When a fire broke out, the Triangle women found a key exit door was locked, the elevator did not work and the fire escape was not up to the task. One hundred forty six garment workers perished in the fire, some jumping to their deaths in scenes similar to the 9/11 tragedy. The fire spurred Perkins and other reformers to action, many from the International Ladies Garment Workers Union.

Remove the Cap on Social Security Contributions to Save Social Security Benefits.

Before I present my essay, I should note that my friend Christian Urrutia, who is running for Congress in CD-1 (Manchester, Laconia and the Seacoast), supports saving Social Security by removing the cap on Social Security contributions so that the wealthiest lawyers and businessmen stop paying into the Social Security fund at a rate less than teachers, firefighters, cops, and most normal people. Right now, a fat corporate CEO earning $1 million in wages pays an effective rate of less than 1.5 percent into Social Security while a teacher earning $70,000 pays the full 6.2%. I believe most of the candidates running for the Democratic nomination support Christian’s position on removing the cap. I am unsure of the Republicans’ position on removing the artificial cap.

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An apology for Kate Alterman

November 6, 2009

I was first introduced to Kate Alterman during law school, though I didn’t know her name for many years. She was an immigrant girl who worked in the factories of New York. It was her work in a particular factory that eventually brought Kate into contact with Max Steuer, one of the most famous trial lawyers of her time. The event that brought Steuer and Alterman together was the tragic Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire that occurred on March 25, 1911. Frances Perkins, the first woman appointed to a federal cabinet post, is also a part of this story.

A well-regarded evidence professor used Steuer’s example to teach cross-examination. He sternly admonished us never to allow a witness to repeat harmful testimony. Steuer broke this rule when defending the owners of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory who were prosecuted for locking the factory doors and thereby preventing escape from the fire. Steuer cross-examined the immigrant girl by asking her to repeat her testimony about the locked door. He realized in the repetition that she had omitted a piece of her description and asked her to start anew. She did so, correcting her oversight. Steuer used the girl’s memorized testimony to argue that her story was a practiced fabrication and won an acquittal of the factory owners.

It was only years after law school that I learned the name of the witness, Kate Alterman, and that she was new to America and spoke English as her second language. This factory was full of immigrants, mostly from Italy and Eastern Europe. Most were teenaged girls. Some were legal and some, like my grandfather, were quasi-legal.

Kate Alterman, it turns out, did practice her testimony over and over, but not because it was a fabrication. She practiced because she was afraid to make a mistake in her new language.

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory made women’s garments. Its conditions were unsanitary and unsafe. The young women who worked in the factory were paid pitifully, many by the piece. When the fire engulfed the eighth, ninth and 10th floors of the Asch Building where the company was located, the workers learned that the elevator did not work, the outside fire escape gave way under the weight of those fleeing and, indeed, a door that led to a stairway was locked. The factory did not have sprinklers and the hoses and ladders of the New York City Fire Department could not reach these upper floors.

Frances Perkins happened onto the fire that Saturday and saw workers perched on the ninth floor window sills between engulfing flames and fire department nets too frail to the task of catching them. One hundred and forty-six workers died in the fire, hundreds more were injured. Workers compensation funds did not exist. Death benefits were unheard of. Years later, the factory’s insurers paid about $75 in compensation to families of the workers who had died.

Perkins helped form the New York State Factory Commission, which was created in the aftermath of the fire to review conditions in the sweatshops. Four years later, based on the commission’s work and lots of work by organized labor, New York had its first comprehensive package of worker safety and wage protection laws.

Twenty years or so after the fire, FDR appointed Frances Perkins to be his Secretary of Labor. Many of the laws first adopted through Perkins’ work on the Factory Commission became federal law under Roosevelt. These laws were directly influenced by what Perkins had witnessed that tragic Saturday in March 1911.

For some time, I have felt that I owe Kate Alterman an apology for misunderstanding her role in the trial. She was a witness who, like many witnesses, tried too hard. I did not bother to learn why or to learn the context of her efforts. My view was much too narrow and overly focused on Steuer and what there was for me to learn from him. I did not question my professor and I missed learning of the factories of Steuer’s time and the ill treatment of the immigrants – “aliens” in today’s parlance – in those factories.

A lasting vision of justice cannot be achieved through such a limited perspective. I hope, over the years, that I have learned to do better.

Thanks for listening and reading. Please share and encourage others to subscribe.

Best,

Andru

It’s about leadership.

Amy and I have different last names and not everyone knows we’re married. Amy has been on a non-profit daycare center’s board for decades. The director of the center reached out to Amy to tell her that an early childhood ed advocate had been criticized for aggressively advocating for daycares. The advocate, who is a woman, told the daycare center director that she is angry about the criticism she received. Her quote was that “no one calls Andru Volinsky unnecessarily aggressive when he advocates for public education.” The advocate didn’t know the comparison would get back to me.

Amy waited for my reaction.

My first reaction was to laugh at the absurdity of this story getting back to me. We also talked about the double standard applied to women who advocate, not just for good public policies, but for most anything. One of my few current clients is a woman executive who was characterized as being overly aggressive when she learned her subordinates were withholding key financial information from her that was critical to her doing her job.

There is no shame in being a strong advocate. Women have it rougher than men when they advocate. If you’re interested, here’s a short piece on the problem faced by women in leadership that I referenced in a recent pleading. It’s by the Society for Human Resource Management, not a hotbed of radical thought.

“Are Women Leaders Unfairly Held to Higher Standards?”

Women who exhibit assertiveness and authority may be perceived as forceful or aggressive. It is also worth noting that men in leadership positions may be celebrated for exhibiting the same qualities. On the other hand, when women leaders adopt a more empathetic and collaborative leadership style, they may be viewed as lacking authority.

As I was going to sleep that night, Amy’s story also made me think of an adventure I had ten years ago.

About half a dozen of us were hiking in NH’s White Mountains in the dead of winter. We stayed one night in a mountain hut and then hiked across a really beautiful, isolated area of the national forest called the Bonds and encountered some weather. When I write “some weather,” I mean that when the wind gusted it could knock me over. At this point, I was hiking with my friend Rick. Rick is a very large man who likes gear. The combination of his size and his love for equipment makes him a perfect wind break. He’s also a very kind and thoughtful soul, but in this story his girth stands out.

When Rick blocked me from the wind, I could walk unchallenged by the wind. When I walked alone, I needed to be aggressive to make any progressive. Someone watching me leaning dramatically forward in my goggles and hooded winter coat and jamming my poles into the snow would have thought me “unnecessarily aggressive.” That’s the way it is when you lead. Sometimes, when you’re charting a new course by yourself you appear to be unnecessarily aggressive when you’re just trying to make progress from Point A to Point B.

This is from Section Hiker. That’s not me, but this is the route we took.

No one likes taxes! Huh?

My story for Amy had fewer layers. It was worth a smile or maybe a smirk and that was about it.

