Zombie Trump Channels "The Sting," Seeks to Bring Back Keystone XL

Cody Cain writes about the movie “The Sting” in Salon.

As the movie shows, at the heart of a con lies a deception. In the movie, the victim of the con, the “mark,” was a mob boss, and Newman and Redford assured the mark they had a secret connection in horse races, which gave them a sure way to pick the winners. They told the mark that if he bet on their tips, he was certain to win.

So the mark attends Newman’s betting parlor to test it out for himself, first on a small scale, and if it worked, he would make a bet to strike it big. The mark places his bet at the betting parlor following the tip, and sits down at a table to await the race. The betting parlor is quite nice with big-boards on the walls displaying the status of various races and loud speaker broadcasting live coverage.

The bell rings and the horses are off. The announcer relays the action as the horses gallop around the track. This one is in the lead, now that one overtakes. And here they come approaching the finish line, it’s going to be close, they’re neck-and-neck, and, the winner is… the horse that was predicted in the tip! It worked.

Except that it turns out that everything is fake. And Trump’s energy policy, in which he promises us unheard of prosperity if we would only embrace his notion of ditching climate change, is fake. Suppose he is right when he said in his energy speech in North Dakota recently that we have 1.5 times as much potential reserves as Saudi Arabia. Suppose we could leverage that into prosperity. It would be like a devil’s bargain — prosperity now for pain later. More likely, it would not even get off the ground as demand for fossil fuels like coal and oil plummet.

This is because manmade climate change is real and the fact that oceans are rising is real. If we do not act and we operate in the cavalier manner that Donald Trumpsuggests, our coastal cities and the whole state of Florida will be inundated. Water farther inland would be undrinkable because it would have salt in it. If you are concerned about foreign refugees flooding into this country, the refugee crisis that this would entail would dwarf either the Mexican immigrants or the refugee crisis taking place in Europe. Anyone who has read Grapes of Wrath will know what I am talking about. If we do not act, not only will extreme weather events happen more often, there will be dozens, hundreds, or thousands of refugees from right here inside this country coming to a town near you.

Ken Ilgunas, writing in Salon, says:

It’s difficult to determine what Trump actually believes and what he’s saying merely to pander to his audience of the day. (This time, it was to an audience of oil executives at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in North Dakota, where he wanted to pick up unpledged delegates to secure the nomination, which he did.) The sincerity of Trump’s climate denial is brought into question by the fact that he is applying for permission to build a seawall in Ireland to protect one of his golf courses from rising sea levels.

But as confused as Trump may be over climate change, he more than most politicians understands the usefulness of symbols in an election campaign, whether it’s his Reagan-era “Make America Great Again” slogan or his Mexican-American wall. Trump’s call to build the pipeline is a symbol to fossil fuel interests and free market ideologues that he won’t be a pushover to environmentalists.

I have heard certain Bernie or Bust types suggest that he doesn’t mean what he says most of the time. But given what he has said, we cannot afford the risk of electing him and realizing that he meant what he said. Keystone XL would not only be a threat to the environment, it would be a massive threat to property rights; it was being tied up in massive litigation in Nebraska by the time President Obama pulled it. Donald Trump, in a GOP debate earlier this year, said that he was for eminent domain, meaning that a Trump administration would seize millions of acres of property if that’s what it took to “make America great again.”

We have a moral obligation to make the planet better for our children and our grandchildren, not get as much as we can in the mistaken belief that the world is about to end anyway. Neither Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton would match Franklin Roosevelt’s commitment to the environment, but they are both light years better than Trump. Roosevelt created millions of new jobs through the Civilian Conservation Corps; they did numerous projects to protect the environment:

The workers of the CCC were paid to do tasks such as planting millions of trees, protecting forests from wildfires, opening summer camps, improving national and state parks, and combating soil erosion.

I submit that we must go father than what Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton offer. Everyone who wants work should have work, and we should have a work-based economy where everyone is paid a living wage. Courts could order defendants to get employment to pay fines and restitution and child support. People who have student debt could work to pay off their student loans. The government could pay for one year of college for every year you served.

