Is there movement afoot to stop Tuberville?

My latest hot take, news from the Capitol, and election day tomorrow

Time for a change

If you follow my work you know that I have been railing against the entire system of ‘norms and traditions’ for years now. Too many in Washington D.C. seem to think that norms and traditions will save us from the authoritarian movement led by Donald Trump and embraced by the most extreme far-right zealots in the country.

One thing we can’t ignore is that people like Donald Trump see adhering to those traditions as weakness. If it isn’t set in a law they don’t care. If it is set in a law they will spend their lives trying to see how to get around it, break it, and throw money at getting away with it. Trump has spent his entire life flipping off the law and done so without consequence to this day.

From burning the Hatch Act like kindling in a bonfire to appointing wholly unqualified loyalists to jobs with absolutely no qualifications he never cared what we thought about how things used to be. I have always seen this as a real weakness of Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, and so many of the older generation of political leaders who have made no effort to tighten the laws and regulations that Trump continues to simply ignore. They admirably still think we can go back to those bygone days.

We can’t.

That is the basis of how Tommy Tuberville is getting away with sitting on every single General and Flag Officer promotion in the United States military for the last 9-months. The ‘Senatorial Hold’ block is a Senate privilege that isn’t written into the Constitution. It’s just how they manage day-to-day life. This piece from NPR back in July explains the rules he is abusing for his personal tantrum: Tuberville is showing how much power one lawmaker wields under Senate rules

They need to wake up. Now that he has shown how powerful one shameless Senator can be it won’t be the last. Already J.D. Vance, Rand Paul, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, and more are following his example while the Senators on both side of the aisle harumph and gently scold their “dear colleague.”

Is there change coming?

Punchbowl News is reporting this morning that there is a movement afoot to pass a temporary suspension of the Senatorial Hold around these military promotions for a limited amount of time that is gaining momentum. More and more Republicans are realizing that this block is truly destroying the military morale and readiness not just now but for generations to come as dedicated officers choose to leave service instead of being political pawns for the worst people imaginable.

From the piece:

Senate Republicans’ next big move on the Tuberville battle

There are institutional considerations here, too, and these will surely be vocalized at a special Republican Conference meeting on Tuesday afternoon.

The Democrat-led resolution, while not technically a rules change under the Senate’s definition, is, in layman’s terms, a temporary change to existing rules with a specified end date.

This would be short of going nuclear. And there’s a belief within leadership that the longer this drags on, the more it whets Democrats’ appetite for the nuclear option.

Another argument we expect will be made at the Tuesday meeting: This doesn’t just harm the military; it hands Democrats an election-year argument that Republicans are willing to tear down the military over abortion.

What it means

This is sort of a half assed solution in my opinion. The issue is the larger abuse and misuse of Senate privilege. I get that mistakes have been made in the past like rolling back the filibuster on Judicial nominees but we must wake up to the fact that our Founding Fathers and their successors never envisioned authoritarianism. They foolishly believed that we would elect men (only men) of honor and good faith to our highest offices not losers like a half assed football coach and reality TV star.

They must wake up to the reality that we are going to norm and tradition our way to fascism and when many of us are sitting in prisons it won’t matter that we ended up there because we honored Alexander Hamilton’s dreams.

He got shot by the former Vice President for God’s sake.

My latest analysis

If you missed it my friends at MeidasTouch posted my latest hot take on this situation overnight on Saturday. It’s a bit of an angry rant that goes into how outrageous and damaging Tuberville’s hold is. I actually cut it before I saw he had essentially called the Commandant of the Marine Corps a wuss for complaining about working as both Commandant and Assistant Commandant working from 5:30 in the morning to 11:30 at night and having a heart attack while running.

Tuberville had the absolute balls to say he worked those hours as a football coach so it wasn’t his fault the leader of the 200,000 Marines around the world in harm’s way almost died from overwork. Truly one of the worst people imaginable.

Check out the video!

Election Day Tomorrow

Tomorrow is election day in many states and there are significant ones. I know a lot of folks are panicking about the New York Times poll yesterday (I am not) but the only poll that counts is election results. Democrats continue to overperform but tomorrow is key. I hope you will vote if you are in these states and take part in sending a message. Here is a short list of what’s on the ballot:

• Ohio: Issue 1 Reproductive Rights referendum and Marijuana legalization

• Pennsylvania: State Supreme Court race

• Kentucky: Statewide office elections including Governor

• Mississippi: Statewide office elections including Governor

• New Jersey: State legislature

• Virginia: State legislature

Get out there and vote!

New Subscribers!

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I am having regular Zoom sessions with paid subscribers, special posts, and will be adding other opportunities but most of all I could use your help to keep this fight going. Thanks for joining!