Pentagon officials have been frustrated for months over an Alabama senator’s blockade of more than 300 senior military nominations. But after the Marine Corps chief was hospitalized over the weekend, that frustration is turning into rage.
Gen. Eric Smith had been filling both the No. 1 and No. 2 Marine Corps posts from July until he was finally confirmed as commandant in September. He, along with more than 300 other senior officers, was swept up in the promotions blockade put in place by GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion travel policy.
In an interview Wednesday, Tuberville brushed off the comments from the DOD officials.
“They’re looking for someone to blame it on, other than themselves,” he said. “We could have all these people confirmed if they’d have just gone by the Constitution.
“I don’t listen to these people,” he added. “They’re just looking for any possible way to get themselves out of a jam.”
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Yeah, they should do nothing more than approve these nominations as tubbyville wants instead of doing THEIR ACTUAL JOBS legislating.
Man, this take is dumb as a box of bricks.
What legislating? With the House in the other Party’s control the Senate isn’t going to be doing much other than voting against bullshit.
Everything about how the US government functions is based entirely on the idea that everyone acts in good faith. There is no real mechanism for dealing with those who abuse the system. Sadly, over 250 years, nobody has tried to fix this. Our system is broken but working just as designed.
There are actually plenty of ways the majority party of both houses of congress can deal with “bad faith” actors. For one, the majority party could just say that the minority party doesn’t get to vote on anything, or conduct any congressional business at all. Straight up denying the minority party any influence whatsoever. This would be 100% constitutional and since both houses of congress define their own rules for how they run themselves, any collection of people that have 50+1 votes is free to do this.
However you are correct that the system is working as designed. Capitalism doesn’t care if you vote red or blue, as long as they get to choose the candidates and that’s why things like this that have obvious legal answers somehow can’t ever get done. Yet billions for the defense industry, or the oil industry can be passed with hardly a debate.
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LOL you apparently haven’t paid attention to the last 30 years or so.
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I agree. Schumer as much as admitted that he refused to bring the promotions to the floor because the Dems was to apply political ressure to Tuberville. They want the Republicans to look bad, and get tagged as opposing our armed forced. They let the Tommy Tumor grow and fester and now it’s unmanageable. They could have been bypassing him for months.
It’s never a Republican’s fault. Always. Everyone else’s around them. There may be more democrats could do. But this falls squarely on Tubervils shoulder.
Let me tell you the story of the scorpion and the frog.
The scorpion wants to punish women for having sex because he believes that if he is cruel enough, he gets to hang out with his invisible friend, who happens to be the creator of the universe, after the scorpion dies.
The frog could stop the scorpion from making people suffer, but the frog needs votes and donations to stay in power, and nothing motivates donors and voters like hatred. The woodland creatures who support the frog hate the scorpion, so the frog ignores the scorpion while complaining that there’s nothiny he can do.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/11/01/politics/schumer-tuberville-military-nominations/index.html
I neve said it wasn’t Tuberville’s fault. I’m frustrated that the Senate Democrats didn’t just go around him because they wanted the political pressure to grow.
Storytelling is not your thing.
I actually thought it was an interesting take on an old parable. The frog might actually be another scorpion though. And the woodland creatures secretly support both scorpions to ensure that neither one stings them.
Perhaps not.
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The problem is they needed to fast track 100s because of the lack of effort from the last admin. What tuberville is doing is unprecedented. Now instead of taking the time to deal with bigger issues he’s made the one sure thing, politicians unified support of the military, into a weapon of the minority. Schumer was hoping the Senate leaders could contain him but there is no one can control the GOP anymore. Tubberville’s true purpose was to break the government and if Schumer breaks and does them individually then the tirade will have worked and say goodbye to anything getting done in reasonable times. Now you need a supermajority to even approve environmental issues that save lives! Schumer’s only fault was to not change the Senate rules immediately after tub’s protest but he is old guard and they worry more about new precedents then using the power they have.
Schumer can’t make those changes with Manchin and Sinema in the picture. They are just as actively holding things back as Tuberville.
