Schulz, its chief consumer finance analyst, said, “For prospective buyers, that can mean fewer homes to choose from and potentially higher prices driven by limited year-round inventory.”

High vacancy rates usually mean lower home values, but New Hampshire’s median home value was $402,500 in 2024, while the national median price was $332,700. “That demand for retirement homes or vacation properties keeps values higher despite those seasonal vacancies,” Schulz said.

Discussion: Economists continue to debate whether a trend in home acquisitions by investment groups is responsible for the higher home prices. Investors often scoop up properties for rental income, taking those homes off the market for those looking to purchase their own homes. On the other hand, a larger number of rental properties can, in some cases, lead to lower rental prices, providing a cheaper option than home ownership. Does the tourism generated by second homes offset the loss of residential homes? That is another area of debate, with some arguing that limited housing means fewer families with children who will require public school expenditures. On the other hand, declining school enrollment means that public schools become more costly on a per-pupil basis.

New Hampshire Does Well in WalletHub Rankings

WalletHub analyses have found that New Hampshire schools rank in the top five nationwide, and the state is 48th in at-risk youth, but it also ranks 48th in offering universal pre-K education.

The Granite State’s overall rank for quality and safety of schools is fourth, which holds for math and reading test scores, pupil-teacher ratios, and dropout rates. It is in first place for the existence of digital learning plans, and ranks fifth in median ACT scores. It places 23rd in the percentage of threatened or injured high school students; and 29th in the percentage of licensed public school teachers in K-12.

In the area of healthcare, New Hampshire’s overall rank is first-place. It is ninth in the percentage of adults with no dental visits in the past year; 11th in the percentage of insured adults; 15th in physicians per capita and percentage of insured children; 20th in the percentage of at-risk adults with no routine doctor visits in the past two years; and 30th in dentists per capita.

In terms of credit-card debt, New Hampshire’s overall rank is ninth, with a median credit-card balance of $3,001 and the cost of interest until payoff being $351. The expected payoff time is 12 months and 30 days. New Hampshire’s median income is $70,247. The state ranks 43rd on the level of financial distress, and 37th in average credit score as of March 2026. It is 45th on the “Loans” Search Interest Index and 49th for change in the number of bankruptcy filings between March 2025 and March 2026.

Just this morning, WalletHub reported that New Hampshire rates seventh on the delinquency rate on student loans, at 9.35 percent in the first quarter of 2026. That is down from 26.33 percent in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Discussion: Governor Kelly Ayotte gives the state credit for the positive education rankings, saying, “[T]his new ranking is a testament to our dedicated teachers, supportive parents, and hardworking students who helped make it possible. We’ll continue working each day to make our state an even better place to learn — from supporting our excellent public schools, to getting cell phones out of the classroom, to expanding education opportunities for families, and more. I know New Hampshire will keep striving for #1 and prioritizing a best-in-class education for our kids.”

Fauci’s Diary Entries Preview Today’s Senate Testimony

In advance of Dr. Anthony Fauci’s appearance before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee today, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY), chair of the committee, posted 1,100 pages of Fauci’s diary entries and a 465-page “prequel” comprising a collection of documents and email exchanges that span the years 2001-2015, showing that the infectious disease specialist who led the country’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic was not as confident of the disease’s origins (emerging from a Chinese laboratory or an open-air market) as he publicly stated.

A letter from Fauci’s legal team claimed that Paul has been waging a “years-long public crusade” against him. “You are single-mindedly fixating on seeing Dr. Fauci prosecuted for imaginary crimes, and you are so invested in that outcome that you have created a personal brand around it,” the letter stated.

One of Fauci’s diary entries touched on his own personal brand, boasting, “It is not hyperbole to say that today I am the most famous and talked about person in the country and one of the most recognizable peson [sic] in the world.” However, the “scientific consensus” he promoted, that the virus is likely natural in origin, conflicted with other researchers who believe that SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, spread from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan that was working on “gain-of-function” experiments with bat coronaviruses. Such research genetically alters an organism to better predict how it might mutate naturally in order to develop vaccines as antidotes.

Discussion: In one diary entry, Fauci wrote that he “is almost certain that the virus evolved naturally from a species jump, even though… I keep an open mind about the possibility of a lab leak,” and “that just because two alternatives are possible that does not mean that they are equally probable.”

