Mitt Romney - learning of a man by looking at his friends. Friends who probably plan what's best for you, as what's best for them, since you're not on that list. Learning of a man by who his money bosses.

Mitt Romney (R)
Top Contributors

This table lists the top donors to this candidate in the 2012 election cycle. The organizations themselves did not donate , rather the money came from the organizations' PACs, their individual members or employees or owners, and those individuals' immediate families. Organization totals include subsidiaries and affiliates.

Because of contribution limits, organizations that bundle together many individual contributions are often among the top donors to presidential candidates. These contributions can come from the organization's members or employees (and their families). The organization may support one candidate, or hedge its bets by supporting multiple candidates. Groups with national networks of donors - like EMILY's List and Club for Growth - make for particularly big bundlers.

Goldman Sachs --- $367,200
Credit Suisse Group --- $203,750
Morgan Stanley --- $199,800
HIG Capital --- $186,500
Barclays --- $157,750
Kirkland & Ellis --- $132,100
Bank of America --- $126,500
PriceWaterhouseCoopers --- $118,250
EMC Corp --- $117,300
JPMorgan Chase & Co -- $112,250
The Villages -- $97,500
Vivint Inc --- $80,750
Marriott International --- $79,837
Sullivan & Cromwell --- $79,250
Bain Capital --- $74,500
UBS AG --- $73,750
Wells Fargo --- $61,500
Blackstone Group --- $59,800
Citigroup Inc --- $57,050
Bain & Co --- $52,500

This link. Be afraid.

But, can any reader feel much better, about this? This? The one comforting thing in that last list is that everything is scaled down by a power of ten.

Without being bogged down in too many details, do you get the general drift of this? How many pages would your holdings take, and did you pay over 15% in taxes?

While arguably a less reliable barometer, particularly for a waffle of a man, you can learn from things he's said, when among his friends.

____________UPDATE____________
America the Bountiful. As South Carolina prepares to vote, you can kick back and listen to Rush, because he tells you like it is. And, if you call in, and get through screening, you can ask about:

Source: endoftheAmericanDream.com

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Rush is shocked. SHOCKED!

Rush is paid. PAID!

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Forget divisive and stupid marriage amendments.
Support one that really matters.

Allina buys a property in Anoka Industrial Park.

This link. Below, a screen capture from Google Maps.

click the image to enlarge and read

UPDATE: From Copperwood Real Estate, the broker, this link on the newly acquired Allina property, and here, re another Anoka Industrial Park site.

Struggling for a headline, between "tiny minded poseur" and "recycled bastard-retread poseur."

The Economist, here, or just read the screenshot if you don't care to watch the embedded video or read the second half of the item:

Poseur is the keyword. Worse posing, in his own way, than sanctimonious Santorum, with his double standard "Christian" way.

Each is now, who he was "back then." Each.

Romney at least is truth in advertising, what you see is what you'd get. A Nelson Rockefeller clone.

______________UPDATE______________
Worth a passing note, but not more, it is reassuring to know that our nation is still as it was during Nixon's rise, with even an attack dog like Rush knowing which hand not to bite.

_____________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Three million last year in taxable income - Newt Gingrich must be burning down the house, on book royalties.

Colbert, on Morning Joe, answered questions about his candidacy - his position on open marriages.

Andy at Residual Forces analyzes Gingrich in ways I cannot largely criticize.

RAMSEY - Are SAC and WAC on TRAC?

Sakry, ABC Newspapers, this link. Another consultancy study, this one less expensive than it might have been. Less than other expenses. Be grateful for small favors?

With the intention of not pushing anyone's agenda, a few things to look at, agree or disagree.

Start with "Envision Minnesota." Homepage, accomplishments, what we envision, McKnight re:focus, Hot dish newsletter, Governor's Playbook. If you agree, fine, if you take your hot dish with a grain of salt and are not a Le Creuset crowd type, more a box from the freezer into the microwave lifestyle person, that's fine with me too. Next, to quickly understand Met Council the way I understand Met Council, this link for sure, and to a lesser degree, this and this (were it your website, would you update -- this is the most current committee/board make up listing I could find for their LCAC -- I admittedly am not a perfect searcher nor unduly creative in following links but I did Google and try a second appropriate search engine). Go along to get along, and if you Lake Elmo on Met Council, you experience the fist in the glove - learning something that big and so so graciously well fed and coddled can move fast and mean as a jaguar.