A Democratic state rep from the Conway area posted a colorful graphic on Facebook that exclaimed, “Democrats Do Not Support A State Income Tax.” Her post was met with about 250 comments. More than 200 or so said, “yea, we kinda do support an income tax that has our state’s wealthiest residents pay their fair share.”

No doubt the posting was sparked by the lame Republican campaign to avoid blame for NH’s property taxes being sky high even though Republican’s have basically controlled all branches of state government for the last decade and used their power to cut taxes on NH’s wealthiest residents and most profitable businesses.

The 3-3 Tax Savings Plan.

I used the Facebook post to remind people of our tax calculator that allows NH residents to input a bit of information to learn how the proposed 3-3 Tax Savings Plan would affect them. The plan combines a 3 percent income tax with deductions as large as we could legally go with a $3 true statewide property tax that includes a $250,000 homestead exemption for taxpayers whose primary residence is in NH, whether that residence is owned or rented. A typical family of four wouldn’t pay the income tax and would see their local school taxes plummet by two thirds.

You can find the calculator at NHTaxSavingsCalculator.com.

Note, there isn’t a recorded version of this post.

Best,

Andru

https://maurafornh.com/media/

Here’s the report showing who has made “independent expenditures” for Shaheen ($616,742) and Sullivan ($795,796).

https://www.quiverquant.com/election-fundraising/house/NH/1

Here’s where to learn more about Christian Urrutia for Congress.

UrrutiaforNH.com

Who will decide this race, the Super PACs supported by billionaires or you?

Last week, I wrote about Trump coming for our elections. NH Governor Kelly Ayotte’s response was “no big deal,” another example of the normalizing of Trump’s extreme and erratic behavior that challenges legal, ethical and moral norms.

This week, I am writing about another threat to fair elections, one that is on both the Republican and Democratic sides of the aisle. The second threat is the pernicious impact of money in politics, particularly when the money is “dark.” Shady non-profits and LLCs often funded by a very few, very wealthy individuals spend money to influence elections through Super PACs. The money is considered “dark” because there is no public record of who funds the Super PACs. You can be sure the candidates understand who put up the money, but the public doesn’t really know.

This Super PAC spending should be distinguished from campaign spending where the candidates do the work, with help from friends and family. Candidates who don’t do the hard work to raise money can’t compete because they can’t communicate their message and teach voters who they are.

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PAC v. Super PAC

A PAC is a political action committee. PACs are limited in how much they may contribute directly to a candidate. The limit is really on what a candidate may accept from a PAC. It’s $5000 per federal election. The maximum a candidate may receive from an individual is $3500 per federal election.

Super PACs don’t have any limits, in theory, because they don’t contribute directly to the candidates they support. They act “independently” to avoid disclosing who funds them. Super PACs aren’t required to publish where their money comes from, although nothing prevents them from doing so.

The infamous Citizens United Supreme Court case decided in 2010 led to the creation of Super PACs. The case resulted from a conservative group’s effort to air an anti-Hillary film in 2007. The film was considered an “electioneering communication” that was prohibited by the Bipartisan Election Reform Act of 2002. The conservative group was called “Citizens United.”

According to the Brennan Center,

The Supreme Court eventually decided 5–4 that Citizens United was within its First Amendment rights to spend its money disseminating the film. But rather than opining solely on the case before it as it had been asked to do, the Court took the opportunity to entirely strike down century-old prohibitions on corporate “independent” spending — money that doesn’t go directly to a candidate or party. This applied to labor unions as well. Lower courts applying the ruling extended it to invalidate almost all fundraising and spending restrictions for groups that purport to be separate from candidates, many of which are today known as “super PACs.”

How big is the problem?

Again, from the Brennan Center,

From 2010 to 2022, super PACs spent approximately $6.4 billion on federal elections. In the 2024 election, they set a record of at least $2.7 billion. Super PAC money has largely eclipsed donations by small donors (people giving $200 or less), despite funds from small donors growing. For example, in the 2022 midterms, just 21 of the biggest donor families contributed $783 million and billionaires provided 15 percent of all federal election financing — most of which went to super PACs supporting congressional campaigns. These donors easily outspent the total given by the millions of small donors giving to House and Senate candidates that cycle.

Elon Musk was the biggest donor/spender/manipulator of the 2024 cycle. Musk just announced he’ll spend between $100 million and $120 million across eight states in 2026 through his Super PAC, America PAC. Maine, where Susan Collins is facing off against Troy Jackson for US Senate, is one of Musk’s chosen battleground states.

Can dark money be regulated by states in the absence of federal regulations?

A case argued before the US Court of Appeal for the First Circuit in Boston last week will provide the next step in answering this question. Ultimately, the US Supreme Court will weigh in and I can’t imagine that we’ll like their answer.

Maine voters adopted a citizen’s initiative in 2024 to require action by the Maine state legislature on Super PACs. Three fourths of Maine voters supported the measure and Maine adopted a spending cap of $5000 per election on Super PACS operating in Maine. A group called Dinner Table Action represented by the law firm of Pierce Atwood immediately challenged the law and a federal judge enjoined its operation following the Citizens United precedent. A coalition of groups, including the Maine Attorney General, appealed the injunction to the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston. A coterie of well-known and experienced lawyers argued last week for the Court of Appeals to allow the law to operate. Among them were Lawrence Lessig of Harvard and a non-profit called, “Equal Citizens” and Neal Katyal, a partner at Milbank LLP and professor at Georgetown. Katyal was acting solicitor general under Obama. The solicitor general ordinarily represents the United States before the US Supreme Court.

The argument in Boston centered on who funds Super PACs and whether they are independent. NH’s own Judge Seth Aframe was interested in the question of whether a Super PAC relying on a single funder, like Elon Musk or another billionaire, distorted the intent of Citizens United. Other judges asked about whether Super PAC expenditures are actually independent of the candidate that is being supported.

“Red Boxing”

There are tons of ways that campaigns and Super PACs coordinate. Perhaps the most egregious is “red boxing.” In red boxing, the federal candidate actually posts the messaging and photos or videos that the candidate would like the Super PAC to use in its “independent expenditures.” By using the preferred materials, the Super PAC’s ads, flyers, and digital copy perfectly align with the candidate’s strategy.

The practice is both brazen and breathtakingly simple. To work around the prohibition on directly coordinating with super PACs, candidates are posting their instructions to them inside the red boxes on public pages that super PACs continuously monitor.

The boxes highlight the aspects of candidates’ biographies that they want amplified and the skeletons in their opponents’ closets that they want exposed. Then, they add instructions that can be extremely detailed: Steering advertising spending to particular cities or counties, asking for different types of advertising and even slicing who should be targeted by age, gender and ethnicity.

Maura Sullivan’s “red box” is here.

It literally tells her “Independent” Super PACS what she wants.

A Super PAC called Vote Vets has sent multiple mailers into the Congressional District on behalf of Maura Sullivan and spent $400,000 on television and digital adds. The total reported spend by Vote Vets to support Sullivan’s campaign exceeds $600,000.

