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Thursday, November 20, 2014
U student group targets corruption in politics
Rep. Collin Peterson
Torrey Westrom
SENATE RACE
$29,466,269
MINNESOTA DISTRICT 8
$807,873
$39,675 Doug Daggett
Rep. Rick Nolan
Stewart Mills
Sen. Al Franken
$6,511,686
Rep. Keith Ellison
MINNESOTA DISTRICT 7
$1,440,770
MINNESOTA DISTRICT 5
$1,897,642
ballot, Sinha said. Before the group can bring the initiatives to voters, it needs to build a coalition of student groups, local organizations, businesses and educators to discuss the issue of political cor r uption, said Adam Joseph, the group’s president. Joseph said his group has approached members of the University’s College Democrats, the College Republicans, the Minnesota Public Interest Research Group and other organizations about its cause. Sinha and Joseph went to an MPIRG meeting in late September to talk about the Represent.Us campaign and to collect petition signatures, said Mica Grimm, MPIRG’s University of Minnesota-Twin Cities campus organizer. Post-election apathy and par tisan boundaries present the biggest challenges to recruiting members now, Sinha said. “You need to approach the Democrats like it’s a Democratic point of view, and you need to approach the Republicans like it’s a
MONEY RAISED BY MINNESOTA POLITICIANS FOR THE 2014 ELECTION
$1,930,851
u from Page 1
$1,853,675
Represent
Mike McFadden
SOURCE: CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS
Republican point of view,” Joseph said. Sinha said the University’s chapter has about 11 members, but interest is
growing quickly. Millions of dollars poured into Minnesota to finance campaigns this year. The super PAC Alliance for
a Better Minnesota contributed more than $1.5 million in a campaign against Republican senatorial candidate Mike McFadden, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Hometown Fr eedom Action Network, another super PAC, spent nearly $350,000 this year to campaign against Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., who defeated McFadden. “It would be foolish to say that money didn’t factor into politics, because if that was true, there would be people who are from lowermiddle-class or middle-class backgrounds running for elected positions more often,” Grim said. Sinha and Joseph said they think the group won’t be able to get a referendum on Minneapolis or St. Paul ballots until 2017 or 2018. In the long term, the group would like to draft statewide legislation, Sinha said. Grimm said she thinks Minnesota will be one of the first states to pass a law addressing corruption and donation reform. “[Campaign finance reform] would be more likely to pass here than a lot of other places,” Grimm said. “That could strengthen the movement nationally.”
Kerry in diplomatic overdrive in London BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LONDON — With a deadline for Iranian nuclear deal fast approaching, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry embarked Wednesday on a frenzy of high-stakes diplomacy in a last-minute push to secure an agreement — or at least prevent the process from collapsing. As senior negotiators huddled for a second day in Vienna, Kerry held separate meetings in London. He planned a trip to Paris Wednesday. Kerry was still weighing when he might join the larger effort in the Austrian capital where negotiators are racing against the clock to forge a pact over the next five days to prevent Iran from reaching the capability to produce atomic weapons. Despite his ef for ts, though, signs increasingly pointed to Monday’s deadline passing without a deal and the negotiations being extended a second time. In London, Kerr y met Wednesday at his hotel with Foreign Minister Yusuf bin Alawi of Oman, a
key bridge between Washington and Tehran, a senior U.S. official said. Bin Alawi was in Tehran last weekend and met with Kerry on Tuesday. Their follow-up meeting was unannounced and confirmed only after an Associated Press reporter saw the foreign minister in Kerry’s hotel. Oman is not party to the negotiations among Iran, the U.S., Britain, China, France, Russia, the European Union and Germany. But it is unique among the Gulf Arab states for the close ties it maintains with Iran, having hosted highlevel nuclear talks earlier this month and served as the site of secret U.S.-Iranian gatherings dating back to 2012. Those earlier discussions laid the groundwork for an interim nuclear agreement reached a year ago, which the so-called P5+1 countries now hope to cement with a comprehensive accord in Vienna. Details of Kerry’s meetings with bin Alawi were not immediately clear and U.S. officials were tight-lipped about
American led airstrike hits al-Qaida-held town BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BEIRUT — An overnight American-led airstrike struck al-Qaida militants in northwestern Syria, the U.S. military and Syrian activists said Wednesday. The strike marked the four th time the U.S. has targeted the Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s Syrian branch, as part of its broader campaign against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq. The strike hit a storage facility controlled by the Nusra Front near the town of Harem, U.S. Central Command said in a statement. It was one of five airstrikes conducted by the coalition in Syria since Monday, the military said. U.S. Central Command said the strike targeted the so-called Khorasan group, which Washington says is a special cell within Nusra that is plotting attacks against Western interests. Inside Syria, activists and rebels dismiss the U.S. attempt to distinguish between the two, saying they are one entity. Many analysts also question the distinction. Harem is considered a strategically important border town, because it lies on a chief smuggling route to Turkey from northwestern
Syria. The strike also was reported by local activists and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Obser vator y said the strike killed two Nusra Front fighters. The U.S. says it isn’t coordinating its aerial operation in Syria with President Bashar Assad, whose own air force has been pummeling opposition-held areas from the sky since the inter national coalition’s campaign began in late September. The Obser vator y said Wednesday that Syrian aircraft have carried out nearly 1,600 airstrikes since Oct. 20. It said at least 396 people, including 109 children, have been killed in those strikes. On Wednesday, a government strike hit the northeastern city of Raqqa, controlled by the Islamic State group, killing at least nine people, the Observatory and local activist Fourat Alwfaa said. Alwfaa said the killed were civilians. Another strike hit the town of al-Hara in southern Syria, killing eight people, including four children and a woman, the Observatory said. An activist group in Daraa also repor ted the strikes, but offered no casualty figures.
