The Daily Digest: Dayton’s financial edge
Good morning!
In Minnesota
Gov. Mark Dayton has about $1.7 million in cash in the final weeks of the election. (MPR News)
That's nearly double what his Republican challenger, Jeff Johnson, has in the bank. (MPR News)
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Meanwhile, the DFL has an additional $1.1 million on hand for the final stretch of the campaign. The Minnesota GOP's numbers aren't yet available.
Prominent DFL politicians are rushing to sever ties with a well-known Minneapolis nonprofit after a state audit found it misspent hundreds of thousands of dollars in public money. (MPR News)
Gov. Mark Dayton latched onto a North Dakotan's suggestion about how to make oil safer to transport earlier this month and on asked North Dakota leaders to take action. (Pioneer Press)
The Department of Veterans Affairs said it will investigate allegations that the appointment records of a retired Marine who died after having seizures were falsified to cover up delays in patient care at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System. (AP via MPR News)
National Politics
The United States has begun a bombing campaign in Syria, but don’t bet on Congress returning to Washington to vote on a new war authorization anytime soon. (Roll Call)
President Obama has spent nearly six years installing a series of constraints on U.S. counterterrorism operations, but the broad military offensive against Islamist groups in Syria stretches the limits of those legal and policy enclosures. (Washington Post)
With airstrikes underway in Syria, Minnesota Sen. Al Franken says he’s worried about the success of the second half of President Barack Obama’s plan to destroy Islamic State extremists: arming and training Syrian rebels. (AP via WCCO)
What impact will new Treasury Department rules have on mergers such as Medtronic's? It probably depends on whether the deal makes business sense. (New York Times)
Retiring U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann has taken more privately financed trips in 2014 than any other member of Congress. (Star Tribune)