Only a couple months behind the curve, but better late than never:

Republicans have moved ahead of Democrats by 48% to 44% among registered voters in the latest update on Gallup’s generic congressional ballot for the 2010 House elections, after trailing by six points in July and two points last month.

Rasmussen has it a 43/37 split in favor of the GOP – and Rasmussen is polling “likely voters”. Bottom line: the GOP is gaining strength as Democrats screw up everything. Question: will the GOP leadership put together the necessary message and candidates to capitalize on this? Remember, we’re not called “the stupid party”, for nothing.

This gets ever more painful to watch:

President Barack Obama does not plan to accept any of the Afghanistan war options presented by his national security team, pushing instead for revisions to clarify how and when U.S. troops would turn over responsibility to the Afghan government, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

That stance comes in the midst of forceful reservations about a possible troop buildup from the U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, according to a second top administration official.

In strongly worded classified cables to Washington, Eikenberry said he had misgivings about sending in new troops while there are still so many questions about the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

To translate: “Obama doesn’t want to make a decision to send or deny the troops, but he needed a plausible excuse to spin things out a while longer – Eikenberry provided it”.

Meanwhile, however, people are still dying there – and our troops have got to wonder ever more often if they’ll be given a clear mission and proper support from the politicians back home.

The truth of the matter is that Karzai may be a lot of things, but the ability of his government to assert control over all of Afghanistan rides on our efforts – and it would be the same no matter who was in charge of Afghanistan. Its not for us to settle Afghanistan’s political issues – it is for us to provide the safe haven where Afghans of good will can work it out, just as Iraqis of good will worked out Iraq’s future under the shield of American arms. Most Afghans, like most of the people in the world, just want to be left alone to get on with their lives – right now, the Taliban is making Afghans wonder if it will be Americans or Taliban they’ll have to deal with in the long run. We have to convince the Afghans that we are the power which will stay, not the Taliban. We do that, and we’ll get our Afghan version of the “Anbar awakening”.

What Obama is doing is playing right in to the enemy’s hands – he’s being irresolute. Someone pointed out that the time between 9/11 and fall of Kabul in 2001 was a shorter time than between presentation of the plan and Obama’s continued refusal to makea choice. Our political leaders in Washington must make it clear to President Obama that he must decide – one way or the other, and right away. No more time for thinking it over – it is time to act.

UPDATE: WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, DITHERING IS STRENGTH.

Do any Democrats out there have any spine, at all?

Gov. Deval Patrick won’t take anymore action to prevent a convicted terror bomber from speaking at the University of Massachusetts Amherst despite his strong opposition, he said today…

…Even though the event will be held on the state-owned Amherst campus and a professor invited Levasseur, Patrick said he will take no more action to stop the terror leader from speaking.

“I can’t control the comings and goings on campuses,” Patrick said.

When asked if the professor should leave the university, Patrick said, “You can escalate and escalate, and I’m not going to go there. I get the academic freedom, all I’m saying is there is an issue of taste and sensitivity that also ought to be considered.”

How about just going there with 10,000 other people and simply not letting the terrorist in? How about doing whatever you can to stop this desecration of higher education?

Nope, none of that…just a mild rebuke. Gotta be careful, you know, get off that liberal ranch a bit too much and you’ll pay the price…especially when you’re a bit concerned about your re-election prospects in uber-liberal Massachusetts.

Dogs are just more, well…human.

Yes, I know, any news over 24 hours old in the blogosphere is old news. But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity brought about by the ‘resignation’ of Anita Dunn to do this song parody:

Another One’s Under the Bus by Barack Obama
(with apologies to Freddie Mercury)

The Maoist walks up to the podium with the mic pulled way down low
Fawning press thrown at her feet, the presser’s ready to go!
Are you ready? Hey, are you ready for this?
Are you hanging on the edge of your seat?
Gonna wage war on ol’ Fox News, they’ll go down in defeat!
But
Thump-thump-thwump Anita’s thrown under the bus..yeah
Thump-thump-thwump And Anita Dunn’s under the bus!
And another one gone
And another one down
Another one bites the dust
Hey, Obama’s gonna get you too
Another one’s under the bus!

