I don't get paid time off a week before thanksgiving, and I don't leave work incomplete before the end of the day let alone before a long holiday. But, I'm also not a republican.
It's disgusting we are paying them to literally do nothing. And as a punishment they get over a week off with pay. Yea that will teach them. Where is the incentive for them to do better? They can continue this way until the next election but how many of the extremists are under threat of losing their jobs in 2024?
Hopefully every one of them looses their job. We need legislators not elbow jabbing, chest puffing toddlers calling the shots. Insanity thy name is GOP.
I agree that the optics are bad, but in reality, being sent home does not mean vacation time for Congresspeople. They have local offices in their districts for a reason.
It seems like most dictators come to power and coups are successful only when and if the military is on their side. I have always been confident that we the people can count on the military to keep the power-hungry at bay. Now, however, I keep wondering if Tuberville and the senate scaredy cats arenkt setting the stage for a takeover of the military. Looking for reassurance here, friends.
Trump is mad at Miley and the Military for refusing to back his Coup which is why he brought up executing Miley as a traitor. So now Tubberville haults all Military Promotions? Why? Trump & Tubberville are actual traitors trying to maintain power. This leaves openings for Trump to fill and take over the Military.
The only possible reassurance is TFG does not get elected. And if that happens, his coattails will be nonexistent. And if he does get elected again, democracy in the US will die. It won't be just the Pentagon under his thumb - DOJ, State, Energy - these too will be his, and they are the pathway to dictatorship. We all know what we have to do - the hard work of seeing to it that everyone possible understands what we are up against, and gets to the polls and votes.
During this week at home, they are NOT doing the most urgent and important work of their position as a member of the US House of Representatives. That most important job is hammering out the budget and funding the government. They are the only ones that can do this. And they should be working over time to do it. That includes missing out on holidays at home if necessary. Certainly they should be working this week.
Point well taken, however it’s more than bad acting and bad optics or bad behavior. It seems to me there is a total lack of understanding of why they are representatives. The bad runs pretty deep from a we the people perspective.
Right? Also, what have they done that's useful recently to earn any time off at all? Or their pay for that matter? No workie - no money. No benefits. Nothing.
I was in the military; so was my husband. I can guarantee that NO ONE successfully applies for travel expenses using a flimsy, personal excuse like “crossing state lines to get an abortion.” Talk about a made-up BS story! Tuberville never served in the military, btw . . .
My understanding is that, while generally employers wouldn't pay for personal travel, many employers (including the military) introduced added policies to their benefits plan to reimburse their employees for abortion-related travel. In the case of the military, part of the reasoning is that the employee does not have a choice about where they are working. The alternative would have been to not station women in red states.
Do you seriously believe that members on active duty would openly apply for “abortion-related travel” UNLESS it involved a complication that was life-threatening to the mother OR a nonviable pregnancy, consistent with/ accompanied by physician recommendations? As for instances re: rape, it’s only been very recently that the military even recognizes or prosecutes rapists. No active duty woman is going to brave a request for an abortion by requesting travel reimbursement unless she has a physician’s backing--and those cases just don’t happen often. Tuberville is blowing smoke out of his ass.
I think Tuberville should be forced to make an accounting of his accusations. He claims he acts from widespread use of military money for the purposes of crossing state lines to receive abortion services. 1. It is a bold-faced lie; his obstruction is an abuse of his power for other means; 2. Show us these cases he claims to be representative of his accusations. SHOW US THE MONEY. Guess what? He can’t. Even IF they existed, he would be exposing himself and his alleged source(s) to HIPPA VIOLATIONS.
The problem is that there a 8 Military instillations in Alabama, for example, and they have banned abortions. If you are a woman assigned to the base, or the wife of someone assigned, you cannot get medical aid. And gynecology doctors are leaving those areas. It's reasonable for them to provide transport to a area for treatment even if they don't pay for the treatment.
Entirely different subject! When we were in San Antonio, there were TWO, military, major medical centers and 4-5 military bases . . . But the largest military population lay less than an hour away at FT Hood. . . So who was really served by having so much military investment in San Antonio? RETIREES. Choosing bases for closure is entirely a political process--taxpayers pay quite a burden for all the military bases in Texas alone. Texas loves to denigrate the federal government, but where would they be without ALL THAT TAXPAYER MONEY?
