It's promising to read about a real, actual grand jury investigating the Valerie Plame affair (written about here, and here).

According to one of the witnesses, the "administration people are all terrified." So they're squirming.

Good.

Now here's the kind of story that warms my heart. It's a great example of what US humanitarianism can accomplish when it's actually humanitarianism.

The Kosovars are very happy that we intervened; you don't see stories about rebels ambushing our soldiers. Bill Clinton is revered, along with Tony Blair and Wesley Clark. Giant paintings and street names are devoted to them.

That's the kind of international reputation I miss. It'll never be back as long as George Bush and his puppetmasters control our foreign policy, regrettably.

The only result of the repeated calls for bipartisanship and comity in government is inevitable strife and extremism. Why's that? Because whenever people yearn to define themselves as "in the middle," the middle is defined by how far either side pulls, and the fact is, the right wing has pulled to the extreme right far, far harder than the left has gone its way.

Take for example this Washington Post profile of Grover Norquist. Karl Rover calls him an "impresario of the center-right." Apparently nowadays the center right wants to "get the federal government so small it can be drowned in a bathtub," equates estate taxes with the Holocaust, and compares eradicating Democrats to eradicating cancer.

Republican books always have titles like "The Enemy Within: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Schools, Faith, and Military," "The Savage Nation: Saving America from the Liberal Assault on Our Borders, Language, and Culture" (Geez, Mike, what creative names for both your books), or "Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism." And these are by people who are invited on television all the time to share their views. No one on the left matches their vitriol; certainly none whose books are sold at Barnes & Noble or given shows on MSNBC do.

They've never wanted to play nice. Why does it matter?

Because they're much scummier than we ever are. Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. delayed the release of the Iranian hostages until his inauguration for his political gain. George W. Bush outed an undercover CIA operative working on WMD non-proliferation to punish her husband for presenting uncomfortable facts to the world. These are actual, concrete examples of treason.

How about just being immoral? The irony of the impeachment of Clinton is that almost all of the major players in the House who prosecuted him were adulterers. Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde admitted to having an affair, Bob Barr was an adulterer, Bob Livingston, who was the heir apparent to the Speakership, resigned from the House when it was revealed he was an adulterer, and Newt Gingrich divorced his second wife while she was in the hospital with cancer to begin a third marriage, this time to a twenty-something aide.

Why weren't these facts publicized? I don't know. But it goes to show how all-controlling yet undeserving these Republicans are.

Wow. I for one thought Zell Miller was a Republican, Ralph Hall was really Republican, and Lincoln Chafee was a Democrat.

Nope. Apparently Zell Miller is very, very Republican (voted with Republicans on contested votes 91.5% of the time), and compared to him, Ralph Hall is a Ben and Jerry's-eating, perverted arts-supporting, recumbant bicycle-riding liberal (with due credit to the Club for Growth), since he voted with the Democrats 49% of the time.

Lincoln Chafee, for how much the conservatives loathe him, jumps ship only 28% of the time to support the Democratic position. Yeesh. I'm sure we have plenty of 28 percenters in our caucus (Breaux, B. Nelson, Landrieu..)

So the Taxpayer's League of Minnesota's up to their billboard antics once again. In recent weeks I've noticed a ton of billboards that try and claim Minnesota's quality of life is not a consequence of our public services and investment. They say nebulous, feel-good buzzwords like "Community," "Hard Work," and "Friends" are the source of Minnesota's quality of life.

Gee, so I guess elsewhere, they don't work hard or have friends. The reason our child mortality statistics are low is community. Alabama isn't dead last in test scores because they perennially underfund their schools, it's because Alabamans don't work hard. Remember that next budget cycle when they cut Minncare funding.

It's such a joke. The "Taxpayer's League" doesn't represent Minnesota taxpayers, they represent a bunch of super rich whiners who think they have earned the right to opt out of paying for the Minnesota that treated them so well. Minnesota historically invested in the education of the young people, invested in the environment and parks, invested in infrastructure, and those investments are what made Minnesota such a nice place to live in.

These people want to turn our state into another Mississippi, or another Alabama. Governor Pawlenty, the Minnesota House, all of 'em, they're in cahoots. You want a vibrant, liveable Minnesota? Turn the bastards out.