Today, Tuesday May 31, is the last day for candidates to file for running for office. [UPDATED TO AFTER FILINGS CLOSED]

Olivia Alveshere, Staff Writer for ABC Newspapers reports online.

Some offices beg for a challenge.
Do it now or regret it later.

UPDATE: June 1: The earth did not tremble with quakes, tsunamis, or torrential storms before filings closed, so at a guess whoever wanted to be a candidate now is one, and whoever chose otherwise is satisfied.

I am. There will be some interesting contests. There will be some unopposed incumbents extending their time in office (unless there were a flurry of last minute actions).

_______________FINAL FILINGS INFO REPORTED______________
Eric Hagen of ABC Newspapers has the latest (June 1) news. While his report is far more extensive, this excerpting:

County races
Incumbent Matt Look, Ramsey, will be challenged by Marsha Van Denburgh, Oak Grove, in the District 1 race for the Anoka County Board. District 1 includes all of Oak Grove, Nowthen, Ramsey and St. Francis and most of Anoka west of Ferry Street.

Incumbent Julie Braastad, Ham Lake, will face off against Maris Schilling, Andover, to represent Anoka County’s District 2 residents. This includes all of Bethel, East Bethel and Ham Lake along with most of northeast Andover and a small portion of Blaine north of 125th Avenue.

The voters in Anoka County’s District 3 will be narrowing the candidate pool during the Aug. 9 primary. Incumbent Robyn West, Blaine, is being challenged by Michael Harasyn, Spring Lake Park, and Nyle Zikmund, Blaine. District 3 includes Blaine south of 125th Avenue and Spring Lake Park on the west side of Highway 65.

Board Chairperson Rhonda Sivarajah, Lino Lakes, will face off against Kevin Ryan, Stacy, in the Nov. 8 general election.

[... LOCAL - RAMSEY] There will be no challengers for the four incumbents of the Ramsey City Council in the general election. Mayor Sarah Strommen and Council Members Mark Kuzma in Ward 2, Chris Riley in Ward 4 and at-large Council Member John LeTourneau all filed for re-election. Nobody else filed before the 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline.

The County Board challengers will have to define themselves before the general election, but it appears that filing was not so heavy as to require any primary winnowing. What is the proper reading of the four Ramsey incumbents going unchallenged? Who knows? Perhaps the Ramsey Reflector will opine. (last post there, Jan. 2016).

The SD 35, and HD 35A and HD 35B seats will not involve primary elections, Hagen reporting:

Senate District 35 – Incumbent Jim Abeler, Republican, Anoka; Roger Johnson, DFL, Coon Rapids.

House District 35A – Incumbent Abigail Whelan, Republican, Anoka; Andy Hillebregt, DFL, Ramsey.

House District 35B – Incumbent Peggy Scott, Republican, Andover; Wes Volkenant, DFL, Andover.

Again, the ABC Newspapers full report is online now; this link.

Reuters reports Rubio declines, this early, consideration of a Trump ticket second spot, based upon policy. Rubio stated, "Donald deserves to have a vice president - he's earned the nomination - and he deserves to have a running mate that more fully embraces some of the things he stands for." [UPDATED]

The headline Rubio quote is from Reuters, here. Aside from never ending a sentence with a preposition, and given that thought of a kindred soul being best for "Donald;" there is one perfect fit.

City Pages image, from: here
READ IT!

Considering this Wikipedia page, this websearch, and Trump University litigation now pending per reporting for example, here, here and here (where Politico in a link-over publishes the 172p "Trump University 2010 PLAYBOOK - ONE COMPANY. ONE CULTURE. ONE GOAL. Achieving Sustained Profitability in 2010."); considering that one goal of sustained profitability, and the PLAYBOOK's stated goal-oriented strategy and tactics, there is no more kindred soul for Trump than our CD2 former Rep., Col. Kline of the for-profits for Kline. It is a natural. Since the cap fits, Kline should wear it in tune with, e.g., p.98 of 172, instructing:

______________UPDATE______________
This link, for the first item the above noted Wikipedia item references; from earlier this year; and what does it tell YOU about the character and integrity of Donald J. Trump?

As a hypothetical, do you suppose that if Goldman Sachs had ever offered Donald J. Trump $250,000 for an hour's speech that he'd have turned it down? That he'd have left money on the table? Do you suppose that if he'd given several such hypothetical speeches, having them transcribed, that he'd now release his transcripts?

Candidate Clinton seems indifferent to the plight of students under crushing debt; Bernie feels for them and has a solution, so go figure what you are getting from the Democratic party Wasserman-Schultz and Clinton in-control crowd; if you are in the 99%.

What's the answer? Write in Bernie? Expect Clinton to have pangs of conscience, to blossom in office in ways her Goldman Sachs and Foundation cash flows auger against? Are you naive?

However either is packaged, Clinton and/or Trump, is there a smell that will not permeate through packaging?

Great two party system we suffer under, isn't it? Doesn't it all make you proud?

____________FURTHER UPDATE_______________
What Trump did showed a lack of conscience, for money. It was a shameful thing that has yet to be sufficiently shamed.

It is in a class with Clinton taking the Goldman Sachs money six figures at a time for an hour's work and not being dedicated to a fifteen buck minimum wage. Same lack of class, to each.

Clinton can redeem a position of trust with student debt sufferers, but so far has been regally disinclined, that being a character fault of hers deserving great scorn.

But this post is Trump's.

Forbes, here and here from almost exactly two years ago to the day; and the likely stuff that had the good Col. of Minnesota's CD2 haging up his six shooter to no longer be hired gun for the dreck-peddling privateers abusing the word "university."

If not that, at least something had the hired gun say, "No more." And bless circumstances for that.

And the post being for Trump means a focus on the gentleman's mystique, arguably stretched too thin; CNN publishing:

The playbooks, which include ones from 2009 and 2010, detail how the venture worked, how Trump University events were run and how to sell programs to customers.

From 2005 to 2010, when the program closed, about 10,000 students across the nation signed up for Trump University classes, which promised success in real estate by offering courses and seminars based on the principles of the businessman.
Now Trump University is the focus of two class action lawsuits in San Diego by some students who claim they were defrauded and a separate suit filed by the New York attorney general.

The order to release the internal documents comes in one of the California cases and is in response to a request by The Washington Post, which first reported the story Saturday afternoon.

Trump's lawyers argued the information should not be disclosed because it involved trade secrets. However, in a ruling released Friday, U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel did not agree and said there is public interest now in this case. Since the proceedings first began, Trump "became the front-runner in the Republican nomination in the 2016 presidential race, and has placed the integrity of these court proceedings at issue," Curiel wrote.

Trump defended Trump University as recently as Friday during a campaign rally in San Diego, where he attacked several of the judges involved in the case.
"The trial is going to take place sometime in November. There should be no trial. This should have been dismissed on summary judgment easily, everybody says it. But I have judge who is a hater of Donald Trump, a hater. He's a hater," Trump said of Curiel.

[WaPo link in original] And in another item, CNN again:

The ads for his university were classic Donald Trump -- Trump stares into the camera and proclaims:

"We're going to have professors and adjunct professors that are absolutely terrific people, terrific brains, successful. We are going to have the best of the best... and these are people that are handpicked by me."

But a CNN investigation finds that Trump and others involved in the school admitted under oath that some promises made to students just didn't happen.

In Trump's own deposition this past December, Trump failed to recognize the name of a single presenter or teacher at his real estate seminars. He also confirmed he had nothing to do with the selection process of instructors who taught at the school's events or mentors for the school's "Gold Elite" programs.

A review of Trump University presenters and so-called real estate experts found many with questionable credentials and inflated resumes. Court documents show background-checks conducted during the hiring process could not determine whether some instructors even graduated high school.

[...] As the lawsuits move forward, so do the depositions. And it is in deposition, under oath, where the truth has emerged behind Trump's university, his lack of involvement in the school's curriculum and his lack of knowledge about who was hired to teach what was advertised as "Trump's Secrets" to real estate success.

