Minnesota’s congressional delegation, as well as its likely presidential candidates, responded to last night’s news that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been killed in an American surgical raid near Islamabad. Reactions ranged from thanks to the military and calls for continued vigilance against the terrorist threat to rare kudos for President Obama from former Gov. Tim Pawlenty.
Two 14-year old girls committed suicide last week in Marshall, Minn., and the evidence suggests they’d been bullied. Relatives of Haylee Fentress and Paige Moravetz told Meredith Viera of the TODAY Show that the girls may have been more than just friends. Fentress had hyphenated her last name on Facebook to include Moravetz’s last name, and Fentress had been expelled from school recently for defending Paige in a fight. The pair’s deaths add to a growing list of suicides in Minnesota and around the country where bullying is suspected to have played a factor.
Sen. Al Franken is the sponsor of legislation introduced in the U.S. Senate late last week that would give binational same-sex couples the same rights as married couples for immigration purposes. The Uniting American Families Act is authored by Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont and is sponsored by 18 other Democrats.
Would public campaign financing help make Washington less corrupt? That was Wednesday’s topic at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee as the committee debated the Fair Elections Now Act, which would create a system where candidates can volunteer to get matching federal funds for small donations received from constituents. Sen. Al Franken, a member of the committee, grilled the only testifier that spoke against the bill.
During her speech at the Iowa-based Family Leader on Friday, potential presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann made a bold claim before the gathering of social conservatives: Sen. Al Franken, she said, stole the election against Sen. Norm Coleman, and that election is to blame for the passage of the national healthcare reform law.
Sen. Al Franken introduced legislation on Wednesday that would require Congress to pay for future wars and ensure that they do not add to the federal budget deficit. The Pay for War Resolution gives Congress the option to finance war through budget cuts, creating new revenue or a combination of both budgetary means. Franken said the bill is meant to avoid a repeat of the $1.25 trillion that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have added to the national debt.
Again stirring controversy on Capitol Hill is a measure in the U.S. House budget bill that would prevent federal funds from going to Planned Parenthood and cut Title X family planning funds. Potential presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty told anti-abortion rights group the Susan B. Anthony List that he supports defunding Planned Parenthood. Meanwhile, Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken signed a letter opposing the provision.
Rep. Michele Bachmann’s announcement last week that she’s mulling the idea of becoming a potential contender for the GOP nomination for president in 2012 has brought about a new round of fact-checking her statements this week. PolitiFact gave her a “Pants on Fire” rating on Tuesday, while Poligraph gave her an “inconclusive” on Wednesday. A member of Congress even used committee testimony this week to try and debunk one of her more frequent claims.
Former Sen. Norm Coleman stopped to talk with Pajamas Media at last weekend’s True the Vote conference hosted by the King Street Patriots in Houston. The conference trains conservative activists in how to monitor polls and push for tighter voter ID laws. In the interview, Coleman downplayed assertions that voter fraud cost him the election against Sen. Al Franken in 2008 but called voting “one of the greatest privileges that democracy affords,” comparing voter ID to showing an identification card when writing a check at McDonald’s.
Sen. Al Franken is a contributor to a book urging LGBT youth not to commit suicide because of bullying. “It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living,” by columnist Dan Savage contains an essay by Franken as well as fellow politicians President Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, British Prime Minister David Cameron and celebrities Perez Hilton, Ellen Degeneres and Suze Orman. The book is based on a video project of the same name in which thousands of people have lent their voice in support of LGBT youth.
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