285
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is slamming a fellow Republican in the Senate for waging an unprecedented attempt to change Pentagon abortion policy by holding up hundreds of military nominations and promotions.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville is “paralyzing the Department of Defense.”

The idea that one man in the Senate can hold this up for months, I understand maybe promotions, but nominations,” McCaul said. He added, “I think that is a national security problem and a national security issue. And I really wish he would reconsider this.”

Tuberville’s move has forced less experienced leaders into top jobs and raised concerns at the Pentagon about military readiness. Defense officials say Tuberville is jeopardizing American national security. Senators in both parties, including Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, also have criticized Tuberville.

top 16 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] [email protected] 64 points 1 year ago

Tubbs hates our troops and America. I remember a time when he would have been torn to shreds for this.

[-] [email protected] 35 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In any other job, someone would be fired for blocking the rest of an org/team/company from accomplishing something. it feels crazy that we draw so many exceptions around politicians. It often just feels like a bunch of rich fucks flaunting the power they've bought.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

You're right, but politics is a different thing.

The voters are supposed to make this decision, but, well, without being condescending, yeah....

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Is it really that different?

The US is more of a representative democracy, which means that the politicians are 'elected' by the people to represent the people. So they're arguably 'hired' by will of the majority within a specific area.

The difference is there's just not a lot of rules, punishments, or even recourse for the majority that voted aside from waiting 4-6 years and voting a different way.

[-] [email protected] 30 points 1 year ago

the GOP are TRAITORS / FULL STOP

[-] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

How can Tuberville hold up all these nominations, all by himself? I had to look it up. The way Senate rules work, they figure out nomination approvals in committee and then pass them on the floor with votes of "unanimous consent." By withholding his consent, Tuberville forces all the committee work to be done on the floor of the Senate.

That is to say, he is hijacking the nomination approval process. This process has developed and become institutionalized in the Senate over many decades. Tuberville is hijacking this process for a largely unpopular, far-right political purpose that is, at best, only tangentially related to the services with vacant leadership positions, and that is in no way related to the actual nominations in question.

Ironically, perhaps, the reason this glitch in the Senate rules allows one person to hold up all the nominations for everyone is itself just another institution. Senate "holds" have been around for decades as well. It wasn't until 2011 the that a bi-partisan group of Senators voted to change the rules to disallow "secret holds."

So Tuberville is exploiting one Senate institution in order to shut down another Senate institution, just to generate propaganda for his federally mandated forced-birth agenda.

It's like an echo of Gingrich in the '90s: It's like he's saying, "The interests of the people who elected me are more righteous than the interests of the people who elected all the rest of you all, so there will be no compromise from me on anything. We will run things my way or I'll use my position to shut it all down."

The only difference is that Gingrich shut down all the post offices for a few weeks. This asshole Tuberville is trying to shut down our military.

EDIT:

Maybe this could be McConnell's saving-grace swan song, before he gives up his GOP leadership position in the Senate. As the leader of Tuberville's party, I'm pretty sure rules allow him to end the hold that Tuberville requested.

Doing so would go against precedent and it would go against the spirit of the institution. But Mitch McConnell is no stranger to going against precedent and disregarding institutions when he thinks it serves his purpose.

It wouldn't earn him much forgiveness from people like me, but it would make him look a little better on his way out.

[-] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago

The executive branch should play hardball with this and order the immediate reassignment of every soldier at the FIVE ACTIVE MILITARY BASES in Alabama, to other bases and make it clear that the collapse of the local economy is Tubervilles fault.

I'm pretty sure that's within the wide latitude granted to the executive in terms of military control.

Make Alabama hurt and I bet this bullshit stops.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

As much as I love this Biden is very much a don't rock the boat kinda guy. It's unfortunate.

[-] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

When one single individual who isn't the executive can obstruct the entire system like Tubbs and Turtle, it's time to burn the system and start over

[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago

Winning football coaches in Alabamistan are geniuses and one half step below god and his two sons, jeebus and donald.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Jesus, I always forget that's where he came from.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is slamming a fellow Republican in the Senate for waging an unprecedented attempt to change Pentagon abortion policy by holding up hundreds of military nominations and promotions.

Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville is “paralyzing the Department of Defense.”

“The idea that one man in the Senate can hold this up for months, I understand maybe promotions, but nominations,” McCaul said.

Tuberville’s move has forced less experienced leaders into top jobs and raised concerns at the Pentagon about military readiness.

Senators in both parties, including Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, also have criticized Tuberville.

McCaul said on CNN that the House would be tackling the issue of abortion in the military as part of a sweeping defense spending bill making its way through Congress.


The original article contains 260 words, the summary contains 147 words. Saved 43%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
285 points (97.7% liked)

politics

18788 readers
4055 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
  2. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  3. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  4. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive.
  5. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  6. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS