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Al Franken is an American satirist, comedian, bestselling author, and radio host with a predominantly liberal point of view. Franken was half of the comedy duo “Franken & Davis” which wrote for and performed for NBC’s Saturday Night Live. Along with The Daily Show host Jon Stewart, he is considered to be one of the most popular liberal commentators.

Franken was born in New York City May 21, 1951 and grew up in St. Louis Park, Minnesota, a suburb of Minneapolis. He graduated from The Blake School in 1969, and Harvard University in 1973. He and his wife, Franni Franken have a son, Joe, and daughter, Thomasin. They currently reside in New York City but are in the process of moving to Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Franken’s writing and performing career began at Dudley Riggs’ Brave New Workshop in Minneapolis where he worked with Tom Davis (the comedian, not the politician).

He and Davis were two of the original writers on Saturday Night Live. Franken was awarded three Emmy Awards and seven Emmy nominations for his television writing and production. He created characters such as self-help guru Stuart Smalley and schticks such as proclaiming the 1980s to be the “Al Franken Decade”1. Franken was associated with SNL for more than 15 years and in 2002 interviewed former Vice President Al Gore while in character as Smalley. Al Franken and Tom Davis wrote the script to the 1986 comedy film One More Saturday Night and they both starred in the film as rock singers in a band called Bad Mouth.

Franken’s most notorious SNL sketch may have been “A Limo for the Lamo,” a commentary delivered by Franken near the end of the 1979–80 season. Franken mocked the controversial president of NBC, Fred Silverman, describing him as “a total unequivocal failure” and displayed a chart showing the poor ratings of NBC programs. According to some associates of the show, Silverman’s anger over the sketch prompted him to abandon negotiations with the show’s creator Lorne Michaels and seek a different producer for the sixth season of SNL.

Besides having written numerous books (including Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations), Franken co-wrote (with his former partner Tom Davis) the screenplay for The Coneheads TV show. He also wrote the original screenplay and starred in the theatrical flop, Stuart Saves His Family and the hit film When A Man Loves A Woman. He co-created and co-starred in the NBC sitcom LateLine, but low ratings led to its cancellation halfway through the second season, with only twelve of the nineteen episodes airing.

Comedian Al Franken Becomes Senator – Watch more funny videos here

Comedian-turned-politician Al Franken has been declared the winner of an eight-month long U.S. senate race.

Franken ran for the Minnesota Senate on 4 November (08) – the same night Barack Obama was named the new President – but a recount was needed to separate him from Republican rival Norm Coleman.

Franken won after the recount, but a series of appeals delayed the result for a staggering eight months. On Tuesday (30Jun09) the former Saturday Night Live star was declared the victor by the Minnesota Senate.

Al Franken is running for the U.S. Senate against pro-life incumbent Senator Norm Coleman Franken’s positions on the issues many Minnesotans hold in high regard—health care and protection of unborn babies, for example—are alarming. While lately, Franken’s comedic talent and taste have been front and center, his anti-life beliefs are anything but funny.

Franken’s anti-life, pro-abortion positions revealed

“My number one domestic priority is to get us to universal health care,” Franken said in a written statement to Minnesota Public Radio. “There are several feasible options being used around the world … including a single-payer system and my priority is to get to universal health care as quickly as possible.” Universal health care and single-payer systems always lead to rationing of care, most frequently for the people who need it most: the elderly, disabled, and otherwise vulnerable.

On the other hand, Sen. Coleman supports the pro-life position that ensures rationing of care or intentional denial of treatment do not occur.
It doesn’t stop there.

Destroying human life

Franken supports destroying human embryos for science’s sake. “I support embryonic stem cell research,” Franken says. “The blastocysts used for this … research contain only a few cells. … And by the way, I’d like to see this research happening at the University of Minnesota and the Mayo Clinic”

Blastocysts are more than “only a few cells.” Blastocyst is the name for a tiny human at four to 14 days after conception. While a blastocyst may not closely resemble a newborn baby, it is exactly what a human looks like at that stage of development.

Franken supports human cloning

That’s not the only thing Franken is wrong about. He also supports the University of Minnesota embryo-killing experiments. Currently, the University is conducting embryonic stem cell research (ESCR) and human cloning attempts with private funding, but that’s not enough for Franken. He wants taxpayers to foot the bill.

For a number of years there have been attempts at the state legislature to legalize human cloning and allow taxpayer funding for destructive ESCR at the University of Minnesota. Most recently, Sen. Richard Cohen, D-St. Paul, and Rep. Phyllis Kahn, D-Minneapolis, were the authors of this legislation, known as the Kahn-Cohen Cloning Bill. The last thing Minnesota needs is someone in Washington, D.C., advocating for human cloning and the destruction of human embryos funded at taxpayers’ expense. Fortunately, Sen. Coleman does not support the destructive research.
And it gets even worse.

Abortion-on-demand advocate

Following in the tradition of Bill Clinton, Franken says that he believes “abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.” He’s not fooling anyone. For starters, abortion isn’t safe for women or unborn babies. In Minnesota alone, abortion-related complications have risen more than 45% in the past five years.

Every year in Minnesota, abortionists perform approximately 14,000 abortions. These abortions, coupled with the more than 1.2 million abortions performed every year across the country, makes abortion anything but rare. The Democrat Party removed “rare” from its abortion platform this year, and Franken wants to keep it that way.