How’s Obama gonna get along without you when you’re gone?
You gave him everything that you had but he kicked you out of his home
Is he happy? Is he satisfied?
How long can he stand the heat?
Out of the bus another corpse slips to the sound of the beat (Look out)
Thump-thump-thwump Another one’s under the bus..yeah
Thump-thump-thwump Another one’s under the bus..
And another one down
And another one gone
Another one’s under the bus!
Hey, Obama’s gonna get you too
Another one’s under the bus!

HEY
Oh, it’s crowded
Bite the dust
Under the bus yeah

Hey
Another one bites the dust
Another one’s under the bus, oh
Another one bites the dust, hey, hey
Another one’s under the bus, heeeeey
Oh, shoo ’em out!

There are plenty of ways you can hurt a man and throw him to the lost n found
You can ask Jeremiah you can ask Van Jones
Even Grandma hit the ground!
But I’m ready, yes I’m ready for you
I’m standing on my own two feet, but
Out of the doorway another corpse slips, repeating the sound of the beat. Oh yeeeah
Thump-thump-thwump Another one’s under the bus!
Thump-thump-thwump Another one bites the dust
And another one down
And another one gone
Another one’s under the bus
Hey, Obama’s gonna get you too
Another one’s under the bus
Shoot it
Hey
Alright

Camille Paglia is no conservative. In fact, Camille Paglia is no Republican. Camille Paglia is, in fact, a feminist Democrat. That’s why I found her latest piece at Salon.com so fascinating.

When I first saw the article, entitled, “Pelosi’s Victory for Women,” I thought, “Okay, here we go–another Nancy Pelosi mindless puff piece.”

The first two paragraphs certainly did not disappoint:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi scored a giant gain for feminism last weekend. In shoving her controversy-plagued healthcare reform bill to victory by a paper-thin margin, she conclusively demonstrated that a woman can be just as gritty, ruthless and arm-twisting in pursuing her agenda as anyone in the long line of fabled male speakers before her. Even a basic feminist shibboleth like abortion rights became just another card for Pelosi to deal and swap.

It was a stunningly impressive recovery for someone who seemed to be coming apart at the seams last summer, when a sputtering, rattled Pelosi struggled to deal with the nationwide insurgency of town hall protesters — reputable, concerned citizens whom she outrageously tried to tar as Nazis. Whether or not her bill survives in the Senate is immaterial: Pelosi’s hard-won, trench-warfare win sets a new standard for U.S. women politicians and is certainly well beyond anything the posturing but ineffectual Hillary Clinton has ever achieved.

Yep, just a run of the mill flaming lib, blindly singing the phrases of another flaming lib.

But the following paragraph (and thereafter) blindsided my expectations:

As for the actual content of the House healthcare bill, horrors! Where to begin? That there are serious deficiencies and injustices in the U.S. healthcare system has been obvious for decades. To bring the poor and vulnerable into the fold has been a high ideal and an urgent goal for most Democrats. But this rigid, intrusive and grotesquely expensive bill is a nightmare. Holy Hygeia, why can’t my fellow Democrats see that the creation of another huge, inefficient federal bureaucracy would slow and disrupt the delivery of basic healthcare and subject us all to a labyrinthine mass of incompetent, unaccountable petty dictators? Massively expanding the number of healthcare consumers without making due provision for the production of more healthcare providers means that we’re hurtling toward a staggering logjam of de facto rationing. Steel yourself for the deafening screams from the careerist professional class of limousine liberals when they get stranded for hours in the jammed, jostling anterooms of doctors’ offices. They’ll probably try to hire Caribbean nannies as ringers to do the waiting for them.

Read, as they say, the whole thing.

If a feminist liberal democrat like Camille Paglia gets it, are the rest of her liberal cohorts that brain-dead? Or are they merely blinded and necromanced by the promise of a socialist utopia, even if they have to destroy an entire nation to achieve it?

This one is from Chris Dodd (D-Countrywide Financial):

Senate Democrats on Tuesday proposed stripping the Federal Reserve of its supervisory powers and creating instead three new federal agencies to police banks, protect consumers and dismantle failing institutions.