No. Tuberville is essentially accusing the military of facilitating access to any and all abortions and that is a frank lie. In fact, military (or non) would have to go outside the military for that sort of care, REGARDLESS. Tuberville is using the abortion issue to mask HIS obstruction; he is a chaos-maker, and access to healthcare has nothing to do with this. Abortion is an out-patient procedure; if a family member was in-patient and had a complication that couldn’t be treated at that, military hospital, then they would transfer the patient to a facility that can address the issue FOR AN IN-PATIENT. Entirely different circumstances.
ONLY active duty service members, potentially, would qualify for travel expenses ANYWAY. Dependents don’t get those benefits.
I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but this all seems to be part of a plan. The GQP are putting on a show for the cult members. Limp along, make headlines, investigate the President about things he did when he WASN'T president, etc. etc. If the senate republicans wanted to end this nonsense they could; why won't they? Because, right now, nothing else is getting accomplished; no other nominations are getting done, no judges, no vacant cabinet positions, nothing. The goal is to end up with trump back in the white house, and then they have nothing to worry about.
We have to be careful to back up our theories with evidence. Here, it doesn’t matter so much whether the Republicans are incompetent and feuding and that’s why we see dysfunction, or whether some of them are intentionally sabotaging the process, or some combination of both. It’s still a serious dereliction of their duties and more than ample grounds for voters to reject them.
I agree that's their end game but they are shooting themselves in the collective foot in the meantime. Take the country and military hostage just to appease 1 man and his followers? The rest of the country be damned? How old is this game going to be by next Nov? I mean it's old already. And the phrase "trump back in the White House" literally makes my skin crawl. All of this just unscores how critical the next election really is.
90% of Americans have never heard of Tuberville and have no idea that the GOP has blocked military promotions.
Other than bland MSNBC appearances, where are the Democratic leadership press conferences blasting the GOP?
Why haven't Biden surrogates visited every US military base to explain the blockade?
Why isn't there a blitz of Sunday morning appearances to decry the deliberate deterioration of military readiness?
I don't really care whether there is infighting amongst the GOP...I care what the Democrats aren't doing to inform and motivate voters as the days slip away.
Not heard of Tuberville? That's not entirely true if you are at all into SEC football. He did coach University of Alabama for several years. Wasn't particularly spectacular at it, but he was there, and anybody who follows SEC football knows about him and his fall from grace with the school. Tuberville was just certain that one of two things was going to happen. He was going to be the next Bear Bryant (not a chance in merry hell on that one) or he was destined for the NFL and a handful of Super Bowl rings. Truth was, he wasn't good enough to do either one. He wasn't even good enough to keep the Alabama alumni happy. They let him go with time to spare on his contract. One of them even gave him a house in Florida to get him out of Alabama (or so the story goes). That is supposedly why he still lives there (don't ask me how he qualified to be Alabama's Senator). Tuberville always has been an arrogant, racist, misogynist jerk. But the people in Alabama will keeping re-electing him just to give the rest of the nation the finger JUST BECAUSE. It's a weird sense of pride for them.
Sorry - NOT Alabama - Auburn. He DID beat 'Bama six times in a row, in the barren years between Bryant and Saban. And once the Tide and LSU figured out how to hire competent coaches, he was toast. All your other points are spot on.
Thanks for the correction, Dave. As you can tell, I never was particularly "into" college ball in spite of being born in Georgia. <gasp> My dad and my husband were both GA Tech men leading to the situation that in my homes on Saturday we rooted for anybody playing AGAINST the Georgia Bulldogs. Friends of the family have graciously tolerated us.
I do agree that some number of people don't know who Tuberville is, or what is going on, but I'm curious -- do you have a source for the "90% of Americans" claim you're making? If you do, please share it, because I will happily beat my local Democratic chairperson about the head and ears with that statistic. At this point, ignorance at that level isn't just shameful, it's dangerous.
I've seen democrats doing exactly what you suggest, over and over. Nobody really listens because of the "infighting" among the republicans, which, of course, is the point; to dominate the news cycle. You blame the democrats, I blame the media. You need only look at the some of the most recent coverage by the NYT to see it. The absolute last place we should be fighting is amongst ourselves.
The messaging here is tricky because it’s nuanced. Democrats get grief from voters because THEY aren’t moving nominations through. Trying to explain that this is a procedural hostage taking requires a lot of brain power on the part of the listener. I’m not saying it can’t be done, it’s just hard to overcome the argument, “Well, you’re in charge, aren’t you? DO SOMETHING!”
