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U.S. Sen. Al Franken said goodbye to staff members and supporters in Minneapolis on Thursday night, in his first public appearance in Minnesota since being accused of sexual harassment. Franken will officially step down from the Senate on Tuesday, with his successor – Minnesota Lt. Gov. Tina Smith – scheduled to be sworn in Wednesday to complete Franken’s term, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported. The Democrat, a former "Saturday Night Live" writer and performer, said he didn't know what to expect when he first ran for office, “and of course, neither did Minnesotans.”

Days before his resignation from the U.S. Senate, Sen. Al Franken thanked family, staff and his constituents for support that allowed him to fight for issues for Minnesotans. "Serving the people in the U.S. Senate has been the honor of my life," the senator said. "And I'm here tonight to say thank you." Franken's speech to supporters and friends comes after he resigned earlier this month amid a storm of sexual misconduct allegations. He will officially step down on Tuesday. During his speech, Franken talked about how thankful he was to be able to grow up in a middle class...

Luther Strange isn’t the only current US Senator on his way out the door. In a few days, Al Franken will submit his resignation as promised last week, and Tina Smith will take his seat at least until a special election in November chooses his successor. As it turns out, Minnesota voters aren’t entirely happy about Franken’s resignation — and half of them want Franken to renege on his pledge to resign, according to a new PPP poll: -50% of voters think he should not resign, to only 42% who think he should go through with his planned resignation. There...

Newt Gingrich said Thursday that Democrats are headed for a major political upset in 2018, mostly due to the mainstream media’s dishonesty and the party’s inability to learn from its own mistakes. “The great political surprise of 2018 will be the size of the Republican victory,” the former Republican House Speaker wrote in a column for Fox News. “After members of the elite media have spent two years savaging President Trump, lying about Republican legislation, and reassuring themselves that Republican defeat was inevitable, the size of the GOP victory in 2018 will be an enormous shock.” Mr. Gingrich said the...

The sexual harassment reckoning has exposed many men in positions of power for their bad behavior. Matt Lauer, Charlie Rose, Mark Halperin and others have either been fired or suspended for sexual misconduct. In the political realm, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) is resigning in early January after multiple women accused him of sexual harassment. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) made his way to the exit after his sexual harassment allegations made it into the limelight; he paid $27,000 to settle a claim in 2015. And yes, that’s our money he used for that expenditure. This reached a boiling point during the...

Sen. Al Franken will step down on Jan. 2, a spokesman for the Minnesota Democrat said Wednesday.

Sen. Al Franken will resign on Jan. 2, per multiple reports. His successor, Lt. Gov. Tina Smith, will be sworn in on Jan. 3.

Senator Al Franken resigned from the US Senate on December 7th. This came after dozens of Democrat senators finally told him to step down for his sexual abuse that was caught on camera.Al Franken attacked President Donald Trump and Judge Roy Moore on the way out the door. But he never set a date to leave office. He said it would be “in the coming weeks.” He’s still in office. And now Democrats are calling on Franken to keep his job as US Senator. Politico reported: At least four senators are urging Al Franken to reconsider resigning, including two who...

At least four senators are urging Al Franken to reconsider resigning, including two who issued statements calling for the resignation two weeks ago and said they now feel remorse over what they feel was a rush to judgment. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who urged Franken not to step down to begin with — at least not before he went through an Ethics Committee investigation — said the Minnesota senator was railroaded by fellow Democrats.

Some Democratic senators now regret pushing accused groper Sen. Al Franken to resign, and are urging him to stay on, according to a new report. “I think we acted prematurely, before we had all the facts,” one anonymous senator told Politico. “In retrospect, I think we acted too fast.” Franken reluctantly bowed to his colleagues’ demands to step down earlier this month after he was accused of sexual assault by eight women, saying he’d leave the Senate “in the coming weeks.” Minnesota Lt. Gov. Tina Smith has been tapped as his replacement. But at least four senators — including three...

Activist Zephyr Teachout, who ran for governor in 2014 and Congress in 2016; she lost both times, is troubled by Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) resignation. Mind you, the Minnesota Democrat has not packed up his bags and left. He said he would resign in the near future. It was one of the most soporific and non-introspective resignation speeches—and it wasn’t just conservatives who noted this. Some journalists noted that Franken never apologized for his actions. True. He also called his accusers liars, which is also true. The man didn’t want to go, possibly because he thought his party affiliation could...

