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Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner live in a house owned by one of the Luksics of Antofagasta. That’s corrupt. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue broke his promise to complete the scientific study of the effect of copper mining in the Boundary Waters watershed after Trump and Pence came to Duluth to shill for Stauber (Pence said that “you can take it to the bank” that the mineral withdrawal will be stopped). That’s corrupt. As far as the effect on the Ely economy of the scorned “lifestyle residents,” ask an Ely store owner how her/his business and employees would fare if all of those lifestyle residents, and all the Wilderness travelers and other tourists, suddenly decided that they would spend all their money at SuperOne and Menard’s in Virginia. And as for one’s willingness to take the risk of the devastation that would result from copper mining—What about the people on Birch Lake and the South Kawishiwi who are facing drilling now, with the future prospect of a massive processing plant, pipelines, paste plants, power lines, railroads, roads, lights, noise, and massive waste piles, and almost certainly open pits—Is it possible that maybe they aren’t willing to take the risk? Never mind the millions of people who love the woods and waters of the Boundary Waters and the rest of the SNF. Anybody who thinks that copper mines would come and there would be lots of new people and jobs and everything else would stay the same is not accepting reality. Speculative, clearly oversold mining jobs—to be held by persons unknown in locales unknown (but probably in front of a computer screen in Duluth or St. Paul) are not more important than real, identifiable people in real jobs with real businesses living in real houses right now at the edge of the Boundary Waters. I could introduce you to many of them.