“I cannot help but think [that the vacancies have] added a level of complexity and danger to an already bad situation,” one DOD official said.

Pentagon officials have been frustrated for months over an Alabama senator’s blockade of more than 300 senior military nominations. But after the Marine Corps chief was hospitalized over the weekend, that frustration is turning into rage.

Gen. Eric Smith had been filling both the No. 1 and No. 2 Marine Corps posts from July until he was finally confirmed as commandant in September. He, along with more than 300 other senior officers, was swept up in the promotions blockade put in place by GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion travel policy.

In an interview Wednesday, Tuberville brushed off the comments from the DOD officials.

“They’re looking for someone to blame it on, other than themselves,” he said. “We could have all these people confirmed if they’d have just gone by the Constitution.

“I don’t listen to these people,” he added. “They’re just looking for any possible way to get themselves out of a jam.”

  • zarp86
    9•8 months ago

    You can’t just magically waive a wand and “stop the Republicans.” And Democrats are working to solve this problem but this doesn’t happen overnight. How exactly are the Dems “playing politics?”

    But none of that really matters to the point of your bad faith argument, because this problem would immediately go away if Tuberville stopped being an asshat. Pointing at the Democrats for not fixing Republican caused problems is asinine political style victim blaming.

    • @[email protected]
      -10•8 months ago

      The Senate, like the house, are allowed to set their own rules and even change the rules they have based on a simple majority vote. If Schumer and party wanted to, they could immediately not allow Tuberville to block the confirmations. They could also immediately confirm all pending confirmations and kick all members of the minority party off of all committees. All of this is legal, all of this is within the Democrats power right now just as it was “several months ago.”

      As far as how the democrats are playing politics, from the article you linked:

      Democrats had previously resisted moving ahead on the nominations to apply political pressure on the Alabama Republican but in the face of the Israel-Hamas war, the war in Ukraine and the hospitalization of a top military commander, they reversed course.

      If you are “applying political pressue” you are playing politics, when instead you could literally just do it since they control the senate.