In short, stand up to all hate-spewing Dem bullies, both male and female, to bring them out under the much-needed spotlight. Why is it that the first three words that should be stoically stated by those wrongfully accused of sexual harassment are never heard? The three words should be “Show me the evidence” that brought about the accusations against me. Does anyone wonder why we have so far never heard these words?

The drama between Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and President Donald Trump has reached absurd heights. First, there was that rather tweet from the president, which was not out of the ordinary. He accused Gillibrand of doing “anything” for campaign contributions. Gillibrand said this was a sexist smear, despite the president using that line on pretty much everyone. This all is part of the ongoing sexual harassment reckoning on the Hill and elsewhere. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) is gone, and Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) has signaled his intention to leave…whenever that may be. Gillibrand has called on Trump to resign, as...

...“Though I never anticipated this moment, I am resolved to do everything I can to move Minnesota forward,” Smith said. “I will be a fierce advocate in the U.S. Senate for equity and fairness.”

With disgraced pro-abortion Senator Al Franken stepping down from his Senate seat after being exposed of multiple counts of sexual harassment, Minnesota is getting a new Senator. Unfortunately the state as merely replacing one abortion activists with another. Today, pro-abortion Gov, Mark Dayton replaced Franken with a former executive of the Planned Parenthood abortion company, Tina Smith. Leo LaLonde, President of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, was disappointed but not surprised by the news. “Gov. Mark Dayton’s appointment of Tina Smith to represent Minnesota in the U.S. Senate is overwhelmingly disappointing to the state’s pro-life majority. An abortion industry insider,...

America is having a reckoning and it’s long overdue. I’m talking about the movement to hold sexual harassers accountable for their actions. This important movement is now shaking the halls of power in Congress and state capitols and I am determined to help lead it. I remember my first year in the Tennessee House of Representatives. It was 1998, and having spent my career as a nurse and an educator, I had a lot to learn about the legislative process. I immediately figured out that the state House had a “good ol' boy” culture - and learned about the inappropriate...

Dec 13 (Reuters) - Minnesota's Democratic Lieutenant Governor Tina Smith was appointed as U.S. senator on Wednesday to replace Al Franken, who resigned after being accused of sexual harassment, the state's governor said at a news conference. Governor Mark Dayton said that Smith will serve a one-year term in the Senate, concluding in January 2019. Smith, 59, will run in a special election for the seat next year. Smith became lieutenant governor in January 2015. The Star Tribune said she previously worked as Dayton's chief of staff and held positions at General Mills and Planned Parenthood. Last week Franken, 66,...

There is a strong argument to be made that Sen. Al Franken's central reason for resigning is he knew he would be reduced to being shunned by his peers and the press if he were to continue representing Minnesota in the congressional upper chamber. In short, he would have become a joke, an afterthought, a pariah, a no one. For the egocentric Minnesotan who was courted by everyone in the Democratic Party to headline their fundraisers -- both for their re-elections as well as their state party's coffers -- and fawned over for his Hollywood pedigree and admired by progressives...

Democratic Minnesota Sen. Al Franken has yet to announce when he’s actually going to leave office. Franken announced last Thursday that he would be resigning “in the coming weeks” after eight different women accused him of groping or forcibly kissing them. “The timing of Franken’s resignation remains unclear, as is his motive in delaying it,” New York Magazine’s Ed Kilgore noted at the time. Franken has yet to offer any more specificity about when he’s going to follow through in resigning. Franken’s office did not return multiple requests for comment on the subject.

Newspapermen were rarely whiners. Whining became fashionable only after “journalists” overran newsrooms. The best newspapermen, so the folk wisdom went, were Southerners, Jews and the Irish. Southerners loved the words and the occasions to tell stories, the Jews for the opportunity to do public good, and the Irish for the bottle frequently slipped into the bottom desk drawer by boosters, lobbyists, public-relations flacks and others up to no particular good. Such an irreverent formulation was enough to offend everybody, but in the old days no one took offense because everybody knew that nobody would particularly care if anybody did. What...