I agree, the democrats can be bad at messaging, and Gov Beshear did a great job of messaging that needs to be copied by every democrat running for office. But I do hear them talking about these things, and nobody seems to hear them. I feel it's because the next news topic is something a republican did that was outrageous. That's what people remember.
I look at Shawn Fain, who took over an ossified institution, won over the loyalty of 400,000 members and negotiated new contracts with some of the country's most powerful corporations.
Legacy media is far from supportive to unions, but Fain developed a strategy and was disciplined in its execution.
Do these morons realize how weak, disorganized and vulnerable all this makes the country look to the rest of the world? Why would any of them trust us to do anything well??
I do not agree with the language choice of “moderate” versus “far right” republicans. They are all far right. Some are insane and some are certifiably insane, but they are all far to the right of most Americans. If you persist in using this description, you must defend and define it so we can respect how you use it. Otherwise, you are playing into their hand by allowing for the possibility that a Republican exists who holds moderate views. Look at the party platform for 2020: Whatever trump says or wants is what we stand for. How in God’s name is this moderate?
Thank you for the explanation. Words matter as you most obviously understand. Yet, even the Liz Cheney’s and Adam Kinzinger’s are unfortunately beyond redemption. They believe in things that you could never agree were reasonable and thus deserve no credit as moderates simply because they also despise trump. Consider how hard you would stand against them if they were the outliers instead of Gaetz, MTG, Bobert, Tuberville, and Manchin.
Great explanation of the mess. Seeing my tax dollars wasted in such a manner makes me sick and angry. Again, the only way to rid ourselves of these radical do-nothings is to vote them out.
The saddest item to which you draw attention is the difference in motivation, determination, and courage between the far-right extremists and the more moderate traditionalists. Cheney, Kinzinger, and Meijer are all gone. Buck (!) is leaving. The desire to remain in office at ANY price, no matter what a travesty they make of that office, is more compelling than any sense of duty, moral obligation, or even personal legacy in the eyes of history.
"Moreover, most Republican congressmen are more at risk from an ideologically motivated primary challenge than from a Democrat in the general election. Commitment to ideological principle at the expense of legislative accomplishment is the safest strategy for Republican officeholders."
As I have noted earlier Jerry Taylor of the Niskanen Center hit the nail squarely on the head in his assessment of the Republican party, as can be seen in the quote above discussed within one of my earlier essays.
I've been thinking for a long time that primaries should be abolished, and instead the general should be open to all comers. Another reason: parties are private organizations, basically just clubs, and the primaries are often members-only. The government shouldn't be in the business of running party-internal elections.
Thank you Robert. I also addressed the primary challenger issue in my comment below; pecked and posted before I saw your almost simultaneous comment here. I referenced and footnote linked your excellent November 15 SubStack essay in my comment.
Regarding the Senate Republicans' 'strategy' for making Tuberville object to every individual military appointment AGAIN reminds me of the common definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. The same holds true for House Republicans and their unending Speaker saga and CRs. I think a bunch of kindergartners would do a better job.
I understand the Republican senators might be unhappy with the threat to be primaried but it seems they have greater support than Tuberville does and after all, they'd be saving the military so why not plow ahead? Or better yet, can't they censure him and move on?
- Could you briefly explain the Senate rule that allows 1% of the Senate to hold the rest hostage on critical votes? What is the rule, what does it cover, what possible value did it ever have, and why the GOPs aren't happy to take that weapon away so their lord can do more damage if he is reelected.
- Couldn't the likes of The Lincoln Project spend a relatively small amount of money to shine a bright light on Tuberville's attack on the military and safety of the United States amongst his voters, and promise to primary him if he doesn't relent? And then do the same for Rand Paul? There has got to be more voters in favor of US military and their own personal safety than there are hard core "stop all abortions at any cost" zealots.
Hope it helps answer your first question! As to your second, in order to “primary” a sitting Republican senator, you have to come at them from the RIGHT, not the center. That means supporting someone who is even more extreme. Primary voters in Alabama and Kentucky are the kind who want the meanest, most vile, most obstructionist straight white Christian male they can possibly elect. That’s why neither man fears for his job in a primary.
There may be another way to primary a Republican, although it would take a massive effort. There is no law that says when you register to vote, you have to register for the party you actually like. If all Democrats registered as Republican, we could outvote the MAGA people during the primaries.
Good point. In many of those deep-red Fascist hell-hole states, the goal of the GQP primary is to "out-asshole" the other candidate. Cruelty and fanatism is the goal.
The way I understand it (and unlike Jay, I'm not a lawyer), Tuberville can't actually hold up the military promotions per se, but he can prevent unanimous consent. The Senate could pass the promotions without Tuberville, but there is simply not enough time on the calendar to actually do it.
Basically, the Senate needs to approve each of these nominees. Currently, after nine months, there are 270 such votes pending - that's 30 a month. Voting on each individually would take probably around half a day if everything goes smoothly - the Senate would be busy with nothing but military confirmations. And it would be a waste of time because most candidates are uncontroversial and would be rubberstamped anyway.
That's why the Senate uses a more efficient way to do the same thing: they take a single vote on many confirmations. But this can only be done with unanimous consent. There's a good reason for this, too: you don't want a President, especially not one named Trump, to present 29 uncontroversial candidates and one controversial candidate.
Unanimous consent means that all Senators have to agree. A single senator, whether named Tuberville or not, disagreeing is enough to make this non-unanimous. And that would force the individual votes.
Not unless you insist on being “right” in your own mind, even though you obviously did not read the part of the article where they actually voted on some promotions before he resumed objecting, which was MY point.
You know, I suppose we should actually be concerned about the state of the GOP majority in the House, but to quote a notorious notable: "I really don't care. Do U? "
Again and again and again...I parse this battle within the GOP as class struggle. It's the suits vs the petite bourgeoisie. The suits capitulated to Trump and in doing so signaled one thing loud and clear: they are afraid of the working class. Afraid to confront them, afraid to understand what they want and would like more than anything for them to disappear. Instead the suits themselves are disappearing, quitting the field to the opportunists and grifters, leaving the GOP a hollowed out tomb of ambition and stupidity.
The RNC platform is about the Shock Doctrine. They want to wipe out the middle class altogether. Trickle down economics makes peons/servants of us all.
I'm not sure one can speak of platforms anymore. They didn't even bother to come up one in 2020. The confusion at the heart is who controls the reins of power. Is it the suits, the donor class or the petite bourgeoisie? What I think we're seeing is the wresting of power from the suits and the subsequent dispersal of donor money to the petite bourgeoisie AKA the chip on the shoulder class represented by Greene, Jordan and to a degree Maga Mike. For years the GOP hoodwinked their way to power by offering carrots to the MAGA class but Trump's election and the overturning of ROE exposed that bad faith and now the petite bourgeoisie wants their moment in the sun. Instead of confrontation the suits are fleeing.
Another indication of changing GOP "values": Mr. Stitt, the OK governor comes out in support of cockfighting. Meanwhile Markwayne Mullins remains the only Senator without a college degree. The composition of GOP power is changing. It's right there in front of our leopard faces.
I don't get paid time off a week before thanksgiving, and I don't leave work incomplete before the end of the day let alone before a long holiday. But, I'm also not a republican.
It's disgusting we are paying them to literally do nothing. And as a punishment they get over a week off with pay. Yea that will teach them. Where is the incentive for them to do better? They can continue this way until the next election but how many of the extremists are under threat of losing their jobs in 2024?
Hopefully every one of them looses their job. We need legislators not elbow jabbing, chest puffing toddlers calling the shots. Insanity thy name is GOP.
They are so gerrymandered they will serve in perpetuity.
I’m not sure of the number but many, like gym Jordan and MTG, are in districts so gerrymandered they will never lose.
I agree that the optics are bad, but in reality, being sent home does not mean vacation time for Congresspeople. They have local offices in their districts for a reason.
They aren't passing the work for the US and are going "home" to fundraise in my opinion. I find it irksome.
I get it but you really think they are doing anything in the home offices this week? I am skeptical but they've turned me skeptical
Yep. Not many constituents banging on the local office doors a week before Thanksgiving.
And even if they were, would there be anyone to answer the door?
It seems like most dictators come to power and coups are successful only when and if the military is on their side. I have always been confident that we the people can count on the military to keep the power-hungry at bay. Now, however, I keep wondering if Tuberville and the senate scaredy cats arenkt setting the stage for a takeover of the military. Looking for reassurance here, friends.
Trump is mad at Miley and the Military for refusing to back his Coup which is why he brought up executing Miley as a traitor. So now Tubberville haults all Military Promotions? Why? Trump & Tubberville are actual traitors trying to maintain power. This leaves openings for Trump to fill and take over the Military.
