Well, it's about damned time:

Congressional negotiators and White House officials are moving forward with plans to add the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell to the upcoming defense authorization bill, Democratic sources tell the Huffington Post.

In Congress, members are being whipped to ensure that the votes will be there for passage, should the legislation be placed in the bill. At this juncture, aides say, the prospects look good. Meanwhile, a source close to the White House says the president has instructed the Defense Department that he believes the repeal of DADT should be placed in the authorization bill.

More at HuffPo.  Go read it there. [intro]

If you haven't checked it out already, please take a moment to visit the Daily Caller, which launched this morning.  Several "Friends of Liz" are involved with the new publication, and you know, Tim Pawlenty (a Hynes Communications client) has an op-ed over there and stuff, so go check it out.  Here are some suggestions for things you might start by reading. 

This concludes today's word-of-mouth-advertising-by-blog session. [intro]

Over the last 48 hours, I've had a number of discussions with political operatives in Washington State regarding Gov. Christine Gregoire. Word on the street in the Evergreen State is that she is actively seeking a new job, specifically in the Obama administration, which would enable her to resign her office and move on to better and brighter things.

As previously discussed at this blog, Gregoire would have good reason to be looking to ditch the governorship. Washington is facing a fairly sizeable budget shortfall, and polling from late November showed that Gregoire's approval rating had fallen to an astonishingly low 33%. However, some savvy onlookers convinced that she's job-hunting view her actions as an indicator of her refusal to take responsibility for a difficult fiscal situation that she is, at least in part, responsible for. In addition, the prospect of her resigning has Republicans chomping at the bit. Not only is Gregoire a reviled figure among many of them because of her handling of fiscal matters and because she is suspected to be more than a closet fan of introducing a state income tax; a lot of Republicans (and, frankly, non-Republicans) in the state still consider that she "won" the governorship in 2004 off the back of electoral hijinks, and that the "result" was fraudulent. Of course, she beat Dino Rossi, her opponent in both 2004 and 2008, fair and square the second time around-- but now, multiple sources are indicating that she's ready to give up office anyway if she gets a better offer, potentially setting up a hard-fought special election that would inspire fresh optimism in more than a few Republicans....