Day 2: Operation Yellow Feather

The Blogosphere-wide Protest is running full steam ahead. There have been several developments over the past 24 hours, BostonJoe gives us the rundown below the fold. But first, a progress report on the campaign so far:


Operation Yellow Feather

Personal Blog Entries:

• On the Left Tip - RenaRF
• Man Eegee - some guy I know, heh.
  

Blog Communities:

• Booman Tribune - intro diary frontpaged by Susanhu on Monday night
  
• DailyKos - top of the Recommended list, then remained through early Tuesday morning, now off the list
  
• My Left Wing - authored by Duke1676, on the Recommended list
  
• MyDD - top of the recommended list
  
• Political Cortex - top of the recommended list
  
• ePluribus Media - received invitation today (and promise of frontpaging)
  

Notes were sent to Raw Story, Crooks and Liars, Atrios and AMERICABlog.

Day Two, where next?

From BostonJoe:

Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohip) is in deep political trouble because she called Rep. John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania) a coward. And the progressive blogosphere has played a part in ensuring that she is held accountable for her remarks.

The Cincinnati Enquirer says she skipped two local appearances Monday. She is a true Chicken Hawk. Talk the talk. But when the going gets tough -- AWOL.

It appears now that there is a split between Schmidt and her source for the cowardly comments, state Rep. Danny Bubp. (R-Ohio). According to the Enquirer, Bubp is in full retreat:

Three days after Rep. Jean Schmidt was booed off the House floor for saying that "cowards cut and run, Marines never do," the Ohioan she quoted disputed the comments.

Danny Bubp, a freshman state representative who is a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve, told The Enquirer that he never mentioned Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., by name when talking with Schmidt, and he would never call a fellow Marine a coward.

"The unfortunate thing about all of that is that her choice of words on the floor of the House - I don't know, she's a freshman, she had one minute.

"Unfortunately, they came out wrong," said Bubp, R-West Union.

It is time for accountability from the Chicken Hawks. Let's continue with Operation Yellow Feather today. This time, when you send your feathers and related Chicken Hawk memorabilia, please encourage Schmidt to make a public statement on her rift with Bubp. Did she just make up her slur against Murtha out of whole cloth? Or is Bubp now lying to save his own political skin? Let's have a joint press conference and find out.

Let's keep up the pressure! Here's the .pdf download list:

• Lost Your Chicken Hawk Feather?
  
• The Chicken Hawk Unit Patch
  
• The Classic Yellow Feather (Make sure to explain)
  
• The Ugly Chicken Hawk (Fill in the voice bubble)

Open Thread

Which type of sibling are you? Oldest, Middle, Youngest?

I'm all three at once, a.k.a. Only

Operation Yellow Feather

BostonJoe, a regular diarist over at Booman Tribune, has quickly organized a grassroots protest that will target a couple of the Chickenhawk Republicans who slandered Rep. Murtha's military service last week.

Operation Yellow Feather is in full swing!

Click this link for more information, including downloads for faxes or mailings you can send to Rep. Jean Schmidt and State Rep. Danny Bubp of Ohio.

It is time to stop this new era of McCarthyism where the Chickenhawks in power question the patriotism of any American who disagrees with the lies and horrendous leadership provided by the Bush War Council.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

Please spread the word and let me know if you participated so I can alert BostonJoe and the rest of the BooActivists.

Excerpts from BostonJoe's diary below the fold...

In a effort to blunt the effect of Murtha's serious call for a withdrawal of the troops, Republicans hurriedly offered a sham Bill on the issue that had almost no support. During debate on the issue, Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio), a freshman Rep., called Murtha a coward:

A few minutes ago I received a call from Colonel Danny Bubp, Ohio Representative from the 88th district in the House of Representatives. He asked me to send Congress a message: Stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run, Marines never do.

Schmidt's comments were heckled on the floor of our Congress, and she was forced to withdraw them from the record. But she and state Rep. Bubp deserve to know that we were watching, and that we won't stand for neo-McCarthyism, where heroic opponents of this flawed war are discredited as cowards and traitors.

You can help. Please print off one of the protest forms below and send them to the offices of Rep. Schmidt and Rep. Bubp. Take the time to write a personalized note on your form, explaining that the "chicken hawk" tactics of the Republican party will not be tolerated.
Let's bury their offices with "chicken hawk" feathers, so that the next time they feel like squawking in public, they will remember
that we are watching them.

Let's create a firestorm and support Operation Yellow Feather!

Crossposted at MyDD.com and Political Cortex.

This begs for a caption...

More on Priorities

Chris Kulczycki, a diarist at European Tribune, provides some facts on how the Bush War Council spends its money. Republican priorities in action.

Number of people that starve each day: 20,000 (from The Hunger Project)

1.2 billion suffer from obesity (GlobalIssues.org)

Number of people suffering from malnutrition to the point where their health, productivity and life expectancy are impaired: 852 million (UN Food and Agriculture Organization)

In the US, 40 to 50 percent of all food ready for harvest never gets eaten. (GlobalIssues.org)

Estimated cost to feed all the world's hungry and give them basic health care: $13 billion above current expenditure. (UN Development Program 1998)

Total estimated cost of Iraq war: about $700 billion (Institute for Policy Studies)

There are a lot more statistics at Chris' diary.

