The Republican senator from Alabama spent 2023 turning himself into one of the most hated men in Washingtonāeven by members of his own party.
Senator Tommy Tubervilleās nearly yearlong protest against the Department of Defenseās abortion policy brings to mind an old Chinese proverb that translates to, āHe who rides a tiger is afraid to dismount.ā It means that when you take on something riskyāor in this case, downright stupidāitās 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 departmentās 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 ā¦ nothing. The Defense Departmentās 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 isnāt facing Espionage charges? I mean it seems like heās 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 canāt 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. Itās 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 theyāre 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.
Heās not doing anything that he isnāt constitutionally permitted to do. The constitution requires the president to get the Senateās advice and consent on these appointments. He canāt 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 donāt 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. Itās party unity that would suffer.
Espionage will have a very specific definition that he most certainly doesnāt fit. Maybe giving aid to an enemy could be an easier argument.
Republicans would never allow that precedent.
And moderate Dems donāt like accountability either, so theyāre not vocal about it.
Like most issues, there just arenāt enough progressives yet to fix it.
Iāve learned that people in the ML instance have a āboth sidesā view of both liberals and conservatives and hate them equally, which is why you got voted down.