We wrote Sunday about Dick Cheney's personal visits to the Hill to lobby against the inclusion of an anti-torture Amendment in the Pentagon's 2006 spending bill. Today, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist canceled the planned hearing on the bill.

Also, Timothy Flanigan, who also served as Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s deputy White House Counsel in 2001 and 2002, during the time of the torture memos, is being promoted to the number two spot at the Department of Justice. Flannigan had his hearing today.

"Once again, while the privates and sergeants get marched off to jail, the policy-makers get promoted," said Christopher Anders, an ACLU Legislative Counsel. "This nomination means that the nation’s top two law enforcement officials at the Justice Department, which normally would be responsible for prosecuting any wrongdoing, will be men who are up to their eyeballs in this scandal."