Here is Bernie Sanders’ plan:

Bernie’s comprehensive plan to combat climate change and make sure our planet is habitable and safe for our kids and grandkids will:

Cut U.S. carbon pollution by 40 percent by 2030 and by over 80 percent by 2050 by putting a tax on carbon pollution, repealing fossil fuel subsidies and making massive investments in energy efficiency and clean, sustainable energy such as wind and solar power.

Create a Clean-Energy Workforce of 10 million good-paying jobs by creating a 100% clean energy system. Transitioning toward a completely nuclear-free clean energy system for electricity, heating, and transportation is not only possible and affordable it will create millions of good jobs, clean up our air and water, and decrease our dependence on foreign oil.

Return billions of dollars to consumers impacted by the transformation of our energy system and protect the most vulnerable communities in the country suffering the ravages of climate change. Bernie will tax polluters causing the climate crisis, and return billions of dollars to working families to ensure the fossil fuel companies don’t subject us to unfair rate hikes. Bernie knows that climate change will not affect everyone equally – disenfranchised minority communities and the working poor will be hardest hit. The carbon tax will also protect those most impacted by the transformation of our energy system and protect the most vulnerable communities in the country suffering the ravages of climate change.

Most significantly, he would do a better job of transitioning people working in carbon-based industries to green energy such as wind and solar. The people working in coal mines are not fooled; they realize that theirs is a dying industry. The people of West Virginia voted for Bernie Sanders because he offered a strong plan for transitioning people. Now, I am not sure how well working in a coal mine would translate into working in solar or wind, but the fact that he would create 10 million new jobs means that there would be a lot of people impacted from everywhere in the county.

Furthermore, Bernie Sanders ties in climate change to Citizens United. He rightly says that too many politicians are too beholden to big money interests like big oil and big coal and big fracking. He has shown that running a campaign based on small donations can still be competitive.

Hillary Clinton takes a different approach to fighting climate change, but one that is also very ambitious.

Create good-paying jobs by making the United States the clean energy superpower of the 21st century.

Set national goals to have 500 million solar panels installed; generate enough renewable energy to power every home in America; cut energy waste in homes, schools, and hospitals by a third; and reduce American oil consumption by a third.

Lead the world in the fight against climate change by bringing greenhouse gas emissions to 30 percent below what they were in 2005 within the next decade—and keep going.

And one of her initiatives could directly benefit the local economy.

Launch a $60 billion Clean Energy Challenge to partner with states, cities, and rural communities and give them the tools and resources they need to go beyond federal standards in cutting carbon pollution and expanding clean energy. The Clean Energy Challenge will also help ensure all Americans share in the benefits of a clean energy economy by encouraging solar and energy efficiency investments in low-income communities.

All the communities where I live are low-income communities (meaning they qualify for Community Development Block Grants), meaning that they would qualify for this program and could get a lot of money. There is local interest by certain landowners in hosting wind farms; towns or our country or a wind company could pay the landowners to host the windmills, and then turn around and sell the electricity to utilities, which are seeking to comply with requirements to produce cleaner and cleaner energy. I don’t know all the details of this program yet, but it would be something to look into. If that’s what we have to do to revive the area economy and keep people on the farm, that’s what we have to do.

Neither plan is perfect because I feel we can’t do enough to get people who want work employment, but both plans are light years better than anything Donald Trump offers. His energy plans would not benefit our local economy to our knowledge, but they could bring economic refugees from other parts of the country in a few decades’ time.

Donald Trump Carrying Out Vendetta Against Obama Over Trump University

Julianne Hing of The Nation writes that Donald Trump’s racist tirades against Judge Curiel deflect from the larger issue of for-profit colleges and universities.

It was a classic Trump move: create bogeymen out of thin air in order to prop up his self-imagined victimhood; home in on a person’s race or sex as the basis for his attacks; and then antagonize as a form of diversion from the matter at hand. That matter would be Trump University, the mogul’s real-estate courses that purportedly taught customers how to become like Trump, for as much as $35,000, or starting at the low, low price of $1,495. The lawsuit alleges that far from teaching students actual real-estate expertise, Trump ran a fraudulent business scheme.

Throughout the 2000’s, there were all these TV commercials from private universities saying how easy it would be to get your degree. One in particular showed this young lady at a job interview trying to convince the interviewer that she should have the job because she’s got a brilliant personality. Naturally, Donald Trump wanted to get in on the action.