By The Way

By The Way

New Crisis for Newfound

The NH Department of Revenue Administration has determined that the Newfound Area School District vote in March failed to approve the teacher’s contract and infrastructure improvements at Newfound Regional High School, the latest blow to a district that has struggled to recover from a cyberattack, the withdrawal of three towns, and structural problems at an elementary school…

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a month ago · 1 comment · T.P. Caldwell

Plymouth Man Injured When Truck Veers Off I-93

Law Eases The Way For New Housing in Commercial Zones

Three units at Manor Estates in Bristol were left uninhabitable, with one believed to be a complete loss, when a large fire originating in one unit at the three-story, five-unit condominium complex partly spread to the adjacent condos on July 24. One resident was treated for burns, but those present were able to get out safely and call for a fire department response.

Bristol Fire Department Lieutenant Matt O’Neill said the other units sustained mostly smoke and water damage, and no other people or pets were injured. The fire was contained to that building, and other nearby condominium structures were unharmed.

In addition to the Bristol Fire Department, the call led to responses from Alexandria, Ashland, Bridgewater, Campton-Thornton, Danbury, Franklin, Hebron, Hill, Holderness, Meredith Fire and EMS, New Hampton, Plymouth, Rumney, and Sanbornton, as well as from the Bristol Police Department.

Discussion: Deputy Fire Chief Chris Dolloff, who serves as the department’s fire inspector, and Chief Ben LaRoche, are working to ascertain the origin of fire.

Plymouth Man Injured When Truck Veers Off I-93

Michael Bisson, 60, of Plymouth, was trapped in his 2017 Ford F-150 pickup truck after going off Interstate 93 near the Exit 25 on-ramp and into the woods on July 27. According to NH State Police who responded to the call around 4 p.m., Bisson sustained serious injuries in the crash.

Emergency personnel arriving at the crash scene were quickly able to free Bisson, who then was flown by helicopter to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon for medical treatment.

Assisting troopers were members of Plymouth Fire & Rescue, Holderness and Ashland police and fire departments, and the Grafton County Sheriff’s Department.

Discussion: State police are asking that anyone who witnessed the crash and has not yet spoken with police contact Trooper Shawn Slaney at Shawn.B.Slaney@dos.nh.gov.

Law Eases The Way For New Housing in Commercial Zones

New Hampshire has taken the housing shortage seriously, passing House Bill 631 last year to prevent cities and towns from prohibiting residential housing in commercial zones — something that could save about $21,000 per home, according a 2026 Pew-funded study by the World Resources Institute and ECOnorthwest, which also found that such “mixed-use” developments generate 13% more property tax revenue to cities and towns.

Municipalities, however, took advantage of exceptions in the law that allowed them to make infrastructure requirements, reserve the ground floors for retail use, and impose other restrictions, such as imposing density caps, vegetation requirements, and recreational space. The New Hampshire Municipal Association argues that such requirements ensure that housing development is compatible with the community.

In reaction to those efforts that serve to limit new housing, the New Hampshire Legislature this year passed House Bill 1588, which allows residential housing in commercial zones “by right” and only allows municipalities to establish frontage, setbacks, and building height requirements. Physical limitations on the new housing cannot be stricter than the limits in place for commercial buildings in that same zone.

Discussion: Regardless of which side of the question one supports, there is one onerous provision of the new law: requiring cities and towns to pay attorney’s fees to developers who win cases before the Housing Appeals Board in which they are found to have been wrongly prevented from developing housing in a commercial zone. Brodie Deshaies, a legislative advocate for the NH Municipal Association, says that possibility could lead communities to approve faulty development applications for fear of being financially liable. “Municipalities are going to have to make a judgment call about the cost‑benefit analysis for trying to ensure ordinances that they believe are legal are abided by,” Deshaies said.

Those who follow their passions have always intrigued me, and lately I’ve been reading accounts of those who choose difficult lives — in the Maine woods, in the American Northwest, in Africa, and, currently, in Alaska. Having watched Sean Penn’s film, “Into the Wild”, about Christopher McCandless’ journey to the 49th state where he ultimately perished of starvation, I’m now reading Jon Krakauer’s account of the young man who left his family behind and disappeared on his “Alaskan adventure” to immerse himself in nature, despite the challenges he knew it would present.

