Al Franken's Blog, page 75
April 4, 2012
Marshall Independent: Franken continues to champion support for returning troops
U.S. Sen. Al Franken on Tuesday applauded Minnesota for its efforts to help returning troops reintegrate back into a normal society, such as the Beyond the Yellow Ribbon campaign, but knows there is plenty more states should be doing to help ease the transition.
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© Al Franken - U.S. Senator, Minnesota, 2012. |
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March 29, 2012
St. Croix Valley Press: Food shelf tour
In an effort to call attention to the increasing demand for food shelf assistance in Washington County, U.S. Senator Al Franken toured the Valley Outreach Center during his visit to Stillwater Saturday, March 24. The senator met with employees and volunteers and also pitched in to help stock shelves with food items.
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© Al Franken - U.S. Senator, Minnesota, 2012. |
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KSTP: Poetry Contest: 'My Experiences as a Military Child'
April is "Military Child and National Poetry Month" and Al Franken is celebrating it with a contest.
According to a press release, Franken is hosting a poetry contest with the theme "My experiences as a Military Child." He invites all children of military families across Minnesota to enter..
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© Al Franken - U.S. Senator, Minnesota, 2012. |
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March 27, 2012
Woodbury Patch: Photos: Homecoming in Woodbury
Dozens of people—including U.S. Sen. Al Franken and Woodbury Mayor Mary Giuliani Stephens—came out Saturday for the dedication of Habitat for Humanity's 900th home in the Twin Cities.
The new homes have been built at the Garden Gate development of Woodbury, along Settlers Ridge Parkway south of Hudson Road.
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© Al Franken - U.S. Senator, Minnesota, 2012. |
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March 7, 2012
KARE: Sen. Franken hosts 2nd annual hotdish cook-off
It's not a rivalry on the level of Yankees-Red Sox or Vikings-Packers, but Minnesota's congressional delegation will face off today in a competition that really cooks.
We're talking hotdish, folks.
On Wednesday afternoon U.S. Senator Franken will host his second annual hotdish competition. Senator Amy Klobuchar and Representatives Michele Bachmann, Keith Ellison, Tim Walz, Erik Paulsen, Collin Peterson, and Chip Cravaack will enter their own recipies in an attempt to take home the casserole crown.
Franken started the friendly "Hotdish-off" last year as a way to bring the delegation together, and put partisanship aside and focus on Minnesota.
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Pine Journal: Our senators are standing up for rural health care
To the Editor:
Late last year, I wrote a letter in this paper warning of the dangers of a mega-merger in the health care industry which, if approved, would end up forcing more and more people away from their Main Street pharmacy and towards mail order. The merger of Express Scripts and Medco would result in more and more rural pharmacies going out of business.
In the next 30 days, the FTC will decide whether or not we are going to allow what would be essentially a monopoly in this area. Rural health care will suffer.
Thankfully, both Senators Klobuchar and Franken have recently called the Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission to stand up for rural health care and rural pharmacies.
Their leadership on this issue means rural citizens have a strong voice talking directly to the leadership of the FTC. We may often feel like we don't have a voice in Washington. Our two senators have demonstrated they'll stand up for Main Street jobs and rural health care.
© Al Franken - U.S. Senator, Minnesota, 2012. |
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MinnPost: Sen. Al Franken on peace process, national service, U.S.-Israel bond
Today, I sat down for an exclusive interview with United States Senator Al Franken about his recent trip to Israel with the American Israel Education Foundation, AIPAC's educational arm.
His trip was filled with meetings and dinners with a wide variety of different kinds of people from those in Israel's medical technology industry, to terror victims, to Israeli parliament members and the Prime Ministers of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The Senator even went to a synagogue in Jerusalem on Friday night for religious services, and he and his wife Franni joined their Rabbi and several community members for a Sabbath meal. Overall, Senator Franken said he had a fabulous time and learned a lot about Israel, its politics and its people.
Senator Franken discussed Israel's peace process with the Palestinians in his private meetings with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. In meeting with Netanyahu, he said, "My job wasn't to try to convince him of anything. My job was to get to know him a little better and have him get to know me better and to ask questions."