Take, for instance, the 2010 Senate testimony of Joshua Pruyn, a former admissions representative for Westwood College, a for-profit chain of, at the time, 17 campuses. Pruyn was technically an admissions advisor, but in reality his position was that of a glorified sales rep. “During the interview, we were taught to portray ourselves as advisors looking out for the students’ best interests and ensuring they were a good fit for the school. This fake interview would allow the representative to ask students questions to uncover a student’s motivators and pain points—their hopes, fears, and insecurities—all of which would later be used to pressure a student to enroll,” Pruyn testified.
The for-profit schools industry targeted people of color, poor people, and veterans because they more likely to be eligible for public financial aid like Pell Grants. This much-parodied Everest College commercial should be very familiar with anyone who watches daytime television.

Donald Trump, of course, used these tactics to get people to sign up. No money? No problem; all you had to do was max out your credit card. The instructors were handpicked by Donald Trump (false) and you would get in on all his secrets about selling real estate. The catch was that if you had a lot of questions you couldn’t figure out, you had to sign up for even more expensive courses.

One episode on The Apprentice showed the low opinion Donald Trump has about higher education. He ordered his two teams to teach a class — that was the only instruction or guidance they had. I’ve always maintained that either you connect with a student or you don’t. But having gotten a teaching degree, I can say for a fact that you can’t always go into a teaching setting and expect to be good at it. Neither group scored particularly well; one group picked a good topic but botched up the lesson; the other picked a bland topic but presented it really well. You have to know the law, you have to know how to manage your students, you have to know how to prepare and assess, you have to know how to maintain discipline. And even with 4-6 years of preparation, your preparation does not cover every possible situation that can occur.

I submit that Donald Trump flirted with the White House in 2012 and is running now in part because he has a personal vendetta against Obama over this issue. After 2010-11, the President began cracking down hard on these private universities, the year after he got in on the action. Some private universities are good, but others are just in the business of taking your money. I submit that if they are not willing to do the hard work of proving that they offer value to the student in return for their money, they should not be in business.

Both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, while their plans are not perfect, offer improvements on the present situation. Both are far superior to Donald Trump and his plan to fleece people out of their money through more outfits like Trump “University.” Hillary Clinton’s plan:

Students should never have to borrow to pay for tuition, books, and fees to attend a four-year public college in their state under the New College Compact. Pell Grants are not included in the calculation of no-debt-tuition, so Pell recipients will be able to use their grants fully for living expenses. Students at community college will receive free tuition.

Students will do their part by contributing their earnings from working 10 hours a week.

Families will do their part by making an affordable and realistic family contribution.

The federal government will make a major investment in the New College Compact by providing grants to states that commit to these goals, and by cutting interest rates on loans.

States will have to step up and meet their obligation to invest in higher education by maintaining current levels of higher education funding and reinvesting over time.

Colleges and universities will be accountable for improving outcomes and controlling costs to ensure that tuition is affordable and that students who invest in college leave with a degree.

We will encourage innovators who design imaginative new ways of providing a valuable college education to students—while cracking down on abusive practices that burden students with debt without value.

A $25 billion fund will support HBCUs, HSIs, and other MSIs serving a high percentage of Pell Grant recipients to help lower the cost of attendance and improve student outcomes at low-cost, modest-endowment nonprofit private schools.

Hillary’s plan is not perfect because it expects states to contribute. This could lead to another situation down the road where states could refuse to pay their fair share, and the courts agree with them similar to what happened to Obamacare. Also, Hillary’s plan to have students work 10 hours a week could create a lot more competition for jobs, meaning that many would be left out — and still be saddled with debt when they leave college. A lot depends on the college and class, but some courses are particularly rigorous or the concepts are completely foreign, making it challenging for certain students to balance work and classroom instruction.

While Hillary’s plan would cover community college and room and board, Bernie’s plan would cover tuition.

Bernie introduced the College for All Act, which would “eliminate the $70 billion dollar tuition costs at all 4-year public colleges and universities.” To qualify, states would have to foot 33 percent of the bill (the federal government would sponsor the rest) and take various steps to maintain or increase expenditure on improving opportunities for students and faculty.