Chris has been described as careless, obsessive, and lacking in common sense, which is partly true. Krakauer’s assessment is that, “Although he was rash, untutored in the ways of the backcountry, and incautious to the point of foolhardiness, he wasn’t incompetent — he wouldn’t have lasted 113 days if he were. And he wasn’t a nutcase, he wasn’t a sociopath, he wasn’t an outcast. McCandless was something else — although precisely what is hard to say. A pilgrim, perhaps.”

A passion for living is important, especially in our increasingly disjointed society, and experiencing as many of America’s wonders — and those around the world — as possible is a worthy goal. Equally important is recognizing the constraining limits.

That goes for freedom in all its forms. People who are passionate about freedom sometimes ignore the obligations that go along with that freedom. Failing to take into account one’s impact on others is a common flaw in pursuing liberty. People often choose to sever their ties with family, friends, and acquaintances, believing that doing so will allow them to better experience life. In reality, those social connections are an inescapable attribute of human existence.

Chris resisted attempts to get too close. When “Ronald Franz” (not his real name), an elderly man whose wife and son had been killed by a drunk driver, struck up a friendship with Chris and offered to adopt him, Chris said, “We’ll talk about it when I get back from Alaska.” They never had a chance to talk about it.

Krakauer cites other examples of people who have chosen solitude over society. Gene Rossellini, aka the Mayor of Hippie Cove, chose a life in “an ambitious anthropological experiment” in Cordova, Alaska, attempting to live independently of modern technology. After a decade of trying to discover whether modern man could live as humans did when mammoths and saber-toothed tigers roamed the land, Rosselini wrote, “I began my adult life with the hypothesis that it would be possible to become a Stone Age native. For over 30 years, I programmed and conditioned myself to this end. In the last 10 of it, I would say I realistically experienced the physical, mental, and emotional reality of the Stone Age. But to borrow a Buddhist phrase, eventually came a setting face-to-face with pure reality. I learned that it is not possible for human beings as we know them to live off the land.”

When his body was found with a knife through his heart, the coroner ruled that it was self-inflicted.

When disconnected from others, pursuing an elusive passion, it is easy to lose perspective. The trick is to remain passionate while also maintaining the connections that will help to ground those passions to avoid the excesses that kill.

Report: Leaving ISO New England Would Be Costly

Cyclosporiasis Hits Cheshire Medical Center in Keene

In nineteen-thirty-six, you could not fly over any Italian territory without permission from the Italian Government. It is true that you have to clear customs at each international border in any case, but the Italian idea was different.

The Italian idea was based upon the wistful suspicion that no foreigner (certainly no Englishman) could fly over Libya, for instance, and successfully resist the temptation to take candid camera shots of the newly contrived Fascist forts. The Italians, under Mussolini, would have been hurt indeed to know that a pilot existed (and many of them did) who had less curiosity about the Fascist forts than about the exact location of a bar of soap and a tub of hot water. The official reasoning seemed to run about like this: ‘An aviator who shows an interest in our fortresses is guilty of espionage, and one who is not is guilty of disrespect.’ I think the latter crime was, of the two, the more repugnant to the legionnaires of the flowing tunic and the gleaming button.

The symbols of war — impressive desert forts, shiny planes, beetle-browed warships — all inspire the sons of Rome, if not in gallantry, then at least to histrionics, which, in the Italian mind, are synonymous anyway. I sometimes think it must be extremely difficult for the Italian people to remain patient in the face of their armies’ unwavering record of defeat (they looked so resplendent on parade). But there is little complaint.

The answer must be that the country of Caruso has lived a symbolic life for so long that the token has become indistinguishable from the fact or the deed. If an aria can suffice for a fighting heart, a riband draped on any chest can suffice for a general — and the theory of victory, for victory itself.

— Beryl Markham, West with the Night

I just finished reading West with the Night, Beryl Markham’s autobiographical book about growing up in Africa, becoming a thoroughbred horse trainer, and, ultimately, learning to fly and becoming the first person to fly west across the North Atlantic from England. Her exquisite writing caught the attention of Ernest Hemingway, who said her prose outdid his own.