The depositions were given by Trump and his former president of Trump University, businessman Michael Sexton. Sexton came up with the idea in 2004 to put Donald Trump's brand on a real estate education seminar that was initially just online.

In a deposition for a lawsuit filed in New York, Sexton describes how he took the idea to Donald Trump through an intermediary and how Trump became so impressed with the business model, the billionaire invested $3 million and took a controlling interest. Sexton would be paid $250,000 a year to run the program, along with a cut of the profits.

New York's Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, [...] points to promotional videos made by Donald Trump in which Trump promises an education taught by his personal handpicked experts to teach Trump's exclusive methods for making money in real estate. Schneiderman insists Trump and Sexton contradict those claims when they are under oath.

"There wasn't one part of his pitch that was actually true," Schneiderman told CNN.

In a recently released deposition taken on July 25, 2012, Sexton, stated under oath: "None of our instructors at the live events were handpicked by Donald Trump."

Asked by attorneys if anyone at the Trump Organization was involved in the curriculum for the three-day real estate workshops, Sexton answered, "No."

Sexton confirmed Trump's lack of involvement in producing or reviewing the material used in the workshops.

So, in terms of the man who coined the sobriquet, "Lying Ted Cruz," what think you in light of deposition admissions of:

click to enlarge and laugh

Does this Donald J. Trump of deposition under oath, and of promoter-speak for a few bucks from gullible rubes laying it on with a trowel, ring as honest and trustworthy to you?

As deserving your vote? For leader of the free world? As having earned your trust, as with others?

FURTHER: Congratulations. You are not easily convinced and want more evidence. WaPo, here and here. As good as his word.

___________FURTHER FINAL UPDATE____________
How about the essence of Donald J. Trump (and his renamed "University" - same sales pitching, only the name has changed - and his likely Presidency) in two images and a tune?

click each image to read

TUNE.

Larry Klayman loses appeal of a summary judgment dismissal of his defamation suit against local people and media.

Sorensen at Bluestem Prairie posts the news, in context, and links to the online Eleventh Circuit unpublished opinion affirming the trial court's dismissal. Not at issue in that litigation, whether Klayman is an idiot or bully and whether he uses litigation for questionable purposes fitting his whim and fancy. The value judgment of whether Klaymen is good or bad for the nation is, of course, not really justiciable. Larry's opinion there might differ from mine, while on a case by case basis and not via an in toto consideration, some of Klayman's litigation has had merit. Suing NSA comes to mind.

In a separate recent Bluestem Prairie posting, Sorensen looks at the Darlene Miller Republican CD2 campaign, linking here.

Mention of the second item is because it links to an item containing the statement, "Even former fan and Tea Party conservative Tom Emmer is turning his back on Darlene Miller because it’s clear her non-existent campaign is a one-way ticket to nowhere." That's not within the Sorensen item. It is in the linked item. Is that defamatory? More interesting a question, might Miller and Klayman file a suit against the DCCC claiming so?

And, if you are going to talk about or write about Larry Klayman in a Minnesota context, what's he done lately for his former Minnesota client, beloved Pastor Bradlee Dean? And vice versa?

After a websearch, it appears Bradlee Dean is still going. Not getting headline media coverage, as if yesterday's darling is today's non-issue, but still Bradlee at his thing.

Apart from Bradlee Dean, clearly so, it is an interesting turn of words "one-way ticket to nowhere."

Oh, apart from Larry Klayman too. Of course.

________________UPDATE________________

To the left, a current Pastor Dean self-image. Not holding a cash box. Not holding a cross. It interestingly appears that if you enter into your browser the URL of what had been a Dean alternative to manual labor,

http://youcanruninternational.com/

it will auto-rotor to:

http://sonsoflibertyradio.com/

(an apparently different Dean alternative to manual labor, and source of the image)

All that is per the return list of a websearch, "Bradlee Dean." Another link to the good Pastor's recent collected writings, here, has the sidebar plea:

Barbwire.com
Barbwire.com --
Friends, favor to ask. Would you consider sharing this article on my new book "Hating Jesus: The American Left's War on Christianity"? Trying to get the word out on the book and rally the troops in the battle against the Christ-hating secular Left. Thanks! Matt

So here it is:

http://barbwire.com/2016/05/23/hating-jesus-matt-barbers-explosive-new-book-exposes-liberals-trying-wipe-christianity-u-s/


Remember, you saw this shoutout at Crabgrass well before any appearance on any Freedom Club web location or any billboard along any major highway. Don't contribute to Abigale's or Peggy's campaign. Buy this book instead.

Debbie Wasserman Schultz - Hey grassroots, why the drying up?

Brother can you spare a dime?
A reader forwarded an "aim high after all it's head of the DNC" solicitation email, stating in relevant part:

We’ll get to the point. And fast.

Here’s what we’ve raised so far this month: $19,640

Here’s where we need to be by May 31st: $25,000

May is almost over, and as you can see, we’re behind. The worst thing we could do right now would be to give up. This update wasn’t meant to discourage anyone -- it’s meant to fire us all up.

We can still reach our May goal. It’s not too late, yet. Can you step up and give $5 or $10 today?

[...] Debbie needs [... but does not heed - and, end of story]. She has six opponents to fend off, and we don’t want her to be worried that she won’t have the resources to hold them all back.

Six Canovas? NO FOLKS. ONLY ONE THERE.

ONLY ONE NEEDED. PURGE THE DISEASE.

Debbie not worth twenty five grand? Not even worth a tiny pinch of sand? Those grassroots long ago quit pumping, for the likes of an entrenched third rate biased bozo. And why not, given the giant Sanders crowds and the DNC treatment of level playing norms, mistaking Sanders and his crowds for a toilet? Who in their right minds would have given that sorry excuse for leadership more than nineteen grand? Superdelegates paid that much? Why? Or was it super egos? Albright and Steinem not wanting shame on themselves? Who?

NO - I would not admit it either.

A random thought.

Trump's judicial appointment list. He blew the dog whistle and the ones who came running first - barking, salivating and snapping their teeth were the brand of judicial conservative he craved. Regardless of where their hearts were, their opinions would be where the band inside the Church and Commerce Chamber would want, and it was a list for Church and Chamber approval to bolster the Trump candidacy as "legitimate." As having sufficient "conservative bona fides." Not a litmus test. A dog whistle test. Jeff Sessions for VP.

Strib Editorial Board jumps all over Clinton with spurs on over the State Department IG invstigation; but did they jump on Clinton practices enough, now and as a pattern?

Strib here, with mid-item paragraphs noting:

[...] Three previous secretaries of state willingly submitted to interviews about their own practices: Colin Powell, Madeline Albright and Condoleezza Rice, as well as Kerry.

It’s bad enough that Clinton continually refuses news interviews on the topic, but to decline to talk with the inspector general charged with investigating her conduct, even as she is asking Americans to elevate her to this nation’s highest office, is unconscionable. [...]

It’s unclear why Clinton has dragged this out to the point that it is tainting her candidacy and feeding already rampant doubts about her trustworthiness. Clinton has been in government far too long not to know the need for properly preserving federal records. She also knows that she was supposed to surrender all department-related e-mails upon leaving office, yet it’s taken two years to obtain them. Clinton must assure voters that this is not the way she would conduct business in the White House.

Importantly, the audit also notes that the inspector general could find no evidence that Clinton received approval from the department’s legal adviser to use a private e-mail server, even though Clinton has said she had permission. Instead, a director reportedly told State Department staff members that they were to “support the Secretary” and “never to speak of the Secretary’s personal e-mail system again.”

[italics added] Clinton was in the White House when Rose Law Firm billing records were not kept at the Rose firm as would have been ordinary practice and Clinton got into that bizzare lost-and-found game with records not in the White House when the Rose billing question was fresh, but showing up substantially later; with Rose Law Firm close colleague Vince Foster's strange death situation coming between lost-and-found. It was not a cadre of Rose operatives transferring lives into the Clinton White House. It was, in particular, Vince Foster.

