The Young Turks found this video of Al Franken laying the smackdown to a Hudson Institute stooge Diana Furchtgott-Roth. She was trying to scaremonger that the public option would increase medical bankruptcies, but was rejected by the logical and knowledgeable Senator.
AF: I wanna ask you, how many bankruptcies because of medical crisis were there last year in Switzerland?
DFR: I don’t have that number for you but I could get back to you.
AF: I can tell you how many it was. It was zero. Do you know how many medical bankruptcies there were last year in France?
DFR: I don’t have that number for you but I could get back to you if you like.
AF: Ya it’s zero.
Crossposted to the Daily Kos (with Poll) and The Progressive Electorate
Then Franken asks
AF You know how many were in Germany?
DFR From the trend of your questions Im As-hume-ing the answer is zero.
AF Well you’re very good. You’re very fast. The point is I think we need to go in that direction not the opposite direction. Thank you
She then tries to embarass him with a question of her own
DFR: Do you know the cancer survival rates in those countries?
AF: You know you’ve picked on one. And if you look at that study did you know that we pick much more easily survivable cancer rates. So if you want to get into digging deep into studies. That study is not legitimate. I’ve heard that before. That’s because we find easily survivable cancers to count as cancers we survive. So you can cherry pick stuff to find one little place where somebody says our system works better than the French or the Germans. But we’re talking about bankruptcy today. But the fact of the matter is, you’re saying if we move more towards a French or a Swiss system we’d have more bankruptcies. But they don’t have any bankruptcies. Thank you
OWNED! Wow!
Frankens Greatest Hits (Since becoming a Senator)
The Senator from Minnesota has wildy exceeded my expectations. I can see why they fought so hard to keep him out. His 1st bill in the Senate brought tears to my eyes. It’s so nice to have a Senator who truly cares (memo to Gluen Beck that’s real emotion)
I blogged about that video here
Here Franken grills a KBR lawyer during discussion of his amendment to allow contractors to bring charges before a court when a crime is committed, rather than deciding justice through an arbitrator. This law was written after the real life horror story of a young woman, Ms. Jamie Lee Jones. She worked for KBR (a subsidiary of Halliburton). She was sexually harassed and then raped. Later she was locked in a shipping container, and then when she finally escaped she was not allowed her day in court.
Brainwrap covered that in this post
When T. Boone Pickens came to Congress to fill a self appointed role as energy savior, Franken let him have it. He ripped into Pickens for his role in financing the swiftboat ads that (along with Diebold) sank Kerry’s chances of winning in ’04.
Julie Golden covered this priceless moment
In this video he demonstrates his calm and sensible advocacy despite the riled up teabaggers.
In this one he displayed quite a cocktail party trick by drawing the United States freehand from memory.
Here he read the 4th amendment to a DOJ official who has trouble reconciling that with the Patriot Act.
Coverage on this by Seattlite
He made Papa Bear Bill O’Reilly angry and drove Brian Kilmeade to a bitter rant.
Has any freshman Senator accomplished more this term? I’m so proud!
Crossposted to the Progressive Electorate (a site by Kossacks)
UPDATE: Thanks for Rec List! BrainWrap reminds us Franken still has $450,000 in campaign debt