When a man who never served in the military a day in his life can bottleneck the functioning of the most powerful fighting force in the world, in order to make a feckless show of power and fundraise off of his MAGA constituents, we have surely reached the bottom. And don’t forget, Tommy Tuberville is also the guy who didn’t know what the three branches of government are in this country. Remember that fiasco?
Tammy Duckworth is on the opposite end of the spectrum from Tommy Tuberville. She did serve in the military and was egregiously wounded doing so. She then went on to serve in the Senate and she got there with a lot more credentials than having coached college kids running around a field with a pigskin ball.
Duckworth lets Tuberville have it, for being disingenuous and dishonest.
She is not the only vet who is fed up. Not by a long shot.
That last sentence in the spot was of particular interest. Punchbowl News reported this week, “Tuberville insists he’s not under any pressure from GOP colleagues to cave,” and when NBC News asked the senator on Tuesday whether he’s faced any pressure from fellow Republicans to drop his hold on military promotions, he replied, “No. Zero.”
With VoteVets’ message in mind, if “not one Republican in Congress will stand up to him and let our troops keep us safe,” then this fiasco isn’t simply about one misguided senator; it’s the Senate GOP conference that will share the blame.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer stressed the same point on the chamber floor yesterday. “Very simply, the onus is on Republican senators to prevail on Sen. Tuberville and get him to back off his reckless pursuit. That is the crux of the matter,” the New York Democrat said. “It’s on the backs of his Republican colleagues to get Sen. Tuberville to back off. It’s hurting our military security. It’s dangerous, unprecedented, and they have the power and the ability to stop him from doing it.”
This is your GOP in action, hurting the country just because they can. I don’t even want to think what will happen if they regain the Senate in 2024.
And when I contemplate that Doug Jones was representing the State of Alabama before this bum Tuberville got elected, I seriously want to weep.
Politico reports that Mitch McConnell said he “doesn’t approve” of Tuberville’s tactics — but you don’t see him telling Tuberville to stand down, now do you?
We all understand political gamesmanship. The problem is when the need to stick it to the libs supersedes the need to keep the nation safe, funded and functioning. That’s the problem with this iteration of the GOP. They don’t know when to quit. Maybe it’s time for their non-MAGA constituents to quit them.
Why the hell does this traitor and liar have the power to do this? He should be on trial for his part in the coup attempt. Though the Senate is given the power to set their own rules by the Constitution, I don’t think it gives them the right to have unconstitutional rules. What ever happened to one man, one vote?
The answer is in the MSNBC article that was linked to and quoted. The rest of the GOP is going along with this. Tuberville, of himself, doesn’t have the brains nor the imagination to come up with something like this. This is a MAGA-land scenario put together by a MAGA senator.
Reform the filibuster. It’s really that simple. Go back a little over fifty years to the way it was before then Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield pushed through two changes in the rules for filibusters. First, any Senator could simply place a “hold” on any Senate business by informing the leadership. Indefinitely. No longer did they had to stand there and hold the floor for as long as they could. The other change that doesn’t get talked about is just as important – prior to then when there was a filibuster all other Senate business stopped. But after allowing “holds” other Senate business could continue. So the “hold” could go on for however long some a-hole Senator wanted it to and everything else went along as normal.
For while it wasn’t much of a problem but then Reagan got in and even if he didn’t yet have a Democratic House in name the process of migration of southern Democrats and others was well underway. And there were other “moderate” Democrats who would in a different district have run as Republicans but they had name recognition and voters would keep sending them back. Tip O’Neil wielded his power as Speaker well but in practical goings on Reagan had control of both chambers of Congress. And Senate Republicans (usually) began steadily abusing the power Mansfield had given to individual Senators. It kept getting worse and worse and here we are.
Sadly, while Manchin and Sinema are the poster Democrats holding up reform there are four or five others who would need some arm twisting to change the rules. And the 2024 map is a tough one for us. Manchin’s WV seat is gone no matter what he does. Other places will be a tough fight too. Just holding what we’ve got will take a heroic effort. But it might be possible given this and other issues (another shutdown this fall for instance, and of course abortion) might allow us to get to 52 oe even 53 Senators in our caucus with a lot of work and some breaks. THAT would change the calculus I think.
And going back to a filibuster of a type that was the norm for our first couple hundred years would be hard to argue against. Doing away with it entirely would be a tougher sell, but saying “Things worked a lot better prior to Mansfield’s changes so lets just go back to the old way” is something public support could be rallied for.
And we should start pushing for it (by we I mean Schumer, and yes President Biden) starting right now and make Tuberville and his antics the poster boy for why we need reform.
Calling Manchin and Sinema democrats is wrong. They gave up any legitimate claims to the title when they started siding with the gop. We’ll be rid of Sinema in the next election. I’m not sure when Manchin’s up for re-election but he ought to be looking for other work.
His term expires next year. He barely won in 2018 and he’s got no chance now against damned near any Republican of retaining the seat. Worse still, his likely opponent will be current Gov. Jim Justice who is popular. Manchin’s political career in WV is toast and his P.O.S. children are even less like than he is so there will be no trading on Joe’s name/rep. to “inherit” his seat. That’s why he’s screwing around with that third Party. He knows he’s got no chance there either but he’s angered enough Democrats and for too long to have been getting much love for some years now. He overplayed his hand at times and he’s become almost irrelavent. Being so sonofab!tch he wants to extract some payback for not being elevated to senior status in the Democratic Party so he’s looking to f**k them and the country.