All the while, the Rose Law Firm's data retention locations is where those Clinton-related firm billing records belonged. They were the firm's property. To be left there, as is the ordinary practice, upon Ms. Clinton's leaving the firm. Not to be taken out and away off site and in the exclusive custody of only Clinton herself, to be disappeared at a critical time, found later.

As to records retention decency, and less, the clear and undeniable fact is that Clinton well before basement server play time was experienced. And deficient as to the decency side of the coin.

It was been there done that, doing it again.

Yogi Berra's Deja vu all over again.

Two bites at the same apple? Is that one too many to trust? Disappearing or otherwise ill-managed records is circumstantial evidence from which a fact evaluator can draw conclusions. Usually against the one having assumed custodial power along with holding preemptive levels of policy control. It was deliberate, it fits a pattern reaching back to Rose Law Firm record retention and non-production mischief, and Brian Fallon can blow all the smoke he can for as long as he can, but it's indicative of something. Something kind of ugly. Pattern-wise.

UPDATE: As to more deja vu, the question of record integrity and completeness exists. When there's been out-of-ordinary basement server hijinks, that calls into question what might have wrongly been deleted at possibly important times (State Department decisions, Foundation donation parallelism, Bill's speech fees, etc.), there earlier was uncertainty about whether in the interval between Vince Foster's last leaving the White House alive and later investigatory personnel closing off and then surveying his White House office contents, whether anyone had entered that office and removed any papers.

All over again. Similar circumstances. Similar considerations. Two bites. Same apple.

FURTHER UPDATE: There apparently was only one set of Clinton - Rose firm billings, back then? Has there been press notice of whether FBI possession includes any/all hard drive backup for the rouge server? Head of State Department, basement server, and are we told whether there was sufficient data backup and who has custody of backups?

If any reader has seen that question resolved in the press; please leave a comment with a link.

FURTHER UPDATE: A number of websites exist speculating in ways that the label "conspiracy theory" might be used in discrediting or attempting to discredit site content.

With that noted, NY Times, here, and PBS Newsline with Ted Koppel, online here. Mainstream can be wrong, but it remains mainstream; with stories about decades old questions of Clinton evidential uncertainties.

With that history, why a secret basement server for email was a deliberate choice instead of using proper State Department protocol and channels as had been the more normal practice; that is the question.

And what of that IG report's mention of official instructions to underlings that mention of the basement email kludge was off limits? What predisposition does that evidence?

Again, a present examination of past event reporting need not use uncertain sources about uncertain things. That is not the point. Not at all. The point is simple: Where's the learning curve, if the intent were not to have weasel room in today's arrangements about critical federal data and its preservation or possible wrongful destruction?

Expanding on that, the past uncertainties were reported by dependable mainstream sources. The point is not whether uncertainties from decades ago can or should now be resolved by reconsideration; but that past notice of evidence problems and questions should not in another high federal office recur. It is inexcusable in such high office practice to lack anything approaching an ordinary person's common sense level of a learning curve; and inferences of intentions can be drawn by voters over "Trust me" stonewalling when lack of a learning curve and a consequent change of habit is apparent. Especially in the context of a family's rise to multimillionaire status as career politicians twice embroiled in proper data handling uncertainty. What's to trust?

____________FURTHER UPDATE____________
"Entitled executive syndrome," this link.

LATEST REPORTS: Tarnished Starr. Readers are free to anticipate Schadenfreude among some.

Google search links rather than individual items. First, Ken Starr's positioning at Baylor U. adjusted for recent events, with it unclear what ancillary adjustments might be entailed.

Bushco land. Bushco friend. Happening among our good Baptist friends in Waco, (home of federal church-commune burning).

For those favoring a more private search engine's usage; comparable Duck Duck Go links, respectively here and here.

UPDATE: Representative reporting; NY Times, and a carried AP feed.

FURTHER UPDATE: NPR online reporting links to the Baylor Board of Regents press release, and to the outside investigating law firm's findings.

FURTHER UPDATE: If it were a political campaign doing damage control, historical preservation opportunity as per mid-morning of May 27, 2016, would have been damage controlled offline already. Universities move at a more glacial pace:

click to read

FURTHER UPDATE: Same mid-day as the above screen capture was taken and posted, Starr's Wikipedia page had been updated. That page links to the Wikipedia page of Brett Kavanaugh, a Starr aide in Lewinski and Vince Foster investigations Starr supervised; Kavanaugh also having had a prime government job under George W. Bush, and a subsequent Bush appointment to a prestigious judgeship. Interestingly, Kavanaugh's name is absent from the Trump list.

Trump must like him where he already is.

FURTHER UPDATE: The Starr family includes two adult daughters, neither of whom are Baylor graduates, but each holds a BA so that presumably part of Ken Starr's distress over the Baylor-football situation is that he'd not have wanted either daughter to have gone through what Baylor women have.

A Trump - Sanders California Debate "in California before the June 7 primary"?

Tweet following by a Republican web presence, here, discusses the possibility, and the Young Turks are noted there as interested in hosting. Of remaining candidates it appears there may be an empty chair, should such an event happen.

Two Tweedles weigh in on Cuba. What's good for Cargill is good for the USA.

Strib itself, not an AP feed, "Keep pushing Cuban trade, Klobuchar and Emmer tell business leaders -- Two top Minnesota lawmakers say the business case will be key to building support to end the long-standing trade embargo, By Jim Spencer - Star Tribune - May 25, 2016 — 9:42pm."

“You have a case you can make as businesses,” Kobuchar told the group, which primarily included representatives of Minnesota’s corn, soybean and livestock industries, but also some from manufacturing and technology.

Emmer warned that “it is not enough to say you’re with us; you need to go person to person.” Hearing from a CEO responsible for local jobs is what it will take to convince the public, the Sixth District congressman said.

[...] Klobuchar and Emmer have traveled to Cuba since President Obama announced plans to try to normalize relations with the island country 90 miles from Florida. They returned convinced that good opportunities exist for American companies in tourism, agriculture, technology and construction.

Many of the businesspeople in Klobuchar’s office Wednesday participated in a White House Business Council meeting later in the day to discuss trade opportunities in Cuba. Most had traveled there since Obama announced his normalization plans.

Dee Dum. Dee Dum. If Lewis Carroll had written in a third Tweedle, it would be Strib. How in the world can you call it journalism, if an entire article is written about giving Cargill what Cargill wants; without [do the word search of the online item yourself] without ever mentioning Cargill by name? How can you do that with a clear conscience? What is it? The name we do not speak? The 800 pound gorilla in the room, so only say a group of animals?

Are we next to be having a different profit-seeking bloc wanting to be selling Cuba weaponry, as with Vietnam? Or would the fact Cuba neighbors us and not China quell the enthusiasms of any such profit-seeking bloc? Or if such enthusiams would stand unquelled, would saner minds prevail? The Tweedles together, on that question??? It looks like Clinton foreign policy to me, but without any paid speeches. So far.

UPDATE: In fairness to Klobucher and to Emmer, so far there has not surfaced any Klobuchar Foundation, nor any Emmer Foundation. Neither has moved in any such direction. Each has eschewed such opportunity.

Brian Fallon. Where did they find this guy?

In an earlier item, a link here repeated. Then, in that context, Mr. Brian in a representative it's shinola moment.

Put your actual name to a comment and submit it, if you find Fallon's approach palatable. He's an idiot.

More from a different old guy who despises what establishment moves were put into place during and after 1968 when uppity antiwar sentiment bothered establishment owners.

