Al Franken's Fun

and I don't mean that in an SNL way (though he's that too).

He's getting known as one of the most prepared senators on the Hill.

Here he is, skewering an arbitration lawyer for arguing against his bill (an amendment to a bill) to keep government contracts from employers who require employees to agree to binding arbitration on disputes, regardless of subject matter, before hiring them. This bill amendment, which addresses harassment/discrimination claims, is in response to the circumstance where a young KBR employee (a Halliburton subsidiary) was gang raped by fellow employees but could not get her day in court because of the mandatory arbitration requirements. Thirty GOP senators voted against this amendment (Jon Stewart did a great job of making them look ridiculous the other night). Here's the video - it's long, but worth it:



And here he is, catching flat-footed a physician from the Hudson Institute who knows not enough of which she speaks. Her line of attack prior to this clip was that the health care reform bill would increase bankruptcies due to medical care costs. Here's a part of the dialogue:

AF: I want to ask you, how many bankruptcies because of medical crises were there last year in Switzerland?

DFR: I don't have that number in front of me but I could find out and get back to you.

AF: I can tell you how many it was. It's zero. Do you know how many medical bankruptcies there were last year in France?

DFR: I don't have that number but I could get back to you if you like.

AF: Yeah, the number is zero.

And, just for good measure (and to complete this trilogy), this is just fun because he reads the Fourth Amendment out loud to a Justice attorney who then says, "this is surreal." Thought the attorney held his own, actually, on this one: