Tag: Tommy Tuberville

  • Chuck Schumer Folds Like a Cheap Suit and Schedules Vote on USMC Commandant and Other Senior Officers

    Chuck Schumer Folds Like a Cheap Suit and Schedules Vote on USMC Commandant and Other Senior Officers

    streiff | RedState

    Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has agreed to schedule a vote to move the nominations of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and the Army Chief of Staff forward. This signals a surrender by Schumer in his attempt to crush Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville’s opposition to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s creation of an abortion tourism benefit in defiance of federal law.

    https://twitter.com/SenSchumer/status/1704562693636505864?

    In July 2022, Lloyd Austin declared that the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs vs. Jackon Women’s Health adversely impacted military readiness because if pregnant members of the Armed Forces couldn’t kill their kids, they couldn’t do their jobs. To do this, Austin created a program that allowed military women seeking abortion to be reimbursed for travel expenses and take up to 21 days off — that is not charged against their annual leave balance — for the purpose of having an abortion. On the other hand, if one of your parents dies and you wish to go to the funeral, you pay your own way and get charged for leave. This is a clear violation of federal laws that forbid using federal funds for abortion. In December 2022, Tuberville announced that he would place a “hold” on all senior military promotions.

    All the hold does is prevent a few senior military officers from being confirmed in new positions by “unanimous consent.” This means each nomination will get a cloture vote before proceeding to a floor vote.

    Rather than do his job and call the needed votes, Senator Schumer and the Secretary of Defense carried out a public relations campaign to try and bully Tuberville into backing down. It didn’t work (see Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville Reminds the Defense Department That One Determined Man Is a Majority and The US Marine Corps Doesn’t Have a Commandant Today Because ‘One Man With Courage Is a Majority.’

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    By the time Schumer raised the white flag, he had created a stellar backlog of flag and general officer confirmation votes.

    By the end of the year, the Pentagon says that number could swell to 650 generals and admirals who need Senate confirmation before they can assume their jobs. Any single senator can put a hold on nominations under Senate rules.

    “The Department has 83 three- and four-star nominations pending for positions already vacated or due to rotate within the next 150 days,” the Pentagon said in response to questions by reporters. “Because of this blanket hold, for the first time in the history of the Department, three of our military services are operating without Senate-confirmed leaders. This is unprecedented, unnecessary and unsafe.”

    The Pentagon response is also bullsh** and validates what my colleague Bonchie had to say on the subject: U.S. Military Ranks Must Be Gutted by the Next Republican President.

    If the backlog is “unprecedented,” it is only unprecedented because Biden’s Secretary of Defense created a policy in defiance of federal law and in response to a Supreme Court decision he personally opposed. If it is unnecessary, it is only because Secretary Austin chose to become a scofflaw, and Senator Schumer was so focused on forcing Senator Tuberville to retreat that he allowed 20 months to elapse with no senior officer confirmation votes. The only thing “unsafe” about the exercise was letting Defense use officer promotions as a bargaining chip in their skirmish with a U.S. Senator.

    https://twitter.com/TTuberville/status/1704573360523346108?

    While the illegal and inhuman policy of subsidizing the murder of children in the name of “readiness” will continue, so will Senator Tuberville’s hold. And that is no small thing:

    If Schumer wished to confirm all of the nominees that are waiting on the Senate floor one-by-one, as he plans to do with these top-tier officials, a recent memo from the Congressional Research service found it could take as many as 89 8-hour workdays, during a time when Congress must manage a number of other priorities, including funding the government before Oct. 1 to avoid a shutdown.

    Original Here


    Not for nothing, the backlog of flag officer promotions is all on Chucky. The floor votes could have been held at any time. And honestly, the military isn’t suffering all that much from the fact the open positions aren’t filled. Were Marshall or Eisenhower still Chair of the Joint Chiefs very few of these ‘officers’ would be in positions of authority.

  • The US Marine Corps Doesn’t Have a Commandant Today Because ‘One Man With Courage Is a Majority’

    The US Marine Corps Doesn’t Have a Commandant Today Because ‘One Man With Courage Is a Majority’

    Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III speaks with Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama prior to appearing the Senate Armed Services Committee. (DoD Photo by Chad J. McNeeley)

     streiff | RedState

    Today is the last day on active duty for Commandant of the Marine Corps David Berger. There will be hosanas sung in a lot of quarters at the departure of the man who has gutted the ability of the US Marine Corps to perform as an expeditionary force through the ill-conceived Force Design 2030 reorganization and work will start to try to mitigate the damage. But that isn’t what is drawing attention, though it should.  When the helicopter lifts Berger off the roof of Henderson Hall this evening, the US Marine Corps will be without a confirmed commandant.

    (For more info about Force Design 2030 read THIS)

    Why doesn’t the Marine Corps have a Senate-confirmed commandant? The answer is two words and one US Senator: Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville. The issue is the Department of Defense subsidizing the expenses of military women to travel to a pro-Moloch state to get an abortion when they aren’t available at their station of duty.

