Al Franken is the speaker at Jeff-Jack Dinner

You will want to get your tickets early for the Michigan Democratic Party’s 2011 Annual Jefferson-Jackson Dinner because the guest speaker is US. Minnesota Senator Al Franken.
The fundraising dinner will be held next month on April 16 at Cobo Center in Detroit.

Franken was elected to the U.S. Senate in 2008 in one of the most contested races in U.S. history that took more than five months to settle. Before running for the Senate, Franken spent 37 years as a comedy writer and actor on the Saturday Night Live,” the longest running TV show in history. The Harvard University graduate is also the best-selling author of multiple books, and he was the most popular host of Air America Radio before he left to run for the U.S. Senate.

Franken has also taken part in seven USO tours, visiting our troops overseas in Germany, Bosnia, Kosovo and Uzbekistan - as well as visiting Iraq, Afghanistan, and Kuwait four times.

“We are excited and honored to have Sen. Al Franken as this year’s Jeff-Jack speaker,” said MDP Chair Mark Brewer said. “Sen. Franken has been a fighter for Democratic values and for working people during his two years in the Senate and played a crucial role in the health care debate by fighting successfully to limit insurance company profits. We look forward to meeting him and hearing him speak at our Jeff-Jack dinner in April.”

Republicans are sore losers

Republicans are sore losers. If you need any proof of that, you just need to look at the examples of former Sen. Norm Coleman and the so-called and misnamed “Tea Party” protest set for next week.

Despite losing the election, every court case and in every recount Sen. Al Franken gets more votes, Coleman refuses to concede after five months. For five months Minnesota has only had one Senator. Remember when Al Gore won the popular vote in the 2000 General Election? He was called a sorer loser from election night until the day the Supreme Court ruled. Just a six-week period, not five months. Why isn’t the pres calling Coleman a sore loser?

According to Media Matters, a Nexis search found nearly 900 "sore loser" press mentions in Gore articles between November and December 2000. So much for the “liberal media” myth.

But the worst example of Republicans as sore losers is the so-called “Tea Party” protest set for this weekend to April 15. My friend Johnny C over at Motor City Liberal calls the event what it really is: an ugly, partisan protest against the President. Previous tea party protests have attracted protesters who called for impeaching Obama while slurring the President’s name as “Obama Bin Lyinm,” according to Think Progress.

He comments on an article on Think Progress that debunks the myth that the partisan protests are simply “displays of regular Americans in protest of government spending and extreme taxation” instead of what they really are, partisan, political anti-Obama rallies organized by extreme rightwing groups like “Freedom Works” and “Americans for Prosperity.”

It is also being organized by some of the most extreme rightwing groups that include militias, secessionists and neo-Nazi white supremacist groups.

The white supremacist group Stormfront is pushing the “tea party” hard. The Michigan Militia is also holding a “tea party.” I thought that fanatical, anti-government group was dead after the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. The Republic of Texas movement that wants to secede from the union is appearing in North Texas, along with mainstream Republican leaders. I thought that secessionist thing was settled way back in 1865.

The Republicans will be in good company on April 15.