Here and better yet, here. Poster children for the establishment fashioning of the student loan millstone to put about the necks of the young to make them and their services more pliant, less uppity. Ingrate reeducation camp equivalents of what the Chinese and North Koreans do with dissent. Iron fist. Velvet glove. And if anybody says, "What glove?" the press has amazing blind eye capabilities. Second item, opening salvo:

Bubba and the Bride of Bubba

This is a pair who undoubtedly toasted the death of the New Deal at their wedding.

They were the New Democrats, you see, eager to shuffle off working people, especially those icky union people, who had been the backbone of the Democratic Party. Much better to hang around with the Robert Rubins of the world — you can spend your weekends in the Hamptons — rather than with the people who barbecue chicken and burgers and pop open a PBR. The Clintons were pioneers in moving up the food chain.

Yes, they yearned for a brave new world, run by the preening professionals who had all the answers, the “creatives.” It would be a meritocracy, where the professional cream would rise to the top, and anybody who worked hard and got the right (Ivy League) education could be the cream. If you didn’t (or even if you did), and couldn’t, well, somebody has to be the losers so we know the winners by contrast, right? There is a broad strain of Calvinism in there if you look for it.

Bubba began to identify the losers early through the ’94 crime bill and ’95 welfare reform. Hillary marched in lockstep with Bubba on this, but she has been understandably quiet about that out on the hustings recently. She also thought that the NAFTA was a great idea, but she has now found it politically expedient to disavow her prior and documented support of the TPP, at least until after the election.

[links omitted] Read it all. Follow links. Education requires reading and thought. Mainstream media is short on both, having much to say about what's wrong with them Twins.

Beyond a fairly economical use of gunshots at the time, 1968 itself, as a time of awakening, has lived on. Later this year the beloved two parties will convene and the whole world will be watching.

Hey, Jesus loving Bible thumping Big-R Republicans. You, Peggy and Abigale. Your guy Draz has family.

Hat tip to Sorensen at Bluestem Prairie noting things Road Dogs and Adult.

It seems there is a Ramsey couple, with a past publicly declared "smut" hate. Where are they now? Why are they not donning red tee shirts and talking reform of conduct with the Raod Dogs? Or at least using the Draz as intermediary to negotiate to foster public censorial decencies?

I can envision a "High Noon" type of storied confrontation. Ted Cruz, standing tall and alone, deals justice to Road Dogs. No red shirted backups in tow. Standing tall and alone. No Grace Kelly getting off the train, getting off the next-to-last shot. No Abigale. No Peggy.

Strike? What stike? Look over there, the guy with the funny hair is dissing Elizabeth Warren.

[UPDATE: Strike reported ended, this link.]

This link. Communication Workers endorsed Bernie. Well none of that is news. Not really. If it were, Glen Taylor's Strib would carry it. Indeed, if news, it would be featured over Kabuki theater.
Is it an old time strike? Head busting Pinkertons and all? Or just a bunch of over-paid sore-heads not deserving public sympathies? They're above minimum wage; aren't they? What's their beef?

It seems strangely ironic that communication workers cannot engender any big media communication. Is it a situation dependent on the corporate nature of communication ownership? Or is it just me? Some crank asking questions.

What strike? Any issues? Where's Hilary - really, not what she's saying now - on TPP? With Obama? Opening paragraph:

Today marks six weeks since nearly 40,000 Verizon workers went on strike along the East Coast, from Massachusetts to Virginia, marking one of the biggest U.S. strikes in years. The workers have been without a contract since August amid attempts by Verizon to cap pensions, cut benefits and outsource work to Mexico, the Philippines and the Dominican Republic. On Tuesday, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam admitted the company’s second-quarter earnings may take a hit because the strike has resulted in the company falling behind on new internet and television installations. This comes as financial analysts are projecting the strike will cost Verizon $200 million in profits this year and a loss of $343 million in revenue in the second quarter alone. The Verizon strike is being organized by two unions: the Communications Workers of America and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Oh. That strike. Those issues. Where again is the online copy of the latest proposed TPP text? Who's writing it? Could you get to see a copy if having a seven figure investment account with a Goldman Sachs financial advisor? What are the ripest investment opportunities in Philippines, or Tunisia? You'd probably have to be a State Department insider to know that kind of thing, knowing policy trends in our government and all. Great world. Have a great day.

REAL news. Tom Bakk and Kurt Daudt reached an impasse. Who'd have guessed?

UPDATE: It appears most of the strike impact and issue negotiation [good faith negotiation?] is on the east coast, so flyover land coverage may be scant because of that. Issues? Make of that what you will.

FURTHER UPDATE: From the DemocrocyNow! item:

AMY GOODMAN: So that’s Bernie Sanders. But just before the debate, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell questioned Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook about [his] history with Verizon.

ANDREA MITCHELL: She gave a paid speech to Verizon in May of 2013, for which she earned $225,000. Can you tell us the circumstances of that speech?

ROBBY MOOK: Well, again, the question here is: Who are Democrats going to nominate who’s going to—who is going to get things done in Washington—

ANDREA MITCHELL: Let’s get back to the speech.

ROBBY MOOK: —and take on these corporate interests?

ANDREA MITCHELL: Why did she take $225,000 from Verizon, from the same company which has this massive strike, the biggest strike in America in five years? And she was out with the strikers, yet she took $225,000 from the very company that they are striking against.

ROBBY MOOK: Because time and again in her career, Hillary Clinton has stood with people against powerful interests. She did that in the '90s against the health insurance companies. She's done that more recently against the fossil fuel industry, calling for their tax breaks to be taken away. She has the toughest plan on Wall Street. No one can be trusted more than Hillary Clinton to stand up to these interests.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Robby Mook, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, on MSNBC being questioned by Andrea Mitchell.

No one can be trusted more than Hillary Clinton. Her campaign staff says so. Coors advertisements say Coors makes the best beer. In commodity sales sellers tout the commodity. It is a trusted approach. Trust is key.

FURTHER UPDATE:
Is Robbie Mook really the turkey that excerpt makes him look to be? If so, how do the Clinton people tell him apart from Brian Fallon?

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon on Wednesday pointed to the IG report’s broader conclusions to say that Clinton’s “use of personal email was not unique, and she took steps that went much further than others to appropriately preserve and release her records.” He said the report showed that the agency’s problems with records were “long-standing” and that, if Clinton ran the agency today, she would adopt the IG’s recommended remedies.

Fallon said in a statement that “political opponents of Hillary Clinton are sure to misrepresent this report” for partisan purposes.

Appearing on CNN, Fallon said that Clinton declined to be interviewed by the IG because “it made sense to prioritize the review being conducted by the Justice Department.”

Twin sons of different mothers. Each born within a quite short walk of the Blarney Stone. Finding that pair? What, did they transfer from the Foundation?

CHANGE.. You better see it and believe it. We sell killing power.

Strib, here:

 Our President. No strings attached.

And if there is "surplus" killing power, we have a national grant system to give it away free to our urban police.

Militarize Vietnam. Again. Militarize Syria. Militarize Islamic jihadists so we can counter militarize. What was it Ike said?

Here and here. Knowing who the enemy is is a predicate step to fighting the enemy. Have a fine election. Which of the apparent to-be-endorsed candidates do YOU hate the most? And, why? Of the two parties, same questions. DWS is a national embarrassment, not merely one party's. She is like the party functional equivalent of Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan rolled into one. Who put her into the DNC leadership seat? Why? Two conventions. The whole world will be watching.

Basement kludge email server where owner-operator can delete email at whim. Or in some perverse and purposeful way, (depending upon mood, motive and inherent rectitude). A problem? It can be made to go away from the comfort of home. An 83 page wrist slap in government-speak. Where more arguably was due. The FBI is staying silent; ongoing inquiry.

Here's Politico's link to the report online. Read all about it. Better, read it.

UPDATE: Ars Technica has as good as any reporting. Musings of an inquisitive mind. If you do not want to slog through the entire report, load it and do a word search; "trustworthy."

