Obamacare is dead because the mandate is dead proclaimed my enthusiastic friend in the red hat!!! Problem is the anti-Trump GOP will brew up something even worse and place a mandate on it too.

Idaho growing fastest in the nation! Oh boy, how exciting. Problem is the new arrivals are driving old cars with a mattress strapped to the roof. The new arrivals are not rich people fleeing high taxes, they are poor and will drive up our taxes with welfare demands and ER visits. They will vote for dems and the Idaho death spiral will be complete. They are parked in front of a house they heard might be for rent, but isn’t. They’ve discovered it’s colder here than Bieter’s brochure said. They are upset that cops arrest for pot, and shooting up in parked cars do get noticed by neighbors.

Spell and grammatical errors intentional to help fit in better here in Idaho.

“Think globally; act locally.”

Good advice.

My editorial regarding Tax Bill that ran in Statesman 12/20/17 follows. I also emailed copies of it to our congressmen after it was published.

Trump promised the American people during the campaign that he would not cut Medicare, Medicaid, or Social security. The GOP Senate Tax Bill, if enacted will trigger an immediate $25 BILLION cut to Medicare with additional cuts totaling $400 Billion in 10 years (PEYGO RULE) while simultaneously GUTTING Obamacare causing thirteen million people to lose their healthcare due to rising premiums. It will raise taxes on up to 87 million working families. Middle class families making less than $30,000 will get hit the hardest. This is how the GOP is funding the largest transfer of wealth in history to the wealthy. If this bill is enacted, the USA’s federal deficit will exceed GDP for the first time in 2028, which will force massive cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. The GOP is in denial regarding what the AARP, CBO, and the Joint Committee on Taxation report. This is the most unpopular tax cut bill in history for a reason. This tax bill is a threat to everyone but the 1%. No fear Idahoans, Crapo/Risch/Simpson/Labrador are 100% on board with this money grab – voting for it in initial Senate/House votes and against the best interests of most Idahoans.

Tom Lorentz, I share some of your concerns. I am very concerned that perhaps big corporations got way too much in this tax bill and ordinary citizens way too little.
However, even if the Republicans more or less botched this tax bill, let’s not pretend that the Democrats are all that virtuous.
For one thing, as I remember it, Obamacare stole a half-billion dollars from Medicare.
Secondly, I think Obama said that his healthcare plan would be debated on C-SPAN, but instead it was deliberated clandestinely behind a velvet rope and a closed door.
Thirdly, as Story Idea states above, if Obama was concerned about the uninsured, he could have helped the uninsured without having the federal government intrude on health care for everyone else. Why wouldn’t all Americans be concerned at the resulting loss of our freedom, with mandates and penalties coercing us to conform to the faraway federal government?
Also, overall, the likes of the Obamas and Clintons and Pelosis and Bidens and Gores seem to be Democrats who are at least as filthy rich as the Republicans. My hunch is that the Democrats are just as beholden to Big Business as the Republicans. The Democrats are just more phony about it with their feigned compassion for the poor.
It’s a scam, and most of the leaders from both of our pathetic political parties are in on it. They pretend to oppose each other, but they’re almost all conspiring together to make sure they get their place in or near the elite and 1%. The Dems and Reps try to divide us as they enrich themselves, and leave us fighting over the scraps.

Easterner, perhaps it is we who can save us from ourselves, if people of good will come together across our differences for light and love and life.
We can try to listen more, and try to give each other the benefit of the doubt more, and try to find common ground more. We can try to be open to the possibility that the majority of us are actually well-meaning, and try to bring out the best in each other.
For some of us, the only one ultimately left to save us from ourselves is the one who is remembered as being born this day, in most humble of circumstances. He lived the majority of his life as do most of us, as a regular resident in his own hometown of Nazareth.
He called himself the Son of Man, which seems to mean the Common Man, and his message was one of love for all people without exception.
Christmas is the origin of human equality and human dignity and human rights that was unheard of in the sad and weary world of antiquity before Christ (B.C.).
It is in this sense, at least, that we can all say, Merry Christmas!!! — and all have some hope for the happiness and well-being of all the people of the earth, now and forever.
May God bless us all!!!