In reading historical accounts, I’m always struck by the similarities to today’s world. Now that the United States is in the grip of fascism, it was interesting to read a first-person account of what it was like to live in a time when fascism was overtaking Europe. Today, the US is engaged in a war where the “Department of War” is viewing a theory of victory as victory itself, while Trump has an unwavering record of defeat in everything he touches.

I’ll borrow a little from Heather Cox Richardson, too:

In early March 1953, soon after Republican president Dwight D. Eisenhower took office, Soviet leader Josef Stalin died, giving the president a chance to reset the rising militarization of the United States. In mid-April, in a speech to newspaper editors that he insisted on delivering although he was suffering acutely from inflammatory bowel disease, Eisenhower warned of diverting the nation’s tax dollars to war at the expense of the people.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed,” he said. “This world in arms is not spending money alone.

“It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children….

“This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense,” he said. “Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

Report: Leaving ISO New England Would Be Costly

The New Hampshire Legislature passed a bill in 2025, directing the Department of Energy to examine the feasibility of detaching from ISO New England, the nonprofit group that oversees electric grid operation and the wholesale electricity market in the six New England states. Boston-based consultant London Economics International has released its $230,000 report, finding that, although leaving would provide more autonomy over how electricity is bought and sold in the state, it would sacrifice the efficiency gained by operating within the ISO, forcing New Hampshire to take on a wide range of regulatory duties, making it costly for the state.

The study projected that leaving the regional grid would raise ratepayer costs by about $148 million, or 14%, with implementation adding harder-to-estimate costs to that figure. Instead, it recommended that New Hampshire seek structural reforms within the ISO to gain more autonomy and benefits.

Disconnecting from the regional grid also would harm generators within New Hampshire who sell electricity to entities outside the state, and cut off Maine, which relies on electric transmission lines running through New Hampshire to connect with the rest of New England.

Discussion: Transmission owners, not states, are members of the ISO, so in order to separate, New Hampshire would have to pass legislation requiring transmission owners to withdraw.

Cyclosporiasis Hits Cheshire Medical Center in Keene

The New Hampshire Department of Health and Human Services says nine people who ate lettuce in the cafeteria at Cheshire Medical Center in Keene have confirmed cases of cyclospora infection, and urges anyone who has eaten lettuce products from early June to July 20 and who has severe or persistent diarrhea to get tested for cyclosporiasis.

Dartmouth Health said 16 patients and 10 employees at Cheshire were exposed to cyclosporiasis. As of Thursday afternoon, no inpatients had contracted the illness.

Symptoms of the infection include low-grade fever, nausea, stomach cramps, and fatigue as well as diarrhea. Without treatment, the symptoms can last longer and may relapse, but most people recover on their own.

Discussion: Taylor Farms has recalled the lettuce and it is no longer being served. The FDA backtracked on its claim that Taylor Farms lettuce was infected, saying that the initial test linking Taylor Farms de Mexico shredded lettuce to Cyclospora bacteria may have been a “false positive” — but Commissioner Kyle Diamantas later said, “Our weekend communications around a false positive test result do not change the basis for FDA’s ongoing outbreak investigation or the epidemiological data supporting the current voluntary recall by Taylor Farms.”

You never know what a shift with the Bristol Police Department will bring!

Lt. Woodward and Chief Bean responded to a report of a young black bear cub with its head stuck inside a plastic jug. When they arrived, it quickly became clear that the cub’s mother was staying close by and wasn’t about to leave her little one.

While waiting for a New Hampshire Fish and Game biologist to arrive, an opportunity presented itself. With the mother bear briefly distracted, Lt. Woodward safely grabbed the cub and placed it in his cruiser before transporting it a short distance away to a safe location.

Once there, Lt. Woodward carefully held the cub while Chief Bean cut the plastic jug free from around its head. As soon as it was released, the cub took off running into the woods, where it was soon reunited with its mother.

A great outcome for everyone involved—and a reminder to properly dispose of containers and trash. Items like plastic jugs can become dangerous traps for curious wildlife.

