By AL FRANKEN
September 28, 2008

There is no denying that the reconstruction of Iraq -an endeavor to which we have committed tens of billions of dollars and a significant amount of our prestige on the world stage- has been a disaster. Less well-known, but just as important for Minnesotans to consider, is Sen. Norm Coleman’s role in that disaster.

Because of waste, fraud, incompetence and abusive contracting practices by companies our government trusted to do this important job, billions were wasted, stolen or lost. Pallets of shrink-wrapped American currency simply disappeared from airport hangars. Greedy contractors got no-bid “cost-plus” contracts that guaranteed a set percentage over and above every dollar they managed to spend. Some, not content with this sweetheart arrangement, even made up fake invoices claiming they’d spent more than they did. And we paid Halliburton billions while it overcharged the military for oil it delivered from Kuwait and served our troops rotten food.

Let’s be very clear here: Ripping off the taxpayer in a time of war is a betrayal of the highest order. And the cost of this fraud cannot be measured in dollars alone.

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Read full op-ed after the break…
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By Al Franken
St. Cloud Times

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For everyone who loses a home, there are many more who lose their home equity. In the Twin Cities, for instance, home values have declined 14.8 percent in the past year. The Center for Responsible Lending estimates that the crisis could end up affecting more than a half-million Minnesota homeowners, costing us $2.3 billion in wealth.

Home equity is the foundation on which middle-class wealth is built – and the foundation is now cracking. With this crisis threatening our neighbors, our communities, and our middle-class economy, we need immediate action. That’s why I’ve called for three steps to fix our housing market.

First: a lifeline for struggling homeowners. I want an immediate and temporary moratorium on foreclosures of primary residences so that we can stop the bleeding in the housing market and allow our neighbors to get their heads above water.

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Read the full op-ed after the jump…
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Al Franken: Americans need to invest at home, not in Iraq

By Al Franken
Grand Forks Herald

ST. PAUL – In April, Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., took a trip to Iraq and spoke to a senior U.S. military officer. The officer told Levin that he had asked an Iraqi official why American dollars, rather than Iraqi dollars, were being used to clean up Iraqi towns.

The Iraqi official replied, “As long as you are willing to pay for the clean-up, why should we do it?”

He had a good point. There is a fine line between trying to fix what we broke in Iraq and being taken for chumps. And a report released recently was just the latest piece of evidence that we crossed that line a long time ago.
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To the editor:

I wanted to write to congratulate Faribault on winning the new Moventas gearbox plant. In my campaign for U.S. Senate, I’ve been calling for an Apollo program for renewable energy – and saying it would create jobs for Minnesota. The great news about the new plant shows that Minnesota is ready to be the epicenter and the engine of a new energy economy. We are the Saudi Arabia of wind and the source of some of the world’s premier research institutions. Congratulations to Faribault on the new plant and the new jobs. With continued investment in renewable energy technologies, this can be the beginning of a terrific trend.

Al Franken
U.S. Senate candidate

The Faribault Daily News published this letter on September 18, 2008.

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SAINT PAUL [9/11/08] – Al and Franni Franken released the following statement today:

Dear Friends,

Today, our campaign pauses to remember those we lost in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania seven years ago this morning.

On that day, we weren’t Democrats and Republicans. We were all Americans, united by our grief, our resolve to bring those responsible to justice, and our commitment to protecting our homeland from those who would harm us.

Franni and I are so proud of our country, and of the first responders and volunteers who rushed into danger in its service. I remember in the days after the attacks delivering Franni’s homemade apple pies to fire stations in our neighborhood – because everyone was doing what they could to help in the healing process.

That notion of common purpose remains with us, even in the din of a political campaign. So, today, let us focus on what unites us as Americans. And may that spirit of mutual sacrifice continue to be one of God’s many blessings for the country we all love so much.

Al and Franni

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Paul and Sheila Wellstone Center
September 10, 2008
With David Wellstone

Full-Text of Al’s Speech

So, there are differences in how we think the world works. But the biggest difference between me and Norm Coleman is in who we think a Senator is supposed to work for.

I think a Senator is supposed to work for that retired Steelworker in Eveleth, and the middle-class Mom frustrated because her daughter has too many kids in her classroom and not enough options to help her afford college, and the hundreds of thousands of homeowners who have seen their home equity disappear in this housing crisis.

Norm Coleman thinks being a Senator is about playing a game. The game works like this. Norm Coleman accepts hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign checks from corporate interests. He votes to give them special handouts and tax breaks that come out of our pockets. Then he comes back to Minnesota and pretends it never happened, and if he fools enough people, everybody wins.

The sad thing is, Norm Coleman fits in pretty well in Washington these days. Under this administration, we’ve seen our government become a place where the special interests run the show and reap the benefits.

Full speech after the jump…

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SAINT PAUL [9/9/08] – U.S. Senate Candidate Al Franken:

George W. Bush and Norm Coleman still have no plan to bring home the 140,000 troops who will be left in Iraq when this President leaves office. They still have no plan to root out and incapacitate the people who hit us on 9/11. They still have no plan to finish the job in Afghanistan. This is the same “stay the course” policy in a different package.

We can’t keep staying the course with a failed policy. We can’t keep spending $10 billion a month in Iraq while the Maliki government builds a $50 billion surplus. We can’t keep substituting the latest Bush talking points for a real plan for re-deployment. We can’t keep ignoring the very real possibility that our gains in Afghanistan could be erased and the very real threat posed by a reconstituted al Qaeda in Pakistan. And we can’t keep 140,000 troops in Iraq with no plan to end our military engagement there.

When I get to Washington, I’ll fight to bring an end to this war. Make no mistake: I’m not for a precipitous withdrawal. But the only leverage we have is to let the Iraqis and other regional powers know that this is not an open-ended commitment by declaring a timetable to end it. Only then will we be able to jump-start diplomacy.

We need a change of course in Iraq. And if we want that, it is now more clear than ever before that we need to start by making a change in Washington.

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This weekend, the Duluth News Tribune published an op-ed written by Al Franken called “Coleman’s energy policy puts Big Oil interests before Minnesota.”

Read the entire piece after the jump, including Al’s thoughts on the Bush-Coleman energy policy and his proposals to make Minnesota the epicenter and the engine of a green economy.

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Al Franken:

“This is a good decision for Minnesota farmers. I do understand that the high price of corn poses a problem for livestock producers, but economists tell us those high prices are only due, in small part, to ethanol. Instead they are largely due to the Bush-Coleman energy plan, which is driving up input costs. I don’t favor pitting commodities against each other — instead, I support a program of emergency relief for our livestock producers. Ending the failed Bush-Coleman policy of dependence on foreign oil — and solving the energy crisis that is threatening our economy — requires a focus on renewable energy. Although we are moving towards other forms of biofuels, right now corn ethanol is at the forefront of our effort to build a renewable energy economy.”

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Spending time in rural Minnesota is one of my favorite parts of campaigning for the U.S. Senate – and not just because I’m hopelessly addicted to sweet corn.

Farming is a vital part of Minnesota’s identity, not to mention our state’s economy and our national security. Without farms, we’d have no food, and no hope of energy independence. Without farms, we’d lose our rural values of service, faith, hard work, and strong communities.

That’s why I’m looking forward to this year’s Farmfest – and why I’m anxious to change the direction of our nation’s economic and energy policies. Because our rural communities are struggling under the weight of a recession and an energy crisis – neither of which Washington seems to be able to fix.

Read full entry for more…

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