Power corrupts, and it arguably has, over some time, corrupted absolutely. Even permeating into mass acceptance of counterproductive belief systems implemented against us in part through globalization.

This link. People have been conditioned to accept hypotheticals about inevitability and economic efficiency that cut against their own best interest. Is this what we mean by "public education?" A cynic might say let them have their Tea Party meetings, it's a powerless venting of dissatisfaction, and there's nothing they really can do against our elite calling all the shots for and more frequently against all of us. How it is. Edsall links here.

Intervention in Syria? By our US of A? Opinions differ and reading an NY Times OpEd from abroad may prove useful to having an understanding.

Putin, online, here.

Strib reports: "Twin Cities retail construction leads U.S., thanks to $100M Eagan mall."

To land a big fish like that, they must have had Darren working for them. Probably he steered the project to a sound and safe docking, for less than a million dollars in fees and payments. Efficiency being the byword.

This link.

Baltimore-based Paragon Outlet Partners is building the outlet mall, with six buildings housing more than 100 shops, including upscale stalwarts Coach, J. Crew, Michael Kors and Ralph Lauren — one of the few outlet malls nationwide to be located in a metropolitan area.

Construction is “well underway” on Paragon’s 400,000-plus-square-foot mall, expected to open next August, said Jon Hohenstein, Eagan’s director of community development.

“Paragon was looking for opportunities in Minnesota, and we were ready for the opportunity,” he said. The outlet mall is part of the city’s Cedar Grove redevelopment area at Cedar Avenue S. and Hwy. 13.

But beyond the outlet mega-project, Colliers Senior Associate Sara Martin says square footage surged locally in part because of the apartment boom here, whether it’s upscale digs targeting millennials and baby boomers, or student housing. “Many of the cities are requiring a retail component on these projects,” she said.

Yeah. Requiring retail. Darren's big score with the Flaherty give-aways; a McDonalds. Eagan's the windshield. Ramsey's the bug.

Sutton and Brodkorb recently were the Republicans' dynamic duo. Batman and Robin (debate which was which). Now Sutton appears as broke as the party was in the way he left it, and Brodkorb's firing by Republican legislative operatives is costing all of us a bundle. "There they go again," as the Gipper used to say.

Strib reporting, here and here.

BATMAN. (photo credit)

____________UPDATE_____________
Some people hit hard times and it is polite and deferential to not show Shadenfreude. However, Sutton; Brodkorb; those are horses of a different color, Tevlin of Strib in an OpEd following Strib's initial report having said it well:

There have been few political operatives as combative and ornery as Tony Sutton. He eviscerated political opponents and lambasted those in his own party who didn’t follow every line of the party script. He once called major donors to the Republican Party “quislings,” a reference to World War II traitors.

In many ways, Sutton became a caricature of himself, a localized version of Karl Rove or James Carville. For a City Pages profile, Sutton posed with a baseball bat. It was an image he relished, the tough guy who liked to tell everybody to suck it up and take responsibility.

Sometimes it takes a hard fall to humanize somebody. Whether it will also humble Sutton is hard to say. As reported Monday, Sutton has filed for personal bankruptcy, owing creditors more than $2 million. This comes after running his party into a $2 million hole.

My gut instinct is to have sympathy for Sutton and certainly for his family. He is likely a guy in a lot of pain right now. If he’s like most people who get into a bad place, it’s partly self-inflicted and partly circumstantial.

But as the top spokesman for the Minnesota Republican Party for several years, Sutton was the voice of its philosophy. That philosophy is contained in scores of Sutton’s rants over the years. If you search the newspaper database for the words “Sutton” and “financial responsibility,” you get scores of references. If you search Sutton and “compassion,” you get zero.

Tevlin also noted:

In going after Tim Walz, Sutton once remarked: “We’re going to wrap the [healthcare reform] public option around his neck.”

One wonders whether Sutton wouldn’t mind a little of that public option now. The court filing shows he has no health care. Not coincidentally, he also owed money to several hospitals, including Abbott Northwestern and Children’s Hospital. Now, Sutton will wrap his lack of responsibility for his own health care around the necks of the hospitals and those of us who pay for insurance.

And that as much as anything else about the Sutton family is why Schadenfreude is okay for bast confrontational gentlemen. This Google. Nick Coleman commentary.

___________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Sutton family, here and here. Brodkorb's cash drain on your pocket - because of how other Republicans torpedoed this suing Republican, see, e.g., here. There's more. Here.

