The U.S. Senate, circumventing holds by Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, on Thursday confirmed the nominations of two senior military leaders, including the first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Adm. Lisa Franchetti was confirmed by a vote of 95-1 to lead the Navy, making her the first woman to serve as a Pentagon service chief and hold a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gen. David Allvin was also confirmed by a vote of 95-1 to be chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force. The Senate was expected to vote later Thursday to confirm Lt. Gen. Christopher Mahoney to serve as assistant commandant for the U.S. Marine Corps.
Franchetti’s historic confirmation as the chief of naval operations comes as Tuberville has drawn bipartisan criticism for holding up almost 400 military nominations in an effort to protest Pentagon abortion policy. In a remarkable display, several Republican senators angrily held the floor for more than four hours on Wednesday evening and called up 61 of the nominations for votes, praising each nominee for their military service. Tuberville, of Alabama, showed no signs of letting up, standing and objecting to each one.
Allvin is the vice chief of staff of the Air Force but has been serving as acting chief, since the previous top Air Force officer, Gen. CQ Brown, became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Oct. 1. Allvin is a career air mobility pilot with more than 4,600 flight hours and key deployments in Afghanistan and Europe.
Tuberville has drawn bipartisan criticism for holding up almost 400 military nominations in an effort to protest Pentagon abortion policy.
Does anyone actually believe that it’s about abortion? He’s clearly trying to weaken the US military on behalf of foreign adversaries.
I’d call that treason, but then I’m not on Putin’s payroll.
A post by another user on this platform a few days ago suggested Tuberville’s true motives were to keep key positions in the military vacant until Trump or another Republican is elected president where they can then fill those positions with loyalists. This is similar to what we’ve seen the GOP do on the Supreme Court.
One might be led to believe then that the ultimate goal is to use the military to support their attempts to retain power indefinitely.
Having the military on side (or at least key figures of it) is absolutely critical to a dictatorship.
The pro-gun people who have promised they’d lay down their morbidly obese lives to prevent it will of course be enthusiastically cheering for the dictatorship, perhaps even firing into crowds of protesters.
What’s so weird about these people is that, when you ask them if we should reduce the military, they say no. If you ask them why they have guns, it’s so to fight against tyranny.
I’m like…why the fuck do you want to further arm your tyrannical government?!
That doesn’t make sense. Trump could make new appointments for all of these positions just as easily as they’re being appointed now (assuming a Republican Senate, which, very, very much to my chagrin, will probably be the case)
Not just SCOTUS. The Republicans were blocking federal judges in huge numbers during the latter half of Obama’s 2nd term.
The GOP-controlled Senate is on track this year [2015] to confirm the fewest judges since 1969, a dramatic escalation of the long-running partisan feud over the ideological makeup of federal courts.
Why would you have to be on anyone’s payroll to call traitors what they are
The implication is that only people on Putin’s payroll wouldn’t see it as treason.
I don’t think “circumvent” is the correct term to describe this. They did it the hard way instead of the easy way. The easy way is to put up a chunk of nominees and pass them by unanimous consent. The Tube is blocking that by objecting. So they have to do it the hard way, one at a time, I believe with hours of debate, followed by a vote.
I believe it’s practically impossible to handle the things that need to be handled (the hours are prohibitive), and it might even be actually impossible (there literally aren’t enough hours in a year).
Tommy Fuck-a-duck can go smoke a tail pipe.
This is why we have hundred page terms of service written in legalese for the most trivial shit, because if we let things up to traditions and norms, some fuckwit ruins it.
All with you! But maybe this vote said to him, “Fine. We’ll do it without you. Do you FEEL in charge?”
Bullshit like Toobey-vile is pulling should result in expulsion from office.
And in a normal world it would. That is, if a sizeable majority of Republicans in Alabama weren’t backwater political terrorists. They fucking LOVE this shit, and the normal route to expulsion (i.e. voting his ass out) simply isn’t available as long as worms remain in their brain cavities.
Can’t speak to Alabamian’s thoughts on obstruction like this, but in NW FL many, if not most, Republicans are disgusted by this sort of thing. For example, they find Trump to be an embarrassment, don’t want to talk about him. Just because they vote R doesn’t necessarily mean they’re cheering these things on.
Problem being, they’re not disgusted enough to vote D.
