Crunch time in Afghanistan:

The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warns in an urgent, confidential assessment of the war that he needs more forces within the next year and bluntly states that without them, the eight-year conflict “will likely result in failure,” according to a copy of the 66-page document obtained by The Washington Post.

Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal says emphatically: “Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near-term (next 12 months) — while Afghan security capacity matures — risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.”

His assessment was sent to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Aug. 30 and is now being reviewed by President Obama and his national security team.

McChrystal concludes the document’s five-page Commander’s Summary on a note of muted optimism: “While the situation is serious, success is still achievable.”

What will Obama do?

He can stay with what he’s got; scuttle the mission right away; or fight for complete victory. Naturally, I wish the President to fight for victory – and I’m certain that is what the troops want him to do, too. The only good option is to pour it on and do whatever proves necessary – to steel ourselves, as we did in 2007, to fight for victory regardless of cost. Scuttling or continued half-measures are the worst option…in either case, we’ll end up with defeat, though if we keep at it with insufficient forces we’ll have a higher death toll, ours and theirs.

We are about to find out, for certain, if Obama has the stuff of Presidents in him.

Discuss any breaking news or whatever comes to mind.

The story:

The president said he is “happy to look at” bills before Congress that would give struggling news organizations tax breaks if they were to restructure as nonprofit businesses.

“I haven’t seen detailed proposals yet, but I’ll be happy to look at them,” Obama told the editors of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Toledo Blade in an interview.

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) has introduced S. 673, the so-called “Newspaper Revitalization Act,” that would give outlets tax deals if they were to restructure as 501(c)(3) corporations. That bill has so far attracted one cosponsor, Cardin’s Maryland colleague Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D).

It’ll get nowhere, but it does show (a) how bad its become for the dinosaur media and (b) how completely corrupt Democrats are…so corrupt they likely don’t even realize it when they’re doing it. Imagine, for a moment, if President Bush had stated he was open to a subsidy to, well, the old Blogs for Bush? After all, Matt and I were struggling a bit there and the blog advertising revenues weren’t enough to maintain a Washington Bureau…and, so, why not?

Well, because it would have been a sleazy use of taxpayer money to reward supporters – neither Bush or Matt and I would ever have contemplated such a thing, and if any one of us had, the other two would have smacked him down. No problem for our Democrats though…

Probably – because we used to call them “liberal Republicans”, now we call them “moderate Republicans” but mostly what it amounts to is “Republicans we can’t rely upon in a crisis” – anyways, looks like there’s a chance Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) might bolt:

Senator Snowe’s mid-week remarks on her place in a changing GOP might seem tame. Snowe, a moderate Republican and senior senator from Maine, stated that “I haven’t changed as a Republican, I think more that my party has changed.” The comments came in an interview with John Harwood on CNBC. Citing the full quotation might be a useful background for the analysis that follows. Asked why she was a Republican, she answered:

Well, you know, it’s — I’ve always been a Republican for the traditional principles that have been associated with the Republican Party since I, you know, became a Republican when I registered to vote. And that is limited, you know, limited government, individual opportunities, fiscal responsibility, and a strong national defense. So I think that those principles have always been a part of the Republican Party heritage, and I believe that I, you know, reflect those views. And I haven’t changed as a Republican, I think more that my party has changed.

The MSM and the left eats this stuff up – here’s the supposed real-deal for the GOP: if only we’d all be more like her, we’d be able to get ahead! Its the endless refrain – if only we GOPers would become more liberal, all would be well. Of course, its all bull – and Snowe makes a liar out of herself in her own statement. If she’s for limited government and fiscal responsibility, then why did she vote for Obama’s Spendulus package? That is the definition of fiscally irresponsible big government.

There has to be room for dissenting voices in the GOP – but there must also be a certain cohesiveness to the party. One certain, crucial issues, a person has to either be with the party, or not in the party at all. Voting for the Spendulus wasn’t just another vote on another spending bill – it was a major, early victory for Barack Obama and the liberals in Congress. What the heck did we get in return for all our efforts to elect and re-elect Snowe? It didn’t help us at the moment we really needed it. And now we’re supposed to help re-elect her, again? Why? So she can cut us off at the knees one more time?

There is talk of finding a primary challenger for Snowe – and I hope we get one. Senator Snowe needs to learn that if she takes our sweat and our money, we expect at least a modicum of party discipline in return. At the bare minimum, no GOPer should be the vote which hands a signal victory to the liberals we all – moderates and conservatives – oppose. She doesn’t have to be a Republican – she’s free to switch to Democrat or Independent…but if she wants to be part of us, then we expect her to return the favor.

No more Specters in our party – no more RINOs. We’re Republicans – we range from rock ribbed conservatives like Sen. Jim DeMint (100% ACU rating) to fairly liberal Republicans like Rudi Giuliani…room at the table for all sorts, but no room for those who would betray us.

Interesting run-down of the scandal of NEA Spendulus grantees being conscripted to push Obamacare and other Obama programs. Read the whole thing – here’s the kicker:

But, there is even a larger issue that hasn’t yet received much attention in the press. Among the Obama Administration officials on the call were Buffy Wicks, Office of Public Engagement and the lead White House official on the President’s Serve.Gov initiative to promote national service. Also on the call was Nell Abernathy, Director of Outreach for Serve.Gov. One of their main goals on the call, it seems, was to encourage artists to produce works that would reinforce the President’s call for service; specifically through the Serve.Gov web-portal.