You'll note that I have added an Iraq War Cost counter to the sidebar, special thanks to Limelite for the inspiration.

Dick "Dick" Cheney Approved Torture

The Bush War Council is infamous for surrounding themselves with "Yes-Men/Women" and stifling or 86'ing dissenting viewpoints. Larry Wilkerson, former State Department advisor to Colin Powell, has been trashing the warmongers and showing the world that complete madness gripped the White House and led our nation down its current dark path.

Retired U.S. Army Col. Larry Wilkerson, who served as former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, told CNN that the practice of torture may be continuing in U.S.-run facilities.

"There's no question in my mind that we did. There's no question in my mind that we may be still doing it," Wilkerson said on CNN's "Late Edition."

"There's no question in my mind where the philosophical guidance and the flexibility in order to do so originated -- in the vice president of the United States' office," he said. "His implementer in this case was [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld and the Defense Department."

At another point in the interview, Wilkerson said "the vice president had to cover this in order for it to happen and in order for Secretary Rumsfeld to feel as though he had freedom of action."

Numerous low-level soldiers and other government personnel have taken the direct blame for incidents of torture in W's War on Terror. The truth is emerging that will hopefully someday lay the blame on the true culprits: Bush, Cheney and Abu Gonzales.

Our government has tortured in our name, we must scream "Enough is Enough" until we are assured that it has stopped. I have zero trust or confidence in this misAdministration, therefore I say:

Impeach the Fuckers.

Meltdown on Capital Hill

I didn't realize how bad it was, until I found some time to watch the videos.

Here's a link to the video of the Wicked Witch of Ohio sparking a firestorm.





For the record this is the man she is calling a coward:



and here is the video link to the statement by this 37-year veteran of the United States Marine Core calling on the withdrawl of troops from Iraq.

The battlelines are being drawn. Here's hoping that Peace will Prevail.

Vice President for Torture

Finally. Someone calling it like it is; pretty damning when that person is an ex-CIA director

In an interview with Britain's ITV news Thursday, Turner said the U.S. vice president was damaging America's reputation by overseeing torture policies of possible terrorist suspects, the UK's Press Association reported.

"I'm embarrassed the United States has a vice president for torture," Turner said, according to ITV's Web site. "He condones torture, what else is he?"

Turner said he did not believe U.S. President George W. Bush's statements that the United States does not use torture.

Turner ran the Central Intelligence Agency from 1977 to 1981 under former U.S. President Jimmy Carter.

Now if we can just get the Democratic leadership currently in office to show that much spine, perhaps we will finally be getting somewhere productive.

Once an Oilman...

...always an oilman greedy piece of turd.

A $60 billion bill the Senate passed to continue expiring tax cuts and shelter 14 million families from higher taxes faces a White House veto threat because it also includes a hefty tax increase for oil companies.

The legislation passed by senators early Friday would spare millions of families from paying increased taxes through the alternative minimum tax. Much of the bill, passed 64-33, preserves tax cuts approved in previous years that are set to expire unless lawmakers keep them alive.

'cause you know, the oil companies are barely scraping by to make ends meet.

Republicans Screw the Poor...Again

This is the kind of crap that unnerves me. A congressional representative should be able to cast their vote based on constituency views and conscience, not arm-twisting scare-tactics by their thug leadership.

House Republicans sweated out a victory on a major budget cut bill in the wee hours Friday, salvaging a major pillar of their agenda despite divisions within the party and nervousness among moderates that the vote could cost them in next year's elections.

The bill, passed 217-215 after a 25-minute-long roll call, makes modest but politically painful cuts across an array of programs for the poor, students and farmers.

The victory on the deficit-control bill came hours after an embarrassing and rare defeat on a $602 billion spending bill for education, health care and job training programs this year. The earlier 224-209 vote halted what had been a steady drive to complete annual appropriations bills freezing many agency budgets.

The reason the vote stretched into the "wee hours of the morning" was because there were a few sane Republicans that were clearly bothered by the prospect of screwing the lower classes; they didn't feel comfortable voting for this Atrocity; but in the end enough of them caved to their greedy overlords.

The Democrats were united in opposition to this egregious act of filth, by the way. Not only do they refuse to kick the poor while they're already down, they are thinking responsibly when it comes to managing the Bush Deficit. This is open warfare in the Capitol, and we're only seeing a glimpse of the Republican's reverse-Robin Hood strategy.

The companion deficit-reduction bill also drew unanimous opposition from Democrats, who objected to both cuts in programs for the poor and the fact that the deficit-reduction bill would increase the deficit when combined with a tax slated for a vote later that would extend tax cuts on capital gains and dividend income due to expire at the end of 2008.

"Name just one religion in the world that preaches the value of asking the most of those who have the least and asking nothing of those who have the most," said Chet Edwards, D-Texas. "Sadly, that is what this budget does."

Amen to that, Chet.