from CQ Spy Talk:

One knowledgeable source said that the Obama team was "back to zero" on finding a CIA chief, an assertion rejected by a transition official.

Running the spy agency has become less attractive to personalities who once might have sought the position, sources say, ever since it was subsumed by the new national intelligence directorate (ODNI), set up after the surprise 9/11 attacks.  

"A lot of people don't want the job," said the source, because the CIA chief is no longer top dog in the fractious, 16-agency intelligence community, and no longer gives the President his daily briefing.  The Obama team has gone down "some blind alleys" in finding the right person, the source said.

Whereas in pre-9/11 times the job might have been a springboard to bigger things, now "it's a career ender" because it requires direct supervision of such contentious policies as renditions and interrogations.

"You've got to just really love it," a former top CIA official said,  "because it's too painful otherwise."

wtf?

Is the source a complete moron?  

On one hand, I wonder if any of this is a consequence of John Brennan still being in charge of the transition team on intelligence.  He supports rendition and he's pissed at liberals.  Why not let the stench of torture linger?  On the other hand, I think the source in this article might just be insane.  A few weeks ago, Stein's sources were complaining about how dreadful it is that being connected to "enhanced interrogations" disqualifies you for the post.  Now it's a shame that the post includes supervising "enhanced interrogations" and renditions, which are presumably distasteful.

What a weird article.  Ackerman comments here.

Some may be heartened that at least one of the candidates for CIA Director, John Gannon, is anti-torture.  According to the NYT, Gannon says it was a tragic mistake for the administration to approve such methods.  I wrote up a post on him here.

But per the Associated Press, maybe there's a hope and a prayer of stopping Obama and Warren from their planned travesty in our democracy:

Madison, Wis. - A group advocating separation of church and state is suing to keep prayer out of the Jan. 20 presidential inauguration.  The Madison-based Freedom From Religion Foundation and several of its members are among the 29 plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit filed yesterday in Washington, D.C.

The lawsuit seeks to block the Presidential Inaugural Committee from including prayers in the official inauguration. It says clergy have not led prayers at inaugurations for most of the nation's history.  The lawsuit also asks that the phrase "so help me God" be removed from the presidential oath of office as it's not included in the version in the Constitution.

Foundation co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor says members are "First Amendment purists" who believe the ceremony excludes non-Christians.

I'm better but now my husband, who has been sick one time for two days in the eleven years I've known him, is getting it.

Football: Michigan State in the Capitol One Bowl on the 1st at 1:00 PM (ABC).

Penn State in the Rose Bowl on the 1st.

The next day, they began to report that this bombardment was a reaction.

The next day, the civilians casualties were no longer mentioned.

Now the war is spoken of only in terms of global politics.

We can't let people feel anything, can we?

Those "news" are mostly selected and edited by accomplices of the Zionist state.

As for Broncos, I'd like to see Shanahan end up in NY.

Hillary and Bill? Almost makes me want to brave the cold and the crowds and head on over there.