A Pitched Debate: Clinton Hears It From Her Rivals  —  Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York came under withering attack from the rest of the Democratic presidential field last night in a pitched two-hour debate that her opponents used to challenge her candor and electability and to portray …

Cross-dressing state lawmaker blackmailed following late night tryst  —  SPOKANE — State Representative Richard Curtis says he's not gay, but police reports and court records indicate the Republican lawmaker from southwestern Washington dressed up in women's lingerie and met a Medical Lake man …

Supreme Court Stays Execution in a Sign of a Broader Halt  —  Moments before a Mississippi prisoner was scheduled to die by lethal injection Tuesday evening, the Supreme Court granted him a stay of execution and thus gave a nearly indisputable indication that a majority intends to block …

Mukasey Losing Democrats' Backing  —  Nominee Unsure If Waterboarding Breaks Torture Law  —  Attorney general nominee Michael B. Mukasey told Senate Democrats yesterday that a kind of simulated drowning known as waterboarding is "repugnant to me," but he said he does not know whether …

Tax law: Are you eating those pumpkins?  —  DES MOINES, Iowa - The Iowa Department of Revenue is taxing jack-o'-lanterns this Halloween.  The new department policy was implemented after officials decided that pumpkins are used primarily for Halloween decorations, not food, and should be taxed …

Live Debate Blogging  —  Diplomacy, diplomacy and also diplomacy.  Did I mention diplomacy?  —  9:25 PM ... Hillary "I will do everything I can" to prevent from Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.  Good answer.  —  9:26 PM ... Obama: We cannot act as if we are the weakest nation in the world when we are the strongest.

Surveillance Sanity  —  Companies that help protect the U.S. against attack deserve immunity from frivolous lawsuits.  —  Following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to target al Qaeda communications into and out of the country.

Post-Islamism  —  The future of Islamic reform lies with post-Islamism - a recognition that politics rather than religion provides for welfare in this life.  —  There is universal consensus that Muslim dictatorships, supported by the west, are the root of evil.

U.S. and Pakistan: A Frayed Alliance  —  As Military Efforts Falter, Trust Suffers  —  Five years ago, elite Pakistani troops stationed near the border with Afghanistan began receiving hundreds of pairs of U.S.-made night-vision goggles that would enable them to see and fight al-Qaeda and Taliban insurgents in the dark.

U.S. Military Will Supervise Iraq Security Firms  —  All State Department security convoys in Iraq will now fall under military control, the latest step taken by government officials to bring Blackwater Worldwide and other armed contractors under tighter supervision.

Expanding Medicare  —  "Everybody knows the insurance companies make money by not providing care."  - Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Oct. 30, 2007  —  "[The Republicans] don't get that a family of four making $50,000 a year can't pay $20,000 a year for healthcare ... they don't get the reality of it."