You might not mind if all your Facebook friends knew you watched movies like “The Godfather.” But would you want everyone to know you watched “Yoga for Health: Depression and Gastrointestinal Disorders”?

Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., used those examples Tuesday to illustrate a growing debate over how much control people should have over their movie viewing histories. The question is whether companies such as Netflix and Facebook should have to ask every time they share someone’s movie data, or whether one-time blanket permission is good enough.

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Minnesota Senator Al Franken toured a U of M wind plant Friday, one of three in the country to receive a federal grant.

The Eolos Wind Energy Research Station in Rosemount supports wind turbine and wind farm designs. The plant won a $7.9 million grant in 2009 as part of the Department of Energy’s commitment to clean energy.
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Senator Al Franken, in a video for the Human Rights Campaign’s American’s for Marriage Equality, has given his reasons for supporting same-sex marriage while urging other Americans to do the same.

In the video, released Thursday, Franken says: ” I support marriage equality. My wife Franni and I have been married for 36 years, many of them happy. I think everybody should be able to marry the person they love, and I think our government should help people make those loving lifelong commitments.”

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Bullying has never been acceptable.

It has never been understandable.

It simply should not be tolerated.

But, with technology providing even more potential methods of bullying others, it has never been more important to emphasize that bullying is wrong.

The consequences, tragically, can be fatal.
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It’s unclear if Mendota’s post office has gained a reprieve or just a stay of sentence, but either way the historical and beloved institution will be spared from closure for at least a few more months thanks to — of all things — a letter.

That letter, dated Dec. 9 and signed by 20 U.S. Senators, including Minnesota’s Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, called for a six-month moratorium on the cost-cutting measures the United States Postal Service is considering, most notably the closing and consolidation of 3,700 post office locations nationwide.

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Strange bedfellows on Capitol Hill, ranging from Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) to Rep. Jeff Landry (R-La.), are joining forces to change controversial detainee language that was signed into law by President Obama last month.

The bipartisan effort is a clear indication that the debate on the government’s power to detain suspected terrorists, including U.S. citizens, will continue into 2012.

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Sen. Al Franken is the latest celebrity to make a web ad promoting marriage equality in a campaign sponsored by Americans for Marriage Equality.

It’s a national campaign, but the issue has heated up in Minnesota with a November vote coming on a state constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage in the state.

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In June, we went on record on these pages in support of an imperfect solution to a real problem. The solution is a four-lane freeway-style bridge crossing the St. Croix River south of Stillwater that would help solve the town’s longstanding traffic-congestion problems. It needed exemption from the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to allow the project to go forward.

The bridge, with an estimated price tag of $574 million to $690 million, took a major step toward construction Monday with approval in the U.S. Senate. The St. Croix River Crossing Project Authorization Act, spearheaded by Sen. Amy Klobuchar, was passed on a voice vote under a unanimous consent procedure used to expedite proceedings on legislation not considered controversial. That label belies the history of the long-delayed project, but we welcome the move nonetheless.

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On Monday, a bipartisan bill that would allow the St. Croix River bridge project to move forward was unanimously passed by the U.S. Senate and will now face a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The bill, which had bipartisan support and was cosponsored by Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, of Minnesota, and Herb Kohl, of Wisconsin, also has the support of both Gov. Mark Dayton and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

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