Donald Trump is making the Democratic Party great again! Republicans must stand up to oppose Trump tyranny

Letter to the New Hamphire Union Leader: Congress must reclaim constitutional powers:

Congress must reclaim its constitutional prerogatives.

To the Editor: News has focused on two big stories lately: the irresponsible use of the Signal app to plan a strike on targets in Yemen and Trump’s ignorant impulsive tariffs. What the newscasters are ignoring is that neither of these events should have happened without authorization of our Congress. The Constitution states that only Congress can declare war or impose tariffs. Congress can take back these powers but, so far, too few representatives have taken this stand. 

Fox News is Fake News

Let’s Just Say It: The Republicans are the Problem 

(Reported by the Brookings Institute back in 2012❗ It’s not that the GOP Republicans and their leadership agrees with Donald Trump; it is that extremist remarks, werird views and outright lies are now taken for granted.

Friendly Canadians must be treated like family because they are related to Franco-Americans

https://www.unionleader.com/opinion/letters_to_editor/letter-money-isnt-everything/article_232d9858-d9ca-4b17-8809-87e529efa131.html

Echo opinion letter published in the New Hampshire Union Leader (formerly the Manchester Union Leader)....Money💲 isn’t everything❗

To the Editor: This short letter to the editor is hereby being written by a Franco-American. 

I was born and raised on the west side of Manchester, attended local parochial schools and have many relatives who live in Canada. 

I am bilingual. I write this to express my deep frustration with our President,  (stupid!) Donald Trump, who is about to impose a 25% tariff on goods coming from Canada🍁 .

My Canadian relatives have done nothing to merit such unfair and unreasonable action. I have close cousins who are angry 💢 at us Americans, which in turn is causing needless animosity in our relationships. Donald Trump has said that the tariffs will make us rich. He doesn’t understand how rich we were before he started threatening tariffs on our northern neighbor. I’m pissed❗

GÉRARD BRUNO GAGNON in Bedford, New Hampshire

Echo: Mental Health crisis- a New Hampshire patient experience

This is a first person account about how the lack of designated mental health care beds has impacted on one patient. It's very rare to have a mentally ill person write a timely opinion about the crises they face, every day, especially when they need in patient care.

An "echo", blog from The New Hampshire Union Leader (opionions re-blogged, from articles found while randomly cruising selected national newspapers):

Another View -- Karen Prive: 

Responding to NH’s mental health bed crisis ~ by Karen Prive

FRANKLIN, NH- I was 6 years old the first time I attempted suicide, followed by more attempts through my teens. 

While today I enjoy relative stability much of the time, last April, I was in the midst of worsening hopelessness and inner voices were telling me to die. 

My husband took me to the emergency room where an evaluating psychiatrist determined I must be admitted; however, there were no beds available. 

I was kept in a room the size of a closet that had been stripped of all furnishings other than the hospital bed. A security officer sat outside my door, and a nurse visited every couple of hours. For three days, I battled the demons inside my head, without medical treatment and often alone. 

Not surprisingly, my condition worsened. When someone is in a psychiatric crisis, their mind is not their friend — and all I had was my mind. On the third day I finally was admitted and received help.

In the last eight months, not much has changed for those in psychiatric crisis in New Hampshire. 

On Oct. 23, NAMI NH (National Alliance on Mental Illness) reported that 56 people waited in New Hampshire emergency rooms that evening for an inpatient psychiatric bed. To be eligible for admission, a person must be deemed to be in imminent danger to themselves or others. Yet these patients will wait in ERs for days or even weeks, for a bed to become available so they can receive treatment for their crisis.

According to analysis of New Hampshire death certificates, there were 223 suicides in 2015 (the last year with complete data reported), and the New Hampshire Bureau of Health estimates that there were more than 2,800 serious non-fatal suicide attempts for which the individual received care in a hospital for treatment of their injuries. It is important to note that there are many more less damaging attempts made as well — there is no mechanism to track non-fatal suicide attempts that do not result in serious injury or death. For youth, the CDC reports that in the last year, 7 percent of all New Hampshire high school students have seriously considered suicide, and approximately 900 of these kids actually attempted suicide during that time.