Prematue self-congratulation. Figuring Trump to spring a surprise, and seeing his doubling back upon Bill Clinton's infidelity [spousal "enabler" is the term he used], there was only one singularly best Vice President nominee - Kenneth Starr.

Yes and no. This KOS link.

At least it was not Starr directly, as perp, but as the blind eye that had hounded the one Clinton who, so far, has made it via popular vote to the oval office. Tarnished Starr?

So, Scalia died, Starr's got his Jockgate to match Chris Christie's Bridgegate; so John Roberts, he's still a Trump choice, although it's worth a background check into exactly how the Citizens were United.

Easy editing, easy journalism. Find some crank who'll give you a comment, and publish. If it's GOP, then it will be a Cruz crank.

Red Tee Shirt time.
Ted Cruz time.
Surprised?

MnPost under a headline readers are welcome to dispute, "'Never Trump' is toast in the Minnesota GOP. Can the party move on in one piece? - By Sam Brodey | 05/23/16". Moving on in one peice? Well both front and back halves of the elephant are linked together with that thick midsection; yet in any event deja vu, too, this mid-item quote:

When convention weekend finally arrived, the anti-Trump sentiment was palpable in the halls of the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center.

Key anti-Trump leaders struggled to get an accurate read on the size of the anti-Trump contingent at the convention — estimates ranged from 20 to 40 percent — but they were visible: some attendees wore Rubio sweatshirts; others wore Cruz hats and buttons.

In the convention hall, alongside booths for Trump, the endorsed congressional candidates and an often-unmanned Hispanic Republican Assembly of Minnesota booth was a Cruz for President booth.

Wayne Buchholz, a convention attendee representing the 35th Senate District in Anoka County, was wearing a Cruz hat and sticker as he spoke with other Cruz supporters in the registration hall Friday morning. “Trump is not a conservative,” he said. “I’m hoping we can get enough delegates at the nationals that are supporting Cruz that will overturn Trump if he doesn’t get it on the first ballot.”

His wife Maria, wearing a Cruz sticker and a button proclaiming “Socialism Sucks,” added that she could not “in good conscience” vote for Trump. What was the best course of action at the convention now, though? “As far as what I’m gonna do, I don’t have an answer for you,” Wayne said. “No matter which way we go, this party is just being ripped in two.”

Aptly, the event, as reported, was held at an "Entertainment and Convention Center." So, which end of the elephant backed Cruz?

UPDATE: Disagreement often is a good thing, yet there is charm given that reported 20 - 40% estimate, to the phrase:

The #NeverTrump rump.

Bridge would be an entirely different game if a #NeverTrump mentality were to take hold.

FURTHER UPDATE: Don't those clowns read? This from the MinnPost item, later text than the prior quote:

NeverTrumpers surprised at defeat

Shortly after the resolution was defeated, Thul entertained a trickle of delegates who came to thank him. “I am surprised it failed,” he told MinnPost. “I think people read more into the resolution than we intended.”

Thul said he wasn’t bitter. “We had a democratic process. We got to have a debate on it,” he said. But in the minutes after the vote, he said, two party county chairs already told him they would be resigning, too. “We talk about politicians — you can’t trust them, they’re in it for themselves, they never hold to their principles,” Thul said. “If we, as activists, don’t hold to our principles, how do we expect our elected politicians to do the same?”

Hudson said that the whole episode was demoralizing. That the response was “so swift and so uniformly critical… It did take me off guard, because a lot of the people who were offering the critique like, a week prior, had been fervently anti-Trump,” he said.

“To me,” he said, “it’s a credibility factor. How do we go forward saying we stand for these principles that our nominee blatantly, flagrantly violates and campaigns against, and pretend we’re going to credibly advance them moving forward?”

Credibility? They listen to Cruz telling them stories, and don't look at Open Secrets showing the same corporate interests that funded Clinton funded Cruz; and that Cruz family bread on the table comes from Heidi Cruz' Goldman Sachs upper echelon income; the same Goldman Sachs that paid a $250,000 wage to a lady unsure of whether a fifteen buck minimum wage is a good idea - a lady calling herself a Democrat. Heidi Cruz, with her CFR background. Same clowns watch a Coors commercial, "We make top quality beer with Rocky Mountain water," and think, "Gee. They make good beer. They said so." It's no different than taking a measure of Ted Cruz by what he says. Follow the money has no meaning to conservatives intent upon conserving the wealth status of George Carlin's "It's one big club and you ain't in it" club, which they ain't in.

Bozo the clown knew who P.T. Barnum was, so a step ahead, and a big step.

What exactly do you suppose Ms. Clinton told the Goldman folks at $250,000 an hour? "You guys better watch out once I'm elected President?" Or, "You'll have a tough row to hoe, this money buys nothing?" They invest. $250,000 was an investment. Including repeat performances. My bet, she sang as pretty as she could, "With a Little Help From My Friends." Each appearance.

Is follow the money that hard a principle to understand? But is understanding anything real and not campfire story-telling the goal, any of those people's goal, or is the message one of feeling important while venting together? Church goers convening. Taxpayer League scapegoaters of others wanting little beyond live and let live; more obsessed with embryos than with fairness to living plodding suffering humans making less than ten bucks an hour. The bunch: Dutifully putting on kick me signs, for the rich to read and follow.

FURTHER UPDATE:

Who says the public does not care?
Gary Larson cares.

The Clinton example was posed before Guardian published this item about Trump's saying "Crooked Hillary" and should she fight back or let it roll like water off a duck's back. Fact is she lacks that choice if declining still to release transcripts. I'm not crooked, but the public does not really care about what I said to Goldman Sachs? Does any such foolishness wash with you? No transcripts, sit and suffer; with presumptive opinion only to grow that release of the transcripts would make the attack phrase even more barbed.

Howe to make the CD2 Republican primary a three-way contest; any friend of Freedom Club is no friend of mine.

CD2
Coverage at The Uptake, including a video, with this text included:

Republican John Howe [...] announced he would run in the primary despite losing the Republican endorsement for Minnesota’s second congressional district to Jason Lewis earlier this month. Darlene Miller has also indicated she is running [in] the Republican primary.

Howe called Lewis “a fatally flawed candidate” and [...] Unlike Lewis, he doesn’t wholeheartedly endorse the apparent Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, but said he wouldn’t vote for Hillary Clinton.

Asked about Lewis’ support of “bathroom bills” that discriminate against transgender people, Howe said he did not agree with him on that issue.

The winner of the primary will face Democrat Angie Craig in the fall.

Peggy Scott - Freedom Club
That cabal of west-metro elitists, with a metastasized Champlin presence, besides pumping the Aplikowski brand against Jim Abeler and savaging Abler in a pro-Aplikowski mailing this past special election to fill the vacated SD35 seat; has embraced homophobe Peggy Scott by donation, and that might ring well with some folks, but it unpins my BS meter, which already had been unpinned a time or two by Scott's conduct/statements/activities. This BallotPedia link, five hundred bucks to Scott's candidacy in 2012 - not that much, not every election - but it's the thought that counts. Freedom Club to my mind embodies and represents all that is worse with right wingers and their swagger in Minnesota.

UPDATE: Readers may note the BallotPedia item does not list 2014 data; so reader help needed: in 2014, did Freedom Club subsidize the Scott candidacy, and if so, how many bucks?

Idiots dance on their party's grave. Short term gains are limited gains. Short term minds are limited minds.

This link.

Cut off your nose to spite your face; but don't blame Bernie if losing by a nose.

I'd have thought Clinton supporters would have had a sounder appreciation of the spoils system; and Trump's real possibilities. Yes, Trump and Clinton at heart are little different. But spoils are spoils, Clintonians.

Read an item, in the context of who was President having presidential powers in appointing and managing the federal Attorney General's policies at the time not one single Wall Street crook went into the slammer, and while speeches for pay were Wall Street's policy. Which party, which orientation regarding ordinary people. Voters. Citizens suffering.

