WASHINGTON — About $193 million worth of taxpayer dollars is spent every year in the Fargo-Moorhead area on fighting, responding to and cleaning up after floods on the Red River — and those are for fights they’ve won.

A loss, defined as the icy waters of March and April breaching the makeshift sandbag levees and flooding the cities, would cost about $8 billion to clean up.

But the risk could be mitigated — and almost eliminated, city officials say — if federal officials would green-light a proposed 36-mile-long diversion channel that would funnel away 35,000 cubic feet of water per second. The cost: $1.4 billion over 10 years, the federal portion of which comes to about $90 million a year.

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Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar offered remarks at the Senate confirmation hearing of Elena Kagan for U.S. Supreme Court. Klobuchar praised Kagan’s career, saying, “I am hopeful that you will use your great skills and abilities to bring that commonsense perspective to the Court.” Franken said the court has taken a sharp turn to the right in recent decades and that under Chief Justice John Roberts, it “has cut in only one direction: in favor of powerful corporate interests, and against the rights of individual Americans.”

Franken said he thought Kagan would be a step in the right direction.

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With a sedate Day One of Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation behind us, Tuesday is expected to be a bit more lively as the question-and-answer phase begins.

Here’s six Senators on the Judiciary Committee to keep an eye on during today’s proceedings:

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Michael Gerson’s June 23 op-ed column, “Al Franken strikes out again,” attacking the Minnesota senator’s recent speech to the American Constitution Society, shows just how afraid of the truth corporate judicial activists and their apologists have become.

In his speech, Mr. Franken talked about recent Supreme Court decisions. From Stoneridge Investment Partners v. Scientific Atlanta, a major victory for investment banks over shareholders, to Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, Mr. Franken showed that the court of John G. Roberts Jr. has a conservative majority that consistently sides with corporate interests.

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“Now, last year I used my time during these hearings to highlight what I think is one of the most serious threats to our Constitution and to the rights it guarantees to the American people, the activism of the Roberts court. I noted that for years conservatives running for the Senate have made it almost an article of faith that they won’t vote for activist judges who make law from the bench. And when asked to name a model justice, they would often cite Justice Thomas, who I noted has voted to overturn more federal laws than Justice Stevens and Justice Breyer combined.

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Sens. Al Franken (D-Minn.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) are two of the latest Senate Democrats to use their opening statements in Elena Kagan’s confirmation hearing today to criticize the Supreme Court over what they believe is a recent record of pro-corporation rulings.

Franken said the court under Chief Justice John Roberts has repeatedly practiced judicial activism, always in favor of corporate interests.

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Sen. Al Franken used his opening remarks at Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing as a forum for his critique of the Roberts court, with very little reference to Kagan’s background or qualifications.

Speaking last on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Franken focused sharply on the court’s decision in the Citizens United case earlier this year, which overturned a century’s worth of campaign finance law and allowed corporations and unions to spend money on election ads endorsing or opposing candidates.

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WASHINGTON, D.C. The Minnesota National Guard’s 114th Transportation Company was named as the outstanding transportation company in the Army National Guard.

The unit achieved this award as a result of their stellar performance in Afghanistan.

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Democratic senators are planning to put the right of citizens to challenge corporate power at the center of their critique of activist conservative judging, offering a case that has not been fully aired since the days of the great Progressive Era Justice Louis Brandeis.

It was Brandeis who warned against the “concentration of economic power” and observed that “so-called private corporations are sometimes able to dominate the state.”

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Al Franken isn’t a lawyer, but he’s really good at explaining how Supreme Court decisions affect individual Americans.

Michael Gerson is a Washington Post columnist, but he seems to have the same regard for the truth as a George W. Bush speechwriter — which he once was. Gerson’s column attacking Sen. Franken’s recent speech to the American Constitution Society (“Franken out of order,” June 23) shows just how afraid of the truth corporate judicial activists (and their apologists) have become.

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