Yet as a society, we do not like to discuss suicide, nor the importance of adequate mental health care. It is though we assume that if we don’t talk about it, the problem will go away. In the last decade, the number of community-based inpatient mental health beds in New Hampshire has decreased by over half, with psychiatric units completely closing at five hospitals. New Hampshire Hospital has lost a large number beds as well.

Clearly this is a crisis we must treat as seriously as we have viewed the opiate crisis. Over the last few years, services for those with substance abuse services have become more plentiful, more visible, and in some cases, free. This is because the public deemed the opiate crisis an emergency that must be addressed. We ignore, however, that often an addict first used drugs or alcohol as a way to find relief from psychological or emotional distress, sometimes seeking to self-medicate an undiagnosed or untreated mental illness. Only later did the addiction take over and become the driving force in their life. If this addict manages to get into recovery, his or her underlying mental health condition often becomes problematic again, and unless they can get needed mental health care, they are at high risk of returning to substances to relieve their distress.

If we increased the availability of mental health services, including necessary inpatient beds, New Hampshire would likely see a lower suicide rate as well as a downtick in the drug abuse problem. There is outcry over the number of overdoses, but not similar outcry about the number of suicides. While there is still incredible stigma attached to mental illness and the need for mental health care (who wants to be labeled crazy?), we have had societal agreement that addiction is something we must address. Yet, addressing the opiate crisis is a bit like sticking a bandage on a wound and ignoring the infection lying underneath. We must address the issues of suicide and mental illness as well.

Karen Prive is the treasurer of NAMI NH, and lives in Franklin NH.

Governor Chris Christie must watch who is friends are - a Maine mother's warning

Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey hopes to be the Republican nominee for President of the United States. He's even received the coveted endorsement of the politically influential New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper. Yet, now he's having to duck and cover because of an endorsement by the unpopular Governor Paul LePage, of Maine. How'd Christie let this happen to him, when the crucial New Hampshire primary is so close?

Governor Christie must watch out who his friends are!!

This unexpected situation was certainly not the time to stumble upon a surprise political challenge, especially from within Christie's own GOP band of groupies - as in Maine's Governor.  Unfortunately, Governor Christie and some on his staff didn't stop to realize just how unpopular Governor LePage was, in both New Hampshire and in Maine, before accepting the endorsement. 


Indeed, the mother's warning about "watching the company you keep" fits, because Governor Christie is now having to explain why he doesn't renounce the endorsement of Governor LePage, due to recent comments reported as "racist", that were made by the Maine chief political executive, and that made national news. 


Of course, Governor LePage has since apologized to the women of Maine for his horrible statement made about them, in reference to drug trafficking. It was an ugly and mean spirited statement made with little correlation to the topic he was speaking about, at the time, being Maine's drug and heroin epidemic. In other words, Governor LePage had no reason to make a claim about men from New York and Connecticut impregnating "white women" in Maine. It was a horrible statement that even he acknowledged was an example of his mouth working out of sync with his brain.


In fact, maybe Governor Christie's staff should check out the Peeple app, a rating device to evaluate your friends like on-line review sites do with books or restaurants.  Here's the website url to give it a try.  It's claims "Peeple" is the "Yelp" for people.


On facebook, at least one outraged young Maine wife and mother posted a lovely family photo with her husband and daughter. This interracial message was a warning to Governor LePage to stop creating racist stereotypes about people like her, that harm her family. She called for the Governor of Maine to be impeached.


Becca Edwards, who described herself as a "white woman" in Maine, posted her message on Facebook and requested for it to be shared:

I usually don't post things like this, but make mama bear mad, anything goes!  https://www.facebook.com/becca.i.goff?pnref=story
FROM THE WHITE GIRL IN MAINE:
Last week the governor in Maine, my state, suggested to the world that if one were to see me (the white girl) and my daughter (the biracial girl) walking down the street, that she is a product of my involvement with a drug dealer from out of state. And even worse, that she wasn't wanted. Things he says don't usually get under my skin, but these words were cruel, infuria...ting, insulting, and full of hate and should not be tolerated. And I am pissed. I have a Masters degree and an excellent job in health care. My daughter's father (the black guy) is....wait for it...my husband! Even more crazy, he's not a drug dealer! What?!? (In fact...) He's a well educated man with an excellent job in education. Yes, in fact. And our daughter, was so wanted. Do me a favor and share this status to show the world what the picture of a biracial family in Maine really looks like, and that we do not support the ignorant (expletive) that is our governor. ‪#‎impeachlepage‬

Unfortunately, Governor LePage has a history of speaking before thinking, but certainly Governor Christie doesn't need to be making excuses for Maine's problem. Meanwhile, if Governor Christie really wants to do well in the important New Hampshire Republican primary election, he would do well to find new friends to follow him around, rather than the controversial groupie Governor LePage.

