Thursday, June 18, 2015

Who is honing at the stone for State Auditor cuts, a/k/a whose boat did the auditor rock?

This is aside from Becky Otto's stand on environmental sanity and thus making the mining-industrial complex's hit list; which received much attention last election cycle; e.g., as reported here; and with regard to some of the shameless opportunism it spawned; e.g., as reported here. [UPDATE: Here also.]

That was policy. And economic corporatism having its fiscal interests.

Then there is personal. A specific ox goring? You decide.

Back in January of this year Aaron Brown reported, here, in relevant part:

Iron Range senator plans to hold office while leading public sector lobbying group

Last Friday, the Range Association of Municipalities and Schools (RAMS) announced that State Sen. David Tomassoni (DFL-Chisholm) will be organization's new executive director.

In a Mesabi Daily News story over the weekend, Tomassoni confirmed that he would be starting the RAMS job after the end of the current legislative session. He said he would take a leave of absence from the position during subsequent sessions, during which RAMS would hire a lobbyist to perform what would otherwise be his normal duties.

Ballotpedia explains RAMS succinctly:

The Range Association of Municipalities and Schools is a government sector lobbying association. The association lobbies on behalf of public entities, and public money is used in part for this, according to the Minnesota State Auditor. [...]

[links and italics in original - red bolding added] So the good Senator holds two public-trough jobs, legislative with an annual salary, and lobbyist paid in part out of public money; because, well, Rangers can operate that way without shame or hesitation.

source
So, who exactly is at the honing stone, doing the knife-sharpening? Moreover, who is paying for that honing stone, is it in part public money? And why exactly are we seeing what we see?

Even if it's the Lone Ranger at the stone, how many Tonto players are there and what are their names, ranks, and serial numbers? Would they if put out of darkness and into sunshine then be touting private sector auditing of themselves and their conduct?