Rapid City celebrated New Years Eve 2013 with a fireworks show and other activities in and around the Main Street Square area. It was a balmy 16 degrees out, but at least there was no wind.

You can be sure that increased power will be abused and that the politicians will use it as a vehicle for buying and controlling another constituency in order to perpetuate their personal power. While we should all strive for a just society, let us not fall victim to the deluded notion that government is the best instrument for achieving that goal.

All this time I have been laboring under the false impression that the Congress was constitutionally assigned the duty of making and changing (amending) law(s) for the country. Silly me! I am SO embarrassed! Just shows how dumb a poor ole swamp rat like yours truly can actually be, I suppose.

No politician had a greater impact on the past year than freshman U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Cruz made his biggest mark when he and fellow freshman Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) led a last-ditch national grassroots effort to defund ObamaCare before the law went into effect fully. Imagine how many Senate Democrats wish right now that they had heeded Cruz’s entreaties and agreed to delaying or defunding it for one year.

If there is anything that defines “tyranny,” it is the Obamacare legislation, a distinctly un-American, completely illegal law that not only dares to force Americans to buy a product, but also compels Americans to violate their consciences by forcing them to carry policies that fund abortion. Because of this new, evil law, many Americans will become “criminals” as of January 1st.

An elderly woman who is a client of this insurance agency phoned me to ask for help. She is from my hometown of Griffith, Indiana. The federal government policy of not helping seniors to pay for self-administered drugs (“S.A.D”) when a senior is in the hospital caused the bill to our client.