Open AI Agent Hacks Into Hugging Face

New Jersey Allowed Non-Citizens To Vote

A nuclear cooperation agreement signed by the Trump administration on July 22 allows US companies to build and operate nuclear energy plants in Saudi Arabia — something that will benefit President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and former national security advisor Michael Flynn who, in June 2016, formed the company IP3 International (short for International Peace, Power, and Prosperity) specifically to build such plants in Saudi Arabia. At that time, White House ethics officials and members of the National Security Council warned that selling nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia could violate the Atomic Energy Act.

Saudi Arabia’s access to nuclear power would allow the kingdom to use less petroleum domestically to increase exports, but as Matthew Bunn, a nuclear proliferation expert at Harvard University, noted, “They also want to provide the foundation, over time, for having more options to move toward nuclear weapons, should they feel the need.” Indeed, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said that, although the kingdom does not want a nuclear weapon, it would pursue one if Iran develops a nuclear weapon.

Congress has 90 days to consider ratifying the agreement which, according to Trump, contains a provision that Saudi Arabia must normalize ties with Israel. Yoel Guzansky, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel, noted that the agreement would allow Saudi Arabia to enrich its nuclear fuel, apparently without monitoring and inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency to make sure nuclear fuel is not enriched for a nuclear weapon.

Discussion: Heather Cox Richardson notes that the deal is worth billions of dollars in contracts for US nuclear technology firms, “particularly Westinghouse, which filed for bankruptcy in 2017 when its nuclear technology took longer to build and was more expensive than the company estimated. In June, the Department of Energy announced it was investing $17.5 billion in loans to Westinghouse and local utility and energy companies to build 10 large-scale commercial nuclear reactors across the U.S.”

Open AI Agent Hacks Into Hugging Face

Hugging Face, a startup artificial intelligence firm, learned that ChatGPT-maker OpenAI intruded into its data processing systems in what Chief Executive Officer Clément Delangue called “an attack unlike anything we’ve seen before”. OpenAI says it is still investigating the “unprecedented cyber incident” that allowed its artificial intelligence systems to break out of a testing environment and hack into Hugging Face.

Two of OpenAI’s most capable AI models were responsible for the cyberattack, leading to renewed debate over the need for stronger AI guardrails. Apparently, the models used stolen credentials which allowed them to discover a previously unknown vulnerability to access Hugging Face’s servers. At the time, the operation was thought to be in an isolated testing environment known as a sandbox.

University of Amsterdam social scientist Hannes Cools did not accept that the AI agent was acting on its own. “It is a human decision to switch off specific safeguards,” he said. “It’s not an AI that goes rogue in that sense. It followed specific instructions based on the prompt that was given to that AI system.” OpenAI had called for it to use “complex attack paths” to test how well AI could exploit a computer system.

Discussion: Colin Shea-Blymyer, a cybersecurity research fellow at Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, described it as an “almost entirely self-directed” attack with AI making an apparently independent decision to target Hugging Face. As NPR reported, “He said OpenAI’s internal environment for testing AI capabilities and risks worked a ‘little bit like putting a student in a room and telling them, “Do bad things. Your job now is to evaluate how bad of a person you can be.” And then you lock the room and you leave for the weekend and you come back and they’ve left the room.’”

New Jersey Allowed Non-Citizens To Vote

New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill announced on July 21 that a “serious software error” in the state’s Motor Vehicle Commission computer system allowed around 400 non-citizens to cast votes in the state since June 2023. About 6,600 non-citizens were registered to vote.

New Hampshire Republicans, who passed a law requiring proof of citizenship to register for voting, are citing that problem, allowing non-citizens to cast ballots, as proof that they made the right decision. Representative Ross Berry (R-Weare), chair of the House Election Law Committee, said, “We are constantly told that non-citizens are not voting in our elections, yet time and again, we see cases where government systems fail and people who should never have been registered end up on the voter rolls, anyway, including here in New Hampshire.”

He was referring to the single case where the New Hampshire Attorney-General’s Office charged Naseef Bryan, a Jamaican citizen living in Manchester, with three counts of wrongful voting. New Hampshire’s citizenship requirement “wisely rejected automatic voter registration,” Berry said. “If you want to register here, you do it intentionally through your local town clerk or at your polling place on Election Day, not by sweeping thousands of people onto the voter rolls who never asked to be there in the first place.”

