News – Politics – Opinion – Podcasts
Ian Underwood 
This little gem made it into the budget bill, HB2, which was passed by both houses and signed by the governor. Legislative Declaration of Authority Regarding Public Education. In its 1993 and 1997 decisions, in the so-called Claremont series of public school funding cases, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that the New Hampshire Constitution imposes upon … Read more
I just finished watching a little scare session conducted by former NH state senator Jeanne Dietsch, which you can find here. I should start by saying that, in my experience, when NH residents actually talk to Free Staters to find out what they believe, more often than not, they end up realizing that those beliefs … Read more
I recently re-watched the brilliant film Interstate 60. If you haven’t seen it, put it on your to-watch list. One of the characters, Bob Cody (played by Chris Cooper), is a former advertising man who got sick of lying all the time, and decided to spend the rest of his life promoting truth. Or more … Read more
We should think about education the way we think about being armed — because being educated and being armed are the two principal tools for resisting over-reach by government. That is, you have a right, not to have someone else (arm/educate) you, but to (arm/educate) yourself. And you have a responsibility to be (armed/educated), that … Read more
There is great value, when considering a question, to instead consider a generalization of the question. Then, having answered the more general question, you get the answers to more specialized versions for free, and you know they’re consistent with each other. This is actually a pretty large part of what we call thinking. Here’s an … Read more
I just got my new jetpack, and my new micro-helicopter, so I won’t be using the roads anymore. Who do I see about getting my ‘road dollars’ back? What, you say? There’s no such thing? We just pay for the roads, and whoever wants to use them can? And because anyone can use them, we … Read more
So, it’s come to this. We have a federal judge who has enough integrity to look at the 2nd Amendment, even diluted by Bruen, and conclude that a law prohibiting the mere possession of a machine gun is unconstitutional on its face. Awesome! But the Trump administration is now asking for this decision to be … Read more
Just thinking about something that came up last night at dinner with friends. If someone visits the United States, and is born again, does he become a citizen? Ruth Ward et Rick Ladd removenda sunt
Every summer, kids are out of school for about 80 days, almost 3 months. So, what do parents do with their kids during that time? It’s not like their jobs end. It’s not like they can take 3 months off of work to look after their kids. And yet, the kids get taken care of. … Read more
The premise of Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs) is that some kids are trapped in schools that aren’t serving them, so they should be able to escape. But the idea can’t be to facilitate the breakout by creating a dependency that lasts for years afterward. The idea can’t be to get them to kick heroin by … Read more
From Abraham Lincoln’s first inaugural address: [I]f the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to … Read more
Suppose someone said: I live in this state, but that state offers more generous welfare benefits. So I should be able to live here, but collect benefits from there. Or suppose someone said: I live in this county, but that county has a better nursing home, so I’d like my elderly mother to be cared … Read more
Many of you saw a petition warrant article on the agenda at your recent town meetings. The idea was to get towns to vote to send the petition to the legislature and the governor. It’s kind of a silly idea — if you’re going to tell your representative something, you should do that as an … Read more
If you were hoping that Donald Trump and Pam Bondi were going to protect the 2nd Amendment, it might be time to rethink that position. So while we are all waiting for AG Bondi’s report on the Second Amendment, pursuant to President Trump’s executive order, we now find out that the new DOJ is much … Read more
The Judicial Branch, apparently unconcerned about that whole separation-of-powers thing, is telling the Executive Branch what to do. In particular, it’s saying that the Trump Administration has to distribute $2 billion in foreign aid, even though it contains substantial amounts of wasteful, fraudulent, and harmful spending. Ideally, President Trump would take a page from Andrew … Read more
Lately, I’ve been hearing a lot about budget caps for school districts, and the kinds of numbers that are being thrown around. Would a reasonable cap be $25,000 per student? Or closer to $100,000? It’s crazy to try to choose a number without first knowing what you would be getting for that amount of money, … Read more
In a response to a post about whether Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs) should be universal, a reader responded by saying: I still believe it is a societal responsibility to ensure children are schooled. The problem with discussing ‘societal responsibilities’ is that once you get beyond the defense of self and property, there’s usually a lot … Read more
The missing Epstein files were supposed to be on Attorney General Pam Bondi’s desk by February 28. If she had them, we’d have heard about it, right? So presumably she doesn’t. Assuming the files exist, that is. We just have the word of a single whistle-blower who contacted Bondi. But if the files do exist, … Read more
A basic principle of the martial art Aikido is that instead of struggling against an attacker’s force, you work with it. As I listen to Democrats continue to complain about how DOGE shouldn’t be given access to the private data of American citizens because it is staffed by ‘unelected employees’, it occurs to me that … Read more
So, Governor Ayotte is moving us down the road towards universal eligibility for Education Freedom Accounts (EFAs). Awesome! Now what will she do to move us towards universal eligibility for food stamps, and heating oil subsidies, and housing assistance? While I don’t need any of those subsidies, I would certainly like to have them. And … Read more