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As the State House crawls with controversy over parental rights, I, a state representative, am going to be faced with a vote that you might help me with: Which mom goes to jail for egregious child abuse? Here are two real-time scenarios going on in this country, with details slightly altered to protect the innocent. One mother decides that her two sons, ages 4 and 1, are actually daughters and begins to display them as daughters. As she’s a lawyer, and as the young men grow to adapt to the role the mother assigned and to become the best young women they can be, she forces the district to acknowledge her choice as “current science and mandated practice.” The other mother is told by her concerned neighbor that her fourteen-year-old daughter “identifies” as a boy. When asked, the daughter says she’s gone confused to counselors and health teachers at school who taught her that this was normal and that she could be whatever she chose. The mother called the school to complain that her daughter had been “groomed” and to ask why no one had called her. She prepared to find a lawyer to pursue a lawsuit. The lawyer whose two sons were daughters refused to take the case. Is either mom in this scenario an abuser worthy of loss of custody and imprisonment? You decide. Thank you in advance. And, if it really matters anymore, predict each child’s future. This is the 21st century.

If you voted for President Donald Trump: Are you having second thoughts about some of his policies and/or Elon Musk’s DOGE? Did you vote for cutting off large chunks of staff and programs serving our veterans, disabled Americans, the poor, cancer and Alzheimer’s research, school lunch programs, IRS personnel seeking tax-cheaters and simply responding to calls for help, air traffic controllers, 83% of the USAID life-sustaining food and health work around the globe or 50% of our Dept. of Education?

Trump delivered Ukraine to Putin, whose invasion caused the worst European military crisis since WWII. Trump’s capitulation shows an eager-to-please Trump blessing everything Putin. Trump’s bizarre claim that Ukraine started the war makes as much sense as saying Ukrainians have brazenly placed their country in the path of Putin’s innocent bombs.

Last year, 68 so-called “Republicans” voted with 152 Democrats to pass HB 1291. Fortunately, we knew who they were because it was a roll call vote. Thankfully, one senator killed the bill when it crossed over. On March 13, “Republican” anarchists pushed through a number of damaging House bills on voice votes. Is there any state representative who, as an “unapologetic Republican,” would ever have the guts to remove these horrific bills from the consent calendar, speak against them and demand a roll call? Or are they just going to allow themselves to be steamrolled?

Gov. Ayotte plans to rein in spending by instituting a work requirement for persons receiving Medicaid. The New Hampshire Senate promoted her plans when it passed SB134 on party lines, 16-8, on March 6. The idea is as old as the Poor Law of Queen Elizabeth I and is found most recently in the Trump-MAGA playbook, Project 2025. In 2019, New Hampshire attempted a Medicaid work requirement only to have Gov. Sununu end it after spending $130,000 because it proved to be onerous and difficult to implement. A court order closed a similar program in Arkansas in 2018.

“Hide under your desks.” Directions given to students in 1950s air raid drills seem to be our Democratic senators’ response to MAGA bullying and menacing. Their support of the Continuing Resolution (H.R. 10545) passed under House Majority Leader Mike Johnson legitimized cruelty and destruction straight out of Project 2025. By voting with the MAGA House majority, Senators Shaheen and Hassan signaled approval of activity that would transfer Social Security and Medicaid dollars to plutocrats who pay no taxes — and eventually the funding of Medicare — from accounts we built with money taken from our paychecks. For many retirees and disabled people, that’s a death sentence, as even those of us who planned ahead rely on Social Security to meet basic expenses. Without Medicare or Medicaid, we cannot afford even basic medical care. For all their talk about veterans, our senators approved deconstructing the Veterans Administration at a time when many vets need extra services. No excuse is adequate in the face of capitulation to the party of greed, grift and despotism. Only fear explains their votes. Neither party stands up for us at the moment. It’s time for “good trouble,” as John Lewis would say. Attend a rally on April 5. Pick a topic: education, veteran’s affairs, Social Security, health care, environment, science, national security or any other one under attack. Resist! Our senators betrayed us. We have to defend ourselves. The cavalry isn’t coming.

