Repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' Advances  —  WASHINGTON — After a 17-year struggle, the Senate on Saturday cleared the way for repealing the Pentagon's ban on gay men and lesbians serving openly in the military.  —  By a bipartisan vote of 63 to 33, the Senate acted to cut off debate …

Senate breaks GOP filibuster, advances 'Don't ask' repeal  —  A proposal to repeal the military's “Don't ask, don't tell” policy cleared a major hurdle in Congress on Saturday when the Senate voted to end a GOP-led filibuster.  —  The Senate voted 63 to 33 to advance a stand-alone bill …

¡Viva WikiLeaks!  Sicko Was Not Banned in Cuba  —  What's Your Reaction:  —  Yesterday WikiLeaks did an amazing thing and released a classified State Department cable that dealt, in part, with me and my film, Sicko.  —  It is a stunning look at the Orwellian nature of how bureaucrats …

Manchin's whereabouts  —  Today's minor mystery was the location of newly-minted West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, who missed key votes on the DREAM Act and the repeal of “Don't Ask, Don't Tell.”  (He says he would have voted “no” on both.)  —  The Gazette reports:

Whose Party Is It?  —  The far left is foaming at the mouth.  —  The near-apoplectic level of agita within the liberal screeching class over President Obama's tax-cut compromise has exposed a seismic crack in the Democratic monolith — outspoken liberal Democrats on one side and barely audible moderate Democrats on the other.

DADT Breaks Filibuster  —  The Senate just voted 63-33 to break the filibuster on the DADT repeal bill.  —  Late Update: Just so we're clear.  This is not the passage of the actual DADT repeal bill.  This is the vote that allows a straight majority vote, which will likely come tomorrow.

Newly Built Ghost Towns Haunt Banks in Spain  —  YEBES, Spain — It is a measure of Spain's giddy construction excesses that 250 row houses carpet a hill near this tiny rural village about an hour by car outside of Madrid.  —  Most of these units have never sold, and though they were finished …

Lame-duck sessions supposed to be a thing of the past, historians say  —  Here's the funny thing about this month's lame-duck session of Congress, in which frantic lawmakers have pinballed from tax cuts to “don't ask, don't tell” to a nuclear weapons treaty:  —  It's not supposed to exist.

Explaining the Crisis With Dogma  —  What was that about?  —  I'm talking about that odd 13-page “report” issued on Wednesday by the four Republican members of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.  The F.C.I.C., of course, is the 10-member, supposedly bipartisan panel that was created …

10 days in Sweden: the full allegations against Julian Assange  —  Unseen police documents provide the first complete account of the allegations against the WikiLeaks founder  —  Documents seen by the Guardian reveal for the first time the full details of the allegations of rape and sexual assault …

House Republicans Block Child Marriage Prevention Act  —  What's Your Reaction: … WASHINGTON — On Thursday, the House took up the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2010.  The bill would ensure that child marriage is recognized as a human rights violation …