The Central Intelligence Agency withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency’s director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday. [New York Times]

The disclosure about Mr. Cheney’s role in the unidentified C.I.A. program comes a day after an inspector general’s report underscored the central role of the former vice president’s office in restricting to a small circle of officials knowledge of the National Security Agency’s program of eavesdropping without warrants, a degree of secrecy that the report concluded had hurt the effectiveness of the counterterrorism surveillance effort.

Those of you who live in Nye County, particularly Pahrump, and worked in the Obama campaign will remember Adrienne. Just learned on Facebook she is about to got to Africa.

Hope she has a wonderful trip.

I just took a look at the Washoe County Democratic Party’s website. Really an outstanding site. I invite you to look it over as well, particularly if you live in Nye County.

If you go there notice the Navigation section in the upper left corner of their Home page. Click each one and see what they have inside their site. I was particularly pleased to see they have a way for rank and file Washoe Democrats to express their opinions.

I don’t have any idea when Nye County will get their website up or whether it will provide a means for Nye County Democrats to communicate with the Nye County Democratic Central Committee or not. But I hope so. Communications within the Nye County Democratic Party are sorely lacking.