In reflecting on those two pivotal meetings, Senator Franken said that one of the things he found fascinating was that "there seems to be this basic agreement that the peace process is stalled" and everyone seemed to be okay with that. And "[Palestinian Prime Minister] Fayyad was basically saying, let's use the time here in the West Bank to try to build up civic institutions to build up economically in order to make ourselves ready to be a state." However, although impressed with Fayyad, Senator Franken expressed the caveat that it was his "sense that [Fayyad] does not have a huge constituency. He's not Fatah, he's not Hamas."
Senator Franken discussed with me some of the ways that he believes that the United States benefits from its strong relationship with Israel, including in the area of emergency medicine. "We've already learned a tremendous amount from Israel. In fact, in Afghanistan and in Iraq we've had fewer fatalities from wounds than in any conflict we've been in and its in no small part because of what Israel has learned about treating trauma and treating it immediately."
© Al Franken - U.S. Senator, Minnesota, 2012. |
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MPR: Minn. lawmakers back bill to fight Asian carp
With Asian carp spreading up the Mississippi River, members of Minnesota's congressional delegation are introducing legislation designed to counter the invasive fish.
The bill comes after news that commercial fishermen caught Asian carp near Winona last week.
It asks the Army Corps of Engineers to consider closing the Upper St. Anthony Falls Dam in Minneapolis as one measure to combat the spread of the fish.
The legislation has the backing of Gov. Mark Dayton, Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar, and Reps. Tim Walz, Keith Ellison and Erik Paulsen.
© Al Franken - U.S. Senator, Minnesota, 2012. |
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Al Wired OpEd: Privacy and Civil Liberties in the Digital Age
Last year, a researcher discovered that iPhones — among the world's most popular electronic devices — were storing detailed, unencrypted information on their owners' locations and uploading it to any computer they were connected to. Subsequent research revealed that both Apple iPhones and Google Android devices were sending detailed location information back to Apple and Google — and that in some cases, users didn't know about it and even if they did, they had no way of stopping it.
Just a few months ago, another researcher discovered that software made by a company called Carrier IQ had been secretly installed on millions of smartphones and was tracking consumers' locations and other private information. In both cases, millions of consumers who were carrying smartphones in their pockets had no idea that their personal information was being collected — and no way of stopping it.
When people talked about protecting their privacy when I was growing up, they were talking about protecting it from the government. They talked about unreasonable searches and seizures, about keeping the government out of their bedrooms. They talked about whether the government was trying to keep tabs on the books they read or the rallies they attended. Over the last 40 or 50 years, we've seen a fundamental shift in who has our information and what they're doing with it. That's not to say that we still shouldn't be worried about protecting ourselves from government abuses. But now, we also have relationships with large corporations that are obtaining, storing — and in many cases, sharing (and selling) — enormous amounts of our personal information.
When the Constitution was written, the founders had no way of anticipating the new technologies that would evolve in the coming centuries. They had no way of anticipating the telephone, and so the Supreme Court ruled over 40 years ago, in Katz v. United States, that a wiretap constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. The founders had no idea that one day the police would be able to remotely track your movements through a GPS device, and so the Supreme Court ruled in January, in United States v. Jones, that this was also a search that required court approval.
All of this is a good thing: Our laws need to reflect the evolution of technology and the changing expectations of American society. This is why the Constitution is often called a "living" document.
But we have a long way to go to get our modern privacy laws in line with modern technology.
© Al Franken - U.S. Senator, Minnesota, 2012. |
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February 17, 2012
WCCO: Senator Franken Talks Capitol Issues And Hot Dish
Senator Al Franken called in on the WCCO Morning News with Dave Lee Wednesday.
Franken talked about his efforts on this year's Farm bill among other legislative issues. Franken also promoted his State delegation hot dish baking contest in Washington DC. Franken admitted that Sen. Klobuchar and Rep. Bachmann were able to out-cook him last year.
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© Al Franken - U.S. Senator, Minnesota, 2012. |
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