any role Oman might play beyond that of an intermediary. In Washington, President Barack Obama’s nominee to be Kerry’s deputy at the State Department said he believed it would be difficult to meet the deadline. “It’s not impossible,” said Tony Blinken, currently Obama’s deputy national security adviser. “It depends entirely on whether Iran is willing to take steps it must take to convince us, to convince our partners that its program would be for entirely peaceful purposes. As we speak, we’re not there.” Peter Wittig, Germany’s ambassador to the U.S., wouldn’t rule out an extension and said a nuclear deal could lead to better relations between Iran and world powers on regional crises in Syria and Lebanon. “If these negotiations fail, there won’t be any winners,” Wittig told reporters in Washington. In Paris, Kerry will meet Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal and French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius. Those meetings are key be-
cause French objections last year delayed the adoption of an interim agreement by several weeks, and Saudi Arabia remains deeply concerned about the potential for its arch-rival Iran to win concessions from the West. The Obama administration also is trying to satisfy the concerns of Republican and many Democratic lawmakers at home. In a twist, many in Congress that previously opposed fur ther extensions of talks with Iran now see that route as a preferable to an agreement that doesn’t do enough to cut off possible Iranian pathways toward a nuclear bomb. Republicans in particular want more time so that they can attempt to pass new sanctions legislation that would pressure Iran into greater concessions. Their plan is to bring up a package of conditional penalties after January, when they take the majority, according to GOP Senate aides who weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity.
GAPSA at odds with new plan GAPSA u from Page 1
Some councils may also be in flux with the new structure, members said at the meeting. The Graduate Students in Education and Human Development council represents both professional and graduate students, which left members questioning where the council would fit in the proposed system. GradSEHD representative Michelle Gensinger said GAPSA needs to carefully weigh the pros and cons of the restructuring and that the decision shouldn’t be made with haste. “I think it’s important we get more voices into the discussion,” said Gensinger, who led the creation of a task force to further review the idea. But Sintjago said the proposal will allow GAPSA to focus on the individual
and overlapping issues that impact both graduate and professional students. At the meeting, COGS President Andrew McNally said PSA and COGS would coordinate their fees requests, programming and advocacy efforts. The proposed plan for restructuring comes in the wake of an ongoing state of financial uncertainty for GAPSA. The group’s funding has been frozen for nearly six months while the Office for Student Affairs investigates a $93,000 discrepancy in its budget. Last week, OSA granted GAPSA about one-third of its $232,000 budget for the cur rent school year. “GAPSA has had ups and downs, but it has done a good job in terms of advocacy over the years,” Sintjago said. “And I think we can do an even better job by making these changes happen.”
