As to college football coaching: You have to be a good bullshitter to recruit, as to kids and parents, and for schmoozing alumni and those putting dark money into the program; which carries over into Republican politics in his deep south southern state. As to all (but not knowing about dark money, either way),Tuberville qualifies.
Add to it a will to tell others how to live when it's not his business - and what else, a southern Republican office holder - akin to DeSantis.
Here's the story:
Why a single senator is blocking US military promotions and what it means for the Pentagon
ASSOCIATED PRESS - By MARY CLARE JALONICK and LOLITA C. BALDOR
| FILE - Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., listens during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing to examine the nomination of Army Lt. Gen. Randy George to be reappointment to the grade of general and to be Chief of Staff of the Army, July 12, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Tuberville is waging an unprecedented campaign to try and change Pentagon abortion policy by holding up hundreds of military nominations and promotions, leaving key positions unfilled and raising concerns at the Pentagon about military readiness. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File) |
The image caption tells the entire story, which itself starts with a bullshit pair of paragraphs:
WASHINGTON (AP) — Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville is waging an unprecedented campaign to try to change Pentagon abortion policy by holding up hundreds of military nominations and promotions, forcing less experienced leaders into top jobs and raising concerns at the Pentagon about military readiness.
Senators in both parties — including Republican Leader Mitch McConnell — have pushed back on Tuberville’s blockade, but Tuberville is dug in. He says he won’t drop the holds unless majority Democrats allow a vote on the policy.
"Military readiness" is a euphemism for "unjustified waste." When you maintain 750 - 800 bases on foreign soil, how much more ready need you be?
Sending billions of dollars of arms to Ukraine, Israel getting its annual 4+ billion dollars in arms, that's ready. If you doubt it, ask any poor paycheck-to-paycheck family, more in the deep south percentage wise, who go to the market and face current rising pricing for food, gassing the car for a small fortune to get there, and if sane and not dumb as a brick, they will say enough is going to the military brass, there are needs at home.
Add to this that, deep south and otherwise, Black People are comparatively more in the poverty ranks than White People, and despite Chief Justice Roberts' thinking racism is dead, it is not, and Black families suffer more, while seeing billions wasted funding war machines not only here, but abroad, while our own people scrape by.
The Truth About Military Ranks: If you keep churning academy grads through the ranks it is a self-fulfilling thing that - not only the cost goes up - but there will be further unneeded war, death, and tampering in other nations (can you say "Ukraine"?). To move up the ranks: Gotta fill the resume, like getting the ticket punched during Vietnam for junior officers.
SHRINK THE BEAST, OR WISH YOU HAD.
Digressing for a bit -
The New York Times3d
With a quick quote - subheadline first, then there is more:
The Iowa evangelical leader Bob Vander Plaats gathered Republican White House hopefuls in Des Moines, then gave Tucker Carlson the microphone.
Jesus is out. Vladimir V. Putin is in.
Mr. Carlson was given the task of interviewing six Republican presidential hopefuls at the Family Leadership conference in Des Moines on Friday. Consequently, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine became the dominant issue of debate, on a day when Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa used the event to sign a near-total abortion ban into law.
In the hands of Mr. Carlson, the former Fox News host who was recently fired, Ukraine became the bad actor in the conflict, not Russia.
The most heated exchange came when Mr. Carlson interviewed former Vice President Mike Pence before a packed auditorium in Des Moines’ convention center. Mr. Pence was berating the Biden administration for being too slow to provide advanced weaponry to Ukraine.
“We promised them 33 Abrams tanks in January. I heard again two weeks ago in Ukraine, they still don’t have them,” Mr. Pence said. “We’ve been telling them we’ll train their F-16 pilots, but now they’re saying maybe January.”
Mr. Carlson interjected, to the delight of much of the audience. “Wait, I know you’re running for president, but you are distressed that Ukrainians don’t have enough American tanks?” he asked, in his trademark confrontational style.
[...] Mr. Pence had his laments after his appearance. “I regret that we didn’t have very much time during my time onstage to talk about the progress for life or issues impacting the family,” he said, before adding, “I’m really never surprised by Tucker Carlson.”