The only possible reassurance is TFG does not get elected. And if that happens, his coattails will be nonexistent. And if he does get elected again, democracy in the US will die. It won't be just the Pentagon under his thumb - DOJ, State, Energy - these too will be his, and they are the pathway to dictatorship. We all know what we have to do - the hard work of seeing to it that everyone possible understands what we are up against, and gets to the polls and votes.
Please write your Senators. I wrote to mine and addressed this same conclusion, Tuberville is holding out until after the election!
During this week at home, they are NOT doing the most urgent and important work of their position as a member of the US House of Representatives. That most important job is hammering out the budget and funding the government. They are the only ones that can do this. And they should be working over time to do it. That includes missing out on holidays at home if necessary. Certainly they should be working this week.
Campaigning for their next election is not working for the people who pay them.
Hope they have locals pounding at their doors and carrying pitchforks.
They won't. They have gerrymandered districts. As long as they are owning the libs, it's all good.
Point well taken, however it’s more than bad acting and bad optics or bad behavior. It seems to me there is a total lack of understanding of why they are representatives. The bad runs pretty deep from a we the people perspective.
But how many do work in their local offices? I know my D representative does, but R's? I'm not so sure they even bother.
I'm sure they do. Wealthy donors to placate, MAGA constituents to meet, ... Yes, I'm a cynic, too, but also a realist.
Except that the MAGA are taught that government isn't the answer. So they would get no help there.
He can always listen to them about which books to ban and which Bible verse to quote.
Right? Also, what have they done that's useful recently to earn any time off at all? Or their pay for that matter? No workie - no money. No benefits. Nothing.
They wrote the rules so they always get paid.
Faces or Feces? Kind of hard to tell these days.
Haha!
I will admit that’s what I read when I first glanced at the headline!
BINGO!
I was in the military; so was my husband. I can guarantee that NO ONE successfully applies for travel expenses using a flimsy, personal excuse like “crossing state lines to get an abortion.” Talk about a made-up BS story! Tuberville never served in the military, btw . . .
My understanding is that, while generally employers wouldn't pay for personal travel, many employers (including the military) introduced added policies to their benefits plan to reimburse their employees for abortion-related travel. In the case of the military, part of the reasoning is that the employee does not have a choice about where they are working. The alternative would have been to not station women in red states.
Do you seriously believe that members on active duty would openly apply for “abortion-related travel” UNLESS it involved a complication that was life-threatening to the mother OR a nonviable pregnancy, consistent with/ accompanied by physician recommendations? As for instances re: rape, it’s only been very recently that the military even recognizes or prosecutes rapists. No active duty woman is going to brave a request for an abortion by requesting travel reimbursement unless she has a physician’s backing--and those cases just don’t happen often. Tuberville is blowing smoke out of his ass.
I think Tuberville should be forced to make an accounting of his accusations. He claims he acts from widespread use of military money for the purposes of crossing state lines to receive abortion services. 1. It is a bold-faced lie; his obstruction is an abuse of his power for other means; 2. Show us these cases he claims to be representative of his accusations. SHOW US THE MONEY. Guess what? He can’t. Even IF they existed, he would be exposing himself and his alleged source(s) to HIPPA VIOLATIONS.
The problem is that there a 8 Military instillations in Alabama, for example, and they have banned abortions. If you are a woman assigned to the base, or the wife of someone assigned, you cannot get medical aid. And gynecology doctors are leaving those areas. It's reasonable for them to provide transport to a area for treatment even if they don't pay for the treatment.
I believe the Military should start closing their installations in Alabama. They closed them in Calif and they are welcome to return here.
Entirely different subject! When we were in San Antonio, there were TWO, military, major medical centers and 4-5 military bases . . . But the largest military population lay less than an hour away at FT Hood. . . So who was really served by having so much military investment in San Antonio? RETIREES. Choosing bases for closure is entirely a political process--taxpayers pay quite a burden for all the military bases in Texas alone. Texas loves to denigrate the federal government, but where would they be without ALL THAT TAXPAYER MONEY?
No. Tuberville is essentially accusing the military of facilitating access to any and all abortions and that is a frank lie. In fact, military (or non) would have to go outside the military for that sort of care, REGARDLESS. Tuberville is using the abortion issue to mask HIS obstruction; he is a chaos-maker, and access to healthcare has nothing to do with this. Abortion is an out-patient procedure; if a family member was in-patient and had a complication that couldn’t be treated at that, military hospital, then they would transfer the patient to a facility that can address the issue FOR AN IN-PATIENT. Entirely different circumstances.
ONLY active duty service members, potentially, would qualify for travel expenses ANYWAY. Dependents don’t get those benefits.