A second Super PAC called the Servant Leaders Fund, LLC spent almost $185,000 in support of Ms. Sullivan. In the 2022 cycle, this fund contributed a quarter of a million dollars to the Republican Congressional Committee and $38,000 to Mar-a-lago Club, LLC. Why on earth is this Republican oriented Super PAC spending money to help a Democratic candidate in the 2026 Democratic Primary?

Stefany Shaheen has engaged in some of the same conduct. Tim Smith of Manchester reports on Facebook that he received a mailer touting Stefany Shaheen from Article One PAC, which abbreviated is A1PAC. A1PAC, he notes, kind of looks like AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

A1PAC has spent almost $617,000 in support of Stefany Shaheen’s campaign by paying for said mailers and digital advertising.

A1PAC has shown up in a number of races across the country. Robert Granieri, the billionaire founder of Jane Street Capital, is one of the few identified funders of A1PAC.

Since 2023, Wikipedia reports, Granieri has donated $5 million to Super PACs in US elections, most pro-Israel. Open Secrets reports the details of his contributions which are to both liberal and conservative Super PACs.

Christian Urrutia opposes Dark Money.

I am pessimistic about the chances of the new Maine law, and similar laws in Hawaii and Montana. I wish it were otherwise. Ultimately, the US Supreme Court will rule on these laws and the current Supreme Court is not open to campaign finance reform. The answer, at least for the rest of my lifetime, must be political. Voters must take into account which candidates play in the system of dark money. They must ask, can these folks beholden as they are to the billionaires and special interests, really be expected to change anything?

Understanding the corrupting influence of dark money, candidate Christian Urrutia called for all the candidates for Congress in NH’s CD-1 to refrain from inviting dark money into the race. That was weeks ago. Now we know why candidates Shaheen and Sullivan declined to do so.

Rucho v. Common Cause

Democracy Docket

No, not the nonsense with the DNC and the First in the Nation Primary. That’s settled by statute. If the DNC really wants to change the order of state presidential primaries, it can change the law by helping NH win the state house, senate and governor’s office—something which the NHDP has not done for many years. Otherwise, it is to the Republicans’ advantage to have NH go first.

And don’t talk to me about a second unofficial primary supervised by the Democratic Party because the presidential candidates skip the real NH Primary for fear of party sanctions. An unofficial primary plays into Trump’s claims of voter fraud.

What is really at stake.

What I am talking about is Trump sending his thugs to interfere with our primary and general elections this year in an effort to prevent Democrats from taking Congress and, just maybe, the US Senate.

Shelby County v. Holder

The US Supreme Court reversed years of precedent and settled law to undermine portions of the Voting Rights Act that required states with long histories of electoral violence and discrimination to “pre-clear” proposed changes in electoral district boundaries. You’ll recognize those changes as “racial gerrymandering.” The key case is called Shelby County v. Holder (2013). A newer case that follows Shelby County, Rucho v. Common Cause (2019), allows “partisan” gerrymandering. Partisan gerrymandering is where legislatures claim they are only drawing election districts to favor Republicans in power, not to prevent Black and Brown voters from having a say in their governments. Trump has already used partisan gerrymandering to call for his brethren to re-district majority minority districts out of existence. A majority minority district is where a minority population has the majority of the vote based on who chooses to live near each other. Racist politicians overcome the minority’s dominance by cracking the district and attaching pieces to other electoral districts where the majority of voters are white folks. Louisiana and Texas accepted Trump’s challenge. Indiana rejected it.

Another portion of the Shelby County decision obviated the need for federal voting observers to ensure that elections were conducted without overt discrimination. The process for deploying observers required the US Department of Justice to send some of its own personnel and to request specially trained poll observers from the US Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Jurisdictions that were previously part of the responsibility of the Justice lawyers and OPM observers included North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia.

The Supreme Court decisions have resulted in the US Department of Justice cutting back the resources formerly deployed to ensure fair elections. “In light of the Shelby County decision, the department [of Justice] is not relying on the [Voting Rights Act] . . . as a way to identify jurisdictions for election monitoring . . . This means that the department will be able to send fewer people than in similar past elections to watch the voting process in real-time.”

With depleted resources, you might think the Trump DOJ would focus its efforts to protect voting in places where there have been problems before. You’d be wrong in that belief.

“Hey, NH and Massachusetts, look out!”

Trump and his pals are coming to NH and Massachusetts instead.

According to the Democracy Docket,

President Donald Trump’s Department of Justice announced [June 30] that it will send federal election monitors to 15 jurisdictions in six states during the 2026 primary season, the same day the department sent letters to election officials nationwide threatening potential criminal prosecution over noncitizen voting.

In a video posted to social media, DOJ’s Civil Rights Division chief Harmeet Dhillon said monitors will be sent to jurisdictions in Arizona, Michigan, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia.

You can reach your own conclusion about why these states were selected.

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NH already has good, robust election integrity laws in place, even though I don’t like their name, “Provisions for Election Purity.” These laws provide for challenges of persons not qualified to vote by challengers appointed by the political parties that are recognized by the state (Republican Party, Democratic Party and, occasionally, Libertarian Party). The designated challengers are permitted to locate themselves where they can see and hear registered voters checking in to vote and new voters registering. They can lodge challenges to a voter’s legal ability to vote and those challenges are heard by the moderator who is in charge of the polling place and election activities.

For decades NH voters have been able to count on the NH Department of Justice, led by the NH Attorney General, and the US Department of Justice, led by the NH US Attorney to play fair when it came to determining who could vote and what challengers could do. Both offices made their respective staffs available to answer questions about the law and proper procedures. When a Republican challenger was hassling a citizen attempting to register, you were relieved when someone from the Attorney General’s office showed up to sort things out.

My Experience

I’ve been an election protection lawyer for most of the last two decades. I took time off when I was an Executive Councilor and when I represented Sen. Bernie Sanders. I worked mostly in NH, but also in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. I held the credentials of a Democratic challenger for all of this time and never challenged a single voter. If a person was legally qualified to vote, my job was to ensure the person was permitted to do so, even if I thought the person would vote against my preferred candidate. This was the orientation I was taught and this is what I taught other challengers to do.

My first stint as an appointed party challenger occurred in 2004 when John Kerry was running for president against George W. Bush. I received a call from my former public defender colleague Paul Twomey who ran the election protection program for the NH Democratic Party. The call came on the night before the election. Paul asked me to cover the polling location in Hanover where Dartmouth students voted. I told Paul that I was happy to help but I didn’t know election law.

Paul explained that he didn’t call because I was an election law expert. He solicited me because he considered me to be one of the most persistent and persuasive lawyers he knew. He actually used other descriptors that I can’t repeat here. He said that his team just learned that former Supreme Court Justice Chuck Douglas was planning to challenge every Dartmouth student who tried to vote and Justice Douglas was an even bigger persistent and persuasive lawyer than me.

Off I went to Hanover at 4:30 the next morning. This was before smart phones. My law firm had a bag phone and we used it for Paul to teach me election law as I drove north. The rumor was right. Chuck Douglas was in Hanover and he did challenge the students.

Hanover’s moderator was a retired elementary school teacher named Marilyn “Willy” Black and she knew her stuff. Chuck lost most every challenge.

Chuck wasn’t trying to keep the students he challenged from voting. It became clear to me that Chuck’s plan was to tie up the voting process and drive the line of people waiting to vote out the door and down the street. As much as Willy and I tried to expedite things, Chuck created the lines he wanted.

Why create lines?

Long lines depress the vote. People don’t like to wait in long lines.

Willy Black passed away in 2018 after a long teaching career and an equally distinguished second career supervising elections in Hanover.

What to watch for.

Will the assistant attorneys general and the assistant US attorneys continue to facilitate NH’s voting laws or will they do Trump’s bidding? Will we see unusually long lines at polling locations on Election Day? It won’t be the fault of the Democratic Party challengers.

It might be the doing of the military lawyers now seconded to the office of the US Attorney in Concord, NH with an assignment to “monitor” elections. We’ll see what role they play.

If you’re a lawyer, contact the NH Democratic Party. Volunteer to observe and support fair elections. If you’re a citizen, pay attention to what is happening and watch who facilitates voting and who obstructs it.

If you’re a voter, be patient. Your vote is important.

If there is a long line at your polling location don’t drive away. If you are near closing time, GET IN LINE. If you are in line when the polls close, you are entitled to vote.

Persist my friends, persist.

This. During the Civil War, eighty six years after the founding of our nation, President Lincoln signed the first Morrill Land Grant Act that resulted in the creation of land grant universities across the nation. Think UNH, U Maine, UVM, and U Mass. A second Morrill Act in 1890 added Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). A third addendum recognized tribal colleges in 1994.

There are just over 100 HBCUs, mostly across the southeastern portion of the US. The first HBCU was Cheyney University of Pennsylvania. It’s located just west of Philadelphia and was founded in 1837 by Richard Humphreys, a Quaker philanthropist who bequeathed a tenth of his estate to found the school, originally known as the African Institute. Cheyney was founded as a college for teachers.

Humphreys’ bequest would be like Elon Musk donating $100 Billion to found a university today, which is unlikely.

George Washington proposed the idea of land grant colleges in his address of 1796. A few states formed such schools on their own when southern states blocked federal action. The first Morrill Act was adopted during the Civil War, after the southern states seceded. The Illinois state legislature precipitated the federal action by directing its members of Congress to propose a federal statute. Thinking an easterner would have a better chance as sponsor, the Illinois delegation turned to Justin Smith Morrill of Vermont.

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The first Morrill Act granted each state not in rebellion 30,000 acres of federal land which could be sold to create or support a state university that loosely focused on agriculture and the mechanical arts or engineering. States that didn’t have 30,000 acres owned by the federal government were permitted to choose land located outside of their state to raise funds. Cornell University in Ithaca, NY, for example, was the beneficiary of the sale of timber land located in Wisconsin.

The second land grant colleges law was passed in 1890 after Reconstruction had failed. Southern states could prove their state colleges were color blind in their admissions or use the federal grant to create a separate college system for Black students. Most chose the latter. Cooperative extensions at land grant colleges were added in 1914 to disseminate research to actual farmers.

Democratization

The purpose of the land grant institutions, in addition to funding research in specified areas, was to broaden access to college and university educations. None of the land grant universities or colleges are tuition free today. Most provide discounted tuition for in-state residents. Some of these schools have such steeply discounted tuitions that students move to the state to establish residency. A few states provide steep discounts or tuition free promise plans to enrolled tribal members who are residents of the state in which the college is located.

NH and Vermont have the highest average “sticker price” in the nation for their four year public colleges and universities in terms of tuition and fees of about $19,000/year. Add another $14,000 or $15,000 for food and housing in the UNH system. That’s about $33,000 to attend UNH. The lowest sticker price all in for tuition, fees, room and board is for the University of Wyoming system at $16,417, about half of what UNH charges its in-state students. Just to round us out, U Mass average tuitions and fees are $15,900 and U Maine’s are at $11,400. It’s $7600 a year cheaper to become a bear than a wildcat in terms of tuition and fees.

But, you say, not all students pay sticker price. There is financial aid.

Of course, but let’s look at student debt after attendance of college. This data isn’t broken out purely by attendance at a public college but public college attendance can be assumed to dominate. The five states with the highest student debt are:

· Mississippi

· New Hampshire

· Pennsylvania

· Delaware

· South Dakota

The five states with the least student debt are:

· Washington

· New Mexico

· California

· Utah

· Hawaii

From Wallet Hub:

New Hampshire has the second-biggest student loan debt problem. Borrowers owe an average of close to $40,000, the highest amount in the country. . . In addition, affordability challenges persist for students in New Hampshire. The state has the third-largest decline in state and local grants per in-state student, reducing the amount of aid students receive from public sources. On top of that, it has the sixth-lowest share of borrowers enrolled in income-driven repayment plans, limiting access to repayment options that could ease the burden of high student debt.

New Hampshire does not have a state student loan ombudsman, which limits how well students can have their complaints about loans addressed.

Supporting NH’s public colleges and universities is not a priority for NH’s legislature and governors. We’re the Live Free or Die state and this mantra is killing off our state’s public institutions, including our public colleges and universities.

Education appropriations vary considerably by state. Education appropriations per FTE [full time equivalent student] in 2025 ranged from $4,557 in New Hampshire to $25,468 in Illinois. Consistent with national-level decreases, education appropriations per FTE declined in 31 states and Washington, D.C., between 2024 and 2025. Despite nationally exceeding 2019 levels each year since, education appropriations per FTE remain below 2019 levels in eight states and Washington, D.C., with Wyoming (18.4% below) and Indiana (17.8% below) the farthest from 2019 levels in 2025.

Of course, the claim is NH doesn’t have the money to support its public colleges and universities but this problem is self-inflicted resulting from serious rollbacks of tax programs that produced state revenues since Republican governors have been in charge and generally acted with the assistance of (or at the demand of) Republican legislatures. Since Chris Sununu first became governor in 2016, business taxes have been rolled back to the tune of over $100 million a year and NH’s only tax on its most wealthy, the 100 year old Income and Dividends Tax was repealed, costing the state another $150 million a year. Governor Kelly Ayotte continued this trend of depleting state revenues with another very complex rollback of the business enterprise tax (BET) just this year.

Where does this leave NH?

You need to decide.

Ask your candidates for state and federal offices if they value higher education and what they will do to offer better financial supports. Can we reinvigorate college attendance with a federal land grant “shot in the arm?”

This doesn’t mean colleges and universities should avoid re-thinking their cost structures. This also doesn’t mean that everyone should go to a four year college. However, many of the concerns for keeping Lincoln’s promise also apply to two year community colleges, especially in NH which borders two states, Maine and Massachusetts, that offer tuition free community college plans for its residents. Maine also offers a $2500 credit against its state income tax for residents paying off college debt.

Last in the nation for state support for k-12 public education and among the lowest for state support of higher ed are distinctions that NH can live (or die) without.

It’s all the rage. One thing about elections is that candidates always claim they’re about change. This is true of the most centrist candidates who rely most heavily on their connections among well-situated establishment types who benefit most from the status quo. They all claim to be for change.

Two candidates in the race for Congress in NH’s CD-1 (the eastern part of the state and Manchester) are up on television with the first ads of the season. It’s early but they have money to burn and a need to distance themselves from each other.

Not unsurprisingly, both ads claim the candidate being touted is the key change agent in this race.

Maura Sullivan

Maura Sullivan’s ad doesn’t beat around the bush. She directly claims to be a “working class change agent.”

Maura moved to NH in 2018 explicitly to run for Congress. She’s from Evanston, Illinois and went to Northwestern and later earned an MBA at Harvard. After losing to Chris Pappas, she became the NH Democratic Party’s finance chair and hobnobbed with its biggest donors. She is now the Party’s elected first vice chair. She hasn’t stepped down from her party post even though she is in a contested Democratic Party primary.

Although her campaign website no longer reflects it, she is endorsed by the AIPAC-aligned Democratic Majority for Israel and, as Arnie Arnesen has pointed out, her financial filings with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) reflect a number of payments by Sullivan’s campaign to the Democracy Engine PAC which covertly processes campaign contributions organized by AIPAC. Democracy Engine is AIPAC’s ActBlue. Democracy Engine and ActBlue are PACs that charge 2 to 5 percent to process donations to campaigns. The political donations to Sullivan processed through Democracy Engine are likely in the range of $250,000.

AIPAC, whether you support their goals or not, clearly does not want US policy towards Israel to change. Maura Sullivan is also the beneficiary of Citizens United and current election finance laws. Do we expect Maura to advocate for change in US-Israel relations or to limit the corrosive role of money in politics?

Stefany Shaheen

Stefany Shaheen is from NH. She is the daughter of former governor and retiring Senator Jeanne Shaheen. Jeanne Shaheen has been in office for forty years. Her daughter Stefany is benefitting from her mother’s fundraising and organizing contacts and received money from her mother’s leadership PAC.

A leadership PAC allows members of Congress to collect money from lobbyists that the “leader” than doles out to build power or curry favor with other legislators. Leaders in key positions do well with leadership PACs.

The PACs cement power. They don’t bring change.

There are few rules that govern the operation of these leadership PACs and, when the “leaders” retire, they keep what’s left in the PAC to set them up in their retirement careers. Think of it like a bridal shower for a newly wed couple.

Jeanne Shaheen sits on the Appropriations Committee in the US Senate. More specifically, she sits on the Appropriations sub-committee related to Defense Department spending. Shaheen’s leadership PAC is called “A New Direction PAC,” which I admit sounds change-y. A New Direction PAC receives contributions from the usual suspects.

In the current two year cycle, the usual suspects are dominated by military defense contractors. Among the defense contractors who contributed to A New Direction PAC are Lockheed Martin, RTX, General Dynamics, General Atomics, GE Aerospace, Northrup Grumman, BAE, Pacific Defense Systems, Boeing, and Anduril Industries. The Israeli military tech company Elbit also contributed.

In prior years, A New Direction PAC directly received contributions from a broader array of donors, including many in the healthcare field. In 2024-25, these included: United Healthcare, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Humana, HCA, American Hospital Assn. Federation of American Hospitals, Davita, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Otsuka America Pharmaceuticals, CVS, and Centene.

Jeanne Shaheen’s leadership PAC contributed the max of $10,000 to her daughter’s campaign ($5000 on 6-27-25 and $5000 on 11-18-25). The maximum an individual can legally contribute to a federal campaign is $3500 per election or $7000 for a primary and general election. Jeanne Shaheen, the individual, contributed the max of $7000 to her daughter’s campaign on June 13, 2025 then she added the additional $10,000 from her leadership PAC.

Stefany Shaheen’s campaign ad is about her daughter’s health problems. But when Stefany was asked about support for Medicare for All, healthcare for all of us, her answer was not “yes.” Do we expect a recipient of insurer United Healthcare’s largesse to argue for the changes we all want in how healthcare works in America? Would Stefany likely join other candidates in advocating for decreases in defense spending? That would be a big change.

Change.

Do candidates who place themselves so close to established power centers really present good opportunities for change?

The Other Extreme

We then have the other extreme. Those candidates who try to shock their audience by espousing such dramatic change that they make it clear they can’t win elections. Their antics get attention but they can’t convert that attention to votes. NH US Senate candidate Karishma Manzur and Congressional candidate Heath Howard fall into this category.

Just one example makes my point.

Manzur and Howard appear to support Iran.

We are at war with Iran. It’s a stupid, pointless war that Trump was manipulated into joining by Israel’s Netanyahu. I do not support this war in any way or form. However, Iran is actively killing our service members. The Iranian regime is an autocratic theocracy. Before Israel and the US started this war of choice, the Iranian theocracy suppressed dissent in Iran by killing its own people. As many as 30,000 protestors were killed by Iranian military using live ammunition to suppress dissent. Women are also second class citizens in Iran’s theocratic scheme..

Misguided Support for Iran

Despite this, Manzur and Howard chose to speak at a rally last week where the sponsors decked out the speaker’s podium with Iranian flags. They’re the green, white and red flags in the photo below.

I know there can be all kinds of explanations, including empathy for the Iranian people, but the Republican ad that would run in the general election if either of these candidates is the Democratic nominee writes itself. Whatever change these candidates would like to support will never occur.

Where does this leave us?

Sullivan and Shaheen are good candidates if you like how things currently are. They have no ability to make change. Manzur at the Senate level and Howard at the Congressional level are so extreme as to be disqualified. They are unelectable and therefore can’t make change as elected officials.

More as we move forward to the primary which is scheduled for September 8, 2026.

Register to Vote

If you are not currently registered to vote, now is a good time to pop into your local town or city hall and register. You’ll need to prove your domicile is in the district where you plan to vote, you are a citizen and will be 18 years of age as of day of the election. There is no minimum length of residence to vote. In fact, you could register at your polling place on Election Day, it just gets crowded and there may be lines. Better to plan ahead.

For more on the documentation you’ll require to register, go here. (Note, I disagree with the NH Secretary of State’s website assertion that you can only register during a short window of time before an election but it is best to call your town clerk before you go to their office.)

Opinion: A march for unity and support

By Christian Urrutia July 9, 2026

The other day, before sunrise, I shouldered a rucksack and an American flag and walked 18 miles from Manchester to Concord to file as a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House.

Eighteen miles for the 18 veterans who die by suicide every single day. Men and women who wore the uniform, served this country and came home to a system that too often makes them fight one more battle just to get the care they earned.

And even as Americans across the political spectrum agree we owe our veterans better, this administration has cut tens of thousands of jobs from the Department of Veterans Affairs. Fewer providers, longer waits, canceled appointments, less mental health care exactly when it is needed most. Washington failed our veterans for years. Now it is failing them faster.