By vowing to keep abortion legal, Franken wants the nation to continue down the abortion-on-demand, for-any-reason, at-any-stage-of-pregnancy, with-taxpayer-funding path just as every other radical, pro-abortion politician has before him. In 2006, Franken helped raise money for the NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota Election Fund, an extremist pro-abortion group looking to elect candidates who will oppose protections for unborn babies and their mothers.

Endorsed by radical pro-abortion groups

Franken is endorsed by nearly every major pro-abortion organization including the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and the NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota Election Fund. “I know that he [Franken] will work tirelessly to protect a woman’s right to choose,” says Linnea House, Executive Director of NARAL Pro-Choice Minnesota.

In stark contrast, Sen. Coleman is a true friend to unborn babies and for many years has been supportive of the efforts of pro-life organizations, including National Right to Life and MCCL.

Franken promotes culture of death

Franken wants to perpetuate the culture of death agenda by appearing to represent the values of Minnesotans. But he doesn’t. Franken is just another radical, pro-abortion, anti-life candidate whose latest role is playing an average Minnesotan. That’s no joke (and sure isn’t funny). What Minnesotans deserve is someone we can count on, like pro-life Senator Norm Coleman, who will stand up for life, from the earliest to end stages, and will work to restore protections for human life.

So, did you hear the one about the comedian who spent a whole day on Capitol Hill and told no jokes?

Democrat Al Franken arrived in Washington on Monday content to be as mundane in the Senate as he was brazen in his previous job as a “Saturday Night Live” performer.

Forget funny. Soon after he showed up in a Senate hallway with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Franken made clear his new schtick is serious senator from Minnesota.

“I am ready to get to work,” Franken said. “I’m going to work day and night.”

Franken’s seriousness didn’t faze the dozens of onlookers who packed into a narrow Senate hallway hoping for at least one salty quip.

What they got was essentially a rather dour politician, in a blue-and-white striped tie and a dark blue pinstripe suit, standing behind a podium with the seal of the Senate on it, speaking slowly from prepared remarks. Franken barely cracked a smile as he talked at length about his duty to his constituents and emphasized repeatedly that he would work hard.

Franken’s been working on this role for years. The man who many considered ribald was the picture of reserve during a two-year campaign and eight-month recount from which he emerged victorious over Republican incumbent Norm Coleman.

Franken is expected to be sworn in on Tuesday. He’ll be the junior senator from Minnesota, alongside fellow Democrat Amy Klobuchar.

“I think he still has some good jokes in him but right now he’s doing some serious work,” Klobuchar said.

His potential arrival has been buzzed about for months. Not only does Franken bring with him a filibuster-proof, 60-vote majority for the Democrats, but also a catalog of comedic material and lively commentary as a radio host and writer.

Not that you would know it on Monday.

As cameras clicked rapidly in the background, Franken downplayed that 60th Democrat business.

“A lot has been made of this number sixty,” he said. “I’m not focused on that.”

He listed education, health care and energy issues as areas he hoped to take on immediately.

Reid, never accused of being a master joke teller himself, played straight man to Franken’s reformed funny-man. Like Franken, Reid downplayed the significance of 60 votes — and offered nothing resembling comic relief.

Reid spoke dryly about how much the Senate would not change despite its newest arrival. He glanced down, then up, down, then up at his audience. If he cared that he and his guest had disappointed a room full of style writers, reporters and TV camera crews, he did not let on.

Instead, Reid cited praise of Franken from former Republican Rep. Vin Weber of Minnesota as evidence of Franken’s intellect and earnestness. He promised Franken was coming to Washington with no greater goal than to work hard for his constituents.

“I expect him to help deliver change,” Reid said, adding later “We need more than just his presence to address these challenges.”

Almost as quickly as Reid and Franken arrived, they were off, taking no questions, offering only a handful of smiles between them.

Aides said Franken would be in meetings much of Monday, including sessions with the staff of his new Senate office. Earlier Monday, workers installed Franken’s new name plate in front of the office in the Senate’s Hart Office Building vacated by Coleman.

If any political candidate in this year’s elections can be fairly accused of harboring deep-seated prejudice against the Church, it’s Al Franken.

The Minnesota Democrat, who is challenging Republican incumbent Norm Coleman in this year’s U.S. Senate election, has a lengthy history of anti-Catholic diatribes.

For evidence, take a look at this recent article by Katherine Kersten in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, entitled “Vulgar mockery of Christians: Is this what we want in a U.S. senator?” Kersten’s article cites examples of Franken’s anti-Christian and anti-Catholic slurs, most of which are too vulgar to repeat here.

Comments Kersten, “If a 12-year-old kid spouted this stuff in a schoolyard, he’d be hauled to the principal’s office and told to grow up. But in today’s surreal political climate, a guy who lobs insults like these has a shot at one the highest political offices in the land.”

In an Oct. 27 press release, Catholic League president Bill Donohue agreed that “Franken has a long and ugly history of Catholic bashing.”

Said Donohue, “Franken’s diatribes against Catholics are not in jest. As Hillary Clinton said about him last week, he tells ‘truth through jokes.’ And the truth is that when Franken mocks the Body and Blood of Jesus, and jokes about the discovery of ‘the complete skeleton of Jesus Christ still nailed to the cross,’ his mean-spirited digs are designed to be injurious.”

In her Star Tribune column, Kersten suggests that Franken’s hostility toward Christians in general, and Catholics in particular, disqualifies him from holding high political office. That sounds like an accurate assessment to us.