https://archive.li/uexvJ

Tuberville, who’s singlehandedly blocked hundreds of military promotions in protest over the Pentagon’s abortion policies, said he’s not going to change his mind and doesn’t care that people aren’t being promoted.

After the US Supreme Court reversed decades of precedent in overturning its decision in the Roe v. Wade abortion access case in 2022, the Pentagon announced its plan to reimburse service members who need to travel out-of-state to receive abortion services.

Tuberville, a Republican senator out of Alabama, took exception to the decision and said he’d use his power to stymie any military nominations and promotions he could. Since February, he’s blocked more than 300 promotions.

  • AutoTL;DRB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    42 years ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who’s singlehandedly blocked hundreds of military promotions in protest over the Pentagon’s abortion policies, said he’s not going to change his mind and doesn’t care that people aren’t being promoted.

    After the US Supreme Court reversed decades of precedent in overturning its decision in the Roe v. Wade abortion access case in 2022, the Pentagon announced its plan to reimburse service members who need to travel out-of-state to receive abortion services.

    Tuberville, a Republican senator out of Alabama, took exception to the decision and said he’d use his power to stymie any military nominations and promotions he could.

    Appearing on the podcast “The Kimberly Guilfoyle Show” on Thursday, Tuberville doubled down on his promise because the White House and Pentagon have refused to change the policy.

    Speaking with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins in July, Tuberville said “there is nobody more military than me” and noted he wouldn’t be blocking promotions if he thought it affected military readiness or recruitment.

    As Tuberville downplays the situation, Pentagon officials have said that the hundreds of military vacancies has created “unnecessary and unprecedented” risks for the country.


    The original article contains 233 words, the summary contains 185 words. Saved 21%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    592 years ago

    Why are other republicans quiet on this one? Why they don’t tell Tubertool to fuck himself and vote on those promotions?

    Entire GOP is complicit in destroying the military preparedness. Republicans all are harming the armed forces, Tubertool is just a tool they are using.

    • TwoGems
      link
      fedilink
      English
      42 years ago

      Well that would require telling their fellow Russian assets to stop harming the U.S. and we can’t have that!

    • snooggums
      link
      fedilink
      252 years ago

      Because someone is undermining the ability of the Biden administration to do things, and when it is reported most people will juat blame Biden instead of paying attention to the actual problem.

      Not doing anything benefits the Republicans.

    • AlwaysNowNeverNotMe
      link
      fedilink
      22 years ago

      Because no republicans currently in office have any reason to attack him since they aren’t running against him.

      And because I’m sure this both saves the government a couple nickels and them a couple approvals.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        dansk
        52 years ago

        This absolutely does not save the government/taxpayers any money, quite the opposite. When they lose qualified staff to attrition over bullshit like this, it’s very expensive to replace them. And given enough time, it will start to impact military readiness across the board, if it hasn’t already.

        • AlwaysNowNeverNotMe
          link
          fedilink
          32 years ago

          Oh of course, it’s similar to continuously repaving roads every twenty years using materials that cost half as much as those that last a century. You “save money” on the budgets that you sign. Consequences be damned.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    122 years ago

    We’re all aware that republicans don’t give a fuck about optics but this is a really bad look for them. Tommy Teletubbie is truly trying to destroy America for the sake of Trump and Russia and Republicans are letting him do it.

          • Natanael
            link
            fedilink
            62 years ago

            They hate them too, don’t forget how fast they turned on the police who arrested jan 6 insurgents

            • @[email protected]
              link
              fedilink
              2
              edit-2
              2 years ago

              Is there a way for USA to have more than two political parties?

              I think when you have two only it’s become unreliable to base any generalised assumption about a party member.