Here is what I did not expect on that road. Carrying the flag through the early summer heat, I was met with an outpouring of love. Strangers pulled over to bring me water. Drivers honked on their way to work. People ran up just to say how much it meant to see someone carrying our flag with pride.

This country is hungry for unity. I could feel it in my bones on the shoulder of Route 3A.

I am unapologetically proud of America. It gave my immigrant parents a fair shot. It gave me a kid who learned English as a second language and bagged groceries the chance to do big things to be appointed by President Biden to serve at the Pentagon. I love this country enough that at 35 I put a promising legal career on hold, enlisted as an E-4, and shipped out to basic training. I am proud to still serve.

The polls say Democratic pride in America has fallen to record lows. I do not believe we love this country any less. I believe we are heartbroken over what is being done to it. And heartbreak is not the absence of love. It is proof of it.

We owe our country more than worry. We owe it a fight for what it can still become.

That calls for a progressive patriotism that flies the flag in one hand and fights for regular folks with the other. One that says America does not belong to any single president, or to billionaires, or to whoever shouts the loudest. It belongs to the people who build it, teach its children, care for its sick and defend it in uniform.

Real patriotism is not a hat or a slogan. It is how you treat your neighbors. It is health care that covers everyone and bankrupts no one. It is childcare a working parent can actually afford. It is a tax code where a Manchester schoolteacher does not pay a higher tax rate than a corporation that pays nothing at all. It is sending our troops to war only when we must, with a plan and a way home. It is a Congress that does the people’s business instead of trading stocks on the side. And it is one standard of accountability, for presidents, for senators, for CEOs.

None of that is partisan. It is pro-America: we take care of each other, everyone gets a fair shake and no one is above the law.

Eighteen miles is a long way under a heavy pack. But what that road from Manchester to Concord taught me is simple. The distance between Americans is far shorter than the people who profit from our division want us to believe.

I hope you will help me bridge the divide.

Christian Urrutia is currently running for Congress in New Hampshire’s First Congressional District (eastern NH and Manchester).

Learn More, Contribute, Volunteer: UrrutiaforNH.com

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UrrutiaforNH.com.

Viet Thanh Gnuyen

Write in Cease Fire Campaign

Purity tests are a waste of time. The coordinated cheap shots at Christian need to be called out for what they are. The attacks are self-defeating, especially when aimed at Christian Urrutia, a first generation Latino, who has been endorsed by the NH House Progressive Caucus, the NH Youth Movement and 350NH.

There are monied interests in this race for Congress who would compromise with the devil. They blatantly seek a Democratic Majority for Israel. They don’t value inclusion. They oppose the change we so desperately need in areas like healthcare and campaign finance reform.

We would better off focusing on them.

I chair Christian’s Urrutia’s campaign for Congress.

What does it mean to be a Progressive? Who decides? Does it come with a plaque for my wall or a little red card for my wallet? Are Progressives all the same?

The attacks began when candidate Heath Howard lost the endorsement of the progressive caucus to Christian. Heath was vice chair of the caucus when his colleagues chose to endorse another.

What does it take for your own caucus to reject you?

Heath has since been removed from his position as vice chair of the caucus for his toxic behavior.

It’s time to condemn his behavior.

Although it may appear to hurt Christian in the near term, hurling false challenges at him doesn’t raise votes for the candidate attacking him. What it does is turn people off to elections at a time when Trump would like us all to forget about the importance of free and fair elections.

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Christian Urrutia

Christian is a human rights lawyer and a public defender in the National Guard. He’s a first time candidate who grew up in Hudson, NH. His platform, A Fair Shake for All, reflects his values.

Christian believes we must take on Trump and take care of our fellow Americans.

At some personal cost, he argued for the closure of Guantanamo and against the use of torture derived evidence in military tribunals. These positions did not make him popular at the Pentagon where he was serving at the time.

The insults tossed at Christian make me wonder if I would qualify as a Progressive and whether I even want to.

What is a Progressive?

This isn’t the place for a discourse on Fightin’ Bob Lafollette, or the Farm Labor Movement, the sewer socialists of Milwaukee (and now NYC), or a remembrance of Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone. I propose to offer a simple working definition.

Inclusion is broader than economics. Inclusion does mean fighting the concentration of wealth that excludes all others. It means fighting against the very small group of billionaires controlling the means to build wealth or who inflate the cost of even the most basic services, such as healthcare and food.

Inclusion also means acceptance of different religious beliefs (and that some folks don’t believe in a god at all). Inclusion means believing that racial and ethnic diversity is a value, not a handicap and that we should accept diverse gender norms and identities, not insinuate government where it doesn’t belong.

Inclusion means we should be a leader on the world stage, not isolationists.

A commitment to inclusion is multi-generational. What we do now to the environment and the climate will damn our children and grandchildren. We must include their futures in our policies.

Senator Bernie Sanders epitomizes a Progressive. Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Congressman Ro Khanna and others may qualify as well.

In recent history, President Bill Clinton is the antithesis of a Progressive. His campaigns and presidency were transactional, not values based. He used poor people to triangulate against Republicans, dismantling safety nets before Republicans could. Borrowing the words of Viet Thanh Nguyen, Clinton epitomized “our American DNA, a double helix of beauty and brutality, a weave that binds our present to our past.”

Clinton also oppressed the oppressed for political advantage presiding over the execution of a death row prisoner during his first presidential campaign.

Do I qualify as a Progressive?

Unlike Clinton, I fought against the death penalty my entire professional life. I did it mostly as a lawyer.

Some would disqualify me as a Progressive because I am a lawyer. Only “working people,” they claim, can be considered Progressive.

Nonsense.

Even though I haven’t swung a hammer, worked in a factory or humped furniture up narrow stairways for hourly pay since I began law school those memories and the experiences of my friends and siblings are always with me.

As a lawyer, I also overturned how NH funds its public schools.

In the early 1990s, I sued NH’s largest employer for employment discrimination for firing an executive who refused an order to replace a woman employee with a man. My friend Eleanor MacLellan represented the woman. We each took about a million dollars from Cabletron for our clients after a trial and appeal. In 1990s NH, a million dollars was a lot of money. I assume Progressives applauded this anti-discrimination work.

I then represented Cabletron for about half a dozen years. People who didn’t know better would have absolutely kicked me out of the Progressive Club for this. One of my dear friends didn’t speak to me for a year.

But here’s the thing, Cabletron CEO Craig Benson listened to me. He followed my advice. I taught him about anti-discrimination laws and we reformed Cabletron’s employment practices. Benson didn’t know, but the fees I earned from Cabletron funded the pro bono work I did in the Claremont school funding cases. It was a trade I was willing to make.

Some of Christian’s experience as a lawyer is similar to mine. You can’t judge a lawyer’s career by one case or one client especially when, in Christian’s case, as a junior lawyer others in the firm decided on which cases he should work.