He would also pay for it with a Robin Hood Tax on financial speculation. Like Hillary’s plan, Bernie’s plan would risk Republican governors and legislatures opting out for political reasons like they are with Obamacare, leaving millions in the lurch. In other words, both plans would make headway, but would not completely address the problem of student debt.

On the other hand, both plans would be light years better than what Donald Trump would offer. He would abolish the Department of Education completely.

Trump didn’t go into detail of what he meant by local education or how to educate the children from South Carolina and New York, but he’s fairly certain that he would rid the country of the Department of Education.
For what it’s worth, the Department of Education might be marred down in bureaucracy like other government departments, but it still has significance. From early education to student loan reform to watching over for-profit schools and how well students are treated, the Dept. of Ed certainly has its place. It’s how low-income students receive Pell grants and how we keep track of school performance. Some federal oversight is needed when it comes to a benchmarked way of monitoring education in America.
Trump also failed to mention, or wasn’t given an opportunity, how he would regulate or monitor education in this country. Likely believing that principles of the free market will work for education, his ideas surrounding education are far too lightweight at the moment to believe that a Trump presidency would be good for students in America.

So, Donald Trump would not regulate it at all. Let the free markets decide. That would allow Donald Trump to restart Trump University and let it run rampant since there would no longer be a US Department of Education to regulate them. If George Bush fleeced the treasury of trillions to pursue his personal vendetta against Saddam,Donald Trump would not only fleece the treasury, he would fleece all of us through Trump University and other such outfits.

Grant City Voters Contributed $240 to Bernie Sanders Campaign

A zip code by zip code chart of the country done by the LA Times shows that Grant City voters contributed $240 to Bernie Sanders' campaign. That is more than Albany and a lot of other places in the area. Someone from Ravenwood contributed $15 to the campaign. Someone from Bedford contributed $5, while someone from Mount Ayr contributed $25. Someone in Maryville must really be feeling the Bern as that town contributed $3,858 to the campaign. Bernie has fueled his campaign with small donations averaging around $27 per contribution.

Why Bernie Keeps Winning -- Reclaiming the Legacy of the New Deal

One of the reasons Bernie keeps winning is that the Democratic Party has lost its roots. At the close of the primary, we need to get back to the promise of the New Deal. John Nichols writes:

About last week’s reports that Clinton was soliciting support from Republican donors who were unsettled by Trump, Sanders said on Friday, “Those are the kinds of things that make not only my supporters, but millions of Americans, nervous.”

Sanders argues that Democrats must recognize that, in many states, the dynamics of a fall race against Trump will not follow classic Democrat-versus-Republican or left-versus-right calculations. There’s an up-versus-down dynamic, as well, and the senator says Democrats must build a broad coalition of Americans who are angered by economic inequality. Noting reports that Clinton “is now reaching out to Jeb Bush’s fundraisers in order to raise money from them,” Sanders says “that really casts a doubt on the parts of millions of Americans.”

“Are you really going to stand up for the middle and working class when you’re collecting millions from Jeb Bush supporters?” asks the insurgent contender.

The argument that Sanders makes is that Democrats must mount a fall campaign that addresses the concerns of the great mass of Americans who are on the downside of the economic-inequality divide. “We are in this campaign to win, but if we do not win, we intend to win every delegate that we can so that when we go to Philadelphia in July, we are going to have the votes to put together the strongest progressive agenda that any political party has ever seen,” says Sanders, who wants to see that agenda spelled out in a platform that calls for “a $15 an hour minimum wage, an end to our disastrous trade policies, a Medicare-for-all health care system, breaking up Wall Street financial institutions…”

The reason that the Democratic Party loses elections is that they have lost sight of their roots. It’s just like a sporting contest; if you’re struggling, you’ve got to get back to the basics. We need to go back to the basics of the New Deal and unite around its principles.

That doesn’t mean that we return to the Southern Democratic model, which upheld Jim Crow as a way of life. The New Deal had its dark side, and that was it. But what it does mean is that we have to create an alternative to the “conventional wisdom” that we have to have austerity to protect ourselves from the Big Bad Terrorists or a massive swarm of immigrants and to get rid of the deficit.

