Al Franken

The Split Political Personality of Minnesota

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Minnesota is certainly not the only state to have a split political personality, but right now it really stands out as unusual!

My colleague, Professor Steve Watnik, pointed this out today, and made me really think about this, so here goes!

Minnesota had great political luminaries in the past, including Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Eugene McCarthy, and Paul Wellstone, and continues to have some today in Senators Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar, and Congressman Keith Ellison, who is the first Muslim in Congress.

But it is also the state of two potential GOP candidates for President: the solid conservative former Governor Tim Pawlenty, who has managed to avoid looking or acting loony or weird, as so many others in the party have appeared; and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who has no problem in looking loony and weird, and seems to revel in it, as she displays total ignorance and outrageous comments while claiming to be religious and led by God’s command. Only Sarah Palin may be more outrageous in her behavior and comments than Bachmann, but certainly it is a close race between the two ladies!

So Minnesota is likely to see two home staters competing for the nomination, along with others, and Pawlenty seems legitimate, while Bachmann most certainly does not, all adding to the allure of following Minnesota politics for the Presidential Election year of 2012!

Minnesota: The Ultimate Split State Politically!

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Here we are four weeks after the election, and still the Governorship race is not settled in Minnesota! 🙁

Democrat Mark Dayton, former Senator, leads Tom Emmer, the Republican and Tea Party favorite by a little over 8,000 votes, and the recount is still on, with Emmer challenging the result since it is within one percent or less of a lead held by Dayton.

This recount brings back memories of the Minnesota Senate race of 2008, which was ultimately won by Al Franken over Senator Norm Coleman by just a few hundred votes, after lawsuits and recounts that went on for six months!

Minnesota, once the state of such luminaries as Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, Eugene McCarthy, and Paul Wellstone, today is the true epitome of a state with a split personality!

It has two Democratic Senators, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, but it has had Tim Pawlenty, a very conservative Republican as its governor, and Michele Bachmann, the Tea Party and conservative Congresswoman, as another major factor in the increasingly conservative GOP, and the voters have been truly evenly split about the direction of the state, leading to the excruciatingly close results in these statewide elections!

Minnesota is truly now a microcosm of the political state of the nation, and it is not a promising political climate for the future! 🙁

Senator Al Franken Of Minnesota: A Freshman Senator Making Good Impression!

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Senator Al Franken of Minnesota, who had to face a battle for more than six months to be seated, after the hotly contested battle with Senator Norm Coleman dragged on after the 2008 election, has become an impressive, serious minded legislator in the year since he took the oath of office!

Famous, or infamous, for being a comedian, and constantly under attack by conservatives because of his strongly liberal views which annoyed the Right Wing during his show business career, Franken has been a very principled, thoughtful, and insightful legislator!

Although he can still tell a joke with finesse and lighten up a room with his humor, Franken has worked very hard to show he is no longer a comedian, but a person who has deep thoughts and ideas, particularly in regards to the Supreme Court!

He might be the last person to speak at Senate Judiciary Committee hearings, but he has asked significant questions of Supreme Court nominees Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan!

He has also led the attack on the Roberts Supreme Court for its Citizens United decision in January, giving corporations total freedom to get involved in political campaigns without any kinds of limits!

Franken has proved to be a progressive in the best tradition–there for the American people, and calling for regulation and oversight of big business in the public interest!

On the first anniversary of his becoming a Senator, Al Franken deserves a salute for his fine performance! 🙂

Senator Al Franken’s Judgment Of The Supreme Court: NOT “Equal Justice Under Law”!

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Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, gave a very important speech last week on the Supreme Court’s right wing turn before a progressive legal organization, the American Constitution Society.

He condemned the Roberts Court for favoring corporations over every day Americans, and blamed conservative legal scholars, and the Federalist Society, for promoting the concept of “originalism”, regularly advocated by Associate Justice Antonin Scalia!

The lives of ordinary people matter, but the conservative legal advocates have made the American Civil Liberties Union seem “unAmerican” for backing the rights of the less fortunate and the less powerful in society, Franken declared!

The senator pointed out that Justice John Paul Stevens has said that every Justice appointed after him thirty five years ago, with the exception of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, has been more to the right than his predecessor in the position. The Supreme Court has NOT exercised judicial restraint in its decisions, and instead has been radical in ignoring one hundred years of judicial decisions that limited corporate rights in campaigns and election in its Citizens United case in January!

The Court has decided, Franken declared, that no individual’s rights come above the rights of a corporation to profit and influence! 🙁

A whole century of decisions that gave meaning to the Constitution for labor, women, minorities, immigrants, the poor, and others seen as not having wealth and power, is now under attack!

Progressives, Franken concluded, must fight to create a level playing field, which many may have thought was settled law, but is now under attack by an activist, conservative Court!

In many ways, constitutionally, we are moving backwards a century, and progressives must not sit on the sidelines as the rich and powerful regain their former dominance! Franken is absolutely correct in his assessment, and this is a speech which needs to gain widespread notice!

The Demise Of Air America Radio: A Tragic Loss

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The sad news has emerged that Air America Radio, the liberal-progressive attempt to compete with conservative talk radio, has gone bankrupt and will go off the air next Monday after five years of trying to become an alternative political choice on radio.

Various liberals attempted to draw a large audience, including Minnesota Senator Al Franken, Ed Schultz, Randy Rhodes, and Stephanie Miller, but it failed to click.

Conservatives will cheer this news, but it is a loss when an electronic media source, as much as a print media source, fails.

The American people are the loser when a form of media is so dominated by one side of the political spectrum, so it behooves liberals and progressives to continue the fight to get the word out about the truth and the reality of what conservatives have done that has led to the domestic and foreign mess that this nation faces in 2010 after the Bush years!

Civility In The US Senate: Desperately Needed!

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It was disturbing to see another example of the loss of civility in the midst of the heated debate in the Senate over health care reform, when Minnesota Senator Al Franken, who was presiding at the time, denied Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman the opportunity for one more minute to finish his remarks.

It is true that the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had set up a ten minute limit so that work could be made on the defense appropriations bill, so as to make it possible to return to the health care debate. But if a senator was to be allowed a one extra minute extension would not have been a crime. It made Franken look very rude and nasty.

In any case, it led Arizona Senator John McCain to criticize Franken for his action, although it has since been shown that McCain prevented extra discussion of the Iraq War resolution in 2002 when he was presiding, so there is an element of hypocrisy in McCain stepping in to protest.

Ironically, Lieberman took the rejection of the extra minute gracefully and even chuckled in surprise. And get this: later in the day, Lieberman and Franken were seen conversing, laughing, and even hugging each other as if nothing important had happened.

So the whole incident does seem maybe somewhat contrived, as one looks back at it. But it also shows that Joe Lieberman, for all the criticism he takes and the anger he engenders, can still be a decent human being and a cordial, friendly person, even to those who wrong him in some way.

So the incident does not deserve the condemnation of the Minnesota Republican party to the extent that they bitterly denounced Franken. But again,realize, so much of this is staged politics, so it is hard to know if what you see occurring is real.

Let’s just say that the principle of civility and decency in political discourse is still a good thing to promote under any circumstances!