As Dana Loesch recently reported at Big Government, the Serve.Gov portal funnels citizens to volunteer or service projects connected with ACORN and other leftist groups. The taxpayer-funded website is evolving into a cyber-recruitment tool for the progressive movement.

So what did happen on that call? Was the NEA coordinating with the White House to push their agenda on a group of artists eager for and reliant upon the NEA for grants, or is the NEA telling the truth that this call “was not a means to promote any legislative agenda”?

Tomorrow at noon ET, explosive new information will answer that question and raise many others.

This if from Andrew Breitbart – he who brought us the ACORN scandals. When he says “explosive”, I’m expecting something rather large.

And once upon a time, Brzezinski was a fairly smart guy:

How aggressive can Obama be in insisting to the Israelis that a military strike might be in America’s worst interest?

We are not exactly impotent little babies. They have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch?

What if they fly over anyway?

Well, we have to be serious about denying them that right. That means a denial where you aren’t just saying it. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not. No one wishes for this but it could be a Liberty in reverse.

“Insane” and “stupid” compete with each other in this statement. This is one of the top foreign policy minds in the Democratic party – their Grand Old Man of foreign affairs…and if the Israelis decide to strike Iran’s nuclear program (because they feel we won’t do anything about it…and we’re making it pretty clear we won’t do anything about it), he wants us to risk battle with the Israeli air force. Where do the Democrats get people like this?

The good news is that he’s not in charge of anything in Obama’s Administration…the bad news is that we’re relying on Hillary Clinton to give better advice.

Well, that is the way it works, isn’t it? Do anything to oppose a black man in office, and that is proof of racism, right?

Embattled New York Governor David Paterson said on Sunday he was still running for office, in the face of reports that President Barack Obama had asked him to withdraw from the 2010 race for fear that he cannot regroup from a series of political setbacks.

“I am running for office,” Paterson told reporters at a Manhattan parade. “I’m not going to discuss confidential conversations,” he said, adding that he planned to continue focusing on matters related to the financial crisis.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that the Obama administration is worried Paterson’s unpopularity could drag down New York’s Democratic members of Congress and the Democratic-controlled state legislature in November 2010 elections.

Citing an administration official, the Times reported that Obama’s request that Paterson step aside was put forward by his political advisers, but approved by the president.

Of course, this means that Obama is a bit of a fascist, too – typical of modern liberals, he doesn’t want to let the Democrats of New York decide but, instead, wants to use political pressure to get the man he wants.

Wasn’t there a mention or two of “change” when Obama was running?

I don’t know which, myself:

The swine flu pandemic could kill millions and cause anarchy in the world’s poorest nations unless £900m can be raised from rich countries to pay for vaccines and antiviral medicines, says a UN report leaked to the Observer.

The disclosure will provoke concerns that health officials will not be able to stem the growth of the worldwide H1N1 pandemic in developing countries. If the virus takes hold in the poorest nations, millions could die and the economies of fragile countries could be destroyed.

Health ministers around the globe were sent the warning on Thursday in a report on the costs of averting a humanitarian disaster in the next few months. It comes as officials inside the World Health Organisation, the UN’s public health body, said they feared they would not be able to raise half that amount because of the global downturn.

If this isn’t panic-mongering, then we need to really get on this…too many lives are at stake, and in addition to the loss of lives would be the massive disruption of global civilization. In my view, better safe than sorry – time to tap TARP and throw some money at this problem, rather than the problem of bankers. If it is panic-mongering, then we’ll have wasted a bit more than a billion dollars…which Congress can waste in five minutes, on a good day.

I’ve heard, over the months, both the worst-case and nothing-to-worry-about scenarios on this pandemic – while I’ve tended towards the nothing-to-worry-about, I can’t help but notice the similarities between this outbreak and the 1918-19 flu…and while we in the wealthy nations will get off lighter than the poorer nations, the fact remains that a great deal of what we use in our nation comes from the labor of people in poor nations…given how stupid we’ve been about outsourcing our hard work, we now lack the capacity to look after ourselves in a crisis. And this knowledge just reinforces my better-safe-than-sorry approach.

For those of you who are not Christians, if you ever wanted to know just what makes us tick:

To holy people the very name of Jesus is a name to feed upon, a name to transport. His name can raise the dead and transfigure and beautify the living. – Venerable John Henry Newman

It really works like that – and its not just spiritual…we Catholics hold to a much more immediate, in-the-flesh view of this in the Eucharist. Right there, right next to us, all the time and everywhere.

To win would be to hold the seat, but this could also be a sign that the GOP is starting a resurgence in the northeast:

Republican Kelly Ayotte leads Democrat Paul Hodes by eight points in an early look at New Hampshire’s 2010 race for the U.S. Senate.

The first Rasmussen Reports survey of the race to fill the seat being vacated by retiring GOP Senator Judd Gregg shows Ayotte ahead 46% to 38%.

Five percent (5%) of New Hampshire voters prefer some other candidate, and 12% are undecided.

Ayotte, the state’s attorney general from 2004 until her resignation in July, captures 81% of the Republican vote, and Hodes, a two-term member of the U.S. House, earns the identical number (81%) of Democratic votes. Among voters not affiliated with either party, Ayotte leads by 14 points.

The independents are the key number here – lost them by 14 points, and you can’t win. From all polling that I’ve seen, independents are starting to swing back to the GOP out of dismay for the harsh, leftist politics emanating from the Democrat Congress and White House. They voted for moderate hope and change, they’ve got hard left, hard ball, corruption-as-usual politics…and the Democrats might pay a very high price next year for this failure to live up to their campaign rhetoric.