I hate to be a conspiracy theorist, but this all seems to be part of a plan. The GQP are putting on a show for the cult members. Limp along, make headlines, investigate the President about things he did when he WASN'T president, etc. etc. If the senate republicans wanted to end this nonsense they could; why won't they? Because, right now, nothing else is getting accomplished; no other nominations are getting done, no judges, no vacant cabinet positions, nothing. The goal is to end up with trump back in the white house, and then they have nothing to worry about.
We have to be careful to back up our theories with evidence. Here, it doesn’t matter so much whether the Republicans are incompetent and feuding and that’s why we see dysfunction, or whether some of them are intentionally sabotaging the process, or some combination of both. It’s still a serious dereliction of their duties and more than ample grounds for voters to reject them.
I know, it know; it's hard to see all this childishness and how it dominates the news cycles and not think WTF!
Thanks Jay!
That’s not a conspiracy theory--that’s exactly what is happening. Trust your eyes.
I agree that's their end game but they are shooting themselves in the collective foot in the meantime. Take the country and military hostage just to appease 1 man and his followers? The rest of the country be damned? How old is this game going to be by next Nov? I mean it's old already. And the phrase "trump back in the White House" literally makes my skin crawl. All of this just unscores how critical the next election really is.
90% of Americans have never heard of Tuberville and have no idea that the GOP has blocked military promotions.
Other than bland MSNBC appearances, where are the Democratic leadership press conferences blasting the GOP?
Why haven't Biden surrogates visited every US military base to explain the blockade?
Why isn't there a blitz of Sunday morning appearances to decry the deliberate deterioration of military readiness?
I don't really care whether there is infighting amongst the GOP...I care what the Democrats aren't doing to inform and motivate voters as the days slip away.
Not heard of Tuberville? That's not entirely true if you are at all into SEC football. He did coach University of Alabama for several years. Wasn't particularly spectacular at it, but he was there, and anybody who follows SEC football knows about him and his fall from grace with the school. Tuberville was just certain that one of two things was going to happen. He was going to be the next Bear Bryant (not a chance in merry hell on that one) or he was destined for the NFL and a handful of Super Bowl rings. Truth was, he wasn't good enough to do either one. He wasn't even good enough to keep the Alabama alumni happy. They let him go with time to spare on his contract. One of them even gave him a house in Florida to get him out of Alabama (or so the story goes). That is supposedly why he still lives there (don't ask me how he qualified to be Alabama's Senator). Tuberville always has been an arrogant, racist, misogynist jerk. But the people in Alabama will keeping re-electing him just to give the rest of the nation the finger JUST BECAUSE. It's a weird sense of pride for them.
Sorry - NOT Alabama - Auburn. He DID beat 'Bama six times in a row, in the barren years between Bryant and Saban. And once the Tide and LSU figured out how to hire competent coaches, he was toast. All your other points are spot on.
Thanks for the correction, Dave. As you can tell, I never was particularly "into" college ball in spite of being born in Georgia. <gasp> My dad and my husband were both GA Tech men leading to the situation that in my homes on Saturday we rooted for anybody playing AGAINST the Georgia Bulldogs. Friends of the family have graciously tolerated us.
😁
I do agree that some number of people don't know who Tuberville is, or what is going on, but I'm curious -- do you have a source for the "90% of Americans" claim you're making? If you do, please share it, because I will happily beat my local Democratic chairperson about the head and ears with that statistic. At this point, ignorance at that level isn't just shameful, it's dangerous.
I've seen democrats doing exactly what you suggest, over and over. Nobody really listens because of the "infighting" among the republicans, which, of course, is the point; to dominate the news cycle. You blame the democrats, I blame the media. You need only look at the some of the most recent coverage by the NYT to see it. The absolute last place we should be fighting is amongst ourselves.
I do blame legacy media, but the reality is that it's up to Democratic leadership to get creative to breakthrough to the public.
We just watched the Beshear cam po sign create a powerful video about the necessity of preserving abortion rights.
It can be done, but Democratic leadership and Democratic strategists continue spend millions on ineffective messaging.
The messaging here is tricky because it’s nuanced. Democrats get grief from voters because THEY aren’t moving nominations through. Trying to explain that this is a procedural hostage taking requires a lot of brain power on the part of the listener. I’m not saying it can’t be done, it’s just hard to overcome the argument, “Well, you’re in charge, aren’t you? DO SOMETHING!”
