The Republican senator from Alabama spent 2023 turning himself into one of the most hated men in Washington—even by members of his own party.
Senator Tommy Tuberville’s nearly yearlong protest against the Department of Defense’s abortion policy brings to mind an old Chinese proverb that translates to, “He who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount.” It means that when you take on something risky—or in this case, downright stupid—it’s easier to keep going than to face the consequences of trying to stop.
For nine months, Tuberville single-handedly blocked more than 450 military promotions, throwing the entire U.S. military into disarray. According to the Alabama Republican, this was the best way to protest the department’s policy of reimbursing service members who have to travel out of their state of deployment for an abortion.
Tuberville partially relented on December 5, when he agreed to allow most of those promotions to go forward with the exception of four-star generals. He then dropped those remaining holds this week, and the Senate promptly confirmed 11 nominees to that position.
After all those months of protesting, Tuberville accomplished … nothing. The Defense Department’s abortion policy is still in place. The only difference is that now, all of the department leadership and pretty much every other senator is angry with him.
Can someone honestly explain how he isn’t facing Espionage charges? I mean it seems like he’s pretty blatantly sabotaging the function of the entire military. Would these exact same actions be allowed if it were discovered China had been encouraging him to continue instead of out of protest?
I assume (in theory) because his actions are not his own, but are the actions that his constituency wants him to take, so the responsibility lies with the mouth breathers that elected him. And you can’t charge a group of citizens for voting a certain way.
Everything he is doing, he is doing within the legal framework of our system, as fucked as it is. It’s just that the framework has never been tested and pushed like this. People used to be mature and reasonable, and that USED to be enough to keep things flowing. Now they’re examining every loophole in the book to try to get their way any way they can.
Representatives are immune from legal consequences for actions of this type that they take on the congress floor, speech and debate clause.
Espionage will have a very specific definition that he most certainly doesn’t fit. Maybe giving aid to an enemy could be an easier argument.
He’s not doing anything that he isn’t constitutionally permitted to do. The constitution requires the president to get the Senate’s advice and consent on these appointments. He can’t be charged for refusing to grant his consent.
What he is doing is just a form of filibuster. The rest of the Senate can stop him if they want. They just don’t want to, because the minority would have to support a majority request to invoke cloture.
The minority party always plays these stupid games in the Senate, no matter which party that is.
The moment they do this, the filibuster goes away. Conservatives would rather burn the country than lose the only bargaining chip they own.
Nah, the other way. Keep the filibuster, and invoke cloture. If 60 senators want those promotions to go through, they will go through. It’s party unity that would suffer.
Republicans would never allow that precedent.
And moderate Dems don’t like accountability either, so they’re not vocal about it.
Like most issues, there just aren’t enough progressives yet to fix it.
I’ve learned that people in the ML instance have a “both sides” view of both liberals and conservatives and hate them equally, which is why you got voted down.