Wildfire: Thirty-nine people are confirmed dead in the Northern California wildfires, breaking the 1933 state record of 29 killed in the great Griffith Park fire in Los Angeles. Vast areas are in a smoky haze hovering over ruins as the fires burn on.

 Sonoma County Sheriff Rob Giordano said, “We’re moving into a recovery phase. Identification is going to be hard. We have found bodies that were almost completely intact. And we have found bodies that were nothing more than ash and bones.”

  Hundreds of people have been reported missing or unaccounted for, but it’s too soon to know whether they are just lost in the confusion of evacuation.

In Santa Rosa alone, an estimated 2,834 homes have been destroyed as well as 400,000 square feet of commercial space.

To Your Health: Overnight, President Trump announced he’s ending Obamacare $7 billion subsidies to insurance companies that lower premium costs for the poor. Rather than  letting Obamacare fail as he has always claimed it will, Trump is destroying it.

He tweeted early this morning, “The Democrats ObamaCare is imploding. Massive subsidy payments to their pet insurance companies has stopped. Dems should call me to fix!”

Also yesterday, President Trump signed he says will dramatically increase healthcare coverage that will also undo significant portions of Obamacare. It has the potential to throw the health care markets into uncertainty and instability.

Frustrated with congressional inaction, Trump has turned to executive action to undo the Obama presidency.

Speaking in his customary superlatives, Trump said, “People will have great, great health care and by people, I mean millions and millions.” He promised that insurance companies will be crawling all over each other to provide coverage. “The competition will be staggering,” he said. “You’ll get such low prices for such great care.”

Trump’s order will reinstate low-cost, low coverage policies — essentially the junk insurance policies that were outlawed by Obamacare. It may have the effect of separating younger and healthier customers from the overall insurance pool, raising premiums for older and less healthy people.

It’s impossible to defy the actuarial tables with an executive order. Insurance companies can offer lower prices only by lowering the quality of the policy.

“This is going to be something that millions and millions of people will be signing up for,” the president predicted, “and they’re going to be very happy. This will be great health care.”

Trumponomics: Speaking on Fox News with non-journalist Sean Hannity Wednesday night, Trump equated a rising stock market with paying off the national debt.

“The country — we took it over and owed over 20 trillion.  As you know the last eight years, they borrowed more than it did in the whole history of our country.  So they borrowed more than $10 trillion, right?  And yet, we picked up 5.2 trillion just in the stock market.”
He went on, “Possibly picked up the whole thing in terms of the first nine months, in terms of value. So you could say, in one sense, we’re really increasing values.  And maybe in a sense we’re reducing debt.”

Except, as the president should know, the government doesn’t get the money, so the debt is still there.

Office Politics: After weeks of reports that he’s fighting with President Trump and hates his job, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly strolled into the press room and announced, “I’m not quitting today.” The former Marine general said, “I don’t believe — and I just talked to the president — I don’t think I’m being fired today.”

Kelly appeared at ease, but it had the marks of a forced performance. CBS News Correspondent Margaret Brennan said on the air, “Despite his denials, we know Kelly is fatigued by the president’s Twitter habit and by his temper.”

World: An American woman and her Canadian husband have been freed with the three children they had during five years in captivity after being taken prisoner by the Taliban while backpacking in Afghanistan.

Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle described their captivity as a “Kafkaesque nightmare.” In a raid by Pakistani soldiers, the couple said the last thing they heard before the shooting started was, “Kill the hostages!”

The US says it received cooperation from Pakistan after the family was moved across the border into the country.

Boyle refused an offer to be flown home by the US. His first wife was a woman who espoused radical Islamist views and is the sister of a former Guantanamo Bay inmate, Omar Khadr. Something complicated going on there.

Casting Couch: At least 32 women have now accused Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment, assault, and even rape. They include Angelina Jolie, Gwyneth Paltrow, Rose McGowan, and Kate Beckinsdale, who said she had an incident when she was just 17.

Speaking to reporters outside his house, Weinstein said he was headed to rehab and wants a second chance in the business. Fat chance.

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