Dear Internet Friends,
Well, we’ve gotten a lot accomplished since we launched the website in April.
You helped us fill the new Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School Library on the Leech Lake Reservation in Northern Minnesota by donating 2,500 new books the librarian had asked for and $82,000! The school will have a library of 20,000 books that will serve the whole community thanks to you! Great start, everybody!
And then so many of you helped construct and donate the twenty podiums for the Democratic Presidential Primary debates in Miami. We hadn’t realized we only needed ten because there were two separate debates on two successive nights. That one’s all on me. But Eric Swalwell gets to take one home to practice for his debates defending his House seat in California. That’s all you, my friends! And thank you to Karl Zimmerhoff of Hermantown, Iowa for storing the other nine in his shed.
The Al Franken Podcast is off to a great start! If you haven’t listened to our very first one with Maria Teresa Kumar of Voto Latino, it’s unfortunately even more relevant today. Maria discussed voter suppression (including the citizenship question on the census), immigration, and the disgraceful conditions in the for-profit internment camps. Her description of an eight-year-old boy asking if there’s a coffee plantation nearby -he says he’s a good picker – is heartbreaking.
This week, author and Atlantic Monthly staff writer, Franklin Foer joins me to discuss Big Tech. Are filter bubbles dividing us? Is Facebook deliberately keeping us angry and upset? Is everyone’s attention span dwindling? Is Google selling records of all your searches? Is the Big One coming? You know – the day everyone who’s ever watched pornography will be revealed to everyone else who’s ever watched pornography? Listen, starting today at 2pm. It’s addictive!
Oh. And subscribe to my new YouTube channel. All the podcasts are there, plus videos from my pre-Senate career, my years in the Senate, and a new video of a group of volunteers building the debate podiums with Jimmy Carter!
Enjoy the website!
This week, author and Atlantic Monthly staff writer, Franklin Foer joins me to discuss Big Tech. Are filter bubbles dividing us? Is Facebook deliberately keeping us angry and upset? Is everyone’s attention span dwindling? Is Google selling records of all your searches? Is the Big One coming? You know –…
Dana and I discuss political comedy and how some of the greatest moments in SNL’s political satire were created. l promise Dana to blow smoke up his ass during this interview, and, indeed, smoke is blown. I open with a monologue in which I assesses the relative talents of Ronald…
We lose twenty veterans to suicide every day. These are the soldiers, Marines, sailors, and Coast Guard and Air Force personnel who have put everything on the line for those of us with badly-timed bone spurs. This Sunday’s New York Times features a story about a three-year study on the benefits of pairing service dogs with veterans suffering from severe PTSD….
Dear Friend, This week I urged folks to send a petition calling for an investigation and hearing into soon-to-be acting Secretary of Labor Patrick Pizzella. He will indeed be acting Secretary very soon. But given Trump’s announcement that he will be nominating Eugene Scalia to be the next Secretary of…
Last week Donald Trump announced Deputy Secretary of Labor Patrick Pizzella to be Acting Secretary of Labor. Pizzella has no business being in charge of protecting the rights of American workers, and I urge you to sign our petition.
