‘This is outrageous’: Pentagon officials furious over Tuberville holds after top Marine hospitalized
‘This is outrageous’: Pentagon officials furious over Tuberville holds after top Marine hospitalized
“I cannot help but think [that the vacancies have] added a level of complexity and danger to an already bad situation,” one DOD official said.
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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At what point do they admit it's a national security issue and do something about it?
That's fascism bro. The reasons for Tuberville's blocking are shit, but the fact that he can do that is working as intended. If the dems wanted to do something about it, they could act like a real political party for once and remove Tuberville from the armed forces chair, or equivalent that is allowing him to block the nominations.
If you just want "the military" to do "something" about the problematic senator then you are a piece of shit.
- Republicans do a bad thing.
- Democrats don't stop the Republicans.
- It is the Democrats fault the bad thing is happening.
Fucking top tier logic right there.
Do you not think the dems have the ability to stop the republicans? Because they absolutely do. But rather then use the power they have, they'd rather "play politics."
Yeah let's play politics with a party that cheats, try to make a coup, doesn't respect democracy, force push extremists inside their own party, say extremists are good people.
We should also engage in mediations with Kim Jong Un to tell him he's not very nice and send a cookie of peace to Putin to melt his heart.
I have no idea why Schumer does that, but apparently if you ask why the democrats don't use power they have and suggest that they do use the power they have instead, that breaks brains.
You can't just magically waive a wand and "stop the Republicans." And Democrats are working to solve this problem but this doesn't happen overnight. How exactly are the Dems "playing politics?"
But none of that really matters to the point of your bad faith argument, because this problem would immediately go away if Tuberville stopped being an asshat. Pointing at the Democrats for not fixing Republican caused problems is asinine political style victim blaming.
The Senate, like the house, are allowed to set their own rules and even change the rules they have based on a simple majority vote. If Schumer and party wanted to, they could immediately not allow Tuberville to block the confirmations. They could also immediately confirm all pending confirmations and kick all members of the minority party off of all committees. All of this is legal, all of this is within the Democrats power right now just as it was "several months ago."
As far as how the democrats are playing politics, from the article you linked:
Democrats had previously resisted moving ahead on the nominations to apply political pressure on the Alabama Republican but in the face of the Israel-Hamas war, the war in Ukraine and the hospitalization of a top military commander, they reversed course.
If you are "applying political pressue" you are playing politics, when instead you could literally just do it since they control the senate.
The Democrats, by themselves, can't bypass the block. Any senator, regardless of which committees they're on, can put a hold on legislation. It's called a senatorial hold and it's difficult to bypass, because while the majority leader can call the vote anyway, the holding senator can just filibuster, which requires a 2/3 majority to break, and then nothing will get done.
The good news is that even other Republican senators are getting tired of his shit:
When we rant and rave about things we don't understand, we accomplish nothing but to appear foolish.
The filibuster can be ended by a simple majority to change the rules of the filibuster. This 2/3rd bullshit is an excuse people use to cope with why the democrats are a useless party. The filibuster exists because of Senate rules and they absolutely create bills all the time that can't be filibustered, this could easily be the same. Or maybe they could even use it to pass good legislation like codifying roe v wade, or universal healthcare or something crazy like that.
Have you read this article? Particularly this sentence?
Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the United States Senate allows the Senate to vote to limit debate by invoking cloture on the pending question.
So that rule, rule 22, can be amended by a simple majority of the senate. Additionally any bill/law/resolution/etc can have a "no fillibusters" provision applied to it. As the democrats are the majority party, they have the ability to do those things.
When we rant and rave about things we don’t understand, we accomplish nothing but to appear foolish.
Rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the United States Senate allows the Senate to vote to limit debate by invoking cloture on the pending question. In most cases, however, this requires a majority of three-fifths of the senators duly chosen and sworn (60 votes if there is no more than one vacancy),[3]: 15–17 so a minority of senators can block a measure, even if it has the support of a simple majority. In practice, most bills cannot pass the Senate without the support of at least 60 senators.
...but clearly I didn't know who I was talking with. You obviously know more about politics than anyone here, and since I can never hope to reach your level, I bow down to your experience.
Yes the rules AS CURRENTLY WRITTEN require that. Those rules can also be RE-Written which is exactly what I said to begin with! If you keep reading under the constitutional basis you will see:
Through negative textual implication, the Constitution also gives a simple majority the power to set procedural rules.
Procedural rules such as the above rule, can be rewritten with a simple majority.
In fact not only am I telling you it works that way, it HAS actually worked that way!
Notably, in 2013 and 2017, the Senate used the nuclear option to set a series of precedents that reduced the threshold for cloture on nominations to a simple majority.[5]: 3
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Sorry "liberal" I must have scratched you.
That's fascism bro.
No.
Actually yes. If the military decides to overturn the senate because of "national security" that is fascism.
That is called a military coup.
Oh I guess if the military does something to collapse the government it can't be Fascism. Good job.
Military overthrowing the government isn't part of the definition of fascism. It is the definition of a coup d'état.
Fascism is a political ideology not an action.
Sure, a takeover could lead to a fascist government. But it could also lead to a socialist, communist, conservative or monarchy or even liberal government.
other forms of government, such as a dictatorship, democracy, junta-led
authoritarian political
Yea I agree there, fair point. If a military overthrows a government it doesn't HAVE to lead to fascism. But in this case, where the US military itself is ignoring the US congress, the US could only be described as an overtly fascist government since the veil would be lifted at that point.
Yup, totally agree with that.