Sen. Al Franken announced yesterday that he would be fighting Comcast's right to retool NBC's executive structure prior to the merger's regulatory approval, writing a letter with complaints to the Justice Department that cried "gun-jumping" on the part of the imposing cable behemoth. If the department hears Franken's claim that the proposed executive Read More
Senator Al Franken is coming to New York City to help raise for Sean Coffey's attorney general campaign.
The two political neophytes crossed paths ten years ago aboard the John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier. Mr. Coffey, a former Naval officer, was on a reserve duty assignment as a Navy Captain during the International Naval Review in Read More
Let the record show that Al Franken, freshman senator from Minnesota, bears little resemblance to Al Franken, onetime Saturday Night Live funnyman. At an otherwise genteel subcommittee grilling of the top executives from NBC Universal and Comcast over their proposed media mega-merger last week, Mr. Franken had none of the self-doubt of his famously sheepish Read More
On August 6th, ten Midwestern Democratic Senators sent a letter to President Obama that began the hardball phase of creating climate policy as it moves from the House’s Waxman-Markey bill to Senate deliberations in the fall. In this letter, the Senators insist that climate change legislation must protect U.S. manufacturers from unfair foreign competition. They Read More
The new senator from Minnesota is a comedian, writer and actor who lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and raised a lot of money from friends in Hollywood. The departing governor of Alaska is a hockey mom from a small backwoods town who likes to hunt and fish. Yet Al Franken looks wholesomely Read More
The walls are closing in on Norm Coleman.
Officially, the Minnesota Republican has been pursuing a legal contest of the state Canvassing Board's January 5 declaration that he'd been defeated by Al Franken by 225 votes in last November's Senate election.
But, really, that was just Coleman's cover story, a tactic to buy time to Read More
The logic behind Read More
With a run-off in Georgia set for Tuesday and a lengthy recount still ongoing in Minnesota, not all of this year's Senate races have been resolved. And yet it is a contest that won't even take place for two years that has arguably stirred the most interest this past week.
For months, it's been obvious Read More
With a run-off in Georgia set for Tuesday and a lengthy recount still ongoing in Minnesota, not all of this year's Senate races have been resolved. And yet it is a contest that won't even take place for two years that has arguably stirred the most interest this past week.
For months, it's been obvious Read More
The 1994 midterm election is justly recalled as the strongest ever for the Republican Party. Bill Clinton, elected to the presidency two years earlier, had spent the first half of his term giving voters reason to regret the faith they’d placed in him. Independents felt let down, Republicans were openly hostile (and unusually unified in Read More
In the wake of the deadly bridge collapse in Minnesota, U.S. Senate candidate and SNL alum Al Franken has suspended his big New York fund-raiser, along with all other campaign activities, according to a campaign spokesman. Here's a related message on his campaign web site.
Ever since rumors began to swirl that Air America Radio might declare bankruptcy—a rumor that became real on Oct. 13, 2006—the network’s Sixth Avenue headquarters have had the slow, deflated feel of a boomtown going bust. The cluster of cubicles that were once occupied by a buzzy cadre of researchers sits partly empty—except for the Read More
The Observer has learned that former Vice President Al Gore and business partner Joel Hyatt, an entrepreneur and Democratic fund-raiser, will close the deal to pay around $70 million to French-owned Vivendi Universal this week, making them the owners of the tiny digital-cable channel Newsworld International (NWI), moving Mr. Gore from politics to mini-media-moguldom. Mr. Read More
Radio host, political satirist and possible senate candidate Al Franken is having a fundraiser in Manhattan on March 9th for his Midwest Value Pac. Now the only question is which gets a bigger laugh: jokes about Dick Cheney or Bill O'Reilly? --Azi Paybarah
