Tommy Tuberville, Senator from Alabama, is a man of priorities. Blocking the army from assisting its members with abortions ranks higher on his list than restoring US military leadership at one of the most geopolitically ominous moments in recent history.
Representing the hardest wing of the Republican Party, he has been blocked for more than 260 appointments at the Pentagon since February and has said he has no intention of stopping until a new rule allowing soldiers a few days of military service vacation is withdrawn Abortion and guarantees reimbursement of travel expenses for those who have to travel because they are stationed in states where this right is prohibited or restricted.
Because they cannot choose where they live, the Department of Defense announced this change to its rules last February, in response to the Supreme Court ruling setting precedent in Roe v. Wade, who made him a federal protector of abortion in 1973. It is now up to each of the 50 states to decide how to regulate the reproductive health of their citizens. At least 26, including Alabama, have already opted to clip it.
Tuberville, a former football coach who was elected to the post in 2020, has consistently made it clear he has no intention of backing down, even if the Marines do not have a congressional-appointed commander for the first time in a century or in the coming months It’s time to resign more than half the members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Not even under the pressure of knowing that tensions with China and Russia aren’t exactly leading to a military power vacuum.
The most pressing case is that of Charles CQ Brown Jr., an aviation general selected by President Joe Biden to succeed Mark Milley, who will transfer to the reserve in October. “We’re going to lose talent,” Brown told a Senate committee that Tuberville sits on Tuesday. He also predicted that the blockade would result in less experienced commanders temporarily filling key positions and that increasing family and financial strains on the military was not a good strategy going forward.
The US Army is in a recruitment crisis. The Army is expected to recruit more than 50,000 troops this year, an increase from 2022, but falls short of the stated goal of 65,000 contracts, Gen. James McConville, chief of staff, told The Associated Press. McConville is another exit (in August), but given Tuberville’s veto, there is no sign his successor, Randy George, will be approved by Congress in time.
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Are White Nationalists Racist?
Several Republican senators have tried unsuccessfully to change Tuberville’s mind, who, in addition to his stubbornness, came under the eye of the hurricane this week for his comments Monday at the premiere of CNN’s new prime-time show, which was hosted by aspiring journalist Kaytlan Collins. She asked him about comments he made to a local radio station in his state in which the senator said it was “a matter of opinion” to consider “white nationalists” to be racist. On Monday, he reiterated that idea: “My take on white nationalists, if you insist on calling them that, is that they are Americans,” he replied at Collins’ urging.
The next day, he resigned in the halls of the Capitol in front of reporters who spent the day collecting critical comments from representatives of both parties. In that regard, at least, Tuberville relented, admitting that “white nationalists are racists.”
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