Lt. Dan Choi, the LGBT activist and West Point graduate that became a media staple during the battle to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, has been arrested in Moscow for attending a gay pride parade along with more than 30 other domestic and foreign activists. Interestingly enough, Moscow police allowed Lt. Choi to keep his cell phone with him in jail, which has allowed him to use Twitter to narrate the entire legal process.

On Saturday, December 18, 2010, the US Senate passed the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010 by a 65-31 margin, clearing the way for President Obama to fulfill a promise that many have seen as too long in coming. While the White House has maintained all along that a legislative repeal was the only “durable solution,” many, myself included, felt that the President should have put a moratorium on DADT discharges until such a repeal could be enacted.

Had he done so, however, it’s very likely that the President would not, now, be poised to sign that legislative repeal into law.

Lt. Dan Choi, the gay rights advocate who, despite being a West Point graduate and fluent in Arabic, was discharged via Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, made the media rounds this morning to discuss the failure of Congress to turn down the law and why it is so counterproductive. Except this morning, he had to make the case on Judge Andrew Napolitano‘s Freedom Watch, meaning he had to sell that point to libertarians. It was easy: DADT is exorbitantly expensive.

More than half a century later, the journalists of The Daily Show have uncovered the real reason for the inhuman cruelty of the Third Reich: every last one of those Nazis was gay. Or at least that’s what Scott Lively, the president of the organization Defend the Family, contends. In search of the truth, Jason Jones went deep into the heart of New York’s gay community to find evidence for Lively’s argument.

Interesting. On last night’s show Rachel Maddow opted not to cover the DADT demonstrations at the White House yesterday, despite the police’s stunning decision to remove the White House Press from the scene. Instead she opted to spend ten minutes on lightly attended gun rallies that took place in and around Washington D.C. on Monday to mark Patriot’s Day (also, the anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing).

Earlier today, Lt. Dan Choi and 5 fellow gay servicemembers handcuffed themselves to the fence on the north side of the White House to protest the slow pace of the “Don’t ask/Don’t tell” repeal. This is the second time that Choi and Capt. Jim Pietrangelo have used the cuff protest, the first time for the others. The protest follows President Obama‘s engagement of LGBT rights protesters at a fundraiser last night.

In a disturbing wrinkle, the police closed off the scene to the press for a time, and Mediaite has confirmed that this included White House reporters.

I first met The Advocate’s Kerry Eleveld last spring, following a White House briefing in which I pressed Robert Gibbs about the “Don’t ask, Don’t tell” discharge of Lt. Dan Choi. Today she takes part in Mediaite’s award hopeful web series “Inside the White House Press Corp.”

>Progressive talk radio host and frequent cable news guest Bill Press is, like me, a member in good standing of the “back five,” the scrappy White House reporters who wait patiently for Robert Gibbs to finish with the first two rows while hoping the clock doesn’t run out. His show is syndicated by Dial Global, and can be heard online or via podcast.

Hot off serving his first night in jail for chaining himself to the White House fence to protest Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, Lt. Dan Choi granted Newsweek an exclusive interview, and he is still not happy with co-protesters Kathy Griffin and the Human Rights Campaign.

Gay rights activist and enlisted soldier (still, though maybe not for long) Lt. Dan Choi attended a Human Rights Campaign-sponsored protest today during what was supposed to be a peaceful protest against the military’s Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy. Exasperated by the protesters’ attitude, apparently, Lt. Choi and fellow soldier Capt. Jim Pietrangelo chained themselves to the fence of the White House.

Larry King hosted a military panel on his program last night to discuss the possible repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, which would have been a fairly routine discussion save not for the presence of Lt. Dan Choi, who came out as gay on The Rachel Maddow Show almost a year ago and is facing termination from his job despite being a West Point graduate, an Iraq War veteran, and an Arab linguist.