Pence says, "... issues impacting the family." What other than money impacts a paycheck-to-paycheck family, facing money tensions and distress, while billions are shipped into war machines - here and abroad - when, for now and bless the truth, we have no failing miserable jingoistic lied-into-being wars going on at the other side of the world to finance. (Aside from Ukraine vs. Russia, a surrogate war where Ukrainians fight, we pay, supporting a puppet regime where our Foreign Service and Russia's have played pick-a-puppet over the last few years. With it on Russia's border, not ours.)
Back to Tuberville and the brass ranks wanting money, as AP reports:
Tuberville, a former college football coach who has closely aligned himself with former President Donald Trump since he was elected in 2020, has showed few signs of letting up.
Democrats have repeatedly gone to the Senate floor to try and call up the nominations. But Tuberville has objected each time.
Tuberville says he won’t drop the holds until there is a vote on the Pentagon policy. But he hasn’t introduced legislation to overturn it and insists that debate on amendments to change the policy wouldn’t count.
Instead, he has proposed a very specific, unusual strategy: Democrats should introduce their own bill on the policy and hold a vote.
Democratic leaders such as Schumer, who support the existing policy, say it’s up to the GOP.
Can you say, big intentional PISSING MATCH?
That, when sanity, saying it again, simply favors shrinking the beast.
BOTTOM LINE: Two unneeded and judgmental jingoistic items out of Mainstram Media in one day! Both touching upon the Republican burning anti-abortion fetish. Both sucking up to the military industrial complex diverting federal money from the people into California and Georgia defense contractor black holes.
With Dems and other Republicans reportedly distressed by Tuberville's thing.
If it were a permanent aim because the beast needs to be shrunk, bless the ex-coach. But with it being like the latest Republican House majority's hijinks, passing a military funding bill with sicko riders, it simply galls. Make that pissing match bicameral, eh?
INDEED: We've encountered a two-party cluster-fuck with MSM loving it while editorializing in reported "news" in order for the prols to get the message of what's right minded, or wrong. If MSM can do that, so can Crabgrass.
__________UPDATE_________
Well, if Carlson really did trim the forum focus to Ukraine, how come we cannot easily find candidate views on that question online? Politico coverage was insulting.
Their post includes a pair of composite candidate images most striking by four only, and who they eliminate, as if Haley is the only Indian-ethnic candidate, Vivek being plowed under, image-wise.
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| from the video |
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| second 4-plex |
They include a separate image of Tucker with Pence, and one of Tucker with Asa H.
To exacerbate that, one composite is the lead to a video where each candidate gets a soundbite on abortion, where as any fool in advance would have known there would be little that differentiates one from the others - that issue - while video Ukraine coverage is discriminated against as if, "Who cares?"
Don't you?
Here, YouTube, is Vivek R. talking with Tucker -- about Ukraine nonetheless.
Refreshing? Off base? A contrarian wanting product differentiation? Watch and form an opinion. He talks policy specifics, a horse trade proposal. Arguably win-win as to something for Russia, from Russia.
RealClearPolitics posts the entire thing, which Crabgrass bypassed, but readers have the link.
Carlson -vs- Pence is the focus here and here. The latter item is more editorial than simply reading the news - with two memorable soundbites, early and late in the coverage.
________FURTHER UPDATE_______
Two things, first: Considering Ukraine and NATO, The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, as a first clear fact, neither Ukraine nor Poland nor Turkey touch the Atlantic, North, South or otherwise. The thing just grew from its roots.
This web search and links about the precipitation of WW I, should be dismissed only lightly, when considering NATO. Interlocking treaties, Metternich and such are history, which needs attention.
Second and Last, an observation: Wartime has few good action-reaction sequences.
Consider: Two items in sequence which SeattleTimes reports roughly an hour apart, quid pro quo:
Russia halted a landmark deal that allowed Ukraine to export grain at a time of growing hunger July 17, 2023 at 2:06 am Updated July 17, 2023 at 7:36 amA yin gets its yang. In a downward spiral. Settlement beckons.