And I should add, I’m old, and back in the day this sort of unthinkable fuckery involving our military would have seen him out on his ass instantly.
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Tuberville is an enemy of the State. Wish he was treated as such.
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If they could just DO it, in spite of Tuberville, why haven’t they until jusy now? What changed? The article doesn’t mention.
It I recall correctly, they can still do it but it’s one at a time. They can’t do who large batches like normal and there is a huge backlog. They have been doing a few here and there to critical positions.
Not that Tuberville isn’t a POS but if it’s critical to get these folks confirmed and you have a way to do it, get to fucking work. I’m tired of hearing that their hands are tied when they just need to roll up their sleeves.
400 nominations would literally take every minute of every day the Senate’s in session for the next 6 months. Absolutely nothing else would happen in the Senate between now and then. And despite the normal blathering about how ineffectual the Senate is, they do a lot of shit behind the scenes.
I’m not expecting them to do all 400 that way, just the ones I keep being told are critical.
That’s quite literally what this article is about.
Great, why’d it take so long?
Because that’s not the whole story.
Yes, they can (and have) done a few individually.
The reason they’ve resisted doing that for the most part is two-fold:
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They don’t want to normalize what Tuberville is doing. If they “give-in” and start considering promotions individually, then they signal that any senator can use this as a tool.
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They think that what Tuberville is doing is ultimately harmful to Republicans and will help Democrats win more seats in the next election. They will run ads saying that Tuberville and his fellow Republicans are hurting American military members and weakening our military readiness.
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They kept taking suggestions from random assholes on the internet who just want to hear themselves complain, clearly.
This sounds like two wins
The line that divides you and the fuckers in Alabama is smaller than you think.
You sound like someone who’s glad when the government shuts down.
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… were you going to add any information to the conversation or are you being ironic?
I’ll attempt to explain. They are currently backed up 300+ promotions. In order to do one at a time, Schmumer has to file cloture for each one to bring them to the floor. When the matter gets to the floor, there’s a minimum one hour debate time. Let’s call floor time an hour and a hal per promotion. That brings the total of Senate floor time to 450 hours. While that’s happening, more promotions are being submitted.
I would also like to know this.
It required changes to senate rules. Chuck Schumer opposed changing the rules because it would likely be a permanent change and allow either party to ram votes through, instead of working towards consensus like most things in Senate. This could lead to Republicans ramming extreme stuff through senate when they eventually take over in the future.
So, he finally just gave up and changed the rules?
No, the rules have always allowed them to consider promotions individually. It’s voting on promos as a bloc that requires unanimous consent.
Damn. That’s incisive as fuck.
Fuck you Tommy Teletubbie
He still insists on being addressed as Coach in the senate.
It’s a rather unappealing combination of over-the-top folksy wholesomeness and being a stubborn jackass who literally doesn’t support the troops.
“So I asked Jesus, should I do my job or should I hold a nation’s military hostage? Jesus said ‘no comprendo’ and went back to mowing my lawn. That was my sign from god that I should be a useless barnacle instead of doing my so-called job.”
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Good to see!
Fuck Tuberville for his shenanigans overshadowing the appointment of the first woman to the Joint Chiefs
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Senate, circumventing holds by Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, on Thursday confirmed the nominations of two senior military leaders, including the first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Franchetti’s historic confirmation as the chief of naval operations comes as Tuberville has drawn bipartisan criticism for holding up almost 400 military nominations in an effort to protest Pentagon abortion policy.
In a remarkable display, several Republican senators angrily held the floor for more than four hours on Wednesday evening and called up 61 of the nominations for votes, praising each nominee for their military service.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recommended that President Joe Biden select Adm. Samuel Paparo, the current commander of the Navy’s Pacific Fleet, several U.S. officials said earlier this year.
Despite several high-level vacancies and the growing backlog of nominations, he has said he will continue to hold the nominees up unless the Pentagon ends — or puts to a vote in Congress — its new policy of paying for travel when a servicemember has to go out of state to get an abortion or other reproductive care.
The resolution by Reed and independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, which would have to be approved by the full would tweak the rules until the end of this session of Congress next year to allow a process for the Senate to pass multiple military nominations together.
The original article contains 1,146 words, the summary contains 233 words. Saved 80%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