Donald Trump leads GOP regardless of establishment non support

Obviously, from the way the political polls have held up for Donald Trump, the establishment non -support of his nomination just aren't working. When the right wing of the GOP says they don't trust the media, that includes all of them, including the conservatives. Will the right wing trust the New Hampshire Union Leader?

In spite of over the top "Trumponian" analysis about making Mexicans pay for a wall to prevent illegal immigration to mocking a reporter who happens to have a congenital disability, the right wing of the Republican party are using their new best friend Donald Trump, to send the message about what they want and when they want it!  In other words, "none of the above" in the line up of candidates appeals to right wing voters so they must be declaring themselves as political lemmings. Apparantly, radical right wing voters would take their Republican party "over the cliff" and into a mass extinction,  rather than to support a nominee who can lead the free world with integrity. How stupid is that?

Political polls are measuring the most popular presidential candidates, but not necessarily the most electable

Yet, Donald Trump still leads in the popularity polls among Republican voters, although he can't stay ahead of a 30 percent benchmark. (Meanwhile, the first woman to be nominated to lead the free world, Secretary Hillary Clinton, is holding above 50 percent popularity among the Democrats.)

Now, the ultra conservative Union Leader, the New Hampshire oracle of political news that's fit to print, has endorsed Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey to be the GOP nominee, for the state's first in the nation primary (Iowa is a bogus straw poll).  

It's been my experience that a "Union Leader" endorsement is like receiving a political coronation. 

I suspect the Union Leader's publisher, Joe McQuaid, was euphoric to endorse a qualified candidate in the face of the popular carnival barker, Donald Trump. "Let's make America great again" certainly didn't resonate with McQuaid. But, I instinctively know that the fastest way to loose an election in New Hampshire is to compare any ballot measure or candidatee with "New Jersey", and it's a red herring issue. In other words, Governor Christie's "bridgegate" scandal over a lane closure on the George Washington Bridge, could become more of an issue than the candidate's qualifications to run for president. 

Notworthy in the Union Leader endorsement of Christie was how vocal McQuaid was in opposing th FoxNews decision about who would be on the debate stage during the GOP presidential forums (non-debates). Since Christie was downgraded by Fox to stand at the "kids debate", because his poll numbers were too low to qualify for being among the heavies, the Union Leader, no doubt, decided to upstage FoxNews - and, in my opinion, that's a good thing! Frankly, I can't understand how a news network that relies on free speech to spew skewed right wing news can get away with deciding who can speak and when during a presidential forum/non-debate-debate.  

So, it's definitely going to be interesting to see how New Hampshire voters respond to the Union Leader's endorsement of Governor Christie for the GOP nomination. I suspect the endorsement raises the status for both the newspaper and the New Jersey governor. 

A value added, if Governor Christie wins the GOP vote in New Hampshire, he'll also likely be the Republican nominee for the 2016 presidential election. If that really happens, then the FoxNews stupid debate forumula will prove to be a magnificent failure. 

Nevertheless, the right wing Republican voters are sticking by Donald Trump "the chump" because they do not like any of the others in the GOP line up. 

Of course, a popularity poll can't predict what voters will do in the privacy of their ballot box. Right wing voters may like Trump, but then vote for somebody else, who they think might really win a national election. On the other hand, the right wing voters might also stay home, rather than admit they voted for Donald Trump. Anything is possible given the labile mood of the 2015-16 voters. Unfortunately, the Republican line up of candidates has created a toxic environment among the party's right wing base and it's now branding the entire party as extremist.  

Perhaps the Union Leader could consider endorsing the establishment of a new conservatism and political party. Consider creating a political party whereby Governor Christie or other qualified candidates could run,  without being labeled as racists, extremists, bigots, Islamophobic and religious zealots.