Discussion: Berry is correct in pointing out the danger of “sweeping thousands of people onto the voter rolls who never asked to be there in the first place” but providing proof of citizenship also is problematic. Birth certificates are the best proof of citizenship, but women whose married name differs from their birth name — or those who have legally changed their names — will need further proof which may not be readily accessible, and birth certificates may be lost and difficult to replace. Naturalized citizens will have their proof of citizenship, but not everyone will have a passport to prove they are citizens, and obtaining one is costly and likely to disenfranchise those who are economically disadvantaged. Until New Jersey’s case, it was easy to rely on evidence that illegal voting was exceedingly rare, but if it can happen there, it can happen elsewhere, and finding the right way to guarantee the right to vote without allowing illegal votes is not an easy path forward.

Sununu Center Problems Lead to Calls for New Leadership

Trump-Backed Candidates Prevail in Arizona Primaries

Lauren Skompinski, a civil rights and civil liberties attorney, has drawn attention to the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Terrorist Removal Court in its pursuit of immigration “enforcement” which she maintains “is another example of our current government’s willingness to exercise extraordinary power. This first ATRC application appears in a context of the administration engaging in a pattern and practice of labeling political speech protected by the First Amendment ‘terrorism,’ and as such deserves to be monitored closely and with suspicious scrutiny.”

Discussion: That is a truly terrifying development in President Donald Trump’s campaign to nullify the US Constitution. He already has declared those voicing anti-fascist sentiments to be terrorists, and if he is able to use the ATRC to bypass constitutional rights, the United States will have become a fascist state. Those comparisons with Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini that his supporters have dismissed as Trump Derangement Syndrome will turn out to be completely accurate. The larger question is how the US government managed to establish the ATRC, with its unconstitutional rules, to begin with. It is not as if it was in reaction to 9/11 — it was established in 1996, when Bill Clinton was president. I don’t ever recall hearing anything about it until now.

Sununu Center Problems Lead to Calls for New Leadership

Senator Victoria Sullivan, who led an investigation into the use of illegal restraints inside the Sununu Youth Services Center, has called for the removal of Health and Human Services Commissioner Lori Weaver and Director of the Division for Children, Youth, and Families Marie Noonan, saying, “They cannot be trusted and failed as leaders.”

Lawmakers and the New Hampshire Office of the Child Advocate have raised a series of concerns about conditions inside the Sununu Center, including an assault that hospitalized a 13-year-old resident on Friday; the resignation of the clinical director who raised ethical concerns; and the New Hampshire Attorney-General’s office attempt to assume control of the Office of the Child Advocate.

Compounding the problem is that Governor Kelly Ayotte did not reappoint Cassandra Sanchez, who oversees the Office of the Child Advocate, for a second term, and the governor’s choice to replace her, Diana Fenton, withdrew from consideration in March after her ability to be fair and unbiased was called into question. That means that no one will fill the slot after Friday. It was the Office of the Child Advocate that first reported that children at the Sununu Center were being illegally restrained and kept in isolation, prompting an investigation by the Attorney-General’s Office, the Disability Rights Center in New Hampshire, and state lawmakers. However, the Attorney-General’s Office has said it will not elevate an assistant child advocate to the lead position. “I am very concerned,” Sanchez said. “This is very active, and could this be intentional so that the [child advocate’s] office is unable to move forward with a [investigative] report?”

Discussion: State law requires the Department of Health and Human Services to notify the child advocate’s office “immediately” of any child who dies or suffers a “serious injury” while in the department’s care, but Sanchez said she was not notified of Friday’s assault until two days after the incident. The state apparently does not want to hear of problems there where it already faces a number of lawsuits over years of abuse.

Trump-Backed Candidates Prevail in Arizona Primaries

Even though the Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act has left 440,000 Arizona residents without Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, Trump-backed candidates prevailed over other Republicans in the race for governor, secretary of state, and two competitive congressional races.

US Representative Andy Biggs, the Republican nominee for governor, had refused to certify the 2020 election results, and Alexander Kolodin, an attorney who participated in lawsuits challenging the 2020 election results, was the nominee for secretary of state.

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins has cited the error rates to claim that the SNAP program is rife with fraud, but error rates usually reflect caseworkers’ mistakes in classification numbers rather than the fraudulent use of services.

