Vt. legalizes gay marriage with veto override  —  FREE PRESS STAFF REPORT  —  VIDEO: House vote passes gay mariage bill .  —  MONTPELIER — Vermont has become the fourth state to legalize gay marriage — and the first to do so with a legislature's vote.  —  The Legislature voted Tuesday …

‘House’ exclusive: The shocking story behind last night's big death  —  DEFCON 1 spoiler alert!  If you haven't seen last night's House, stop reading now.  Everyone else, onward and downward!  —  Here are the six things you need to know up-front about last night's House:

Franken extends lead over Coleman  —  The Democrat made a net gain today in a count of formerly rejected absentee ballots that pushed his advantage to more than 300 votes in the U.S. Senate race.  —  Democrat Al Franken today extended his lead over Republican Norm Coleman in the U.S. Senate election …

In Baghdad, Obama Presses Iraqi Leader to Unite Factions  —  BAGHDAD — President Obama made an unannounced trip Tuesday to Baghdad, punctuating his week-long overseas trip with a stop to talk to American troops and Iraqi leaders.  —  Addressing hundreds of troops gathered at a military base here …

The End of Philosophy  —  Socrates talked.  The assumption behind his approach to philosophy, and the approaches of millions of people since, is that moral thinking is mostly a matter of reason and deliberation: Think through moral problems.  Find a just principle.  Apply it.

Stevens judge calls for DOJ probe  —  An angry federal judge set aside the conviction of former Sen. Ted Stevens on Tuesday, and will pursue criminal contempt charges against the Stevens prosecution team, accusing Department of Justice prosecutors of deliberate and repeated misconduct …

Lieberman-Obama honeymoon stops at missile defense  —  Sen. Joe Lieberman (Conn.) has tried to mend his relationship with President Obama in recent months but their reconciliation hit a snag Monday over ballistic missile defense.  —  Lieberman, the self-described independent Democrat …

‘No-Risk’ Insurance at F.D.I.C.  —  The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation was set up 76 years ago with the important but simple job of insuring bank deposits.  —  Now, because of what could politely be called mission creep, it's elbowing its way into the middle of the financial mess as an enabler of enormous leverage.

Who Keeps Inviting the Bush-bots?  —  Just over four years ago, after George W. Bush was re-elected by the smallest margin for an incumbent since Woodrow Wilson held off Charles Evans Hughes in 1916, a palpable sense somehow took hold in much of the media that Karl Rove's concept of a “permanent Republican majority” had been realized.

Times Editor: Lack Of Disclosure On Merkin Op-Ed Is No Big Deal  —  Here's another one to add to the growing list of “newspapers acting badly”...  Late last month, the New York Times published an op-ed by Daphne Merkin, a contributing writer to the Times Magazine, on the Bernie Madoff mess.

Rejected GOP Chief To Run Again in Va.  —  Ousted Virginia Republican leader Jeffrey M. Frederick said Monday he will probably run for party chairman again in May, setting up another clash with the GOP's gubernatorial nominee, Robert F. McDonnell, as Republicans struggle to unite for the November election.

Boston Globe staffers lash out at union leaders  —  + Recent Articles + Recent Blog Entries + Email + Bio  —  Rank-and-file Boston Globe staffers are rising up against their union leaders, accusing them of keeping members in the dark over last week's stunning ultimatum from the New York Times …

Race and the Drug War  —  Last Friday, Jonah Goldberg wrote a post at The Corner arguing that there is something “unlibertarian” about opponents of drug prohibition who use claims about the drug war's disproportionate effects on blacks in an attempt to demonstrate its injustice.

Inhofe: Gates' Defense Budget ‘Disarms America’ And ‘Cuts Funding For Our Troops In The Field’  —  In a YouTube video that is getting linked around the conservative blogosphere, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) attacked Defense Secretary Robert Gates' 2010 defense budget recommendations …

Pilot of Stolen Cessna Wanted U.S. Fighter Jets to Shoot Him Down  —  Trooper Said Yavuz Berke, Now in Custody, Wanted U.S. Military to Kill Him  —  The Canadian man wholed fighter jets on a chase across six states yesterday flew his stolen plane into the U.S. in hopes the military would shoot …

Obama, the ICRC Report and ongoing suppression  —  (updated below)  —  Following up on the latest extremist Cheney/Addington/Yoo arguments advanced by the Obama DOJ in order to shield Bush lawbreaking from disclosure and judicial review — an episode I wrote about in detail yesterday …

NY-20: Absentee Ballot Distribution Appears to Favor Murphy (D)  —  The New York State Board of Elections has a lot of data (.pdf) out on absentee ballots in the special election in that state's 20th Congressional District, which will be vital in breaking the virtual tie between Scott Murphy and Jim Tedisco.

Club for Growth calls Obama its ‘Comrade of the Month’  —  The fiscally conservative Club for Growth awarded President Obama its “Comrade of the Month” award, bestowing the dubious distinction in honor of the administration's budget.  —  Coming on the heels of awards for House Financial …

Cantor's strategy: Ambush Democrats  —  Peril awaits any first-term lawmaker who ventures to the House floor unprepared for a duel, but Ohio Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy had a particularly rough go of it the other day.  —  Kilroy took the floor to support an amendment to a popular public-service bill …