This weekend saw critical votes on Don't Ask Don't Tell and the DREAM Act--one victory and one defeat for progressives. Kai Wright of ColorLines notes that it was grassroots organizing and militant activism that brought both these bills to the point of passage. "In the end it's the outside that moves people. Literally outside the White House, chained to the fence, or DREAM act students hunger striking," he notes.

Seventeen years after Bill Clinton's “Don't Ask Don't Tell” compromise, the institutionalized closet in the military should soon be gone. With the Senate vote to repeal, lesbian, gay and bisexual Americans have won the right to serve openly without fear of losing their jobs. Next it should be all workers. Congress needs to pass a comprehensive Employment Non-Discrimination Act. And then we all need to think about coming out.

"We are heading toward a two-tiered food system in this country," notes David Kirby, author of Animal Factory. The food safety bill that just passed Congress puts some safety standards back into the U.S. food system, but does it do anything to change the ability of poor folks to buy healthy food? Raj Patel points out that when wages are kept low and work is devalued, it doesn't matter how cheap food is; people won't be able to afford it.

Kelly Anderson is a longtime Brooklyn resident, but when she found herself being priced out of neighborhoods, she decided to take a closer look at the forces of gentrification, and their impact on the city's race and class makeup. Zeroing in on the Fulton Mall, a historically black shopping district in Downtown Brooklyn being eyed by developers for a "renaissance," Anderson and her crew examine the forces reshaping the city.

"We are heading toward a two-tiered food system in this country," notes David Kirby, author of Animal Factory. The food safety bill that just passed Congress puts some safety standards back into the U.S. food system, but does it do anything to change the ability of poor folks to buy healthy food? Raj Patel points out that when wages are kept low and work is devalued, it doesn't matter how cheap food is; people won't be able to afford it.

In 2005, Surgeon General Richard Carmona called obesity “the terror within,” and said “Unless we do something about it, the magnitude of the dilemma will dwarf 9-11.” But public policy changes would be pointless, because “common-sense health decisions” can’t legislated.

Wall Street is set to award $143 billion--with a B--in bonuses this year, while foreclosures continue unabated (and often undocumented) around the country. Protests are continuing around the country too, though, and Desiree Pilgrim-Hunter notes that when her family couldn't get a regulator to examine her family's foreclosure, "What we went to was a grassroots organization."

Congress is passing tax cuts for the rich as well as everyone else this week, while Don't Ask Don't Tell is headed for a stand-alone vote in the Senate. Is gridlock over, or are these just issues that actually have some bipartisan support? Meanwhile, Julian Assange may be out on bail, but the debate over the charges against him still rages, and Megan Carpentier of TPM reminds us that it's possible for the arrest to be politically motivated and the charges still not be false.

Congress is passing tax cuts for the rich as well as everyone else this week, while Don't Ask Don't Tell is headed for a stand-alone vote in the Senate. Is gridlock over, or are these just issues that actually have some bipartisan support? Meanwhile, Julian Assange may be out on bail, but the debate over the charges against him still rages, and Megan Carpentier of TPM reminds us that it's possible for the arrest to be politically motivated and the charges still not be false.

Julian Assange of WikiLeaks is out on bail—apparently headed for the 10-bedroom home of British former army officer Vaughan Smith, described by the Guardian as a rightwing libertarian. Assange's lawyer joked that it would not be so much “house arrest as manor arrest” while he fights extradition to Sweden on sexual assault charges.