Republican US senator Tommy Tuberville has said he will continue to block hundreds of military leadership appointments despite the Hamas attack on Israel, a close American ally, that has triggered a deadly escalation in the Middle East conflict.
Tuberville has for several months put a hold on at least 300 military nominees, which are typically confirmed in a routine manner by the US senate. The blockade is a protest over a Pentagon policy which facilitates abortions for service members and dependents.
The former Auburn University football team coach turned Alabama senator has indicated he will maintain the blockade even in the wake of Hamas’ assault on Israel, in which at least 700 mostly civilians are thought to have died, including several hundred revelers killed at a music festival, while dozens more people are believed to have been taken hostage. Israel has responded with airstrikes on the Gaza Strip that authorities in the penned-in territory say has killed at least 493 Palestinian people, including entire families sheltering in their apartments.
US military appointments currently in limbo include top officers slated to command American forces in the Middle East as well as two picks for the joint chiefs of staff. Separately, the US also does not have an ambassador to Israel, its close ally, with Democrats calling for a swift confirmation of the nominee, Jack Lew.
Joe Biden has previously called Tuberville’s stance “totally irresponsible”, and the president accused him of undermining the strength and capabilities of the US military. But the Alabama senator said on Sunday that even the attack on Israel would not shift his position.
“The Pentagon clearly thinks forcing taxpayers to facilitate abortion is more important than confirming their top nominees without a vote,” a Tuberville spokesperson told NBC. “They could end this situation today by dropping their illegal and immoral policy and get everyone confirmed rapidly, but they refuse.”
Invoking a name Tuberville calls himself because of his prior job, the spokesperson added: “If the Biden administration wants their nominees confirmed then Senate Democrats can do what Coach just did in September and file a cloture petition to force a vote.”
Military nominees are usually bundled together and confirmed by a voice vote in the Senate to speed along appointments but under the senate’s rules a single senator can hold up this process. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, has said that individual votes on each of the nominees would eat up a huge amount of time and urged Republicans to get Tuberville “in line”.
Tuberville objects to a Pentagon policy that does not itself perform abortions but provides time off and travel assistance to members of the military that require reproductive healthcare.
The US secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, has said that the policy safeguards the healthcare and combat readiness of service members and is widely popular within the military.
Abortion has been effectively banned in several states following the US supreme court’s decision to overturn the longstanding Roe v Wade precedent last year – a move decried by progressives but lauded by conservatives like Tuberville.
“The severity of the crisis in Israel underscores the foolishness of senator Tuberville’s blockade,” said Jack Reed, a Democrat who leads the Senate armed services committee.
“The United States needs seamless military leadership in place to handle dangerous situations like this and senator Tuberville is denying it. This is no time for petty political theater, and I again urge Republican colleagues to help actively end senator Tuberville’s damaging blockade.”
Every conservative is complicit. Every one of them supports this blockage. We should only refer to this as a conservative block and not a Tuberville block.
I agree with your intent but I refuse to call them conservative.
They’re conservatives in the Wilhoit sense:
“Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition … There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.” --Frank Wilhoit”
Definitely. Tuberville, who is safe in Alabama, gives a convenient out for every other conservative Senator. Make no mistake, they support Tuberville.
Yes, thank you. We need to stop pretending there are “moderates” in the GOP.
If the Democrats brought up a rules change vote and it failed, you could make that argument. Since they won’t bother with that since they can make political hay out of this themselves, who really cares.
It’s completely normal to not bring a vote when you know you don’t have the support to pass. It would be a waste of time.
It’s very naive to believe that is the case here. There’s been no attempt to even drum up the support for a vote(they’d likely succeed with that btw). The Dems like this sideshow.
Edit: to quote Chuck
“The bottom line is, this is a problem created by Republicans, and it’s up to them to solve it,” he told reporters. “We’re not going to shift the burden to Democrats.”
No, they just aren’t as stupid and unorganized as Republicans. They can do basic math and have discussions in good faith so they know it’s not worth bringing it to a vote they know will fail. You are expecting them to be chest pounding idiots when you know they aren’t.
So why did they bring the rules change for the filibuster and not this exactly? I don’t see how anyone could argue this in good faith.