It's not that hard:
"Democrats voted 100% to approve military promotions. Republicans refuse to support our brave troops."
Let the GOP explain why 1 Republican is holding up promotions, why Republicans have failed to intercede, why Republicans don't support the military.
I agree, the democrats can be bad at messaging, and Gov Beshear did a great job of messaging that needs to be copied by every democrat running for office. But I do hear them talking about these things, and nobody seems to hear them. I feel it's because the next news topic is something a republican did that was outrageous. That's what people remember.
I look at Shawn Fain, who took over an ossified institution, won over the loyalty of 400,000 members and negotiated new contracts with some of the country's most powerful corporations.
Legacy media is far from supportive to unions, but Fain developed a strategy and was disciplined in its execution.
It can be done...Democrats just aren't doing it.
Good questions, all!
Do these morons realize how weak, disorganized and vulnerable all this makes the country look to the rest of the world? Why would any of them trust us to do anything well??
I think that’s their intent.
Huh. You could be onto something....
They out and out say they support Putin and they have had Orban visit and talk to their big CPAC while using former Nazi sigels.
"Jelly on leopard toast." THAT is a good one.
Thanks! Was feeling pretty saucy with my food metaphors today.
Bada-bing!
I do not agree with the language choice of “moderate” versus “far right” republicans. They are all far right. Some are insane and some are certifiably insane, but they are all far to the right of most Americans. If you persist in using this description, you must defend and define it so we can respect how you use it. Otherwise, you are playing into their hand by allowing for the possibility that a Republican exists who holds moderate views. Look at the party platform for 2020: Whatever trump says or wants is what we stand for. How in God’s name is this moderate?
I usually put “moderate” in quotes, because that is how they see themselves.
Thank you for the explanation. Words matter as you most obviously understand. Yet, even the Liz Cheney’s and Adam Kinzinger’s are unfortunately beyond redemption. They believe in things that you could never agree were reasonable and thus deserve no credit as moderates simply because they also despise trump. Consider how hard you would stand against them if they were the outliers instead of Gaetz, MTG, Bobert, Tuberville, and Manchin.
A friend of mine pounds this message constantly, and brings receipts: "There are no good ones." Short, snappy, and to the point.
Great explanation of the mess. Seeing my tax dollars wasted in such a manner makes me sick and angry. Again, the only way to rid ourselves of these radical do-nothings is to vote them out.
It can’t happen too soon for my tastes. The unfortunate reality is that so many of their seats are secure due to gerrymandering.
Thank you again for keeping us all informed.
The saddest item to which you draw attention is the difference in motivation, determination, and courage between the far-right extremists and the more moderate traditionalists. Cheney, Kinzinger, and Meijer are all gone. Buck (!) is leaving. The desire to remain in office at ANY price, no matter what a travesty they make of that office, is more compelling than any sense of duty, moral obligation, or even personal legacy in the eyes of history.
"Moreover, most Republican congressmen are more at risk from an ideologically motivated primary challenge than from a Democrat in the general election. Commitment to ideological principle at the expense of legislative accomplishment is the safest strategy for Republican officeholders."
As I have noted earlier Jerry Taylor of the Niskanen Center hit the nail squarely on the head in his assessment of the Republican party, as can be seen in the quote above discussed within one of my earlier essays.
I've been thinking for a long time that primaries should be abolished, and instead the general should be open to all comers. Another reason: parties are private organizations, basically just clubs, and the primaries are often members-only. The government shouldn't be in the business of running party-internal elections.
Thank you Robert. I also addressed the primary challenger issue in my comment below; pecked and posted before I saw your almost simultaneous comment here. I referenced and footnote linked your excellent November 15 SubStack essay in my comment.
Regarding the Senate Republicans' 'strategy' for making Tuberville object to every individual military appointment AGAIN reminds me of the common definition of insanity: Doing the same thing over and over while expecting different results. The same holds true for House Republicans and their unending Speaker saga and CRs. I think a bunch of kindergartners would do a better job.
I understand the Republican senators might be unhappy with the threat to be primaried but it seems they have greater support than Tuberville does and after all, they'd be saving the military so why not plow ahead? Or better yet, can't they censure him and move on?
I phrased it that way precisely so people would think of insanity! I’m glad it summoned it for you.
I had the same thought about insanity.
Two quick things Jay:
- Could you briefly explain the Senate rule that allows 1% of the Senate to hold the rest hostage on critical votes? What is the rule, what does it cover, what possible value did it ever have, and why the GOPs aren't happy to take that weapon away so their lord can do more damage if he is reelected.
