Al Franken
Al Franken
Alan Stuart "Al" Frankenis an American comedian, actor, politician, and writer. He is currently the junior United States Senator from Minnesota. He became well known in the 1970s and 1980s as a writer and performer on the television comedy show Saturday Night Live. After several decades as a comedic actor and writer, he became a prominent liberal political activist. Franken was elected to the United States Senate in 2008, narrowly defeating incumbent Republican Senator Norm Coleman. Franken is a member...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth21 May 1951
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
Technology is an incredible tool - it connects people to each other, creates jobs all over the world, and makes life easier for millions of Americans.
Some of my colleagues seem more interested in using every procedural method possible to keep the Senate from doing anything than they are in creating jobs or helping Americans struggling in a difficult economy.
Minnesotans know the difference between the job of satirist and the job of senator. And so do I.
I felt like the luckiest kid in the world. And I was. I was growing up middle-class in a time when growing up middle-class in America meant there would be jobs for my parents, good schools for me to prepare myself for a career, and, if I worked hard and played by the rules, a chance for me to do anything I wanted.
I once asked the most fabulous couple I know, Madonna and Guy Ritchie, how they kept things fresh despite having been married for almost seven months. 'It's a job, Al,' Guy told me. 'We work at it every day.'
My dad didn't graduate from high school, ended up being a printing salesman, probably never made more than $8,000 a year. My mom sold real estate and did it part time.
My dad always told me to stand up to bullies, and Bill O'Reilly is kind of a bully, and he's the kind of kid who hits other kids on the playground. And when you hit him, he runs to the teacher and says, 'Teacher, sue him.'
What you see on the campaign trail is me. It's easy being me.
It's hard to have that debate around secret programs authorized by secret legal opinions issued by a secret court. Actually, it's impossible to have that debate.
Some of George W. Bush's friends say that Bush believes God called him to be president during these times of trial. But God told me that He/She/It had actually chosen Al Gore by making sure that Gore won the popular vote and, God thought, the Electoral College. 'That worked for everyone else,' God said.
Ralph Nader is a hero. I know Ralph, and I call him up occasionally. He's helped me out on a couple of occasions when I've given speeches to corporations where he'd have a good... He'd give me some good information.
People lucky enough to live in the vicinity of an industrial hog farm are, with each breath, made keenly aware of the cause of their declining property values.
Part of the middle class promise is that, after a lifetime of hard work, you'll be able to retire and enjoy the fruits of that labor. Medicare was established to secure that promise.
My views about God come from my dad. Dad told me that he believed Nature, which to him included humankind, to be so beautiful, so magnificent, that there had to be something behind it all.