Vacancies raise concerns about military readiness.

[James48]

Military nominees still stalled by Tuberville hold, with Senate gone until September

Vacancies raise concerns about military readiness.

ASHLEY MURRAY , http://govexec.com | JULY 31, 2023

Despite warnings from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin that vacant top military positions affect readiness, Congress is heading into its August recess with hundreds of defense nominees on hold as Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville continues his protest against the Defense Department’s abortion leave policy.

As of Thursday, 301 military nominees had not yet reached the U.S. Senate floor for approval, normally a smooth and quick process for the upper chamber, which approves the nominees in large blocs.

Tuberville is blocking the nominations in response to a policy that supports service members’ travel for “non-covered reproductive health care.” The administration instituted the directive after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.

Roughly 80,000 female service members are stationed in areas where reproductive services, including elective abortions, are severely restricted or not available, according to a RAND analysis.


More: https://www.govexec.com/defense/2023/07/military-nominees-still-stalled-tuberville-hold-senate-gone-until-september/388970/

[gratuitous]

1. Republicans are soft on national security

"What is 'a headline you'll never ever see,' Mayim?"

Correct, gratuitous. You have control of the board.

[RockRaven]

2. What's the argument for NOT using the "nuclear option" to advance this shit around his hold?

[RainCaster]

3. Pull all the military bases in Alabama

There are five military bases in Alabama. They are: Maxwell-Gunter AFB, Anniston Army Depot, Fort Rucker, Redstone Arsenal, and Aviation Training Center.

Let's close them and relocate all those soldiers to states that believe in health care for all.

You think it can't be done? Biden just canceled the Space Command moving to Alabama.

[Angleae]

4. While POTUS can decide to close them, it takes congress to fund the move of existing units.

And if any of those bases has 300+ civilian jobs, it gets weird.

[Deuxcents]

5. Yes, and the whole Alabama congressional establishment is not happy

Biden did the right thing by not moving to Alabama for several reasons but I haven’t read how much this move would have cost in monetary terms

[Initech]

6. We can blame Fox News, AM radio, Newsmax, Infowars etc for polarizing the government.

National security should be one thing both parties can agree on. But nope... fucking stupid ass GOP talk show hosts have to go play the "we're better than they are" card. Ugh.

[Ron Green]

7. "Military readiness" is a term whose use and even existence

ought to be questioned, in my opinion. Can we not seek to lead the world in ways other than deadly force and colonial economics?

[Irish_Dem]

8. No we can't. Humans are so damn violent and crazy, we are stuck with spending a lot of money

on our military to protect us.

I hate it, but we can see that Saudi, China, Russia, Iran and NK would kill all western democracies
if we didn't have military might.

Humans are truly insane. We let the billionaires kill our planet and humans for profit.
And we let the world spend so much money on the military when we desperately need to the money
for other issues.