Al Franken needs to stop comparing his resignation to death

More than a year after he resigned from the Senate amid sexual misconduct allegations, Al Franken describes what happened to him as a kind of violence.

The junior senator from Minnesota, Franken announced his resignation in 2017 after eight women accused him of kissing or touching them in ways that made them uncomfortable. The first woman to come forward publicly, Leeann Tweeden, provided a 2006 photograph of Franken pretending to grab her breasts while she was sleeping.

Kirsten Gillibrand Pays The Price For Speaking Out Against Al Franken

No one in Congress is more associated with the Me Too movement than Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.). Long before Harvey Weinstein and Matt Lauer became infamous creeps, Gillibrand was focusing her attention on sexual assault and harassment in the military, on college campuses and in the workplace.

But the two-term senator cemented her prominence in the movement last year when she called out members of her own party. In November, she said that Bill Clinton should have resigned the presidency over his affair with Monica Lewinsky. And then the following month, she became the first Democratic senator to publicly call on then-Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) to go after multiple women accused him of engaging in sexual misconduct.

Al Franken Makes First Public Speech Since Announcing His Resignation

An emotional Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) thanked his supporters and friends during a speech in Minneapolis Thursday night, in what is expected to be one of his final public appearances as a senator.

“Serving the people of Minnesota in the United States Senate has been the honor of my life, and I’m here tonight to say thank you,” Franken told the crowd.

Female senators took down Al Franken

As more and more women came forward to accuse Sen. Al Franken of sexual misconduct, top Senate leaders — all men — stayed quiet. It was not until a group of female senators stood up and said, “Enough,” that the tide turned.

"The allegations against Sen. Franken describe behavior that cannot be tolerated," Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (NY) tweeted. Within minutes, five other Democratic female senators posted messages urging him to step down.

Al Franken: The Happy Warrior

Last November, Al Franken had this great idea for a sketch.

Bits still come to him, unbidden, all of these years after Saturday Night Live. He doesn't do anything with them. At this stage in his life, as a U.S. senator representing his home state of Minnesota, passing along a freebie to one of his friends in show business would leave Franken with little control over the final outcome. ("Many a slip 'twixt cup and lip," as one of his favorite sayings goes.) Anyway, the idea for the bit came after Donald Trump's first postelection visit to the White House – that fleeting moment when, after meeting with Barack Obama, Trump seemed uncharacteristically humbled by the awesomeness of his new responsibility, and perhaps even spooked enough to lean on his predecessor for advice.

Elizabeth Warren, Al Franken Join Growing List Of Democrats Skipping Netanyahu Speech

Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Al Franken (D-Minn.) announced Monday that they will not attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Tuesday address to a joint session of Congress.

One day after President Barack Obama said he would veto any new sanctions against Iran, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) invited Netanyahu to make his case to Congress against a nuclear deal. Boehner extended the invitation without first consulting the White House, a move seen by some as disrespectful to Obama. The administration has pushed back on the speech, calling Boehner's invite a breach of protocol.

Al Franken Was Liberal Enough, Tough Enough, and Doggone It, People Reelected Him

One evening a few days before the midterm elections, Sen. Al Franken stood on a low raised platform at Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party's St. Paul headquarters, addressing a few dozen loyal supporters. Chris Coleman, St. Paul's mayor, had introduced the freshman senator by telling the crowd that Franken had fulfilled the legacy of the late progressive icon Paul Wellstone, whose Senate seat Franken now holds. "Thank you for saying I've been your Paul," Franken replied solemnly. "There's no higher compliment." Then he dove into a Wellstone-esque speech selling progressive policy ideas in simple, everyman terms, spelling out exactly how he'd raise taxes on Minnesota millionaires to help students refinance their loans. "We up here believe that the economy—and not just our economy, but our community and our state—it works from the middle up," he said. The speech exemplified how Franken campaigned—and why he won.

Al Franken Wants You to Save the Internet From the FCC and Greedy Corporations

The senator has positioned himself as the most ardent defender of a free and open Internet, and has just issued a direct challenge to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler.

Franken opposes the impending merger of Time Warner and Comcast that would leave 19 of the top 20 markets with only one choice for truly broadband Internet.

Now the senator is ramping up his campaign to preserve net neutrality. He has successfully urged interested corporations, such as Netflix and Google, to become more involved, and he’s issued the following video plea:

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Source: truthdig.com/
Author: Peter Z. Scheer

Al Franken Calls On Carrier IQ To Explain Mobile Tracking Software

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) is calling on a developer to provide details of hidden software installed on smartphones that logs numerous details about users' activities.

In a letter sent Thursday to Carrier IQ president Larry Lenhart, Franken asked for an explanation of what the company's software records, whether it transmits data to a third party and whether the data presents any security or privacy risks. Franken said the software's capabilities may violate federal laws.

Earlier this week, security researcher Trevor Eckhart posted a video detailing how Carrier IQ's software -- which has the same name -- logs every text message, web search and phone number typed on a wide variety of smartphones and reports them to the mobile phone carrier.

The application also logs a user's location and the URL of websites searched on the phone, even if the user intends to encrypt that data using a URL that begins with "HTTPS," Eckhart said in the video. The software always runs when Android's operating system is running and users are unable to stop it.

How the KBR Rape Verdict Could Undermine Al Franken's Contracting Law

Following last week's verdict in the Jamie Leigh Jones rape case, is the law Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) pushed through Congress in her name now in jeopardy?

Jones' shocking story of being drugged and gang-raped in Iraq by fellow KBR contractors formed the inspiration for the freshman senator's first major legislative victory in October 2009. By a vote of 68 to 30, the Senate approved Franken's measure barring the military from contracting with companies that force their employees to take legal complaints to mandatory arbitration—rather than a civil jury—in cases involving sexual assault. The law would prevent what happened to Jones, who was at first blocked from taking her rape allegations to court because of an arbitration clause in her employment contract with KBR.

Fighting For America's Middle Class, Netroots Nation 2011

On Saturday, June 18th, I was given the honor of speaking at Netroots Nation 2011 in Minneapolis, the 6th annual convention of progressive grassroots leaders and activists. I was the opening speaker at Saturday's Morning Keynote session, which focused on how to save the middle class and build progressive infrastructure. I had an amazing time at the conference and met a ton of passionate activists and progressives.

It was fitting that Netroots Nation was in Minnesota this year. Minnesota is the state that sent Hubert Humphrey to the U.S. Senate, where he cheerfully waged--and usually won--great battles in the name of the young and the old, the poor and the vulnerable, the oppressed and the disenfranchised.

It's the state where Walter Mondale rose to become the living embodiment of common-sense Midwestern progressive values. And it's the state where Paul Wellstone became my hero--and the hero of a generation of progressives who believed, as he did, that we all do better when we all do better.

These Minnesotans were instrumental in establishing the America we know and love today - from building the social safety net to establishing workers' rights to investing in our manufacturing sector - they helped build the middle class. And defending those progressive values is crucial to saving the middle class today.

My speech, entitled: "The Attack on America's Middle Class, and the Plan to Fight Back," laid out some ideas on what we can do to preserve these values that began as 'progressive,' but have become simply American.

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Source: Huffington