Minnesota "The Sky is Falling" Democrats Exposed today called for Amy Klobuchar to demand that Sen. Mark Dayton sell his stock in Exxon Mobile. This is because Amy (rightly) believes that a fraction of their record profits should go to help families that will need to heat their homes this winter. Anyway, MDE posted one page of a 25 page Personal Financial Disclosure form as proof that Dayton is in on the gouging too! Except that he isn't, and he probably couldn't sell the stock if he wanted to. Want to know why?

First of all, all of Dayton's stocks are controlled by a trustee, and he has little to no control over them (just ask Fristy). Second, if you were to actually show the full Personal Financial Disclosure form (which is here), you would see that "Okabena Partnership C" owns the stock. Guess what else, his trust (it appears from 1936) is invested in that partnership (hence the indentation for all the stocks listed under it).

He simply has no control over it, do you honestly think that Mark Dayton would go out and buy stock in Wal Mart?? (look down at page 12, for example) Why doesn't he have them sell that stock and use the money to buy stock in the great Minnesota company his family used to own, Target? Because he has no control over what stocks his trustee buys, but he does have to report it.

Come back MDE when you actually have something legitimate. You see, in our government, we think there is the potential for a conflict of interest if Senators could, say, buy stock in oil companies right before they open up ANWR for drilling. That's why they have trusts (the other reason why Mark Dayton has a trust is because his family has boat-loads of money and they gave him a lot of it in a trust).

This lesson in American civics was brought to you by a state school liberal arts education.