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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This week President Obama asked Congress to stand strong and finish the job of fixing our busted health insurance system. I couldn’t agree more, and now we’ve got a plan to get this done.

I’m calling this strategy “Pledge & Pass,” and it’s a simple, two-step plan for passing meaningful health insurance reform. I believe it’s our job as public servants to actually serve the public, and ending the suffering of millions of Americans under our current system is exactly what our constituents expect and deserve.

Here’s the plan.

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Sen. Al Franken has waded into the culture wars again, this time as a co-sponsor of the Military Readiness Enhancement Act of 2010, which contains a provision to repeal the law that prevents gay Americans from openly serving in the military. In doing so, the bill seeks to repeal the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law passed during the Clinton administration. DATD said, in effect, that gays could only serve in the military if they kept their sexual orientation to themselves. If they spoke out — or were outed by someone else — they could be discharged.

“I’ve been on 7 USO tours – 4 to Iraq and Afghanistan – and I recently returned from a trip to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region as Senator,” Franken said in a statement. “Over the years I’ve seen tremendous movement on this issue within the military. They’re ready for it and we’re ready for it. We need to end a policy that forces patriotic Americans to lie in order to defend their country.”

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (WXOW) Minnesota representatives announced that first responders in 15 Minnesota communities will receive better tools and training thanks to a number of federal grants.

These are the latest round of grants from the Department of Homeland Security’s Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program (AFG).

Since 2001 the AFG programs have awarded over $4 billion in grants to communities across the nation to enhance the readiness of first responders. The funding can be used for new equipment purchases, training, or even public education programs.

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The Barnesville (Minn.) Fire Department is among 14 Minnesota communities that will receive federal grant funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Barnesville was awarded $41,278 out of more than $611,000 in DHS grant funding coming to the state, members of Minnesota’s congressional delegation announced Thursday.

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Thirteen senators, including Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer of California, introduced legislation Wednesday that would repeal the Pentagon’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which excludes gays from serving openly in the military.

“The time has come to repeal ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’ ” Feinstein said. “It is the right thing to do. Every American should have the opportunity to serve their country, regardless of race, sex, creed, or sexual orientation.”

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Obama today delivered what may be his final plea for Congress to pass health care reform, imploring lawmakers to hold an “up-or-down vote” on legislation “in the next few weeks” — using a strategy outlined last month by Sen. Al Franken.

“I believe the United States Congress owes the American people a final vote on health care reform,” Obama said today. His speech acted as a closing argument, summing up both his reasons for wanting to pass a health care bill and his desire for a “final vote”, rather than additional discussion.

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After a scant eight months in office, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) is breaking out of his shell and positioning himself as an aggressive liberal presence in the Senate — particularly when it comes to one of the most controversial topics in Washington, D.C.: health care reform.

“The first thing I wanted people to know was that I was there to be serious, that I would keep my head down and do my work,” Franken said in his first extended national interview since he was seated in July. “Part of keeping my head down and doing my work was, as a Senator from a state that does this pretty well … to study that and report back.”

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