- Couldn't the likes of The Lincoln Project spend a relatively small amount of money to shine a bright light on Tuberville's attack on the military and safety of the United States amongst his voters, and promise to primary him if he doesn't relent? And then do the same for Rand Paul? There has got to be more voters in favor of US military and their own personal safety than there are hard core "stop all abortions at any cost" zealots.
I wrote about your first question in a piece a few weeks ago, here: https://open.substack.com/pub/statuskuo/p/sen-tommy-tuberville-faces-down-his?r=1zr8b&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Hope it helps answer your first question! As to your second, in order to “primary” a sitting Republican senator, you have to come at them from the RIGHT, not the center. That means supporting someone who is even more extreme. Primary voters in Alabama and Kentucky are the kind who want the meanest, most vile, most obstructionist straight white Christian male they can possibly elect. That’s why neither man fears for his job in a primary.
There may be another way to primary a Republican, although it would take a massive effort. There is no law that says when you register to vote, you have to register for the party you actually like. If all Democrats registered as Republican, we could outvote the MAGA people during the primaries.
Good point. In many of those deep-red Fascist hell-hole states, the goal of the GQP primary is to "out-asshole" the other candidate. Cruelty and fanatism is the goal.
The way I understand it (and unlike Jay, I'm not a lawyer), Tuberville can't actually hold up the military promotions per se, but he can prevent unanimous consent. The Senate could pass the promotions without Tuberville, but there is simply not enough time on the calendar to actually do it.
Basically, the Senate needs to approve each of these nominees. Currently, after nine months, there are 270 such votes pending - that's 30 a month. Voting on each individually would take probably around half a day if everything goes smoothly - the Senate would be busy with nothing but military confirmations. And it would be a waste of time because most candidates are uncontroversial and would be rubberstamped anyway.
That's why the Senate uses a more efficient way to do the same thing: they take a single vote on many confirmations. But this can only be done with unanimous consent. There's a good reason for this, too: you don't want a President, especially not one named Trump, to present 29 uncontroversial candidates and one controversial candidate.
Unanimous consent means that all Senators have to agree. A single senator, whether named Tuberville or not, disagreeing is enough to make this non-unanimous. And that would force the individual votes.
Great explanation.
But when they try to vote on these promotions individually Tuberville “objects”.....and that seems to end the process for each candidate.
No, I don't think that's true. The individual votes just aren't happening in the first place, because there just is not enough time on the schedule.
Yes, it is true. It happened a couple of weeks ago. He allowed the vote on a few then started objecting to all. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tuberville-republican-pressure-military-nominations/
Apparently, that was exactly the unanimous consent process I was talking about.
Not unless you insist on being “right” in your own mind, even though you obviously did not read the part of the article where they actually voted on some promotions before he resumed objecting, which was MY point.
Well said, Jay.
You know, I suppose we should actually be concerned about the state of the GOP majority in the House, but to quote a notorious notable: "I really don't care. Do U? "
What was the definition of insanity Again?
Again and again and again...I parse this battle within the GOP as class struggle. It's the suits vs the petite bourgeoisie. The suits capitulated to Trump and in doing so signaled one thing loud and clear: they are afraid of the working class. Afraid to confront them, afraid to understand what they want and would like more than anything for them to disappear. Instead the suits themselves are disappearing, quitting the field to the opportunists and grifters, leaving the GOP a hollowed out tomb of ambition and stupidity.
The RNC platform is about the Shock Doctrine. They want to wipe out the middle class altogether. Trickle down economics makes peons/servants of us all.
I'm not sure one can speak of platforms anymore. They didn't even bother to come up one in 2020. The confusion at the heart is who controls the reins of power. Is it the suits, the donor class or the petite bourgeoisie? What I think we're seeing is the wresting of power from the suits and the subsequent dispersal of donor money to the petite bourgeoisie AKA the chip on the shoulder class represented by Greene, Jordan and to a degree Maga Mike. For years the GOP hoodwinked their way to power by offering carrots to the MAGA class but Trump's election and the overturning of ROE exposed that bad faith and now the petite bourgeoisie wants their moment in the sun. Instead of confrontation the suits are fleeing.
Another indication of changing GOP "values": Mr. Stitt, the OK governor comes out in support of cockfighting. Meanwhile Markwayne Mullins remains the only Senator without a college degree. The composition of GOP power is changing. It's right there in front of our leopard faces.
Sums it up nicely.