The problem with the Clinton model, created after the loss of 1984, was that it watered down the New Deal in an effort to maintain southern votes which were going to the GOP in increasing droves. The winning model, crafted by Obama, was based on building on the Civil Rights era and making Blacks, Latinos, Native Americans, and others a part of a winning coalition. The fact that a Black man became president will be an inspiration to millions of young Black men who will see him as a role model and who can think of something beyond themselves. And to be fair to the Clintons, Hillary will inspire millions of young women in a similar way if she closes the deal and beats Donald Trump.

And not all of the problems with the New Deal coalition can be laid at the feet of the Clintons. The 1968 Convention, which represented a clash between the Union Democrats and the 1960’s youth who were inspired by the Kennedys, showcased the moral bankruptcy of a muscular foreign policy that sacrificed good will in the name of fighting communism. We honor and respect those who served in that conflict; we should never attack our friends and neighbors. However, we should always oppose our government when it pursues policies which are morally bankrupt and unsustainable.

Instead of the unworkable Neoliberal policies that arose during the Cold War, we should return to Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor policies:

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office determined to improve relations with the nations of Central and South America. Under his leadership the United States emphasized cooperation and trade rather than military force to maintain stability in the hemisphere. In his inaugural address on March 4, 1933, Roosevelt stated: “In the field of world policy I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor—the neighbor who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others.”

Roosevelt’s Secretary of State, Cordell Hull, participated in the Montevideo Conference of December 1933, where he backed a declaration favored by most nations of the Western Hemisphere: “No state has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another”. In December Roosevelt stated, “The definite policy of the United States from now on is one opposed to armed intervention.” In 1934 at Roosevelt’s direction the 1903 treaty with Cuba (based on the Platt Amendment) that gave the United States the right to intervene to preserve internal stability or independence was abrogated. Although domestic economic problems and World War II diverted attention from the Western Hemisphere, Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor policy represented an attempt to distance the United States from earlier interventionist policies, such as the Roosevelt Corollary and military interventions in the region during the 1910s and 1920s.

I would add a qualifier to this — we cannot have free trade agreements that do not protect workers and their jobs and that do not transition workers from displaced jobs. I accept that the TPP may be better than previous agreements; however, it does not go far enough. Instead, it pits working people against each other; it pits the farmer against the worker, who will be fired through no fault of their own. 

We lost sight of our roots when we intervened in Korea and Vietnam, and we lost sight of our roots in the 1980’s, following the Reagan years. And we lost sight of our roots during the dozens of times when we fomented regime change around the world against countries that we didn’t like. Bernie Sanders finally developed a credible alternative to the “conventional wisdom” created by Henry Kissinger, whom Hillary Clinton embraced publicly.

I submit that neither Bernie nor Hillary has gone far enough in returning to our roots. Contrary to popular belief, New Deal politics did not involve paying millions of able-bodied people not to work. We all know the type of person who feels they should not have to work and games the system so that they won’t have to. That is why Ronald Reagan’s “welfare queen” meme stuck. But Roosevelt’s social safety net was based on work, not welfare. Case in point — The Works Progress Administration:

While FDR believed in the elementary principles of justice and fairness, he also expressed disdain for doling out welfare to otherwise able workers. So, in return for monetary aid, WPA workers built highways, schools, hospitals, airports and playgrounds. They restored theaters–such as the Dock Street Theater in Charleston, S.C.–and built the ski lodge at Oregon’s Mt. Hood. The WPA also put actors, writers and other creative arts professionals back to work by sponsoring federally funded plays, art projects, such as murals on public buildings, and literary publications. FDR safeguarded private enterprise from competition with WPA projects by including a provision in the act that placed wage and price controls on federally funded products or services.

The Peace Corps and Americorps were attempts to build on this. After Vietnam, we have moved away from the concept of national service. We need to return to this concept. Rather than give people 3-5 years to find work and then kick them off welfare, we need to offer more opportunities like this for people who want to work, but who can’t find it. Given the reality of technological unemployment, we need to consider stuff formerly considered too radical such as Basic Income. Roosevelt did not stop there. He proposed an Economic Bill of Rights:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the Nation;

The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;

The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;

The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

The right of every family to a decent home;

The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment;

The right to a good education.

Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee. That means that we have to unite, not behind Hillary right or wrong, but behind the economic principles that brought our country back from the brink following the Great Depression. That means that if Hillary does something right, we have to give her credit. If she does something wrong, we have to hold her accountable. We have to create a permanent revolution in which we force our politicians to listen to the people, rather than the corporations. There is no place for violence in this process because we lose our legitimacy; rather, it is a matter of participating in the process so that our voices are heard. Hillary can be pushed; however, if we don’t push her, her default position will be the neoliberal positions that her corporate donors are pushing.

This means that we have to insist on complete transparency in everything, which is why I am adamant that Hillary should release her transcripts (just like I think Trump should as well). What is she telling Goldman-Sachs that she is not telling us? I don’t object to her making a lot of money from that; I don’t object that she is doing it. I object that she is keeping her speeches secret, as though they were classified information. She is a public figure; if she doesn’t want us to know what she is telling them, she shouldn’t be running for office. Our Republican friends would be a lot more likely to get on board with some of our ideas and even pay more taxes if the process is completely open and transparent. 

We cannot demagogue our way to victory, even against the likes of Donald Trump. We can, however, win by finding common ground with people of all faiths and political persuasions if we can do so without sacrificing our principles. The preceding is a good example. We have to be able to unite the country, not divide it and break the logjam that has been part of our process. We can suggest alternatives to Trump’s plans that would accomplish the same goals. Don’t want illegal immigration? Let’s crack down on corporations who hire them; don’t attack our friends and neighbors who come here to live a better life. If the word gets out that there’s no work here because employers would get in trouble, people won’t come and others would leave. 

A Trump Victory Over Clinton Would Not Be a Repudiation of Progressive Values

The first numbers from Real Clear Politics are out on the Trump/Clinton race. While they show Hillary Clinton leading Trump, it is not a sure thing. Currently, Ms. Clinton has 224 electoral votes in the bag, while Mr. Trump has 143. That means that there are 168 electoral votes that are up for grabs. 

Hillary Clinton has made her bed with the corporate big shots such as Goldman Sachs and others, who donated millions to her campaign and who paid her $225,000 per speech. To her credit, she takes more from small donors (Open Secrets) than the average person, but her actions show she is trying to have it both ways. As Cenk Uygur notes, if she had told Goldman Sachs stuff they did not like to hear, they would not have invited her back over and over again. And the word would not have gotten out among the 1% circles that she was someone they could do business with.

While a Hillary victory over Donald Trump is likely, it is not a given. And her attempts to court Bush donors are not going to help her in that effort. In order for her to win, she has to earn our votes. While I will vote for her, other people might not. She has to do more than triangulate and equivocate. Her recent stance on the Public Option is a good example. It sounds good on the surface, until you realize that all it does is allow people who are 50 or 55 to buy into Medicare. That is a good next step, since there are a lot of insurers who jack up rates for them because they are an insurance risk. However, that alone will not solve the problem of millions who are still uninsured. I had a lady on Twitter whose reaction to Hillary’s plan reminded me of the girl in the country song who sang, “That don't impress me much!”

Most of the Democrats who lost in 2010 and 2014 were not Progressives, but corporate Democrats. There were a few exceptions such as Feingold and Udall, but most of them lost because of the continuing demographic shifts of voters shifting from Southern Democrats to Republicans. Therefore, a loss of Hillary in the upcoming election would not be a repudiation of Progressive values, but a repudiation of Democrats trying to have it both ways by trying to court both the working class and Wall Street.

Another case in point is West Virginia. Paul Farrell, a West Virginia attorney, sought to run for President on the presumption that West Virginia voters, many of whom had families who worked for coal for 180-300 years, would repudiate both Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. He touted pro-coal, pro-gun credentials. However, West Virginia voted for Bernie, suggesting that Democrats in Coal Country are just as tired of corporate Democrats as the rest of the country. Farrell got around 7% of the vote even though people knew him, and I wonder how many of those confused him with the TV actor Will Ferrell, who has portrayed Presidents on late night TV before. It took me several tries on Google before I could pull up the West Virginia attorney.

