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Welcome once again to our “Monday Morning News Kick Off” post on got geoint? As many of our readers know, the point of this post is to “jump start” your work week with all the actionable news you need. Plus, with the multitude of weekend politics shows, there’s always something crazy to report. For example, former Vice President Cheney re-merged — seems he comes out of hiding every other week to do the talk show circuit — and continued to have strong words for the Obama administration on the interrogation issue. Grab your coffee, dust the cobwebs off your brain and scroll down. Happy Monday!

Cheney Calls Obama Actions on Interrogations “Deeply Disturbing”
Alright. For the top story this Monday, once again we have the former VP making an appearance on “Face the Nation,” and once again, more strong words for the new administration. First, he said that he was “deeply disturbed” by Obama’s actions to reverse some of the Bush policies. He also said that by getting rid of these techniques “you reduce the intelligence flow to the intelligence community upon which we based those policies that were so successful.” So, we will admit it, we have been reporting on this issue for weeks now, but have yet to offer an opinion piece on this issue. We would actually prefer to hear from our readers — many from the intelligence community — about they think about this last statement by Cheney. Does getting rid of these techniques reduce the flow of intelligence to the community??

Palin Gets Dissed By Republican on CNN
Since we are on the weekend political talk show topic right now, the other big story — and we question whether this is big or not — is that prominent Republican Bill Bennett took issue Sunday with what he called the “media’s focus” on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. When pressed by John King on whether she was the future of the party, Bennet said “probably not.” Are we surprised by this? Most likely the answer is no. The Republican party certainly is struggling with an identity crisis right now, and we would guess that Palin is not the answer. What do you all think?

Confirmed Swine Flu Cases in the U.S. on the Rise
While the news cycle hysteria around the swine flu outbreak seems to be dying down, there are actually more confirmed cases in the U.S. According to the BBC, the U.S. now has 2,532 confirmed cases of swine flu — a jump up from 600 on Friday. In addition, regarding swine flu coverage and the “hysteria” that we mentioned before, 45 percent of Americans believe that the press coverage was exaggerated. Check out the Gallup Poll here and let us know what you think!

News on Defense Spending Cuts
If many of you were taking a half-Friday last week, or out enjoying the nice weather after what seemed a ridiculously long spell of rain, the big story that day was the proposed defense spending cuts. President Obama recommended cuts in more than 100 federal programs on Thursday that could save the federal government $17 billion next year — with the largest cuts being in defense spending. Obama would cut nearly $3.4 billion from proposed equipment purchases, such as the F-22 fighter plane and combat systems for vehicles, as well as recruitment and retention for the armed forces. Read more here.

Army’s Move to Unmanned Drones
One area of defense that is not imperil is surveillance and combat drones. Check out this article from the Sunday NY Times on what is really happening with the proposed Defense spending cuts. And, the Army will be testing three unmanned drones in Utah in the near future — an indication that this type of program may be immune to any spending cuts.

Tags: Bill Bennett, Cheney, CNN, Defense cuts, defense spending, Dick Cheney, GEOINT, Intelligence Community, Palin Not Future of Republican Party, Swine Flu, unmanned drones, Vice President Cheney