____________UPDATE____________
I have always believed Met Council, in setting quotas for towns in things as remote into the future as 2030 planning, used to slaughter a chicken, read the entrails, and add 15%. Some imported New Orleans Voodoo queen, and a prized, hidden staff crystal ball were all thought to be part of the "scientific" forecasting.

If you want to see how foggy modeling - crystal-balling is, when done with honest intent never mind adding 20% because 15% might be insufficient to allow developer exploitation discretion in a community without over setting quotas so that less preservation of a status quo is possible by forced comp planning excess -- if you want that, try this Google, (and each scholarly paper has its citation trail so that you can expand beyond work by the single author via the treeing that citation tracking entails). I got that Google by having come across this single paper. There's a lot of modeling stuff out there, online and free access, but when you read some and see the presumptions and simplifications and quality of a back-fit to past history as model validation testing, you have to say it's mostly educated guesswork.

Yet we are constrained by Met Council extortion to commit parts of the community to various growth demands, based on such a pailful of garbage guessing.

Plus they add 15-20% because the developers love that. It gives them a bigger pool for rapaciousness.

I'm sure they do exactly that, at Met Council.

Notice that they have twenty million words on their website, but never publish their forecast models. Like a jewelry store where they never say how highly alloyed the gold is, or like some jeweler who'll talk to you for hours selling or hoping for a sale, without getting into what's a real diamond and what's a rhinestone.

Go figure.

We are the 1%

Strib reporting on Met Council state of the region, and other Met Council stuff, this -- from deep in the article, regarding transit usage, 2011:

Overall transit ridership rose by 2.7 million in 2011 to 80.9 million. Urban bus routes provided 72 percent of all rides, suburban and express service 14 percent, the Hiawatha light-rail line 13 percent and the Northstar commuter line 1 percent.

For detail, Met Council's homepage, here, has the 2011 reporting and the leadership-policy statement as the presently featured key links. To aid the politician-spinmeisters, to make their search for how "they will say it" easier, I post this MC page.

“Together, we can connect the dots between mobility, economic development, jobs, workforce, housing and quality of life,” said Haigh. “This is about connecting development with jobs, jobs with people, and people with their homes, communities and local businesses.”

Haigh said the Council has a full plate in 2012, with a work plan that also includes:

-- Beginning development of a housing policy plan that will help to expand affordable housing opportunities.
-- Awarding additional grants to promote development and redevelopment along transit corridors to help attract more private capital and additional development, as well as complement other Council initiatives to promote economic opportunity.
-- Launching a collaborative effort to develop the 2040 Regional Development Framework, a long-range plan for delivering innovative, efficient services and infrastructure in a cost-effective and collaborative manner.
-- Further embracing growing diversity by expanding federal inclusionary policies to all Council purchasing, hiring and contracting practices.


During Haigh’s first year as Council Chair, the Metropolitan Council:

-- Secured a Full Funding Grant Agreement for Central Corridor Light Rail, committing the federal government to paying half the cost of the $957 million project.
-- Secured federal government approval to enter Preliminary Engineering on Southwest Corridor Light Rail. The project is just one of 12 projects nationwide to achieve PE status.
-- Launched the “Corridors of Opportunity” collaboration to target investment along transit corridors as a way to shape growth and guide land uses to ensure the region’s ability to be competitive.
-- Achieved Metro Transit ridership of nearly 81 million rides in 2011, marking the second time in 30 years that ridership has exceeded 80 million.
-- Avoided an across-the-board transit fare increase, despite a state general fund reduction of 40 percent for the biennium.
-- Produced the Stadium Proposal Risk Analysis, evaluating the potential risks of the proposal to build a stadium in Arden Hills.
-- Achieved an historic record of wastewater treatment plant compliance with state and federal clean water regulations.


Haigh called on partners in government and the private and nonprofit sectors to help continue the work of the region and to help grow transit, expand housing opportunities and promote healthy neighborhoods and well-paying jobs, and to help promote the region as “one region, one economy.”

See

Haigh’s remarks, as prepared for delivery.
The Council’s 2011 Annual Report.
The Council’s 2011 Record of Accomplishment (pdf)

[...]

The Metropolitan Council is the regional planning organization in the seven-county Twin Cities metropolitan area. The Council runs the regional bus and light rail system and Northstar commuter rail, collects and treats wastewater, coordinates regional water resources, plans regional parks and administers funds that provide housing opportunities for low- and moderate-income families. The Council board is appointed by and serves at the pleasure of the Governor.