In 1939, the Nazis kicked off their purge of “undesirables” by tracking down and murdering people with disabilities. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has a page devoted to this disturbing history (hopefully this page will not be scrubbed like so many other government web pages have in recent days). It therefore troubles me greatly that a powerful man, who has eugenicist leanings and publicly performs SiegHeil salutes, has gained access to my disabled loved ones’ medical records and knows where they live. There are good reasons why the Social Security Administration is supposed to adhere to the Privacy Act of 1974, which guarantees participating individuals “the right to be protected against unwarranted invasion of their privacy.” We should all be demanding more information on why a billionaire is being allowed, by our own government, to trample on this right. This may sound paranoid but the actions of the current administration make me increasingly uneasy about the path that our nation is on in terms of caring for our most vulnerable citizens.

I recently attended public committee hearings at the Legislative Building in Concord on some bills being considered for a vote in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. While waiting for my turn to be called to testify before the committee, I noticed several out-of-state people being called to testify before me. This was infuriating. I asked Health, Human Services, and Elderly Affairs Chairman MacDonald why out-of-state people were being allowed to testify before the committee before me. His response was that there were no rules as to who gets to testify before anyone. This is outrageous. I do not understand why people from out of state are allowed to come into our state to testify and influence our legislature anyway. To me, it’s akin to voting in a state in which you don’t reside. I can understand having an expert in a certain field be allowed to come in from out of state to testify about a bill, but these people were not experts. They were out-of-staters who didn’t like freedom and diversity and who came to New Hampshire to influence our legislators. This should not be allowed.

Long ago, we should have gotten rid of these hordes coming across our borders. A million of these ne’er-do-wells – French Canadians, mostly Catholic – poured into New Hampshire and New England in the late 1800s. Sure, we needed them for cheap labor, but we failed to recognize them, as the New York Times did at the time, as “ignorant and unenterprising, subservient to the most bigoted of Catholic priests [and] caring nothing for our free institutions, civil or religious liberty or the benefits of education.” And we failed to see this Canadian invasion — again, as the Times saw — as a planned effort to create a “New France” as “part of a priestly scheme, fervently fostered in Canada, to bring New England under the control of the Roman Catholic faith.” This was seen as “the avowed purpose of the secret society to which every adult French Canadian belongs.” An invasion a generation earlier brought several million Irish Catholics to New England to fill labor needs. Their shortcomings, too, were clearly labeled: “stupid, apelike, lazy, drunks, criminals, takers…” Their depravity and Catholicism were seen as threats to American nativist culture. As foreseen, the descendants of these hordes have taken over New Hampshire; but unpredictably, they became property owners, entrepreneurs, civic leaders and civil servants. In fact, our governor is a hybrid product of these hordes, a genuine Irish-French Canadian Catholic. What surprises me is her decision to cooperate with Donald Trump’s mass deportation and turn a blind eye on the experiences of her ancestors.

Whew! Thank you Chief Justice John Roberts! President Trump’s rant, which reads like he’s a sociopathic mob boss rather than the president of the United States, is yet another embarrassing, cringe-worthy display of who some of you elected to be the leader of our nation. Is there no end to Trump’s destruction of everything we stand for? I’m tired of bumping into friends who are depressed, who feel powerless, who won’t watch or listen to the news, who feel the weight of this negative energy cast upon us daily by a dysfunctional, personality-disordered leader. I am more than tired of it… of him. So I’m asking, where are you, Democrats? Where are our leaders, past and present, who are allowing this to occur? Why aren’t you speaking out? Where are you?

Making our billionaires into trillionaires. Making our most needy more needy, more hungry, more homeless and less healthy. Please tell me when and in what universe did such policies make America great.

Why is everyone so shocked at the devastation being wrought on federal services? This is exactly what many experts and letters to this newspaper and others tried to warn about: Project 2025! They’re getting rid of credentialed, honest, experienced civil servants (yes, that title applies to those being dropped) who will eventually be replaced with people groomed by the Heritage Foundation to be Trump sycophants, regardless of whether that would violate Congressional authority or our Constitution.

