Opinion: Arthropods and the biodiversity crisis

By CAELIN GRABER

Letter: Why aren't we letting kids be kids anymore?

Letter: Affordable living?

Letter: Fascists Don’t Want Free Speech — They Want the Last Word Before the Jackboots

Authoritarians in America have a familiar playbook: use the rights of a free society until they no longer serve their purpose—then strip them away. Connor Estelle, for example, claimed he was fired for “traditional values” after proudly calling himself a fascist on YouTube. In reality, he’d been laid off six months earlier for unrelated reasons. The lie made him tens of thousands of dollars in donations before anyone checked the facts. Or Kyle Langford, a California Republican candidate who called Auschwitz a “solution for homelessness.” He waved away outrage as “telling it like it is” while openly advocating authoritarian policies. And just recently in Concord, New Hampshire, a fascist group tried the same routine—quoting the First Amendment as a shield for intimidation. But this time, the playbook failed. Locals pushed back hard. Violence broke out. Some say that was wrong; others recall a century of history in which fascism was only beaten through direct confrontation—from the Battle of Cable Street to the beaches of Normandy. The hard truth: fascism has never been defeated by politely asking it to stop. Fascists don’t want debate; they want one last election to choose the dictator. After that, it’s tanks and tribunals. The press owes them no stage, no amplification, no legitimization. The Constitution is not a suicide pact. Defending it sometimes means refusing to hand the microphone to those who would burn it down.

Letter: A Tragic Fatal Blow to Transgender Healthcare

Opinion: Echoes of the State House

By JANET LUCAS

Summer in the State House is quiet. Echoes of distant footsteps and doors squeaking shut on muffled conversations are about the only sounds on the main floor.

By The Way: Christian Nationalists on the March

Opinion: Life Lessons from the Fields of Play

By PARKER POTTER

Across the state, fall athletes are practicing for their upcoming seasons in soccer, cross country, field hockey and golf. Games, matches and meets will be here before the end of the month. Thinking about the season ahead reminds me of last fall and the experiences of six young friends of mine. There were plenty of wins, a few losses, lots of goals and a few PRs, but those statistics are not as important as the life lessons my young friends learned.

Opinion: Creating a police state

By JONATHAN P. BAIRD

In the just-passed Trump budget bill, Congress allocated $45 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. That represents a massive increase in detention spending. ICE is getting 13 years of current funding which has to be spent within four years. With this money, ICE becomes the largest domestic police force in the U.S.

Opinion: A Breath of Fresh Air

By JOHN BUTTRICK

On the day I sat down to write this My Turn, the weather at noon was 90 degrees with high humidity. I had just come back from my daily walk. My breathing is labored. Yes, global warming is hard on this aging body. However, I barely noticed the stress, walking a path edged with wild growth in full bloom. I also passed small cultivated beds of colonized vegetables and flowers, tended by a human touch attempting to improve upon the wild: brilliant blossoms, sweet tomatoes, crisp green beans and yellow summer squash. Yet, upon reflection, I’m overwhelmed with wonder that both the wild and the domestic plants take nourishment from the soil and energy from the sun to transform them into food and beauty for animals, birds and humans. I also contemplate with reverence, that at the end of their time, both the wild and the domestic floras return to the earth, enriching the soil with more humus for the next generation. Considering how the life forces of Earth and sun freely come together, meeting in the flourishing of nature’s flora, is awe-inspiring.

Opinion: How to live in a broken world

By JEAN STIMMELL

In these fraught times, when not only is our country falling apart, but every inhabitant on planet Earth is facing mortal danger from approaching climate disaster, the philosopher Mara van de Lugt comes to our rescue.

Opinion: Needs versus wants

By SCOTT METZGER

A year from now, New Hampshire will charge a $60 per month co-pay to Medicaid recipients who earn 100% of the federal poverty wage. According to the Department of Health and Human Services, that is $15,060 per year. That’s how much you would earn annually working 40 hours a week at New Hampshire’s miserly minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Let’s look at the life of an individual earning that much.

Letter: Thanks to the Comics

Thank you Concord Monitor for printing three full pages of comics in last Saturdays’ Monitor.

Letter: Trump uses Social Security Administration email to spread propaganda.

In the past I have received emails from ssa.gov notifying me of benefit changes etc. Now, the Social Security Administration is sending me Trump’s propaganda and incomplete information which may mislead Social Security recipients.

Letter: We have failed our children

It takes a heinous combination of cruelty, inhumanity, meanness, sadism and greed on the part of those 51 Republicans to pass Trump’s so called “Big Beautiful Bill.” In the history of the Senate there has never before been a single piece of legislation that was designed to directly inflict so much pain and suffering on millions of regular Americans while, at the same time, giving so much to a few of the wealthiest and most privileged among us. And while doing so they also placed a huge financial debt on our children that will burden them for generations. I apologize to my grandchildren and all future generations for what my generation will leave you. We failed you.

Letter: Burn the Flag

What did you do on July 4, 2025? Did you celebrate living in America? Were you proud of living in America? I can’t understand how Americans can burn the flag on July 4th or any day.

Letter: Military aid to Israel

When we send taxpayer dollars to Israel to buy military equipment from our military industrial complex to support an army that is committing a genocide and whose soldiers admit to being instructed to kill unarmed starving civilians including children seeking food and when we don’t actively speak out against this and protest against this, then we are complicit in what our government and those who represent us are doing to continue that genocidal campaign.

Letter: Truth or truism?

We learn as young children that .”..all men are created equal....” But George Orwell put the lie to that lofty ideal in his brilliant political allegory, Animal Farm when he wrote, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” It requires no great sophistication to grasp his point.We are also taught another great American platitude: “Everybody is presumed innocent” in a criminal proceeding. Two front page articles (July 3) make me wonder. One describes the acquittal of prison guard Matthew Millar. The other bears the headline “AG finds officers justified in shooting.” Are some defendants, especially if they are connected to law enforcement, presumed to be more innocent than the rest of us?

Letter: Stop funding genocide

When we send taxpayer dollars to Israel to buy military equipment from our military industrial complex to support an army that is committing a genocide and whose soldiers admit to being instructed to kill unarmed starving civilians, including children seeking food; and when we with a moral compass but don’t actively speak out against this and protest against this, then we are complicit in what our government and those who represent us are doing to continue that genocidal campaign.