Pennsylvania: Washington

This week's Midweek Briefing:
Newsmax.com's Chris Ruddy says what a growing number of War on Terror watchers are saying -- it's time to reduce our troop presence in Afghanistan. And he favors a plan put forth by Vice President Joe Biden "that involves keeping a smaller force (there) and focusing it on counterterrorism," especially against those nasty al-Qaida cells in neighboring Pakistan. It's likely the best way to better prepare us to handle the growing Iranian threat.
Same old same old. Newsmax is partially owned by Richard Mellon Scaife, owner of the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.

Want proof? In an article from October 2008 at the

Jack Kelly, in this week's column, writes about Manuel Zelaya, Honduras and the coup:
It was no coup, our Congressional Research Service said in a recent analysis. The army was acting on a warrant issued by the Supreme Court at the request of the attorney general, which was supported by an overwhelming majority of the Honduran Congress. The army immediately turned power over to a civilian selected in a constitutionally approved manner. It was Mr. Zelaya who had attempted the coup.
First off (a teensy bit of fact checking here), it was the Law Library of Congress (and not the Congressional Research Service) that did the analysis.

Via Thinkprogress, there's this from Adult Video News:
In a truly unexpected move, the Washington, DC-based political action committee “American Solutions for Winning the Future” (ASWF) Wednesday informed Allison Vivas, president of the adult entertainment studio Pink Visual, that she is the recipient of the organization's Entrepreneur of the Year award for 2009. The PAC, which is headed by noted conservative politician Newt Gingrich, notified Vivas of the honor via fax.
AVN reported that Vivas issued a statement regarding the award:
I’m honored, and more than a little surprised, to receive this prestigious award. It never occurred to me that Newt Gingrich, one of the principal architects of the conservative ‘Contract with America’ in the 1990s, would be willing to brave criticism from the far right of his party in order to recognize good work done on the part of an adult entertainment professional.

In this week's column (a column my friend Ed Heath calls "silly") Jack Kelly both attacks and defends the CIA.

And en passant he spins torture into a clumsy euphemism. Take a look:
Attorney General Eric Holder -- who before his confirmation hearings told senators he wouldn't -- has appointed a special prosecutor to pursue CIA interrogators who discomforted al-Qaida bigwigs to get them to talk.
Discomforted? Is that even a word? First off, let's rid ourselves of the clumsy. It was torture. Take a look at this is from January of this year:
The top Bush administration official in charge of deciding whether to bring Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial has concluded that the U.