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 …

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 …

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.

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 …

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 …

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.

Yemen's Truce with al Qaeda  —  Who will be the next victims?  —  THE AMERICAN ATTEMPTS to rehabilitate the Yemeni regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh have not succeeded.  Yemeni authorities recently pardoned Jamal Al-Badawi, convicted mastermind of the 2000 USS Cole bombing.

UFOs and Alien Life  —  In the weird last minutes of the debate (the period, by the way, when The Fix made it onto the basketball court in high school) Rep. Dennis Kucinich (Ohio) gave us a highlight.  —  Asked about the statement by actress Shirley MacLaine that Kucinich had seen a UFO at her house, Kucinich said that he had.