If You Don't Agree With GOP in Congress You're a Terrorist Lover, GOP in Congress Brain Dead and Dem State Senator is Loony Toons.

The Republicans in both houses of Congress are attempting to rally their reality challenged voters for the Fall elections, by waging a campaign to smear anyone that doesn't show the proper support for Bush's wars as terrorist sympathizers.

Ignorant of, or ignoring what's really happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, the GOP is posturing for the appearance of a party that's not squeamish over a lot of someone elses bloodshed.

I can't wait to see how many clueless, gutless Democrats fall for this crap and vote with the Republicans.

House Republicans took the offensive, repeatedly asserting that Democrats have
adopted a "defeatist" policy of retreat that would embolden international
terrorists and imperil national security. Their position was bolstered by a
74-page document drafted by the White House and distributed by the Pentagon,
replete with talking points, quotations and timelines to back administration
policy. Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) called the document "an affront to the
American people."


"We're not making progress," said Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), a
Marine Corps veteran who has emerged as his party's leading opponent of the war.
He said Iraqis are fighting a low-grade civil war in which U.S. soldiers should
not be involved. "They're fighting each other, and our troops are caught in
between," he said.

"We make progress every day," countered Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who
contended that the only people who want the U.S. military to leave Iraq are
terrorists and "some politicians." Looking at Murtha, he added: "Don't get
confused about every little problem that happens."

The Republicans think that everyone should be all for the President's bold plan of "Stay the course." To their way of thinking, something that hasn't worked for three years, should be continued. At least, Halliburton and the defense contractors are doing well and will contribute well. And 2500 American dead, plus tens of thousands of Iraqi dead shows we're doing something, even if it is self-defeating.

Fresh from his triumphal visit to Baghdad -- a place so dangerous he had to
sneak in without even telling the Iraqi prime minister -- George W. Bush is full
of new resolve to stay the course in his open-ended "global war on terror." That
leaves the rest of us to wonder, in sadness and frustration, just what that
course might be and where on earth it can possibly lead.

Iraq is just one theater in Bush's "war." Elsewhere, Afghanistan is once
again ablaze as the resurgent Taliban counterattacks. Somalia is coming under
the sway of an Islamic militia that may harbor al-Qaeda militants. America's
popularity in the world continues to fall. But George W. Bush forges ahead,
trying vainly to kill a poisonous, retrograde ideology with bullets and bombs.
His "war" is self-perpetuating, and no one even knows what victory would look
like. Long after he's gone, we'll still be looking for a way to end the mess he
began.

The Republicans are making the major mistake of actually believing their own propaganda. They really think that things are going well and that we are in control of something other than the Green Zone.

In the south of Iraq, in the Basra region, the British who occupy that sector have
all but given up aggressive patrol. They are holed up in their encampments on the
defensive. Some reports have it that it is now too dangerous for them to fly
helicopters by day. At the point when they must choose between being overrun or
withdrawing, the small contingent of British troops facing unknown numbers of
militia hidden in and among a hostile population should be able to evacuate the
port of Basra even under fire.

The situation for American troops may be even more precarious. While our
forces are still able to carry out aggressive patrolling, it nets little except
to increase popular hostility, which, of course, makes it yet easier for the
various insurgents and guerrilla groups to operate against us. It appears that
in many places our people may have simply hunkered down to stay out of trouble.
The vast construction projects of a few years ago are all but closed down, too,
as the American forces appear to be doing less and less of anything but holding
on and holding out.

You know the GOP is really out of the loop when Wall Street is souring on the war faster than the Republicans can promote it.

And Wall Street doesn't like to hear about "the long run." We mark to market
every day. It may be that in a few years, a securities position will be worth
five times what we paid today, but we are still obliged to carry it on our books
for what someone will really pay for it now. The Iraq War is now increasingly
seen as an ideologically based experiment, one that departed radically from
traditional US foreign policy. Leslie Gelb,
former head of the Council on Foreign Relations, has one plan for extrication, Hillary
Clinton another. But George W. Bush, who struggles to admit even the
smallest error, is promoting a stay-the-course program that draws on a reservoir
of trust, a pool of political capital that simply doesn't exist.

With our dollars piling up overseas and the world economy depending on
foreigners' confidence in our model, it is going to be hard for us to hold our
breath for two and a half years. The damage to our brand under this management
has been severe, and heretofore the cost has been neither paid nor calculated.
When the markets finally render their judgment for this war and this
Administration, there is likely to be a very hard landing.

As for turning the country over to the Iraqis, they can't even control their own jails yet, let alone the whole country. What have we been doing for the last three years? It sure seems that what's really happening has very little to do with all the good news that's been coming from the White House.

"We cannot control the prisons. It's as simple as that," said the deputy
minister, Pusho Ibrahim Ali Daza Yei, an ethnic Kurd. "Our jails are infiltrated
by the militias from top to bottom, from Basra to Baghdad."

As a result, Yei has asked U.S. authorities to suspend plans to transfer
prisons and detainees from American to Iraqi control. "Our ministry is
unprepared at this time to take over the facilities, especially those in areas
where Shiite militias exist," he said in a letter to U.S. Army Maj. Gen. John D.
Gardner, the official in charge of American detention facilities.

Finally, we all know that our country's future lies with the next generation. I'm guessing that this happened in Maryland. A high school newspaper endorsed a candidate for the state senate. I think that it's great that any students in any grade take an interest in politics. The newspaper contacted both primary candidates and they both agreed talk to them about arranging interviews. The challenger Jamin Raskin, an American University law professor, did. The incumbent Sen. Ida G. Ruben (D-Montgomery), blew them off.

Guess who they endorsed? Now this lame excuse for an incumbent Democrat politician is throwing a fit.

Lady, it's your own fault, you should have taken these students seriously. It's time to shut your mouth, because you're looking like a fool.

The suck-up school Principal Phillip Gainous has now decided that the paper should not endorse candidates.

Ruben should no longer be in politics, especially as a Democrat and Gainous needs to find a job where he won't stifle student's desire to participate in their Constitutional rights.

The May 25 edition of Silver Chips, the award-winning Montgomery Blair High
School newspaper, featured fairly standard fare:

A piece on Blair students fighting for immigrant rights. A profile of the new
student board representative.

But an editorial endorsing Jamin Raskin, an American University law professor
running for the Democratic nomination for state Senate in District 20, has
rankled the district's longtime incumbent, Sen. Ida G. Ruben (D-Montgomery).

"I support the newspaper as a whole," Gainous said. "I don't have a problem
with the students, but this is something the paper need not have done."

He added, "For the newspaper -- the school newspaper -- to endorse a
candidate, that's not appropriate." He was unaware that the paper had endorsed
Ervin

.