Shunning.

A dose of that is what the Pennsylvania House of Representatives should give state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe. Every time he rises to speak, every time they pass him in the corridor, every time he seeks to engage them, the members of the House should turn their backs, literally and figuratively. Shun him and turn away from his slimeball behavior. They should strip him of his assignment to the House Veteran Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee. The good citizens of Butler, Pa., the heart of his district, ought to show the same good sense by shunning him now and next election day.

Metcalfe always has been a gay-hating, Muslim-hating, climate-denying know-nothing, but the accumulation of jackassery he has displayed during his decade in the legislature reached a new peak Monday when he called the veterans who make up Operation Free "traitor[s] to the oath he or she took [to] defend the Constitution of our great nation!"

Metcalfe, shown in the photo above, made this claim in an email to every member of the House last Friday, amid references to Benedict Arnold and leftwing climate agendas. The message taints everyone from former Secretary of the Navy John Warner to retired General Anthony Zinni to Captain Jon Powers to all the sergeants and lance corporals who believe that national security is weakened if we don’t deal with climate change.

Operation Free, run by the non-profit group the Truman National Security Project, is a campaign driven by veterans from wars past and present for the purpose furthering the cause of a carbon neutral future. Because of their personal experiences abroad, members advocate for an emphasis on renewable energies to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, strengthen national security and create green jobs. As Powers recently said: "If you talk about climate change in a way that discusses fragile states that are very vulnerable to its impacts, people realize that it’s our troops that will have to respond." Besides the Truman Project, the coalition encompasses The National Security Network, VoteVets.org, and VetPAC.

Operation Free veterans have been doing a bang-up job in getting their message across. Currently, they are on a 21-state bus tour talking to citizens and local community leaders about the dangers of climate change and its threat to national security. That’s a biodiesel-powered bus, by the way. The two Operation Free guys answering questions at a Kansas City, Mo., press conference in the photo are Army vets Raphael Noboa and Chuck Tyler. Thursday they will be in Pennsylvania. The veterans invited local elected officials to join them at each of their stops. When Rep. Metcalfe got his invitation this is what he wrote:

Subject: Re: Veterans for American Power Bus Tour coming to your state As a veteran, I believe that any veteran lending their name, to promote the leftist propaganda of global warming and climate change, in an effort to control more of the wealth created in our economy, through cap and tax type policies, all in the name of national security, is a traitor to the oath he or she took [to] defend the Constitution of our great nation! Remember Benedict Arnold before giving credibility to a veteran who uses their service as a means to promote a leftist agenda. Drill Baby Drill!!! For Liberty,

Daryl Metcalfe

State Representative

Veteran U.S. Army

Despicable hardly begins to describe Rep. Metcalfe’s incendiary accusations and outrageous slurs against the veterans exercising their freedom of speech and their freedom to seek to change people’s minds, being, in other words, true patriots with the good of their country uppermost in mind. That Metcalfe himself is a veteran deepens the corrosive shamefulness of what he said.

Operation Free is demanding that Metcalfe apologize. You can sign their petition at the link. If you are a resident of Pennsylvania, you might also sign the petition here.

Until Metcalfe does apologize – that is, makes a real apology, not one of these sorry-that-anybody-took offense non-apologies followed by interviews on Glenn Beck – the Pennsylvania legislature shouldn’t give the guy the time of day. And they should strip him of his assignment to the House Veteran Affairs and Emergency Preparedness Committee.

= = =

[ Jon Powers wrote a diary on the subject here.]