Timothy Canova was never a mainstream academic - Harvard or the "Chicago School," in economics; but then his message is not conventional Ivy League U.Chi. stuff. This link, a short twelve pages, telling you what co-opted and regulatory capture and other concepts mean in our recent history; and how such things came about.

When and how, and under what stewardship.

Download and enjoy. A big part of being educated is knowing the process never stops, and that diverse views are not a bad thing. Often reform hinges upon new views of accepted dogma.

UPDATE: If you read little else, read the item. It indirectly explains why a singular Congressional primary contest in Florida is important, and why likely differences between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will be little else than cosmetic. Being played for fools, we are the public of the US of A. Feel a Bern. Take at least one step. Contribute to Canova's campaign.

FURTHER UPDATE: If your taste is for a jargon-loaded earlier look at an indirectly stated presentation of "Hillary horsed up any hope of healthcare reform during Clinton years in office," and other apologistic stuff from before the chickens came home to roost during Bushco's Sept. 2008 eye opener arising from the financial market "reforms" Gingrich and Phil Gramm wanted and which Bill Clinton [presumably Hillary too] too happily conformed to but with other real and crypto-Republicans' mouths other than Clinton ones leading the parade; you can understand how with a Hillary run for the roses looming, Goldman Sachs paid. Academia can be indirect, while Canova was, in that sense, less academic.

FURTHER UPDATE: While hindsight is easier, Canova was ahead by years in advance of the Big Splat; compare N.Y. Times; here and here. As to the second short item, could "John Russell" have been a pen-name of don't worry - be happy Debbie WS?

Whatever. For the good of the nation, Debbie WS needs to hit the skids this November. We need a Canova win. Not as a matter of national pride or national feel-good image; but as a matter of national good sense and well being.

FURTHER UPDATE: LeftMN, here. The more you see and think, the less oppressive Trump looks; absent a Bernie endorsement; which dark forces have resisted and undermined on behalf of Madeline Albright's first premise. Which is not, "Shame on any woman not supporting a woman politician." It's "War is good for us - our opportunity," and it is a surprise that when light shined she backed off from the Kosovo telephone privatization ploy, on behalf of --- you guessed it. There is a sort of thread between Albright-think and Clinton-actoin. Free money on the table, mine, and thank-you is implicit.

Not the favorite of ineffective entrenched political families or machines, Florida Democrat House candidate Tim Canova is a breath of fresh air. And given how stale things can get and have gotten, fresh air is a very good thing.

[UPDATE: Knowing by viewing; who you might be donating to, or against: cf. here and here; vs. here, here, here, here, here and here. What level of expertise, fairness, understanding, depth, cliche-free freshness and projected quality of mind do you favor?]

This websearch return list. Then, from the top returned search items:  Wikipedia. The Canova campaign site here and here. AND - reporting of over a million dollars already in campaign contest small-donor fundraising; average donation eighteen bucks; no PAC money accepted.

Ring out the old, ring in the new, another time has come. Hopefully.

Donate via ActBlue, here.

Snail mail by check:

TIM CANOVA FOR CONGRESS
P.O. BOX 22-1868, HOLLYWOOD, FL 33022-1868

(Make checks out to: TIM CANOVA FOR CONGRESS)

Campaign finance law requires a campaign to determine contributor occupation and employer.

PHONE: 954-367-3877

Please help this progressive person to defeat stale same-old same-old institutionalized atrophy and torpor.

-------------------------------------------------------
Rules individual contributors should honor:

This contribution is made from my own funds, and funds are not being provided to me by another person or entity for the purpose of making this contribution.
I am making this contribution with my own personal credit card and not with a corporate or business credit card or a card issued to another person.
I am not a federal contractor.
I am at least eighteen years old.
I am a U.S. citizen or lawfully admitted permanent resident (i.e., green card holder).
-------------------------------------------------------

You know he's progressive by who he opposes.

As a political independent, I don't care much for either of the Republicans seeking the Presidency.

Not caring for either puts me in the majority decisive responding pluralities; per this Reuters link:

Former Secretary of State Clinton's appeal to voters seeking continuity with President Barack Obama's policies, has won her a decisive lead in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, but finds strong opponents among those disillusioned by what they see as lack of progress during Obama's tenure.

The poll asked likely voters about the primary motivation driving their support of either Trump or Clinton heading into the general election on Nov. 8.

About 47 percent of Trump supporters said they backed him primarily because they don't want Clinton to win. Another 43 percent said their primary motivation was a liking for Trump's political positions, while 6 percent said they liked him personally.

Similar responses prevailed among Clinton supporters.

About 46 percent said they would vote for her mostly because they don’t want to see a Trump presidency, while 40 percent said they agreed with her political positions, and 11 percent said they liked her personally.

A career politician who built a fortune from being that, vs a blowhard. And, in a sense with a description pairing such as that, labels are substantially interchangeable.

Two Republicans? Certainly, with even HuffPo noticing. Vomit time, looking at the both of them.

And out of curiosity, who besides the medical industrial complex including Big Pharma, together with Wall Street, likes what's come of the Obama presidency? What change? No hope. Lied to again. Feel the Bern.

If alive, Eisenhower would not vote for either of them; each being further to the right than he was. Each shorter of character than likeable Ike. Yeah. Another difference. He was likeable. Who likes either of the Clintons, and then, which one? Who likes Trump? Liking a good joke is okay. Having two bad jokes winnowed for us by our two party system as offered chaff winnowed from any wheat, what times we live in and what ongoing awfulness can we expect. To the extent Dayton's assessment of DC as a cesspool is spot on, both candidates fit.

UPDATE: Through your looking glass and with Alice in Wonderland as only a spectator, (think Elizabeth Warren); and then unless Bernie gains unanticipated traction, is it to be a contest of the two Tweedles; or is it the Mad Hatter vs the Red Queen?

FURTHER UPDATE: Remember you saw it here first. If Bernie does end up run over and pushed aside to a gutter to rot, then as a perfect match ticket possibility you read of here first, a Hillary Clinton - Lloyd Blankfein ticket. Expect it. If it does not happen, with Clinton the candidate it should. Hand in glove slam dunk similarity. Equals in trustworthiness for ordinary citizens looking at elitist self images held among "in it for the money" players.

Can you name one fundamental difference aside from gender between the two? Payor - payee, okay, that, but otherwise . . .

FURTHER UPDATE: In contemplation of Dayton's DC - cesspool analogy, there is an arguably more apt ecosystem analogy. While that seems a digression from the main theme of the post, it is and it isn't; depending on your perspective. It, as well, is an alternate vision of the Blankfein - Clinton relationship as well as a model of existing variations in lobbying.

Ramsey City Council at it again. Raiding the funds to not raise the levy rate, but to fund what exactly? The Ramsey Foundation and "concerts" at "The Draw?" And the Landfill Trust fund, without trust?

This agenda business, from here online.

Purpose: Consider adoption of Ordinance #16-05 to Repeal and Replace Chapter 3 Section 3.40 of the City Code Entitled "City Funds" to update the status of the City Funds currently being utilized.

Background: The "City Funds" section of the city code was last amended September 2004. Since this time, some of the funds listed are currently no longer utilized, their sources and uses needed to be updated, or just their description needed to be amended.

The Proposed Ordinance was presented to the City Council at worksessions on March 22, May 2, and April 26, 2016. All changes presented at these worksessions have been incorporated.

Some of the major changes to be noted are as follows:

- Lawful Gambling Fund was amended to allow contributions to a 501(C)(3) Corporation whose purpose is to provide a benefit to the community in an amount not to exceed $5,000 annually.
- Landfill Expendable Trust is now known as the Landfill Fund as there are no restrictions on the use of this fund, so should not be labeled a trust fund. The cap amount was removed and any expenditure from this fund needs to be authorized by City Council.
- Park Maintenance Fund is now known as the Capital Maintenance Fund which allows for the fund to be used for unbudgeted maintenance needs related to all city needs, be it parks or facilities.

