What to expect from Trump
We reluctantly voted for Donald Trump in 2024, feeling as did most Americans, that Kamala and the Democrats provided no reasonable alternative.
That said, what will Trump do immediately after his inauguration? We can speculate that he’ll cry, “Drill baby drill!” just as he promised earlier would be the first item on his American domestic policy agenda.
Oil will come gushing out of the ground. America will achieve energy independence. Prices at the pump will probably drop at least a buck per gallon. Commercial transportation costs and shipping fees will drop significantly. Prices at the supermarket will come down. Skyrocketing inflation should be nipped in the bud. Many new jobs will be created. Home building and affordable housing should increase. The American auto industry will probably take off. Americans, generally speaking, will have more disposable income in their pockets, and be happier for it.
However, what will not change is America’s unbroken commitment to, and obsession with, wars and military conflicts abroad. The Military Industrial Complex will not miss a step. The American arms industry shall prosper as never before. Raytheon, Boeing and Blackrock execs, I predict, shall go on grinning from ear to. I doubt that in any way a Trump presidency presents a threat to their profit margins. They’ll increase in fact. Eisenhower’s decades-old warning shall continue to be totally ignored. Bigger bombs, bigger guns, bigger missiles and more lethal shells shall roll off the assembly lines as never before. Because that’s what America does best, producing weaponry to blow up tens and hundreds of thousands of people around the globe, and destroy foreign cities, towns and villages, always, of course, in the interest of preserving U.S. national security.
The Israel lobby should have a field day in America under Trump. AIPAC will continue to keep most American politicians under its thumb. Trump will probably turn a deaf ear to continuing Jewish depredations in Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. He might tell Netanyahoo to tone down his genocidal instincts a bit. But taxpayer dollars will keep flowing into Israeli coffers. American 2000 pound bombs will keep dropping on innocent civilians, Christian, Kurd and Muslim alike.
Meanwhile, millions of American Evangelical Zionist Christians, harangued by fat, warmongering preachers in expensive Brooks Bros. suits will endeavor to keep their darling president on the straight and narrow, reminding them incessantly that by blessing Israel they shall be blessed.
Timothy Moore
Potlatch
A sad comparison
Comparison: Former President Jimmy Carter was happily married for 77 years. Incoming president has been married three times and was convicted of sexual assault. Carter served in the military. Incoming claimed he had bone spurs so did not serve. He said veterans are losers and suckers. Carter was a man of faith and protected the right of all to follow their own consciences. Incoming has lied to us over 40,000 times and thinks white Christian nationalism and racism give him the power to defy the First Amendment’s separation of church and state. Carter was proactive about having a balanced budget. Incoming wants to give the richest more tax loopholes while eliminating affordable health care. Carter divested himself of his peanut farm so there would be no conflict of interest. Incoming sells everything from gold tennis shoes to his own version of the Bible for profit. Carter devoted his life to serving humanity. Incoming serves himself, Putin, oligarchs and other dictators.
How low we have fallen in the eyes of the world and how far away from the ideals of a true democracy. Sadly, there is no comparison!
Sheila M. Robbins
Boise
Inflation Reduction Act vital
A priority for President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans is extending the huge 2017 tax cuts, which mostly benefit wealthy Americans. To pay for this $4 trillion giveaway, Speaker Mike Johnson said they would target the “Green New Deal” and “EV mandates.”
The Green New Deal does not exist; it was legislation proposed 2019 and never enacted. EV mandates do not exist. Instead, President Joe Biden initiated caps on average tailpipe emissions, which can be met by efficient hybrids and EVs.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022, however, is threatened. This landmark legislation spurs investment in clean energy, creates hundreds of thousands of new jobs, lowers energy costs for everyone, invests in rural electrification, reduces greenhouse gases, aids farmers, and offers tax credits for heat pumps, solar panels and EVs. The IRA has primarily benefitted Republican Congressional districts, with $165 billion so far in areas that voted for Trump in 2020 and $54 billion in those that voted for Biden. Idaho’s First Congressional District has received $316 million. The St. Maries School District received $14.2 million for energy upgrades, and Idaho schools, including Genesee, used $5 million in federal funds for electric school buses. The act will save the U.S. and the world trillions of dollars, with fewer droughts, wildfires, floods, hurricanes, crop shortages, and heat waves.
I urge you to contact your representatives and senators to encourage them to save the IRA. Its continuing benefits will allow the U.S. to preserve its global economic leadership and move toward energy independence.
Leonard Garrison
Moscow
Hamas broke the ceasefire
I am amazed, maybe even amused, by the persistent calls on these pages and in the Pulman City Council for a ceasefire in Gaza.
There was a ceasefire in place for many years that was continually violated by Hamas. They made a huge mistake with their massacre of over 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, including the beheading of baby Jews, and are now paying the price. How can any rational person believe those terrorists will keep their word on any future cease fire agreement? They won’t. It’s perfectly clear.
The nation of Israel granting a ceasefire to Hamas now would be akin to the Allies agreeing to a ceasefire with Hitler before crossing the Rhein. The Third Reich had to be utterly destroyed and you don’t utterly destroy with ceasefires. Hamas must be crushed, even as they shoot from behind innocent Gazans so they can send propaganda pictures all over the world claiming genocide.
That’s another issue of wonder to me. Hamas has publicly proclaimed its intention to kill all the Jews in the world. That’s a clear intention of genocide. The IDF, in the act of self-defense, fights back against Hamas, not the Palestinians, and gets accused by some among us of genocide against Palestinians. If the IDF were trying to commit genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, they are doing a very poor job of it. There’s a whole lot of Palestinians they have missed.
Bill Tozer
Moscow
Decent and moral? Hardly
The first action of the Idaho House of Representatives in 2025, HJM001, sponsored by Representative Heather Scott, “expresses the Idaho Legislature’s commitment to restoring the definition of marriage as a union between one man and one woman, urging the Supreme Court to reconsider the Obergefell v. Hodges decision and return authority over marriage laws to the states and their citizens.” Heather Scott has publicly stated that LGBTQ supporters are waging “a war of perversion against our children.” And I suppose she believes this Joint Memorial will bring decency and morality back to Idaho.
Yet, in 2022, when Rep. Aaron von Ehrlinger was accused and ultimately found guilty of raping a 19-year-old legislative intern, Heather Scott was happy to shame and disgrace the intern bringing the allegation. She, along with several of her Republican colleagues, said that the intern was a part of a “blatant, liberal smear job.” Does that sound very decent and moral to you?
Heather Scott does not know the difference between decency and injustice to get what she wants. She has no business judging others on their lifestyle choices. Not only is this Joint Memorial a total disgrace to our LGBTQ+ Idahoans, but it also shames our entire state. Heather, shouldn’t you concentrate on property tax relief and adequately funding public schools? Well, maybe not, after all, last year you spent a significant amount of time worrying about cannibalism. It is going to be a very long session ...
Heather Stout
Moscow