Less than one decade ago, we were proud that our state had codified the protection of gender identity into RSA 354-A. Now, I watch in dismay as our legislature seeks to carve out exceptions to the law, to restrict healthcare for transgender youth and to block their participation in sports. I keep seeing Republican senators and representatives state that they wish to protect minors. I’m wondering who protects minors from these politicians.

The treatment of President Zelensky in the Oval Office and the “pause” in U.S. military assistance and military intelligence to the Ukrainians is immoral! The fact is that Ukraine is fighting for its very existence against a brutal enemy led by a dictator. Our moral compass has disappeared, and this causing death in Ukraine and giving Russia the advantage in any negotiations. This is a shameful demonstration of how not to lead the free world, and it is making us less safe from those who wish harm to the United States! This is no way to show that we value individual freedoms and the safety of people under attack from a vicious bully.

To Manhattan’s southernmost shore, President Trump carried his cultural war. To Miss Liberty, he said, ‘neath the crown on his head,”Just who do you think you are?”

President Trump’s trade war is idiotic because he doesn’t understand his tariffs are paid for by American consumers and he will never understand. That being said, the rest of the world does not have to reciprocate. The only thing the other countries have to fear is loss of market share and that loss is years down the road since the U.S. won’t have factories built to make these products for many years and labor cost will make these products uncompetitive. Companies in these countries can also sell to the U.S. at their usual prices and make the usual profits because Trump’s tariffs only affect U.S. importers and customers. These countries also have the rest of the world to sell to at the nontariff prices. These other countries would compete with the U.S. with prices that are 25% to 50% lower.

Here in New Hampshire, we’ve been betrayed — not just by Congress generally but by our own delegation. Senators Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen voted with Republicans to pass a budget that enriches billionaires while slashing vital programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans’ services. While the senators may have voted to avoid a government shutdown, their support of this spending bill ensures devastating cuts. If the 10 Senate Democrats hadn’t supported the bill, it would have gone back to the House, where Hakeem Jeffries and House Democrats could have pushed for a 30-day extension, forcing Republicans to work on a bipartisan solution. The House, though in recess, could have been called back to do their jobs. This budget proposes $880 billion in cuts to essential services, including Medicare and Medicaid. These cuts will result in millions losing coverage, with devastating effects on hospitals and nursing homes serving vulnerable populations. The cost will be shifted to states, further burdening taxpayers. Sen. Hassan and Sen. Shaheen failed to represent us. They bowed to Trump’s administration, and despite numerous calls, I’ve received only empty assurances. We’ve been lied to and betrayed. I am calling for their immediate resignation. I’m a Medicaid recipient. Without it, I wouldn’t be alive today. Medicaid has allowed me to work, contribute and thrive despite chronic illness. New Hampshire deserves senators who fight for us, not for billionaires. We, the people, call for their immediate resignation.

New Hampshire’s legislature keeps ignoring the expressed will of the people, particularly with respect to school vouchers. When the voucher bill was originally before the House Education Committee, and subsequently when expansion of the vouchers was before the committee, sign-ins ran around 6-1 opposed to both the vouchers themselves and to expansion of the program. Just last week, Finance Committee Chair Wyler complained that too many people came before his committee to express their opposition to expanding the program.

Very disappointed to read New Hampshire Senate passed a so-called “Parental Bill of Rights,” Senate Bill 72, a law that claims to empower parents but that will actually endanger students. As a former high school and middle school counselor, I witnessed too many cases of child abuse of students 11 to 18 years of age perpetrated by family members. The most damaging involved a teenage girl impregnated by her own father and another 12 year old girl consistently raped by a half-brother brought into the family home by her mother’s remarriage. Both girls ended up in my office because they were afraid to tell the spouse of the offending parent or that it was his son in one of the cases. As a mandated court reporter, like all school counselors, I supported each girl while she told her parent with the appropriate law officer in attendance. Tough and painful decisions were made in both instances. Tess Sumner, student at Newfound Regional High School, is right when she said in her My Turn that students need safe places and people to go to when they need help and support solving problems. Teachers, coaches and counselors are often people they turn to when their parents are not available. As to SB 72 allowing parents the right to exclude their students from sex education curriculum, that law has been in existence since I was a child 50 years ago.