              • @[email protected]
                link
                fedilink
                32 years ago

                Only with ranked choice voting, otherwise the math our system forces on us makes it impossible. A successful third party will just devour one of the other two within a few years.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    132 years ago

    If you don’t hate this guy enough, go to his wikipedia page and look at the section about his charity

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      202 years ago

      God, my memory of them from when I was a kid is such that this would be a scandal in 2004. Do you think they were always like this? I don’t.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        412 years ago

        Conservatives are known to be pro war, but no promilitary and have never been strong supporters of military veterans since Vietnam. In fact most Veterans end up in Govt service because Republican businessmen refuse to hire veterans.

        Liberals view the military as a public service, to be used when all else fails. They would view military use for the protection of U.S. interests as necessary but are unlikely to commit a large force to accomplish the mission.

      • DigitalTraveler42
        link
        fedilink
        English
        202 years ago

        They have always been this way, they pander to the military because too many of us in the military and veterans eat that shit up with a smile, but when it comes time for raises, better housing, lawsuits, the massive rape and harassment problem, the gang problems, pollution, and so many other problems they turn a blind eye to, instead they want to kick out people for being gay.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          222 years ago

          Remember when Biden was speaking before Congress and mentioned cleaning up the toxic ‘burn pits’ that have harmed veterans, and MTG and Boebert stood up and started booing him?

          • DigitalTraveler42
            link
            fedilink
            English
            62 years ago

            I mean those shit monkeys were booing and being trash in general, it was just poor timing for their dumbasses that they started booing about something that actually helps veterans.

    • Fish [Indiana]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      9
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      Republicans aren’t anti-military, just anti-proletarian. Soldiers aren’t wealthy people, so fuck’em

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        122 years ago

        In Alabama? We have as much chance as someone in the leftmost portion of Manchin’s penumbra being elected in WV.

        • hootener
          link
          fedilink
          42 years ago

          Alabamaian here. We’re mostly all pissed at this clown. Alabama was a front runner to get the space Force command from Colorado. Recently the Biden administration elected to keep it in Colorado. The local scuttlebutt was this move was at least partially retaliation for Tuberville’s nonsense.This angered a lot of big money interests in Alabama, especially in Huntsville, which is a city built off the back of the military industrial complex.

          Tuberville fucked around and will likely find out on this one. My guess is big money interests will at least attempt to primary him with a more … coachable… republican candidate.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            32 years ago

            Lol. Alabama is the last place where anyone not an R has even a snowballs chance in hell. The democratic party basically doesn’t even bother to try in AL since they know their money and effort is better spent elsewhere.

            The one place that might be slightly more Republican is Mississippi, but that’s about it

  • waspentalive
    link
    fedilink
    82 years ago

    I was enlisted in the Navy back in the 80’s.

    I knew from then, if an officer was not promoted on a regular basis they were, I think, asked to resign. This guy is not only slapping officers in the face, he is actually reducing the number of officers in the military.

  • Ertebolle
    link
    fedilink
    82 years ago

    This wouldn’t be that hard to fix - would only need 16 Republicans to join every Democrat in passing a temporary rules change to eliminate the ability for any one senator to block UC requests for military promotions; could automatically expire at the end of this Congress, so it wouldn’t be permanent, and they could still block it them with 2 senators if there was any particular promotion they had a problem with.

    So part of me suspects that the Democrats are just as happy to have this in their pockets, because if there’s some sort of election-threatening military setback in 2024, now they can blame it on the GOP and Tuberville.

    • FlippyOne
      link
      fedilink
      62 years ago

      It’s not that the Democrats are happy with the situation, it’s that there aren’t even 16 sane Republicans left.

      • Ertebolle
        link
        fedilink
        32 years ago

        Sane, no, but sufficiently rah-rah troops / in the pocket of defense contractors to care about getting military promotions through in a timely fashion, yes, I think there are.