It looks like robbing Peter to pay Paul, where Peter's holding the long term cautious perspective. Money burn, hidden by such things can happen, and should not. It does look as if Trash Mountain is slumping in height, and whether there may be needs associated with the settling process seems to not be anybody's agenda item. Gee.

And what's that "Lawful Gambling Fund" business re a "501(c)(3) Corporation" mischief? If the self congratulating Ramsey Foundation muck-a-mucks want to pat each other on the back sponsoring this or that; let them pick up the tab. Not you, your family, while they bask in self created glory - such as it is.

If the agenda is not saying where precisely the money's going, than it's going to an arguably improper cause/place/pocket. Identify recipient beyond verbal hedging per "a 501(c)(3) Corportation."

Putting in an actual name would have used less letters, for Christ's sake. Sure it's only five grand, chump change relative to money flowed Tinklenberg, but there are principles involved in either case.

ALSO - A glide and slide here, re funds, ". . . their sources and uses needed to be updated, . . .". How does that grab you? The source of the Landfill Trust Fund has long been closed. Only its "uses" is getting jiggered.

Up front wording expresses up front motivations. Glide and slide also speaks as to intent.

1. Name the five grand recipient and the purpose.
2. Don't use the Landfill Trust Fund as a slush fund.

Best practices suggest those are practical and trustworthy steps. And Parks and Trails being the aim of having a parks fund seems fundamental too. It's an election year, whose seats are possibly being contested, and who's in favor vs. against such dipping into savings to pay the rent? And is it for "the rent" or for luxury without having to impose any luxury tax? Is it essential spending, or money for fluff? For somebody's private sector "Gee, wouldn't it be nice . . ." thinking with you picking up the tab?

If not the Ramsey Foundation, who? The DAR? Some ball league using Alpine Park wanting a subsidy? Who? What? Why? When?

___________UPDATE___________
Do you want more? There is the inherent vice [apologies to TP] of governments getting into land speculation, dating back to the Kurak term on council and the instigation of the Ramsey Town Center brainstorm; then to the plunge into the abyss with Matt Look, Bob Ramsey, and crew onboard buying the failed thing out of litigation; and now:

Aeon Purchase Agreement [PORTIONS OF CASE MAY BE CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC]

Lifestyle Construction Services LLC Purchase Agreement for OUTLOT A of Ramsey Town Center 8th Addition [PORTIONS MAY BE CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC]

Future Business Park Update [PORTIONS OF THIS CASE MAY BE CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC]

Explain to me, how can elected and appointed officials have accountability to the voting public over whether they are cutting smart or dumb deals, when the details of negotiation are shrouded in secrecy? That's a Trumpian theme, but independent of his candidacy, it is a fundamental fault in the Public Meeting Law to have an exception that you can drive a truck through. It hinges on the problem, a town board should not get itself into land speculation; and when in the past bone-headedness and other motivations got it there, why put transparency back-burner?

Last: They will be/are wanting tax money to fund a Town Center community center and a parking ramp, and that stuff is buried deep within an "objective questionnaire." NOTE: Page 2 mention "community center." Then see, Page 3, Number 7. Whoa - that also holds the "parking ramp" whammy, and if you cannot see the hidden agenda of Page 3, number 8, remember that Jim Deal is building his rentals overlooking the concretized rainfall holding ditch [a.k.a. "The Draw"] without having been required to build a parking ramp, because he like other developers would either not want one or would want to fob off the cost to public funding to subsidize private gain.

Then again; see, " . . . parking facilities," at final page 5, numbers 15 and 16.

How that questionnaire gets used; who responds within how wide a whole-town group (vs a mere homeowners association quizzing among Town Center dwellers) is a hell of a good question somebody should ask.

Not me. I've quit sometime ago on attending overly long and tedious meetings. Something the process favors. Bore them to death and they'll go away and leave us alone to tax and spend. Meetings were over long during Gamec times; Bob Ramsey's mayorial stint, and still ARE.

Yet, bottom line, do YOU want to pay for parking ramps and a community center at Town Center? Yes/no.

That would be a much simpler questionnaire, town-wide. Nobody needs five pages for that. The remainder of that questionnaire?

1. Ask Jim Deal.

2. Then: Ask those living at Town Center about its remaining vacant land, and the remaining aims and uses. It's their back yard. Not mine. The "nice shoppes and restaurants" fiction has been proven false, as false as John Feges' "Live, Work, Play," sloganeering. Coborns is helpful, with a postal outlet. Beyond that, what's Town Center done for you?

3. Do you want more? Page 4, number 11:

11. There is currently no Architectural Review Committee for the COR. Should it be re-established? Yes_____ No______ I don’t know_________
Comments:

followed by, you don't want billboards do you, (even while they do act as an effective wind-break):

12. The City continues to get requests for signs up to seventy-five (75) feet and height and upwards of 300 square feet in height, requiring special permission from the City Council. Should the current sign regulations be reconsidered/revisited? Yes_____ No______ I don’t know_____________

That surely is tilting the playing field via wording. Fact is, after Flaherty, what does sensible architectural standards and "Architectural Review" mean?

Yes, no billboards, but the horse is gone on design good taste, so lock the barn door now???

..............................

BOTTOM LINE: Are five pages needed, if obfuscation is not an objective, in asking: Should all of Ramsey be tithed for stuff at Town Center, more spending there; and "who wants billboards?" If land developers [a.k.a. Crabgrass, which springs up all over and requires constant vigilance] want a community center and more ramp parking will they buy it rather than trying to fob it off on the entirety of the town's people, wherever living? See my number 1, above.

A tax haven for scoundrels.

Reporting, here, noting a nation which:

is a prime offender in the global race-to-the-bottom among corporate tax scofflaws [... where] global economic watchdogs (including the less-than-incendiary-leftist sachems at the International Monetary Fund) announced that they would likely serve as yet another loophole-ridden refuge for footloose global tax-dodging concerns.

[...] The Tax Justice Network, which tracks compliance with such protocols, ranks [... this nation, not Russia] as the third-worst national performer, behind only Switzerland and Hong Kong. [... It] “provides little information in return to other countries, making it a formidable, harmful, and irresponsible secrecy jurisdiction at both the federal and state levels”.

Yep. Tax avoidance as a major league sport.

A year has passed. You make a promise. You keep a promise.

This link. Not the promise of an aditudinally challenged individual. If opinions were dollars, what wealth there would be reflected in Ramsey.

Yeah, I should talk . . .

Anyway, for Abigale and Peggy and Mr. Lucero and their discomfort with comfortably secure transgendered individuals contemplating performance art. Less audacious, here and here. Less; FOX; here.

I think some ostensibly "deeply religious" people missed the Sunday School class(es) about the Sermon on the Mount. And on the distinction between realms of Caesar distinct from realms of God. Too many junior Caesars in St. Paul, with lifestyle agendas for you and others; their way as the One way. Full of themselves. Caesar's areas of expertise are roads and bridges, and rail and land use. Not bathroom use. Let 'em pee in peace.

More. Thankfully, less of something. Since Indiana.

Yes we can they are.

This link. Read it.

Every political truth has its poster child.
Click the image to enlarge.

______________UPDATE______________
Having something of an overlap, instead of separate posting and commentary, simply the two left.mn posts; here first, and then here. Second item, one brief observation. Running to the right of Eisenhower is not your parents' Democrat. That whirring sound? Franklin Roosevelt spinning in his grave. As Bernie's chances lessen. Roosevelt knew what to do, and did it, and we survived the Depression and War. Clinton? The Clintons? Seen it all for eight years of Bill. Working with Newt. Hand in glove.

Shameful dissembling Clinton camp garbage.

Strib carrying something it dredged up in California's Central Valley, and should be ashamed for printing.

The Clintons have had all the privileges career politicians who show themselves very ethically challenged when money's on the table can have.