My career as a lawyer allowed me to earn a comfortable living. Again, Heath’s crowd objects to this. My wife and I went deeply into debt for law school . We were first gen college grads and became the first lawyers in our respective families.

Christian did the same thing. He graduated from law school amidst the 2008 financial crisis with $250,000 in student debt. Rather than demeaning him for it, I respect that Christian distinguished himself as a lawyer despite this challenging start.

Zionism

Being an anti-Zionist is a big deal for Progressives. I agree we should call out Israel’s war crimes and genocide in Gaza and the West Bank.

I am Jewish. Heath’s fans may look askance at me for this. Worse yet, I attended religious school two or three days a week until I was 13. My teachers and rabbis were all devout Zionists.

However, as I became college aged and older I became less of a believer in the stories I was taught about Israel. In the 2024 presidential race, I was so fed up with Biden bear hugging Netanyahu that I started the Write-In Cease Fire movement. We got 1500 cease fire votes in NH.

Genocide and the horrible suffering in Gaza and other places, however, are not topics about which we should cosplay. Genocide is a serious allegation that deserves thoughtful consideration. For Heath and his crowd, I didn’t say “genocide” soon enough or say it often enough. Christian faces the same attacks.

This leads to two questions:

Is this primary election a competition to see which candidate for Congress can be the most extreme or the quickest to pass judgments that have real consequences?

Is recklessness the prime trait we seek in our candidates?

Progressive Yes or No?

So where does this leave me? I guess that’s in part up to you.

My conclusion is that I am very comfortable with my personal and political decisions. I was Sen. Sanders’ NH lawyer. He endorsed me when I ran for governor. So did Ben and Jerry. They even named an ice cream for me.

I am a Progressive and so is Christian.

My apologies.

The coordinated cheap shots at Christian need to be called out for what they are but deciding who is progressive enough is a waste of time. The attacks are self-defeating, especially when aimed at Christian Urrutia, a first generation Latino, who has been endorsed by the NH House Progressive Caucus, the NH Youth Movement, 350NH, and the national Latino Victory Fund.

There are monied interests in this race for Congress that would compromise with the devil. They blatantly seek and are endorsed by a Democratic Majority for Israel. They don’t value inclusion. They oppose the change we so desperately need to improve healthcare and reform how we finance campaigns.

We would better off focusing on them than on who is sufficiently progressive.

Americans deserve and need much better….

Taylor Swift scheduled her wedding to Travis Kelce intentionally, I think, to upstage Trump’s “big beautiful” July 4th celebration that he disgracefully bills as “the most spectacular TRUMP RALLY of them all.” It’s the 250th anniversary of the founding of our nation. If anything, Trump should be ashamed that a person like him is president during this milestone, not taking credit for it.

The July 4th wedding is to be held at Madison Square Garden in New York city. Taylor Swift is an iconic pop star. Travis Kelce is a football star for the Kansas City Chiefs. (I actually like his brother, Jason, better because he played center for the Eagles. I played on the line in high school and am from outside of Philly.)

I guess I’ve let Trump get to me as of late. Maybe the Swift-Kelce wedding is just my magical thinking but it’s also my antidote.

Trump’s a sinister joke, a stain on America’s history. He should be impeached and then locked up for his graft and corruption. Children should learn about Trump’s sacrifice of our world standing as a cautionary tale . . . if we recover from his bigotry, hatred and damage to the environment.

Americans deserve and need much better.

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We are entitled to healthcare.

We are moving backwards. Three million fewer Americans are insured through the ACA marketplace in Feb 2026 than were insured a year prior. Trump falsely claims the decline is the result of his rooting out fraud.

He’s lying.

Fewer Americans are insured because of the increased cost of health insurance. Trump can take credit for orchestrating the decrease in subsidies to pay health insurance that has driven up premiums. He did it to fund tax cuts for the wealthy.

When the cost of insurance goes up, the people who keep it are those who need it most. Trump’s payoffs to his friends concentrate the less healthy and more costly in our insurance plans. Not only is there personal suffering but the ACA marketplace becomes less viable as an economic matter. The least healthy require the most care. More care equals more expense. More expense drives up insurance costs. Higher costs make the ACA marketplace less viable.

We need universal healthcare.

Medicare for All. “M4A,” for short, is recognition that in a civilized society healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. Having us all in a plan also works as a matter of economics. It spreads the costs rather than concentrating the plan on elders and people who are the most unwell. It’s everyone. The healthy, the sick, the young and the old.

Some states are trying to go it alone. Folks in Maine are working on a petition drive to force the Maine legislature to adopt a state level M4A plan. Maine’s constitution provides for petitioned articles to force the legislature to craft legislation. NH’s constitution does not.

I understand the sentiment but don’t see how a state small in population like Maine can go it alone. Perhaps the Maine legislature will figure it out and then reach out to the other New England states to form a New England M4A. At least Maine is trying. But they need more folks, a lot more.

Maura Sullivan’s “Medicare for All WHO WANT IT” is a fraud and a deceit.

This is why Medicare for All WHO WANT IT is such baloney. This is the Pete Buttigieg plan. It is what Maura Sullivan, candidate for Congress, is spouting. Well, she kind of drops her voice when she says the “who want it” part.

Just think, a Medicare plan for all who are sick or can’t afford a better plan on the one hand and better plans for the well heeled on the other. What could possibly go wrong?

Stefany Shaheen engages in “Bernie Washing.”

Candidate Stefany Shaheen isn’t any better with her word salad response to a straightforward question that asked about her support for M4A. To be clear, her answer was not “yes.” But why does she mention Sen. Sanders’ lesser, partial approaches to healthcare equity? It’s called “Bernie washing.”

If you’re a candidate running on your name, you don’t commit to anything. You run as a cypher, a non-entity who appears to be anything and everything at the same time. Rather than provide answers, you call in James Carville to vouch for you.

We need universal childcare.

America deserves affordable childcare.

Childcare costs are beyond reason. Fees for early learning and daycare programs are like paying another college tuition, in addition to your mortgage, while paying off your own college debt. I get this is a middle income problem because working class families often go without, but don’t we want the middle of America to be successful, too?

We invest in America with a Billionaire’s Tax.

The problem is where to get the money to pay for childcare programs (and M4A and other programs that Americans want and deserve).

Wait, I know.

Bernie Sanders has a billionaire’s tax that he’s proposed with Congressman Ro Khanna. It’s a 5 percent tax on the wealth controlled by America’s billionaire class. According to Forbes wealth data, America had 813 billionaires at the end of 2024 with $6.72 trillion in wealth. It’s more now.

The Sanders/Khanna billionaire’s tax would generate $350 billion a year that America could invest in America, not in yachts and swampy reflecting pools or in buying political influence. Sen. Liz Warren has a similar plan that kicks in when a taxpayer’s wealth hits only $50 million. It’s 2 percent on $50 million to $1 billion and then an added surcharge of 1 percent for the billionaires. It produces slightly less than Sanders’ plan.

What else could we do with the revenue from a billionaire’s tax?