        • chaogomu
          link
          fedilink
          72 years ago

          Republicans operate in lockstep, getting one to break ranks and side with Democrats on anything is next to impossible, even when keeping in step would actively harm the Republican Party. If even one member of the party takes a stand on something, no matter the reason, the rest of the party backs them completely.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    752 years ago

    He’s an ass, but this isn’t single-handed. He only has this power because his fellow Republicans (and Manchin, and probably Sinema) are allowing it. If a handful of Republicans wanted to fix this, they absolutely could.

    • teft
      link
      fedilink
      52
      edit-2
      2 years ago

      From an NPR article:

      Why don’t the Senate leaders stop him?

      The current Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has made it clear he considers Tuberville’s blockade an abuse and an outrage. The GOP’s McConnell has also said he does not support the “blanket hold” on military nominations. Both have acknowledged the pleas coming from the Pentagon and from the ranks, and they have done what they could to encourage Tuberville to stand down.

      But the leaders cannot simply bulldoze the senator from Alabama. Their power is restrained by Senate rules and traditions and by the sentiments of their respective caucuses.

      If the issue here were an ordinary piece of legislation, the leaders would seek a unanimous consent agreement that would bring that matter to the floor. Individual senators may object to that with a notice that they seek “extended debate” on that legislation. This is an implicit threat to filibuster, and the majority leader routinely files a cloture petition and holds a vote.

      If cloture fails, the legislation does not go to the floor. If three-fifths of the Senate supports cloture, the legislation can be brought to the floor with time limits on debate.

      Presidential nominations have been largely exempt from this since 2013 when a Democratic Senate majority decided only nominations to the Supreme Court would be subject to filibusters. In 2017, a Republican majority decided to extend that exemption to include Supreme Court nominations.

      Nonetheless, Tuberville’s maneuver has the effect of freezing confirmations for the current backlog presidential nominations because they are submitted in batches for group consideration and approval. The batching procedure itself requires unanimous consent, allowing even one senator to stand in the way.

      The Senate majority leader could bring the nominations to the floor one by one for consideration by regular procedure, but that would require two to three days for each. Had the Senate tried to individually process even the first 150 promotions Tuberville blocked back in February, it could have done little else in the months since – and it would still be far behind on confirmations. That is scarcely practical when the military alone submits hundreds a year and the larger executive branch far more.

      Moreover, just as the Pentagon bristles at having a single senator dictate its personnel policy, so the Senate leaders are loath to have individual senators deciding when and if the Senate can proceed with normal business using its usual procedures – such as the batching of nominations.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        82 years ago

        So fucking take them to the floor one by one and do the damn thing. It’s not like you’re legislating anyway with a Republican House.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        5
        edit-2
        2 years ago

        How the fuck does it take two or three days to promote one person? Holy shit the Senate is such a useless organization.

        I can’t believe they’re tolerating this unacceptable shit in the name of decorum. The Senate needs to be eliminated as an institution.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        432 years ago

        Translation: there’s nothing really stopping us from going around Tuberville, but we feel the senate’s stupid arcane rules are more important than national security and having responsible people in charge if Trump tries to do a coup again.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          252 years ago

          Literally. Oh, it’s too long to do it one by one? Maybe prioritize then? Confirm 2-3 of the biggest promotions in order to prevent the Senate from abdicating it’s Constitutional responsibility and ceding control of the military entirely to the executive.

          I really don’t care about US military readiness but I do value checks and balances, and right now the Senate is refusing to serve as one.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            92 years ago

            You know what happens when I have a lot of work to do and not enough time in the workday? I stay late. I work weekends. I drink a lot of coffee and get that shit done.

            “It takes too long”? Fuck you, keep the Senate in session and do nomination after nomination until these geriatric fucks pass out.

            • Jackie's Fridge
              link
              fedilink
              22 years ago

              Seriously! If I worked the same way these idiots do, my entire organization would grind to a halt.

              …oooohhhhhhhhhh

      • NotAFuckingBot
        link
        fedilink
        162 years ago

        Republicans are the biggest batch of corrupt pussies I’ve seen in my fucking life.