MNsure sees spike in consumer visits since workweek began BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ST. PAUL — Minnesota’s health insurance exchange has seen a spike in consumer visits in its first workweek since open enrollment began last weekend but is handling the load well, officials said Wednesday. MNsure CEO Scott Leitz told the board of directors there had been no major technical issues and no unplanned downtime since the system went live Saturday morning for its second open enrollment season. After a “soft lead-in” Saturday and Sunday, he said, traffic on MNsure’s website and calls to its help line surged Monday. Unique page views went from about 80,000 on Saturday to about 60,000 on Sunday, then shot up to 140,000 on Monday before dipping back to about 80,000 Tuesday. The system processed over 4,700 enrollments by 9 a.m. Wednesday, he said, including about 3,200 people who joined the public Medical Assistance and MinnesotaCare programs for lower-income people, and about 1,500 who signed up for private insurance plans for individuals. MNsure had a rocky debut last year with a largely untested computer system and understaffed call center. Several board members said
they were pleased to see the overhauled system working better. “I’m hearing the words ‘wonderful’ and ‘MNsure’ in the same sentence,” board member Phil Norrgard said, drawing laughs. The board also heard about some fr ustrations. Getting a forgotten password reset takes 20 to 30 minutes on the phone once a consumer gets transferred to an IT specialist. Some board members asked if that process could be simplified. MNsure staffers indicated it can’t be for now. Another issue is that consumers don’t immediately get an email or a clear on-screen confir mation that they’ve successfully enrolled. Chief Operating Of ficer Katie Burns said that function wasn’t ready in time. And while MNsure’s data show that around 95 percent calls to the beefedup contact center in recent days have been getting answered in five minutes or less, an Associated Press repor ter spent 13 minutes on hold before reaching a person around 11 a.m. Wednesday. MNsure spokesman Joe Campbell said the center had an average wait Wednesday of 6 minutes, with the longest about 14 minutes. He said 89 percent were answered within 5 minutes.
Vikings drop hope of Adrian Peterson’s return BY THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MINNEAPOLIS — Adrian Peterson’s last appearance in the Minnesota locker room was nearly 10 weeks ago. The Vikings have played all but one game this season without his swift and strong running ability. Optimism for his retur n remained among Peterson’s teammates, par ticularly following his plea agreement earlier this month that freed him from the court system with only a misdemeanor charge and probation requirements. T h e h ope, n ow, h a s vanished. “We know now he’s not coming through those doors and coming back this year to be on our team,” cornerback Captain Munnerlyn said Wednesday, the day after the NFL gave Peterson a suspension without pay for at least the rest of the season. “We’re kind of hurt that he’s not, but we knew it was kind of coming, so we just have to move on.” Commissioner Roger Goodell ruled Peterson violated the personal conduct policy for the severe injuries to his 4-year-old son he acknowledged to authorities occurred from corporal punishment with a wooden switch.
Even if Peterson were to shorten his suspension with a successful appeal, the Vikings actually using him yet this year would be an implausible scenario given the heat they took for initially reinstating him to the roster. Then add in the long time Peterson has been away from practices and meetings, let alone games. “I guess it is a sense of knowing that it is over with. Kind of, I guess, puts people at ease. It’s not what we wanted, but at the same time we hope that he gets another shot,” r unning back Jerick McKinnon said. “Great player, great mentor, and I’ll still look up to him. I’ll stay in touch. I’m praying for him, hoping for the best.” The Vikings have six games left and host the Gr een Bay Packers on Sunday. “We can’t have a dark cloud over our facility or over our team,” quar terback Teddy Bridgewater said, adding: “We would love to have him, but it’s out of our hands.” Coach Mike Zimmer addressed the Peterson situation with the players Wednesday morning. “I suppor t him and his family and he’s been great with me, but other than that ... we’ve got to move
for ward. It’s just the way life is,” Zimmer said. Regardless of their feelings about boundaries of parental discipline and punishment Peterson might have deser ved for what was originally a felony charge, Vikings players were unanimous in their suppor t for him and his return. Even rookies like Bridgewater and McKinnon raved about the effort Peterson put into being a leader and a mentor. “There were times in training camp where I’d get down on myself because I may have had a bad practice or didn’t like this throw or that throw, and he would always come up to me and tell me, ‘Hey, you’re not going to be perfect. You can’t control what ever yone’s saying about you. You can’t control ever y throw. You just have to trust yourself, play football and trust your God-given abilities,’” Bridgewater said. “Hearing that from Adrian, it just meant a lot.” The Vikings were also in lock-step disagreement with Goodell’s decision. The NFL Players Association has accused the league of handling the process inconsistently and unfairly, believing Peterson has already been punished by being on the exempt list with
pay for the last nine weeks. Goodell has sole discretion to put a player on or take him off the list, which has rarely been used. “Once he got taken care of what he got taken care of in the games he’s already missed, I feel like he should be back,” fullback Jerome Felton said. Peterson’s salary for the season was $11.75 million. He will keep the money accrued while on the exempt list. But the NFL’s punishment has now amounted to a 14-game ban, with six unpaid weeks. That’s the equivalent of a fine of more than $4.1 million. NOTES: McKinnon missed practice Wednesday with a lower-back injury, and so did running back Matt Asiata with a concussion. W ith Joe Banyard the only other ball carrier on the active roster, the Vikings claimed r unning back Ben Tate off waivers from Cleveland. Tate was overtaken for playing time by rookies Isaiah Crowell and Ter rance West after signing as a free agent with the Browns to be their featured back. He sprained his right knee in season opener and missed two games, but returned after the bye week with a bang, rushing for a career-high 124 yards.