Yeah this isn’t just about Tuberville wanting concessions to get the military to stop protecting female service members from state laws against abortion- it’s also a fine pretext to hold open a raft of leadership positions to be filled with political appointees by the next GOP administration
This is 100% what the GOP wants. It worked for them in the judiciary and I am inclined to think it will work for them here. At first to make sure any non-conservative policy is removed and then to influence the military brass to setup for the next coup. I used to be a moderate voter and would vote for conservatives where their policies matched what I thought was reasonable and that I though I could count on to “do the right thing”. The GOP drove any notion of that out of me forever with Trumpism.
The GOP is party over country and it’s terrifying for our democracy. I LOATH Hillary Clinton and you’d have had to hold a gun to my head to get me to vote for her, but now I would vote for her in a heartbeat after what I’ve seen since ~2015.
I am somewhat hopeful that senate dems can use this as a pretext to change the rules and sideline minority blocks on these things. It’s clearly bad faith and the clock is ticking.
Unfortunately changing the rules takes more votes than the Dems have; they’re still stuck using the same rules package McConnell left
Isn’t a senate rules change a straight 50? Seems like you should be able to whip manchin and sinema if military support for Israel is the order of the day.
Isn’t a senate rules change a straight 50?
To do it, you need cloture and that takes 60
No kidding? Learn something everyday!
This traitor needs to be exited from the Senate using his empty head to open the door. Then the CIA or NSA or FBI or hell, maybe Dept of the Treasury Office of Intelligence should take him to a black site and extract every name funding him.
Pls daddy feds punish the feds
Just following Putin’s orders
I think the entire country should not do our jobs until our needs are met as well.
That’s the thing I found about MAGA. It’s a pretty good short-term strategy, but it’s always a Lose in the long-term. Come to think of it, that’s conservatism in general.
Alas, both time and progress march forward, but conservatism by definition is rooted in the past
Republicans are terrorists
Military nominees are usually bundled together and confirmed by a voice vote in the Senate to speed along appointments but under the senate’s rules a single senator can hold up this process.
This is the real world consequences of republican ‘leadership’ in the house. Extreme republicans like tuberville and gaetz can capture attention from the traditional news outlets for weeks because they forced mccarthy to relax rules like this.
In this case it allows tuberville to rail against ‘abortion’ when he is actually attacking time off for reproductive care for women. It is not abortion he has an issue with; it is women caring about whether or not they can or should have a baby.
Wait a second, what do the Republican shitbirds in the House have to do with a vote happening in the Senate? House rules wouldn’t affect proceedings in the Senate.
Guess I got that mixed up with the house where gaetz was using his power to do something similar. It is all to easy for me as I ignore peoples titles. Maybe I subconsciously replace senator with professional liar. It is interesting that the same sort of rules do apply to the senate even though they technically have democratic leadership. Rules that require everyone to ‘fall in line’ are the product of a lazy and corrupt ruling class in my opinion.
So he’s supposed to be saving lives of the unborn and not the lives of the Israeli civilians.
ITT: potential life is more important than real life.
That’s foundational to US conservative politics.
Like he cares about the lives of a bunch of Middle Eastern people.
I hope that stupid mother fuckers chokes on a football and dies.
These guys are fascists; but their stupid base can pretend it’s about “the babies”.
The Senate could change the rules at any time.
No they can’t. A majority vote can, but they can’t change them whenever. Dems know they don’t have the votes so they don’t bring it to floor.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Republican US senator Tommy Tuberville has said he will continue to block hundreds of military leadership appointments despite the Hamas attack on Israel, a close American ally, that has triggered a deadly escalation in the Middle East conflict.
The former Auburn University football team coach turned Alabama senator has indicated he will maintain the blockade even in the wake of Hamas’ assault on Israel, in which at least 700 mostly civilians are thought to have died, including several hundred revelers killed at a music festival, while dozens more people are believed to have been taken hostage.
Israel has responded with airstrikes on the Gaza Strip that authorities in the penned-in territory say has killed at least 493 Palestinian people, including entire families sheltering in their apartments.
Invoking a name Tuberville calls himself because of his prior job, the spokesperson added: “If the Biden administration wants their nominees confirmed then Senate Democrats can do what Coach just did in September and file a cloture petition to force a vote.”
Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, has said that individual votes on each of the nominees would eat up a huge amount of time and urged Republicans to get Tuberville “in line”.
Abortion has been effectively banned in several states following the US supreme court’s decision to overturn the longstanding Roe v Wade precedent last year – a move decried by progressives but lauded by conservatives like Tuberville.
The original article contains 580 words, the summary contains 237 words. Saved 59%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I wish Auburn would make a statement disapproving of his stand.
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