We could make seniors confident they can afford their “golden years?” The revenue from a billionaire’s tax could float Social Security. We could also lift the cap on Social Security wage contributions so that folks with high incomes contribute the same share of their salaries to sustain Social Security as the carpenter, the nurse and the teacher.

Revenue from a billionaire’s tax could make two year community college programs tuition free for anyone who wants to attend. Community colleges train the trades and provide academic jump starts on four year degree programs. We can also help pay down the tuitions at land grant universities like UNH, U Maine and U Mass and create honest and reliable tuition debt relief programs for graduates who work in the public sector.

It’s also a tax on crypto and AI data centers.

Here’s another way to think about it.

Consider the Sanders/Khanna and Warren billionaire tax plans as a way to tax data centers and crypto mining operations that will benefit the very wealthy. Perhaps spend some of the money on strengthening utility grids and supporting renewable power because we can’t leave the stinking mess that Trump has created to our kids and our grandkids.

None of these programs are new or novel thinking. Medicare was started in 1965, Social Security in 1935. We have childcare credits now, they’re just too meagre. Tax the rich? The top marginal tax rate which was imposed on our highest wage earners exceeded 90 percent from 1944 through 1963.

We just need to convince our leaders to do what’s right; a mighty undertaking but worthy of your efforts this 250th anniversary of the birth of America.

Happy 4th.

I started last summer and fall with my compost pile. Good soil is the foundation for a good garden. Our pile is just three cedar logs in a “u” shape. We had spoiled straw and added grass clippings and vegetable scraps. We cheated a bit by adding existing compost from our old pile filled with alpaca and goat poo. I turn the pile every week or so with a broad fork or my tractor.

Another metaphor?

Easier not to start from scratch. Pay attention to what you’re building with.

Our garlic is just starting to produce scapes that will become pesto to eat on roasted veggie sandwiches. We have our first tiny zucchini, one tomato plant is starting to flower.

The sun isn’t ideal, the soil left a lot to be desired but its a start.

Also started an upside down tomato plant. I already had the bucket with a hole in the bottom from an unfortunate episode with some ash from the sugaring stove. Planted basil seeds in the top.

Who knows if it will produce? It’s ok if it doesn’t. The upside down tomato plant gave me the opportunity to talk with our grandkids about it being ok to be a little different.

We planted a nice rectangle of Blazing Star liatris that will have purple flowers to attract Monarch butterflies in the fall, some blueberry bushes that will hopefully feed more than birds and a potato tower that uses more of the spoiled straw to grow potatoes vertically. The shoots and leaves from the first set of spuds are showing and I added a second layer. Again, another experiment. We’ll see if it works. Even if it doesn’t, I learned something.

Amy started a lot of basil for pesto and eggplant sandwiches. She also spread lots of lupine seeds channeling her inner Miss Rumphius (look it up). Our grandson helped her rehabilitate an overgrown patch of wildflowers.

Back to more law and public policy discussions next week. Grandkids, Juneteenth and Father’s Day took up a lot of my writing time.

I also needed a break.

I did not produce a recorded version of this post.

A few photos for you to enjoy.

Best,

Andru

Christian’s web site:

UrrutiaforNH.com

Chile became the victim of a violent military coup on September 11, 1973.

Scholars, labor leaders and citizen activists were imprisoned, tortured and murdered.

General Augusto Pinochet was installed as the nation’s dictator. President Salvador Allende died by suicide while surrounded in the presidential palace, the Palacio de La Moneda.

Reforms to educate, provide a living wage and retirement security for average citizens died with Allende. Many of these reforms were started ten years earlier by Allende’s predecessor Eduardo Frei who oversaw a Chilean New Deal that Frie dubbed a “Revolution in Liberty.”

Victor Jara was one of the activist leaders imprisoned, tortured and murdered when Pinochet came to power. Jara was considered the Bob Dylan of South America. Jara wrote: Estadio Chile on the day he was murdered. The poem begins,

There are five thousand of us here in this small part of the city
We are five thousand
I wonder how many we are in all the cities and in the whole country?
Here alone are ten thousand hands which plant seeds and make the factories run
How much humanity exposed to hunger, cold, panic, pain, moral pressure, terror, and insanity….”

Pete Seger performs an English translation of the poem here.

Christian Urrutia

The details of Victor Jara’s murder would likely never have been completely known and his killer never brought to justice had it not been for the pro bono representation of my friend Christian Urrutia who is now running for Congress in NH’s First Congressional District (the eastern half of NH plus Manchester). I am proud to chair Christian’s campaign. Christian and his campaign released a short film about his work with the Jara family last week. The film is only a few minutes long. It is worthy of your time. Find it here (not at the red arrow in the photo).

I hope the film will convince you that this son of NH is the Progressive fighter we need to bring change to Congress. For more information, go to UrrutiaForNH.com.

Pinochet’s American Helpers

As if Pinochet’s violent military coup was not bad enough, historian Nancy MacLean details in her book, Democracy in Chains (Penguin Books 2017), the damage done to the Chilean people with advice from American Libertarian economists James Buchanan and Milton Friedman. With instruction from Buchanan and Friedman, Pinochet privatized social security and “modernized” education with the introduction of school vouchers.

Remember also, Friedman’s voucher origin story begins with the Whites-Only Segregation Academies in Virginia that were spawned in reaction to the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision. These academies, as noted in my book, The Last Bake Sale (Randall Publishing 2025), were the first practical application of Friedman’s school choice theories.

Pinochet’s vouchers also applied to higher education and, when combined with teacher purges, cemented into place Chile’s tiered system of education for the benefit of the connected elite and the detriment of everyone else.

Pinochet’s policies benefitted his ruling class and helped him line his own pockets. Sound familiar? Advice from Buchanan also helped to lock in Pinochet’s corrupt view of government. The Chilean constitution was changed to require super-majorities to undermine the role of Chile’s congress and make it difficult to restore freedoms.

As is clear from Christian’s film and MacLean’s history, the parallels between Chile under Pinochet and the US under Trump are stark and deeply troubling. Trump’s lifetime appointment of judges, removal of an apolitical civil service and trashing of our role on the international stage means it will be difficult to restore trust in the US for many years. Simply re-creating what was before Trump will not be enough to restore faith in America.

We can’t go back.

Congress has a well-earned poor reputation for standing by while big money dictates strategy and tactics. Relying on those who got us here will not help us get out of the hole that Trump and his minions have dug for us.

We need bright new leaders ready for the fight. We have one running for Congress in the First Congressional District.

Check out Christian Urrutia. https://urrutiafornh.com/about/

“The judge might cite the duty to sit as the reason for her refusal to disqualify, but the duty is then an after-the-fact rationalization for her erroneous decision to keep the case rather than the cause for keeping it.”

https://lawecommons.luc.edu/luclj/vol54/iss3/7/

Justice Dan Will also denied the motion to disqualify him.

“A reasonable person, fully informed of the facts alleged, would not question my impartiality in this case.” Justice Dan Will, former NH Solicitor General and lead counsel for the state in the ConVal school funding case.