Really cool that our blue party of capital always has some rotating villains they can point to. Also I’m sure if you lived in W Virginia or Arizona would be voting for both of those two and scolding those that didn’t.
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You mean drop all the rest of their senatorial duties because one self righteous shitbag from Alabama thinks the military is “woke”?
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Wasting a bunch of time individually debating military promotions isn’t “taking out the trash”.
I dunno you seemed awfully ready to blame democrats for not dropping all other Senate business. To hold hundreds of cloture votes to work through the backlog of better part of a decade. Which is a bit of a ridiculous ask. When it would make much more sense for A. the Republicans to a do their job or for B. Ranking Republicans to do their job and revoke his committee status. Replacing him with another Republican willing to do the job.
Because let’s be clear here. Someone who would seek to blame democrats for not doing something to resolve this. Would just as disingenuously blame democrats for dropping all the actual things they were supposed to be doing just to take care of all the things one senator has blocked. Because it’s not just one senator. It’s all Republicans. They could replace Tuberville on any committee if they wanted to. They don’t want to.
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There’s a thought experiment about babies in a river. Do you save each baby as it floats down the river, or do you go upriver to stop them from throwing babies in?
If you choose to stay, are you enabling the baby throwers?
If you go, are you consigning all the babies that are thrown to death while you search?
It’s not black and white. There’s no good solution when bad actors are doing bad things. A coordinated response would be great, but at the same time, this is a constant problem. It’s not like Democrats haven’t been trying to get “reasonable republicans” to handle their own shit for decades. It’s not like republicans won’t have another mole pop up after this one gets whacked back into his hole.
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Ok, but what if you stand on the side of the river and call everyone over to watch them throw babies in the river because it makes you look better by comparison? If you honestly believe there are any “reasonable Republicans” you haven’t been paying attention.
I used quotes around that because I do not believe it.
But a bunch of idiots do, and politicians have to have some backing from those idiots, so even though everyone knows these people are shills and grifters, they have to pay lip service to the idea that they’ll do the reasonable thing, and hope that eventually cultists start dropping out and realizing they’ve been duped.
You can lead a horse to water and all that.
The GOP could kick Tuberville out. But they won’t so they are part of the problem
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The dems could also just confirm these hundreds of people unilaterally in a single batch, but they won’t so they are the actual problem.
This is a troll post from someone trying to push disinformation.
I’m a troll? Fuck off.
https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/11/01/politics/schumer-tuberville-military-nominations/index.html
The Senate Democrats have been allowing the backlog to grow for months, for the stated reason of adding political pressure on Tuberville.
Here’s an article from September where they admit they can bypass Tuberville.
https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2023/09/21/dems-weigh-batch-votes-to-bypass-tuberville-for-remaining-nominees/
Here’s an article from July where they admit they don’t want to bypass Tuberville because it wouldn’t be expedient.
https://apnews.com/article/tuberville-military-holds-senate-officers-45c4230a8aee5222bf32b43823e29acc
And yet he’s done fuck all about it, because it would take “months” to do with floor votes. He said that 4 months ago.
Tuberville is the villain here, there’s no doubt. He’s a loathesome piece of shit that demeans the office he holds.
Chuck Schumer is the Senate Majority Leader. Where is the leadership? Where is the majority? They don’t need the House at all, they can confirm Biden’s nominees and promotions all say long. It’s not like they’ve been busy, what with the catastrophe that is the House of Representatives. This is the one thing they could be doing, and they haven’t because not doing it makes Republicans look worse than they do. It’s craven politics, and it’s a waste of my vote. They’re going to lose the Senate in the next election, and it won’t matter that Biden keeps the White House. He’ll be the first president in history to spend 8 years as a lame duck.
Fucking neoliberal bullshit.
LOL I didn’t and won’t read your reply (not worth the time). It’s pretty clear that I hit close to home.
You’re right. You got me riled up. You didn’t present an argument, attacked me personally, and then refused to engage or defend your accusations.
But I’m the troll.
You’re right! I didn’t present an argument to you. I wasn’t talking to you. I was warning others to ignore you.
Fuck off, troll.