WASHINGTON — Sen. Al Franken will headline Netroots Nation, the largest annual gathering of online progressive activists in America, this summer, officials from Franken’s office confirmed today.

“The netroots community is a critical piece of a successful progressive agenda. They’re talking to their neighbors, volunteering their time, and they’re on the front lines making change happen,” Franken said in a statement. “I’ve been honored to have their support, and I’m honored to talk to them this summer.”

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Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) will give the keynote speech to Netroots Nation, the conference for progressive bloggers announced Thursday.

Franken’s speech to the July conference being held in Las Vegas is a sign that while the first-term senator has mostly stayed quiet since winning his recount-stalled election against former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), he still remains a powerful voice among liberals.

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Sixteen airports throughout Minnesota have been awarded over $5 million in federal grants to fund a number of maintenance and construction projects, including the St. James Municipal Airport. The St. James Airport received $144,216 to rehabilitate the runway. Today the offices of Transportation Chairman Jim Oberstar (D-Minn),?Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken (D-Minn), and Rep. Collin Peterson, Keith Ellison, and Tim?Walz (D-Minn) announced that the grants will come from the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FFA) Airport Improvement Program, administered by the Department of Transportation.

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WASHINGTON – Jobless Minnesotans would see their unemployment and health benefits extended and the state would get help closing its budget gap under a $150 billion bill passed by the Senate on Wednesday.

The bill, which still faces a vote in the House, would send as much as $430 million to insure the poor in Minnesota at a time when the state faces a crushing deficit and a 7.3 percent unemployment rate.

Facing persistent unemployment across the nation, Democrats in Washington are using their majorities in Congress to push through a flurry of economic provisions under the banner of a jobs agenda that is still taking form.

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DULUTH, MINN. — Last week President Obama delivered what might have been his final plea for Congress to pass health care reform. It’s being called “Pledge and Pass,” and it’s a term coined by Minnesota Senator Al Franken.

Franken says for Minnesotans, Pledge and Pass is a critical effort.

“The number one cause of bankruptcy in MN is healthcare crises,” Franken said in a special interview with the Northland’s NewsCenter.

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DULUTH – Minnesota’s junior senator doesn’t see a problem with abortion language in the health care bill.

Pro–life democrats like Bart Stupak and Jim Oberstar are concerned about federal money going to voluntary abortions. But, Senator Al Franken says the way the bill is written, that should not be a problem.

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Washington, D.C. – Today U.S. Senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken along with Congressman Collin Peterson urged the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to strengthen federal efforts in the Red River Valley. In a letter to FEMA Administrator, Craig Fugate, the members requested that FEMA take immediate steps to coordinate flood mitigation efforts and prepare to respond swiftly to any flood damage. The National Weather Service recently forecast that the Red River Valley region is again facing the possible flooding at record levels this spring.

“We write to bring to your attention the potential for devastating flooding along the Red River of the North this spring, and ask for your immediate assistance to plan, prepare and coordinate flood protection efforts, which communities have already initiated, to facilitate FEMA’s timely response to any damage once the water recedes,” said the members in the letter.

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Minnesota Senator Al Franken gets his hands dirty while helping Red River communities prepare for possible record breaking spring flooding. Franken stopped in both Moorhead and Hendrum on Saturday to talk with local officials about flood prevention issues. He also took time to help fill sandbags.

Franken says, “I think the best thing is for the community to come up with its own decision. I think that will be the most valid. And I think that will, that decision then would come with the most force for getting funding.”

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Unfounded fear is getting in the way of ethical decision making and sound public policy in this country. The gay community continues to be the whipping boy for fear mongers, but everyone suffers when laws are enacted and enforced based on fear.

Take the fact that for the past 27 years men who have engaged in sex with men have been banned from donating blood in the United States. In 1983, at the start of the AIDS crisis, this made sense as a way to prevent the transmission of HIV through blood transfusions. Since then, however, there have been tremendous advances in screening blood and it is next to impossible for any blood with the humane immunodeficiency virus to enter our blood supply. Yet the ban on men who have had sex with men donating blood remains.

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Sen. Al Franken is among 16 senators calling on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to end the ban on blood donations by gay men. In a letter to FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg on Thursday, the senators called the policy “medically and scientifically unsound” and called out the double standard placed on gay men who want to be donors.

“Prospective donors who have engaged in heterosexual sexual activity with a person known to have HIV are deferred for one year,” the letter said. “At the same time, male donors who engaged in protected homosexual sexual activity with a monogamous partner 26 years ago are deferred for life.”

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