Discussion: One of the most perplexing things is people’s willingness to support candidates who they know are casting votes against their best interests. It was understandable for a while, when claims of widespread fraud were still plausible, but after years of study have found such cases to be very rare, and as the cutbacks have affected everyone’s quality of life, one would think that people would recognize the need for candidates who will better represent their interests.

Troy Jackson Takes Plantner’s Place in Maine Senate Race

Iran War Is Now Expanding in Middle East

The new rules by the NH Public Utilities Commission, placing a 50 percent limit on the amount of electricity that utilities could purchase at a six-month fixed price and requiring them to purchase the remainder on the spot market, has resulted in a spike of energy costs, elevating the Northeast’s already-high electric rates even higher. Also contributing to the increase is a particularly cold winter and instability in the Middle East due to President Donald Trump’s attack on Iran.

William Hinkle of Eversource explained, “When we’re setting this price every six months, what we have to do is we take that 50% at the fixed price. We know what that’s going to be, and we have to set a proxy price or an estimate for the other 50% that we’re going to be procuring in that daily spot market.” The estimate did not anticipate this past winter’s extreme weather and the Iran war, leaving Eversource with a $38 million shortfall. The state’s other major utilities also came up short: $3 million for Unitil and $9 million for Liberty.

To make that up, the new consumer electric rates as of August 1 will increase. For Eversource, they will rise from 11.3 cents/kWh to 14.0 cents/kWh. Unitil’s rates will rise from 12.1 cents/kWh to 14.3 cents/kWh, and Liberty’s will go from 13.7 cents/kWh to 15.8 cents/kWh.

Discussion: The Community Power Coalition of New Hampshire, representing about 200,000 customers, was formed to negotiate lower costs of electricity than what the utilities charge. Instead, most of those customers are facing higher rates than they would had they remained with their old carriers.

Troy Jackson Takes Plantner’s Place in Maine Senate Race

Democrats in all 16 Maine counties met Saturday and Sunday to elect delegates who will choose a new nominee to take on Republican US Senator Susan Collins this fall, after Graham Platner withdrew from the race due to his history of abusing women. Those delegates came out in support of Troy Jackson, a logger and former Maine Senate president who finished third in the Democratic primary for governor last month. He managed to mobilize former Platner supporters who are looking for a change in leadership that will put Mainers ahead of political parties.

Collins, a 30-year veteran and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has voted along Republican Party lines except when it was certain the party had enough votes to win — then, when her vote was not needed, she opposed the measures that would hurt her constituents. Still, she was able to win in 2020 by nine percentage points.

“A lot of people poured their hearts into this movement before I even entered this race,” Jackson said. “People were excited. People wanted health care. They wanted a government that worked for them. Something that I have wanted my entire life.”

Discussion: Some voters complained that independents who had supported Platner could not participate in the process because they were not Democrats.

Iran War Is Now Expanding in Middle East

In a not-unexpected consequence of President Donald Trump’s attack on Iran in concert with Israel, the war is expanding, with the Houthis — a Yemeni Shiite militia aligned with Iran — announcing a naval blockade of the Bab Al-Mandeb Strait on the Red Sea. In a video statement, a Houthi representative said the blockade was in retaliation for strikes from Saudi Arabia on a major airport in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa.

Bab Al-Mandeb, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, has allowed Saudi Arabia to send its oil around the world after Iran closed off the Strait of Hormuz.

Meanwhile, in a war that has extended well beyond the 60-day limit for military action without the consent of Congress, the United States and Iran traded fire for a 10th consecutive round of overnight strikes. US Central Command said it struck Iranian military command centers, maritime capabilities, missile and drone launch sites, and air defense systems, while Iran’s state news agency, IRNA, said it targeted three US bases in Kuwait.

Discussion: A US military official who was not authorized to speak publicly confirmed that the Department of Defense has been limiting information on casualties in the war. Sean Parnell, assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, said those injured “are determined to get back in the fight. The vast majority of injuries experienced were minor concussions.” The American Association of Neurological Surgeons, however, maintains, “[T]here is no such thing as a minor concussion.” Meanwhile, both sides in the war are involved in war crimes by targeting civilian infrastructure. Iran says, if the United States is prepared to strike civilian infrastructure, then Iran is justified in striking an Amazon data center and other sites in countries aiding the United States.