Simple statements for the simple minded.

Our beloved and kind-hearted Secretary of State, with a Frenchman in tow (to add legitimacy?).

This link, these unbeguiling words:

Quai d'Orsay, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Paris, France
September 7, 2013

FOREIGN MINISTER FABIUS: (Via interpreter) -- Kerry. I would like to commend both your energy and your ability to convince as well as your very reliable judgment or point of view. Together with the Secretary of State we discussed a number of topics, including, of course, Israel and Palestine and as well Syria, of course.

Let me start with a few comments. What we’ve been seeing very clearly over the past few days, notwithstanding a number of side comments of briefings, the first one is that the Damascus chemical massacre is proven and bears a signature. It is Mr. Bashar al-Assad who is the only one to hold the arm that was used for the massacre and to be in a position to use it, and he did use it. And we have to keep back to this because these are the facts.

In addition, and it is also what explains the fact that when people are comparing to the situation in Iraq, it has nothing to do. You remember that France did not participate in the intervention in Iraq. But at the time, the weapons of mass destruction did not exist, therefore, it was a mistake to go there; whereas, here, weapons of mass destruction exist and the fault, the mistake would be not to sanction.

Second, this massacre requires a strong reaction in order to sanction and in order to deter for an obvious reason which everybody will understand. Mr. Bashar al-Assad – as was said by the Secretary General of the United Nations, said this is a crime against humanity and we have to deter him from doing it again.

Then there is a third element which is obvious, even though it may require some thinking. The sanction is not in contradiction with a political solution. It is a prerequisite. Mr. Bashar al-Assad will not join any negotiation as long as he believes he is invincible.

From that, people were saying that France and the United States would be isolated. It is pretty much the opposite, and let me get back to what happened over the past 48 or 72 hours. Now, seven out of the eight G-8 countries share our views as to the necessity of a strong reaction. Twelve of the 20 G-20 countries, including Germany now, share in this reaction. And this morning, the 28 countries of the European Union supported the number of key elements: first, the 21st of August massacre is an abominable crime, it is a crime against humanity, it is a crime of war. [...]

Saying it, even saying it ad nauseam, does not make it so. Was this Frenchman there, on the ground, observing? "They fell around me like dominoes, I witnessed it but lived to tell." Or did someone tell him this and that - about such and so - with a due admonition to believe and say it is how things went down in Damascus? Perhaps the Frenchman is so certain because he had an epiphany of some kind while on the road headed there. You tell me.

Perhaps the simplemindedness was because of a limited skill set of the State Department interpreter? You think so?

Words delivered with yet more Coalition of the Willing flim-flam stirred in to boot.

"Even the Germans" this Frenchman noted.

There is history, isn't there?

My man of the moment, Francis, holding out. This link, proving our government pundits understand the Pope's no dope. Or is it that they understand selling unpopularity requires feigned sympathies, (so long as they are not voiced any louder or longer than the building drumbeat)?

While it's lawyers and guns, Klayman is suing for the money.

Klayman's NSA spying related lawsuits for damages have been noted in Crabgrass before, e.g., here and here.

Larry's chasing the money end of things, it being akin to his basic nature, but as ex-guv Jesse will tell you, Zevon sang of Lawyers, Guns and Money.

This post's headline does say "lawyers and guns," so what is afoot? The ACLU sued for relief other than damages [other than, judge/jury award me money with more better than less], and now this:

NRA joins ACLU in suit against NSA's surveillance program

Looking to protect gun owners' privacy, the NRA files a brief supporting the ACLU's lawsuit aimed at halting the NSA's spying program.
by Dara Kerr - September 4, 2013 10:46 PM PDT

The two have bonded in their fight against the National Security Agency's mass spying program that came to light in June. The NRA joined the ACLU's lawsuit against the government agency on Wednesday by filing a "friend of the court" legal brief.

"The mass surveillance program threatens the First Amendment rights of the NRA and its members," the NRA writes in the brief (PDF). "The mass surveillance program could allow identification of NRA members, supporters, potential members, and other persons with whom the NRA communicates, potentially chilling their willingness to communicate with the NRA."

The ACLU filed its lawsuit, ACLU vs. Clapper, in federal court in New York. The suit aims to get a preliminary injunction issued against the NSA that will stop its phone-surveillance program and also force the agency to expunge all of its phone call records.

Besides the NRA, other groups have also signed onto the lawsuit, including the Reporters Committee for Freedom and several news organizations. The ACLU welcomes the array of support.