[links in original, italics added --- gotta keep the planners' cash flow flowing ... they are heart and soul of what Met Council is/does - worth every penny, some believe]

Outside of "one region, one economy," Wright and Sherburne Counties seem content being different regions, different economies.

The aquifer we in Ramsey rely on for water extends beyond Met Council jurisdiction, and is utilized with new wells outside of the Metro Area. DNR can regulate water best, because it has jurisdiction over the entire aquifer - groundwater systems of the State.

Met Council should not be trying to overreach or hide things, that way, and with Northstar reaching beyond its jurisdiction, there are politics it can most surely influence heavily, but which it cannot fully control.

Last but not least, this page, where you can take pleasure in watching an embedded video of Mayor Rybak, and note that Met Council has an anchor focus:

“With a spirit of partnership, we can achieve and surpass the aspirations we share for this region,” Haigh said.

Panelists discuss benefits of regional partnerships

A panel that included Matt Kramer, President of the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce, Jan Callison, Hennepin County Comissioner, and Bruce Nustad, President of the TwinWest Chamber of Commerce discussed transit investments, housing needs, and how regional and local planning decisions affect businesses decisions about where to locate or expand.

Oh, did I say, spinmeister?

Image from the embedded video, here. I watched that entire video, (sound off - why bother), and it was a bit distressing. All those talking head career politicians, and not our own Matt Look, with one of Jim Deal's buildings as a backdrop, or our mayor with an oil rig backdrop, saying this-that about the hustings - and jobs.

You would think, submitting to an annual new tax of $300,000 should buy coverage [a transit district tax - local control subsumed]. The new tax burden is being assumed by our town's taxpayers in exchange for the benefit of being able to bond debt to pay a big chunk of the cost of building a Northstar stop at Town Center. With that submission, of our town's leadership to a new tax for us, you might expect that City of Ramsey would have gotten some kind of non-chump featuring in the tout-video. Not so. Not even a Darren Lazan/Landform clip or slides on public-private-partnership (P3).

No featuring. Just the new tax. Pay to play. Second fiddle.

___________________________
POLL RESULTS: The most recent four-question sidebar poll has closed. Briefly, there was a two-to-one split favoring a return to a five member all-at-large council; a decisive near-unanimous favoring of cutting Landform/COR instead of more cuts elsewhere; a near-even split on Ulrich -vs- Nelson as the administrator to keep if one has to go, (with Ulrich favored); and a unanimous belief that as a symbolic thing the honorarium payments to the council members should be cut proportionately, i.e., that there should be a symbolic sharing of hardship. Because the stipends are low in relation to the workload, any such reduction would be symbolic, but it was favored that such a "statement" be made by those imposing hardships.

SOPA, PIPA blackout.

For one day, today, the Crabgrass banner is modified, along with the "blackout" effort. It's all symbolic, and Obama has quesitoned such legislation, as presently written. This Google, SOPA. This, PIPA. Wikipedia on SOPA. Do you remember Christopher Dodd?

Google's main page one day, today, protest appearnace:

_________UPDATE__________
Should anyone notice, the altered Crabgrass banner continues. I think the statement is worth going beyond a day of protest and notice. I may go back to the regular banner next week, but for now, No on SOPA, on PIPA.

Friday, Jan. 20 - Crabgrass banner restored to normal. SOPA/PIPA news indicates the web-wide effort was effective; here, here, here and here. This Google News. With the four remaining GOP pres-candidates clucking correctly, House and Senate lobby-owned Republicans might be hesitant to presently lick the feeding hand. Ditto among Democrats, where Obama's been lukewarm and Reid backed away from a floor vote. The effort is more likely shelved temporarily than dead. Stay alert. Now if only we could get the so-called Patriot Act nullified. Ron Paul favors that.

____________FURTHER UPDATE__________
Andy at Residual Forces properly twice dumps on Klobuchar's co-sponsorship of SOPA. Here and here. Does she know what she's doing? Not this time. Other than following what staff/lobbyists tell her. In my mind, her stances on SOPA/PIPA and the internet, on sulfide mining, and on the bridge to nowhere, (from Stillwater - to Scott Walker land), show a disturbing lack of anything but ill-informed, indifferent middle of the road same old, same old.

Is there a progressive to oppose her in a primary. Jack Nelson -- Yo, duty calls.