MINNEAPOLIS – Sen. Al Franken will give a speech tomorrow at Netroots Nation about the need for progressive infrastructure as a firewall to protect the middle class. In this excerpt from tomorrow’s speech, he is unsparing in even subtly questioning the patriotism of those who would threaten the survival of the middle class: Medicare, and [...]

The Government Accountability Office released a report requested by several Democratic members of Congress about documentation problems in mortgage foreclosures. If you’re just coming to the question of foreclosure fraud, it provides a pretty good overview. If you’re aware of the issues, it’s good to have it all in one place. The GAO does say [...]

Dave Lindorff managed to scrounge up the best quote from an economist in reaction to S&P’s threatened US credit downgrade: At least one economist burst out laughing on hearing about the S&P announcement. “They did what?” exclaimed James Galbraith, a professor of economics at the University of Texas in Austin, who formerly served as executive [...]

Analysts in Washington point to rising tensions in the Middle East and the uncertainty in Libya as the reasons for the recent spike in oil prices. They don’t like to mention speculation. Matt Taibbi and others have documented well the speculative bubble in oil and commodities that rose in 2008, causing food riots and starvation. [...]

The Senate Judiciary Committee just wrapped up a hearing on HAMP, the foreclosure crisis and bankruptcy courts, presided over by subcommittee chair Sheldon Whitehouse. Only three other members of the Judiciary Committee managed to attend this hearing. Al Franken and Richard Blumenthal were there the whole time, and Republican ranking member Chuck Grassley poked his [...]

Earlier today, the FCC and the Justice Department ruled in favor of the merger between Comcast and NBC Universal, creating one of the largest media conglomerates in the world and setting an unadvisable template for one company to combine the power of media and the Internet. Sen. Al Franken, who has been a lonely critic [...]

Senators Tom Udall, Jeff Merkley and Tom Harkin have announced that their proposal for reforming the Senate rules now has 26 co-sponsors, all Democrats. But they represent a healthy ideological cross-section of the entire caucus. In addition to Udall, Harkin and Merkley, the resolution is currently co-sponsored by the following senators: Dick Durbin (IL), Amy [...]

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) has put a new twist on the Senate filibuster reform effort. He’s a cosponsor of the Udall/Merkley/Harkin plan to change the Senate rules. But he added a one-page tweak to the rules that would place the burden more on the entity doing the filibustering than the entity trying to break the [...]

The FCC officially approved rules that reportedly provide net neutrality protections to wireline Internet but not wireless services, and which include a host of loopholes for both types of service. We don’t actually know the full extent of the rules, as they have not been published (the FCC promises to do so this week). But [...]

The groveling session between the President and CEOs yesterday was a little hard to take, but interestingly enough, when the groveling stopped, a few CEOs made time to lobby Obama for their net neutrality giveaway: The controversial “Open Internet” agreement pending at the Federal Communications Commission got a vote of confidence from two CEOs who [...]

Chuck Schumer expressed an “appetite” to fight for expiration of the Bush tax cuts for income above $250,000, even if it meant that all of them expire. That would be the way to get them, but it’s not likely to happen. The President is too far dug in on not letting taxes rise for “middle [...]