One West Virginia exit poll showed that nearly half of Sanders voters would support Trump over Clinton. While the transition from coal to other forms of energy are inevitable with the signing of the Paris Accord, Hillary does not offer any kind of plan to transition coal workers from energy to other fields beyond vaguely mentioning clean energy. As a peon, I do not know how well skills learned in a coal mine translate to, say, solar and wind energy. Bernie did a better job of relating to these people; his trillion dollar infrastructure plan would create millions of jobs, his opposition to TPP would protect many more, and his $15 minimum wage means that companies would have to hire to meet demand, since people would have more disposable income. The November election is Hillary’s to win. But to do so, she has to relate to us, and she has to relate to workers who stand to lose jobs in the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.

Our Rural Population is Declining. We Can't Afford Politics as Usual.

The other paper last week noted that the population for the entire northwest Missouri area is declining. This is a continuation of a prolonged population decline that has happened since the early part of the 20th century. We went to the Hopkins CBC meeting tonight, and one of the people there noted that everyone coming to the community meetings was getting older. Our young people are moving away and there is nobody to replace them.

There was a reason why Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump carried Worth County and much of the area. People are sick and tired of politics as usual; Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump have one thing in common despite their many differences. They both want to halt the job exodus facilitated by politicians of both parties and bring our jobs back home. Mr. Trump's struggle in Wisconsin had more to do with demographics and less to do with any fade job on his part; the next several states cover friendly territory for him. And Hillary Clinton's husband, Bill, signed NAFTA, which helped trigger the exodus of jobs from this country, which explains in part why she can't put the so-called "Socialist" away.

We can't just keep doing things the way they have been and expect this decline to reverse itself. Our planners, leaders, county commissioners, and city councils are doing the best they can, but it is like sticking a finger in a leaky roof. If that means some of us have to pay more taxes, that means some of us have to pay more taxes.

The passage of the Worth County School Bond Issue and the Grant City Bond Issue by comfortable margins offers encouragement and points a way forward. People are willing to pay more taxes or keep a tax levy in play if they know that their money is going towards something worthwhile. In the school's case, people understood the need for the new parking lot and the gym floor and bleachers. We have jolted the car more times than we care to count over the constant potholes in the east parking lot. And the gym floor & bleachers, while they have served the school well for 50+ years, have lived their lifespan; the floor in particular was starting to warp and develop dead spots.

The news of the Panama Papers, which detail how numerous members of the 1%, including world leaders such as Vladimir Putin (Russia) and David Cameron (UK) hide their wealth for the purpose of avoiding taxes shows the moral bankruptcy of the present system. Even Donald Trump gets that the money has to come back home. If we can get our hands on some of that money, we can pay for all of Bernie Sanders' "socialist" proposals, many of which involve common sense. One such plan involves a $1 trillion investment in our roads, which would directly benefit northwest Missouri. One person asked us if we would get our fair share, but here in our district DOT, we have a capable head in Mike Rinehart, who has always ensured that Worth County has gotten its fair share in road funds. People will pay taxes for that if they see the need.

The Panama Papers are merely the tip of the iceberg as far as the wealthy elite are concerned. All of the Presidential candidates are tied in with them in some way, except for Bernie Sanders, which is why he got my vote. But it is totally unfair that certain people get to avoid paying taxes because of who they are; the rest of us, if we engaged in those kinds of tactics, would be called in for a massive IRS audit or jailed for tax evasion.

Mr. Trump came forward with another worthwhile idea -- reevaluate the way we defend our allies abroad. Our Pentagon has become so bloated that our politicians are afraid to say no when they request more spending. If the rest of government has to live within its means, then so can the Pentagon. If certain allies want us to help defend them, they can pay more of their fair share. That frees up money for us to spend at home instead of paying for military bases in 180+ different countries abroad, many of whom are not wanted locally. Other countries should not have to depend on Uncle Sam any more than we should. Nobody is saying we should not have a strong military, but we spend more on defense than the next ten countries combined.

This is a fixable problem -- get a handle on people gaming the system like certain members of the wealthy 1% and force the Pentagon to live within its means like every other agency. But a lot of politicians say it can't be done. But it's not that they can't do it, it's that they don't want to. It would stop the gravy train.