The 1,136-page bill…

Once you get to that point, there’s no need to go on – something that large written by a guy who’s in bed with the financial sharks who helped start the current credit crisis means that its just a bunch of BS designed to make it seem like Dodd is doing something – and, meanwhile, he and his bankster buddies are getting away with their actions.

I guess they really do think we’re stupid – that we’ll fall for this stuff, again, as if we haven’t well learned our lesson. Sorry, Democrats, but the party is over – we’re coming to clear you out and then make you pay for your mischief.

Victor Davis Hanson notes our societal attitude about Moslems and terrorism:

…The society at large, driven by the sermonizing of its elites, has come to an unstated conclusion that, unfortunately, a few Americans will have to be sacrificed from time to time, for the larger goal of establishing the fact that Americans in no way think Muslims are any more likely than any others to commit either random or premeditated terrorist violence. I think that is the initial lesson of Fort Hood. (I remember something similar from the 1980s and 1990s, when we accepted that to be a diplomat or a soldier stationed in the Middle East or Africa or anywhere in the Muslim world meant that there was some chance that your barracks, camp, hotel, embassy, or ship would be attacked — and very little chance that the U.S. government would do much in response other than launch an occasional ineffectual cruise missile or offer a bombastic “this will not stand” speech.)

If the lone-wolf incidents start happening ten times a year, rather than three or four, and if one or two terrorist plots succeed and result in several hundred killed, then attitudes may change (at least for a while).

This seems to be it. I know Moslems – good, decent people who offer no threat at all; but what we are actually doing is transposing our view of these decent people on those who are hate-filled and always just an instant away from going on a personal Jihad. While I am distressed to think that patriotic, law-abiding American Moslems will have to be discomforted, I believe that we must do it. We don’t want an “acceptable level of violence”. I don’t want to bow down before Political Correctness on a pile of innocent, American corpses. I’d rather offend than attend funerals.

And, in truth, patriotic Moslems should be eagerly seeking such scrutiny – and they should be making loud, bold statements of loyalty to the United States and disdain for people who murder in the name of Islam. The fact that such actions are rarely – if at all – seen after incidents of Islamic terrorism is in itself disturbing. And it may be indicative of a fear in the Moslem population – fear that if they speak out, they’ll be the next victims of the Islamists; fear that we, their fellow Americans, won’t protect them from the radical Islamists who pour hatred in to our midst.

We must start treating radical Islam as a subversive element in our society – an internal enemy which must be rooted out. They are trying to overthrow our government and, indeed, our entire way of life. This is the United States of America. We are a Judeo-Christian nation. We are part of Western civilization. We welcome all who come here – but if you are to live in the United States of America, you’ll have to live as an American. This means, at a minimum, you never seek, advocate, justify or even mildly excuse violence against your fellow Americans. And if you are a member of a group which is routinely producing people who violate this basic trust, then you’ll have to accept a certain level of inconvenience as we attempt to separate the good from the bad.

Hmmm…

The average October temperature of 50.8°F was 4.0°F below the 20th Century average and ranked as the 3rd coolest based on preliminary data.

Anyone get a comment from Al Gore?

A pinko site, but the Justice Department had no business asking this:

In a case that raises questions about online journalism and privacy rights, the U.S. Department of Justice sent a formal request to an independent news site ordering it to provide details of all reader visits on a certain day.

The grand jury subpoena also required the Philadelphia-based Indymedia.us Web site “not to disclose the existence of this request” unless authorized by the Justice Department, a gag order that presents an unusual quandary for any news organization.

Indeed, it does. In the end, Justice was scared off by lawyers for the web site – but it is this sort of thing which keeps all of us on edge. Its no one’s business (heck, not even mine, unless you comment) who comes to this or any other website. While I hope that not a single creep will ever view Blogs for Victory, its not for me to stop them – nor to tell anyone that they did come by, should I have that knowledge. Are we going to indict the local Ft. Hood newspaper because Hasan read it?

It would be one thing if a web site was advocating violence or being used as a place to plot law breaking – but if its just a bunch of opinions, even if the opinions are considered idiotic, then its all good – and Government should just keep out.