Senator Tom Harkin and his wife kicked off the Clinton rally this evening with a top ten list of reasons to vote Hillary 2016 –

10. High energy, hard worker, expert at foreign policies

9. Works well with others

8. Strong relationship with family

7. Fights for the middle class

6. First woman president

5. Drives the tea party crazy

4. Tough and resilient

3. Best qualified

2. Has best organization

1. The people

Clinton states that she will grow the economy and that she will deploy half a billion solar panels at the end of her 1st term.  Clinton was very keen to make the point that a Republican President will ruin our economy.   She was very enthusiastic about raising the minimum wage and that women should get the same pay as men for the same job.   She regarded that she will make investments in clean energy to support rural and urban areas.  One bold statement the Hillary made was that anybody making $1 million a year, will have to pay 30% taxes. She was very passionate about lowering the price of drugs.  She wasn’t shy about stating that Sanders and the Republicans will ruin our nation. Finally, she mentioned that she would be the only candidate willing to stop gun violence and that the Republican don’t even care about it.

By: Jordan

KidUnity had the opportunity to visit a fundraiser for Blue Star Families, an organization dedicated to helping the families of military members. We met a participant of this organization, Kathy Roth-Douquet. She has two children deployed in the armed forces at ages 14 and 17. She told KidUnity that over 2 million kids have 1 or 2 parents deployed each year. When asked about her political views, she said that Blue Star Families is non-partisan organization, but Kathy specifically would like Hillary Clinton to become president. She says that whoever wins affects the community and military families because they become the new commander-in-chief. Kathy also says this is important to “remember community when choosing a president.” Unfortunately, we were unable to eat there although there was a breakfast buffet. It was a wonderful experience. We met with Kenneth M. Quinn, who presents the World Food Prize each year.

This morning KidUnity was fortunate enough to meet Senator Bernie Sanders. When we met him the gave us a very inspiring speech,”Politics is very important business, and if any of your friends tell you that you should not be thinking about the important issues facing our country, that’s not right, so I want you all to be thinking and discussing with each other and debating where you think our country should go and what the problems are, and I hope that from this experience, you all be involved in the political process for the rest of your lives. Democracy means that everybody should be participating, not just a few. Ok. Ok. ” I think that we can all learn from what Senator Sanders said.

Today, KidUnity visited with Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack. He talked to KidUnity about important issues that the United States faces. He also talked about the current presidential elections. When asked what he thought about Ted Cruz’s recent statements about corn, he replied that Ted Cruz realized his mistake too late by saying that we should not use corn for fuel. However, because the first Caucus is in Iowa, this will be a big blow to Cruz’s campaign. This is because corn is one of Iowa’s largest exports.

Because Ted Cruz is from Texas, he sees oil as a really important part of the economy. He thinks we should be focusing on using oil as fuel strengthens the Texan economy and he wants that instead of using corn as fuel, which is a slightly newer idea. Corn gave farmers another market to contribute to, and it makes it so that the U.S. doesn’t have to spend money on buying oil from other countries. So, after all of this, what do you think? Please comment down below.

On January 31, 2016, the KidUnity student reporters had the wonderful opportunity to meet the Secretary of Agriculture and former governor of Iowa, Tom Vilsack and his wife.  The reporters had many chances to ask him questions about many subjects, from his time as Iowa governor to his time as Secretary of Agriculture.  He and his wife, who runs the education section of USAID, gave us some amazing information about their lives and how they became so successful.  “Stay involved, dream big, and never give up” is what Secretary Vilsack told us at the end of the conversation.  Go to usda.gov and usaid.gov to learn about their organizations.

Kid Unity is preparing to speak with Secretary Vilsack of the Agriculture Department and his wife.  Here is some background information about Secretary Vilsack.  He was the governor of Iowa from 1999 – 2007.  He ran for president in 2004 as a Democrat candidate.   He is a member of Obama’s current cabinet.   He is in charge of the United States natural resources and how we can conserve and use them wisely.  He also helps to monitor what is considered organic and what is not.  He controls farming and the production of the food we eat.  He controls trade with other countries and does genetically modified research.  For example one of the things that his team did was change the genes in a salmon to make it a more larger sized salmon.  He has made great strides agriculturally in our country.

After the talk was over, with Secretary Vilsack, we learned more about his views and what he does.

How many people who voted for Obama (over Clinton in 2008) will now vote for Clinton?   Just wondering.

Do you think that Donald Trump is trying to get attention by not going to the debate or is he doing the right thing and is Megyn Kelly actually biased while asking the questions?

Vote here:

http://goo.gl/xWTzgs

Today we discussed how the Iowa Electronic Markets (A group of real-money prediction markets/futures markets operated by the University of Iowa Tippie College of Business. and run for educational and research purposes) have been extremely accurate in predicting political elections.

Based on our research, KidUnity will be investing in three candidates in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Nominations Markets. (This market is focused on predicting which candidate will get his/her party’s nomination.)

Here are the prices for some of the candidates as of today-

Clinton .84 per share, Sanders .27, Carson .004, Rubio .248, Cruz .265, and Trump .375

We have decided to divide our investment equally between Clinton, Trump, and Sanders. Rubio will get the remaining 1%.

We have decided that we will sell our shares after the Iowa Caucuses.