    A lone Senate Republican’s bid to reverse a Pentagon policy ensuring abortion access for service members is delaying the smooth transfer of power at the highest echelons of the armed forces, including in the ranks of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as a monthslong partisan dispute over social policy drags on.

    Senator Tommy Tuberville, a conservative from Alabama, has been single-handedly blocking hundreds of promotions for high-ranking generals and admirals since February, refusing to relent unless the Defense Department scraps a policy — instituted after the Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to abortion last year — offering time off and travel reimbursement to service members who need to go out of state for abortions.

    Now, Mr. Tuberville’s tactics are on the brink of disrupting the Pentagon’s ability to fill its top ranks. More than half of the current Joint Chiefs are expected to step down from their posts during the next few months without a Senate-approved successor in place, leaving the president’s chief military advisory body in an unprecedented state of flux at a time of escalating tensions with China and Russia.

    I wrote about this controversy weeks ago in Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville Reminds the Defense Department That One Determined Man Is a Majority.

    Untrammeled wokeness inevitably leads to hubris and open revolt. The Department of Defense is barred from allowing abortions in military medical facilities. Shortly after the Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturning the legal and moral travesty that was Roe vs. Wade was handed down in June 2022, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced that the military would pay for the travel of pregnant soldiers AND their family members to states that were abortion-friendly as well as providing three weeks of free time off. The policy became final in February.

    Austin was correct in guessing that a Democrat-led Senate would prevent any action from being taken. What he was wrong about was the ability of one determined senator to upend the abortion applecart. In December, Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville told Austin that if he persisted in doing this end run around the law, he would prevent all promotions of general officers and their civilian equivalents.

    U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) today announced his intent to place a hold on all future U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) civilian and general flag officer nominees should the department choose to move forward with a planned policy change to fund travel and paid time off for service members and their dependents seeking an abortion. The announcement from Senator Tuberville comes in response to his office being briefed by Department of Defense officials on the policy change earlier in the week. By covering travel expenses and paid time off, Senator Tuberville believes the DoD is blatantly flouting the law.

    Tuberville’s “hold” on senior Defense appointments leaves limited options. The easiest one is for Austin to recognize that his action is illegal and rescind it. That doesn’t seem to be in the works. As all senior Defense nominees require the Senate to “advise and consent,” Tuberville’s lone objection can only be bypassed by Chuck Schumer, allowing debate and a vote on each nominee. This would require an investment of time that he just can’t afford.

    Instead of blaming Tuberville, anger should be directed against the pompous, self-important Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin who is trying to score political points for the Democrats on the back of military readiness. When General Berger retires into well-earned obscurity this evening, you know what happens tomorrow? The sun will come up. Birds will sing. Children will play. The woke left will be outraged. In other words, life goes on. The Marine Corps will have an “acting commandant.”

    https://twitter.com/CraigCaplan/status/1678354726692216833?

    [Note: I have no idea why Caplan says, “1st time USMC has no confirmed commandant since 1859.” The list of Marine Corps Commandants shows that the Marines have frequently had breaks of days or months without a commandant. The last time it happened was when Major General George Elliot retired in November 1910 and wasn’t replaced until February 1911.]

    An acquaintance made an impassioned appeal for Tuberville to back off.

    https://twitter.com/OnDemocracyPod/status/1678173102545465344?

    I think Tuberville has correct stance on this. The only people inconvenienced by Tuberville’s hold is a handful of senior officers whose assignments need senatorial approval. While this may upset some career apple carts, the idea that failing to confirm them affects readiness is dishonest. If the miliary has reached the point where there is a finite number of generals capable of commanding, we might as well just fold our tent and slink away.

    Letting Austin do what he wants is rewarding the Defense Department for behaving like the spoiled, bratty toddler it is. Austin needs to do what is right legally, which is to pull the plug on his end run of federal law, and morally, which is to get Defense out of the baby-killing business.

    Original Here

  • Tuberville wins Alabama primary

    Tuberville wins Alabama primary

    In a hotly contested race, former Auburn head coach Tommy Tuberville has won the GOP Senate primary in Alabama. He defeated former Attorney General Jeff Sessions in a run-off.

    President Trump was highly critical of Sessions during the run-up to the vote and threw his support to Tuberville.

    https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1283215676488986628?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1283215676488986628%7Ctwgr%5E&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fd-35060774142710718719.ampproject.net%2F2007040248002%2Fframe.html

    Sen. Todd Young (R-IN), Chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), said that Tuberville “has what it takes” to defeat incumbent Sen. Jones in November:

    “As a true political outsider, Tommy Tuberville has what it takes to stand up for the people of Alabama, conservative values and President Trump – and most importantly, defeat Doug Jones. I look forward to another victory for Tuberville in November and working with him to build on President Trump’s and our Republican Senate Majority’s record of accomplishment.”



    Tuberville will face incumbent Democrat Doug Jones in the general election this November. Jones defeated the disgraced Roy Moore for Sessions old seat after Sessions was tapped as Attorney General.