"The range of voices joining the protest against mass government surveillance -- not to mention the bipartisan storm that has swept Congress since the recent NSA disclosures -- is a real testament to the fact that the government's dragnet surveillance practices are offensive to Americans from across the political spectrum," ACLU communications strategist Noa Yachot wrote in a statement on Wednesday.

[... read the rest, again, this link]

[lawsuit and statement links above are from the original]

Put that on your iPhone, and smoke it. NSA probably does not even need the Wayback Machine. They just need more, more, more data mining capability, to keep up with the infinite data they take, subject to having the finite (but large) number of folks they pay [Booz, Allen still, but with Snowden off the payroll now].

Larry's patriotism must compel him to form the third leg of the Zevon lyrics, in seeking to discipline the NSA. With the gun bunnies aboard, how can the runaway train of quelling NSA mischief fail?

Handguns for privacy? Sure. After all, it is conceal and carry they love.

Poor Ben Dover, The Ramsey Taxpayer. He is getting it again - But, yo bro, it is not a tax.

The powers that be, soon, will be charging Ben a monthly franchise fee of eight bucks, for sunshine. That, and an eight buck a month franchise fee, for moonlight.

There's a road between Ben and the Norman Castle to his south, where the sunlight and moonlight fees will be going, since Ben enjoys adjacency to a road.

But, don't have too much sympathy for Ben Dover The Ramsey Taxpayer. Because why?

Because:

It's not a tax.

The politicians say so, and if it were a tax they'd call it one, and honestly tell you and Ben and everybody that taxes are being raised despite EDA budgets being fat, HRA budgets being fat, Flaherty being happy with all his subsidy, and whatever - so it comes down to a clear need -- gotta "fee" the folks, because we do not want to impose more tax on them.

So bend with the prevailing wisdom, as bending with the wind, so you don't snap over what quacks like a tax, walks like a tax, looks like a tax, but is not one because government officials like the notion of feeing everybody out of hard earned cash.

There will be a new colloquial usage. "Get feed." Having a double meaning, food and the past tense of the verb, "to fee." As in "to tax" but somehow, inexplicably, different.

Expect all that very, very, very, VERY soon. As sure as the sun rises and the moon shines at night. Ben will be made to pay.

Talking Heads sang, "It's the same as it ever was ...".

Ben does not sing, but he smiles a lot...

______________UPDATE_____________
Can anyone tell me, at Flaherty's adventuresome rental palace, are individual units individually metered for electricity?

For gas?

Not that an answer either way would stop Ben Dover's smiling while it all happens. However it happens. When it happens. You might not even hear it happening.

Where do they mail Ben his utility bills, that's another thing I'd like somebody to tell me.

___________FURTHER UPDATE___________
Bob Dylan has a new song out:

Well, they’ll fee ya when you’re trying to be so good
They’ll fee ya just a-like they said they would
They’ll fee ya when you’re tryin’ to go home
Then they’ll fee ya when you’re there all alone
But I would not call it public greed
Everybody must get feed

Well, they’ll fee ya when you’re walkin’ ’long the street
They’ll fee ya when you’re tryin’ to keep your seat
They’ll fee ya when you’re walkin’ on the floor
They’ll fee ya when you’re walkin’ to the door
But I would not call it public greed
Everybody must get feed

They’ll fee ya when you’re at the breakfast table
They’ll fee ya when you are young and able
They’ll fee ya when you’re tryin’ to make a buck
They’ll fee ya and then they’ll say, “good luck”
Tell ya what, I would not call it public greed
Everybody must get feed

Well, they’ll fee you and say that it’s the end
Then they’ll fee you and then they’ll come back again
They’ll fee you when you’re riding in your car
They’ll fee you when you’re playing your guitar
Yes, but I would not call it public greed
Everybody must get feed

... and say that it's the end ...

And gentle reader, you too shall be feed. Identically, each month to the feeing of Coborn's, Ace Solid Waste, everybody gets feed and feed alike.

___________FURTHER UPDATE___________
With Connexus drooling over putting a "data center" at the former City Hall location on Nowthen across from Ramsey Elementary, will the feeing there be one electricity account, only, the same eight bucks a month you'll be stung for; or eight bucks per server plus per cooling unit, plus per air conditioner? What's just? What's expected of those calling this new tax a "fee?" Justice, justice you want? Look elsewhere. Get feed.