This link. What's wrong with this picture: Whining surrogates, keening that Bernie would be scapegoated for a Clinton loss, despite the distasteful Clinton personas, and the inclusion of the likes of Debbie Wasserman Schultz in their plans and schemes; along with inner party Dems who simply know insufficent levels of shame themselves.

What's right with that pile? Zippo.

That said, this dissembling link. Someone should tell that arrogant candidate thinking she's somehow privileged by some divine hand to an easy candidacy without questions of ethical matters, "you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone."

Lady, don't know how to swim? Not my problem. I'm an independent. Not in hock to any situation.

Do not start to scapegoat Bernie for the flaws in others.

It is indelicate. It offends. It makes folks stay home in cold November.

A headline/story which causes confusion with the Trump self-financing, no-PAC promising he's done: Talk Media News, Sunday, May 8, headline, "Trump super PAC strategist convicted for hiding bribe."

This link, this excerpting, (where earlier Crabgrass posting from the past noted Iowa electioneering between the Bachmann presidential campaign and the Ron Paul campaign - those campaigns had dueling bids in for a gentleman holding an Iowa legislative office named Sorenson who in a strangely timed way switched allegience):

A federal jury in Des Moines, Iowa convicted a top staffer for a Super PAC supporting Donald Trump Thursday over charges that he concealed a bribe to a State Senator during Ron Paul’s 2012 Presidential bid.

Jesse Benton, the chief strategist for Great America PAC, was convicted of conspiracy, causing false records to obstruct a contemplated investigation, engaging in a scheme to make false statements to the FEC and causing the submission of false campaign expenditure reports to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).

Benton served as campaign chair for Paul. Fellow 2012 staffers John Tate and Dimitrios Kesari, Paul’s campaign manager and deputy manager respectively, have been convicted on the same charges.

Chief Judge John A. Jarvey of the Southern District of Iowa has not yet sentenced the three.

The three aides paid over $70,000 in campaign funds to Iowa State Senator Kent Sorenson in exchange for him switching his endorsement from then-Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) to Paul, according to prosecutors.

[...] Following the 2012 campaign, Benton was the campaign manager for Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) 2014 reelection bid. Benton quit after allegations of the concealed bribe were made public.

Great America PAC has spent $1,239,937 in the 2016 election cycle according to the latest filing reports.

Those Republicans. There they go again.

The report does not connect Trump to the PAC beyond alleging it is supporting Trump. More interesting, if out bidding Bachmann for the Sorenson support was a bribe, as reported, what were the Bachmann payments to Sorenson prior to his switching loyalty?

Answer: Unprosecuted.

We can speculate beyond that; but that is fact.

UPDATE: The report says, "convicted of conspiracy, causing false records to obstruct a contemplated investigation, engaging in a scheme to make false statements to the FEC and causing the submission of false campaign expenditure reports to the Federal Election Commission (FEC)." Use of the word "bribe" in reporting may be editorializing; in that the Bachmann campaign had been paying Sorenson with no false reporting prosecution filed against Andy Parrish or other Bachmann staffers. It was Parrish who by affidavit publicized the Sorenson switch. Might there have been a plea deal? Or some missing element(s) of the criminal statute(s) under which Benton et al. were convicted?

Devils are in details; and reporting avoids some details.

FURTHER UPDATE: Des Moines Register reporting of Benton conviction, here. Benton is alleged to be resigning from the particular PAC headlined by the other report.

FURTHER: Reader thought experiment. Does this Benton/PAC thing, as a practical matter, take Rand Paul out of the running for a Trump VP nod? At the time Rand Paul suspended his presidential campaign reporting was he would focus on retaining his Senate seat. With the Senate term expiring this election, that alone might discourage Rand Paul from accepting a VP nod.

What would John Galt say?

This Strib link.

Since John Galt is/was total fiction, we can add to or subtract from that fiction; and Galt will not be opposing Lewis in a GOP primary since he's not a real human any more than Citizens United is. Aside from that, fourteen years of Kline the item says.

It sure seemed longer. This woman candidate Kline endorses, my guess would be dead in the water in a GOP primary unless absolutely vocally and unequivocally denouncing for-profit pseudo-college clip joints of the kind Col. Kline loved and from whom he took campaign funding. Also, her saying a word or two about the Teamsters pension situation might be needed, given the name "Kline" attached to legislation at play in that morass.

Anyway, Galt on the six-ballot final endorsement of Lewis over Gerson, re the two of them, I'd have Galt quoting T.S. Eliot:

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us-if at all-not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

Of course Galt in my world view would have been saying the same of Reagan and the Bush family. About the CD2 caucus goers who could not make up their mind over the mediocrity of Lewis or the extremism of Gerson; taking six ballots to decide.

But Galt coins, now that's something Jason Lewis is full of.

Pocket "change." A paragraph from an online item, "Former Secretary of State Clinton's appeal to voters seeking continuity with President Barack Obama's policies, has won her a decisive lead in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, but finds strong opponents among those disillusioned by what they see as lack of progress during Obama's tenure."

Count me among the disillusioned; but then were John McCain and Mitt Romney real alternatives, or just the Tweedle Dums offered by the second of the two parties having a stranglehold on US of A political power; with Debbie WS the poster child for it, at its worse?

This Reuters link, for the paragraph, in context.

An interesting few paragraphs from within an AP feed carried by Strib, about Trump and debt relief.

Headlined, "A Trump proposal for national debt would send rates soaring, By JOSH BOAK, AP May 6, 2016 — 2:44pm," at this Strib link (online here if having Strib paywall difficulty), mid-item, states:

Trump has touted his acumen for restructuring four of his companies under bankruptcy laws. When Trump Hotels & Casinos finished a 2004 bankruptcy reorganization, it cut $500 million off $1.8 billion in debt and reduced the interest rate to 8 percent from 15 percent.

"I don't think it's a failure' it's a success," Trump told The Associated Press at the time.

But countries function differently from businesses. Nations usually print their own money and service their debt through taxes, unlike corporations that can sell off assets and equity stakes to manage debt or close up shop. Interest rates would spike if a government refused to pay what it owed as investors priced in the risk of default and became resistant toward lending.

There is a lot there. First, Trump's experience as reported suggests he's no great love of lenders, unlike Hillary of the quarter-million speeches to Wall Street. That is a good thing, in Trump's favor. He had to take the blighters to bankruptcy court to shave principal and get a better rate. Not a super rate, just a better one. He knows how voracious they are, and has suffered having to do business with them.

The Clinton business with Wall Street was showing up a few hours and becoming much richer from, ostensibly, only giving a speech or two, or a bit more. Transcript release pending ... Don't hold your breath waiting ...

I like the Trump experience as more leavened.

Next, "countries function differently from businesses [...] usually print their own money [...] unlike corporations that can sell off assets [...]" is another handful.

The fact is, that charlatan Reagan did sell off assets as part of his giving a tax break to the wealthy, financing it short term by "privatization," and long term putting his successors in office in the penalty box.

"Great communicator?" No. Total fraud, given a free pass by a complicit press who collectively and wrongly called him a communicator. Perhaps saying "Drop your shorts" to the general public in an indirect way can be viewed as great communication, but then Tom Petters was as great a communicator, just on a smaller stage.

And, do you think the government of the US of A prints its own money? Think again.

Banks are great if you own one.

The Federal Reserve, a cabal of bankers seizing power in 1913 per a confab on Jekyll Island and the hand of a New England politician Nelson Aldrich, for whom Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller was named, finagled things that way.

The Federal Reserve prints the nation's money, and sells it to the government in exchange for debt bonds; so that the cabal of bankers makes interest money from taxpayers; where a very substantial part of each federal budget is debt service. And the bankers internationally in the New World Order grin and take the profits.

What "usury" means under such a plan is an uncertain thing to me.

So, is Trump's idea bad? Or merely cutting against existing moneyed-interest arrangements where taxpayers give money to international financial elite individuals, who may like a status quo which operates that way? You decide.