Dayton: Adrian Peterson’s actions are ‘a public embarrassment’

The AP reports on Gov. Mark Dayton’s reaction to Adrian Peterson’s reinstatement. “Minnesota governor Mark Dayton says Vikings running back Adrian Peterson should have remained suspended until an accusation of child abuse was resolved in the Texas legal system. … The governor said in a statement to the Associated Press that Peterson is innocent until proven guilty. But Dayton also called Peterson’s actions ‘a public embarrassment’ to the Vikings and the state of Minnesota.”

This is where the rubber meets the road: In the Cincinnati Enquirer, Josh Pichler writes, “[Tiger] Woods’ public relations disaster is nothing compared to what’s hitting the NFL right now. The league has had three chances in the last week to prove it takes accusations of domestic violence and child abuse seriously. It’s blown two of those chances, and barely avoided screwing up the third. The NFL’s sponsors, which include P&G, Verizon, Microsoft and Nike, have higher standards. On Monday, Radisson suspended its sponsorship with the Vikings. The hotel company’s message was clear: Get your act together. … Would you buy products from a company that employed an executive indicted for reckless or negligent injury to a 4-year-old child after allegedly whipping that child with a tree branch and causing injuries to the child’s legs, genitals, back and ankles?”

An AP story on the Justice Department’s push to stop the flow of radicalized Somalis out of Minnesota says, “Efforts to raise awareness about extremism also may be sinking in with average community members. One Somali woman, Saredo Kulane, told The Associated Press last week she thinks someone brainwashed a neighbor who’s thought to have traveled to Syria. She said she believes there are recruiters targeting youth, and if she sees something, she will speak up. ‘I will call the government and tell them,’ she said through an interpreter. ‘I will never let them go, because they are killing our children.’ “

Not what you’d call a going concern … Says Dee DePass in the Strib: “Struggling Essar Steel Minnesota has failed to secure the equity financing needed to save a critical bond deal to complete construction of a $1.8 billion taconite plant in Nashwauk, Minn. Now, local officials worry that the project and 350 future jobs are up in the air. The problems with Essar’s $450 million high-yield bond deal first were disclosed by Standard & Poor’s and confirmed Monday by local officials.” Where’s the hedge fund that “turns this around”?

See ya … MPR and the AP say, “The insurance company with the lowest rates and most customers on Minnesota’s health care exchange is pulling out. Golden Valley-based PreferredOne this morning confirmed its exit from MNsure. It comes as a major blow to the exchange — the next open enrollment period is set to begin Nov. 15. MNsure said it would reach out soon to PreferredOne customers who bought coverage through MNsure last year with information on next steps.”

Don’t mess wit Da Judge. Randy Furst of the Strib says, “Thomas Wexler senses an injustice. The Eden Prairie man has filed a class-action suit against a rental car company for making him pay $35 a day for a rental car, when he was promised a $30 rate. Wexler is also a state judge, a part-time administrative law judge to be exact, after having served as a Hennepin County judge for 20 years. How often does a judge take justice into his own hands? Bucky Zimmerman, an attorney and partner in Zimmerman Reed, a major local firm, said that in 30 years doing class-action cases, he’s never heard of a sitting judge filing a class-action suit.” What we do if they charged him $10 extra?

At Slate, David Weigel sees a Klobuchar wave. “The Iowa Democratic Party’s annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner, a fundraiser/rallying affair that often draws the party’s big stars, has announced its 2014 headliner. (Drum roll sound effect.) It’s Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the two-termer whose state happens to border Iowa, unlike 2013 keynoter Sen. Chuck Schumer. The New York senator has never pretended to harbor presidential ambitions, but Klobuchar has captivated reporters who want someone, anyone, to give Hillary Clinton a hurdle on her road to the White House … .”

As brags go, I’ve seen better. But … we’re better than Detroit. Says Adam Belz in the Strib, “The Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area saw real gross domestic product grow 2.5 percent in 2013 to $213.5 billion. That checks all the better-than-average boxes for the metro area. The numbers are preliminary, but growth was better than average compared to the past decade, and better than the national average — 1.7 percent in 2013 — by a wide margin. It was also good enough to move the Twin Cities up in the national rankings, past Detroit to #13. Miami, Seattle, Atlanta stand between the Twin Cities and the top ten.”

I know I wondered … Paul Walsh, also of the Strib says, “The tipster who led police to fugitive murder suspect Ty Hoffman will receive the $40,000 in reward money that was offered for information leading to the killer of Kelly Phillips outside an Arden Hills gas station last month. … The person who noticed Hoffman lingering around several retail outlets has chosen to remain anonymous, said Dave Michela, a longtime friend of Phillips who assisted in collecting the reward money. Authorities have only revealed that the person is a woman.”

Who do they think they are? At City Pages, Jesse Marx writes, “To stay afloat, a family of four in Hennepin County requires two full-time wage earners, making $16.97 apiece, according to the Jobs Now Coalition. (The Washington Post found that even a single man living in a one-bedroom apartment requires $14.54, or $30,243 before taxes.) On Monday night, labor activists and workers gathered at the Eagan Community Center, asking that the Metropolitan Airport Commission raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. The event was organized by local labor activists, but had none of the bravado that we witnessed at a recent fast-food workers’ rally in Uptown.” How can this country’s shareholders survive if we start paying adults adult wages?