God, I love the dope!
That’s actually an extremely sensible objection. Dammit. And Biden can’t just threaten to move those bases without actually doing it when Tuberville calls his bluff. Dammit again.
He can’t actually do it at all. It would take more years than Biden has to move Redstone Arsenal or Fort Novesel. It’s not a matter of just moving people somewhere. There is infrastructure that would take a decade or more to replicate elsewhere.
In addition to doing what he can to delay the military appointments for stupid reasons, Tuberville is an apologist for racists who was involved in operation of a hedge fund that ripped off investors as well as involvement in a Ponzi scheme. He has suggested he would use his Senate office as a place to fundraise (a Federal crime). He has said that the 3 branches of our government are the House, Senate and the Executive. In short, he’s an idiot, but a very dangerous idiot.
About what should be expected from Alabama. Doug Jones was an aberration.
Don’t worry, a solution has been found. Kyrsten Sinema has offered to help Coach Tommy and the Penagon find a middle ground. What’s the next issue on the agenda?
I wonder what the middle ground is between running the military efficiently and productively, and holding it hostage to push forward your social agenda? Is it holding it a little hostage and operating at reduced efficiency?
The middle ground is we need to start lying to them. “Okay, you win, the military will stop funding travel for abortions”, and then, as soon as he allows a vote to allow the promotions that have been on hold, reverse that decision. “Oh, so sorry, General-Admiral YouDelayedMyPromotionokov has decided the previous commanders erred in caving to you like that.”
I suppose that is exactly what would happen if the parties were reversed.
It’s been obvious since at least the time that the GOP blocked Obama’s SC nomination that as far as the GOP is concerned, “traditional” politics is dead. All that matter now is exercises of naked power. If they have the power to do something, they do it, and if you don’t have the power to stop them, then that act stands as the law of the land, until the GOP decides to change things again.
It’s time the Democrats started playing hardball as well. At least the Dems will be doing it in support of some decent policies. Maybe in another decade, we can start talking about demilitarizing politics, once the GOP gets it through their thick skulls that this is a bad way to run their country.
No no, the other kind!
Dems definitely need to use some of the same (dirty) tactics or there won’t be anything left to save. Sometimes you have to hold your nose to get the job done. Like when you clean the litter box.
Seriously, I just read that those phony no labels people want children to be taught that consent for sex is no big deal or something like that. They want to rewrite history and teach that slavery was good. They’re stripping our rights and the Supreme Court stinks to high heaven. I probably don’t have all that much long left on this god forsaken planet, but I have young grandchildren.
Of course, this leads to the recipe
1.) stake out position twice as far to the extreme as you want
2.) blockade operations
3.) Compromise!
4.) get what you were after in the first place
5.) Repeat as needed.
But we all knew that already
This ^^^
The key difference is that Democrats are trying to make changes. Democrats don’t want to keep the status quo.
So Democrats have to create change in a system that resists change by having several points (committees, multiple houses, Senate rules on vetoes and unanimous consent, presidential veto, judicial oversight) where change can be stopped, or at least tamped down. “Hardball” tactics are generally those that resist change - though sometimes they could be horsetraded for a concession of some sort, as the brief discussion above about how Synemaesque compromises could lead to the hardball player getting what they want from the start.
It’s easier to destroy - or at least freeze - than to create, legislatively. Since 1993, in fairly small periods of united government, Democrats have gotten a tax hike, the ACA, the IRA, Dodd-Frank and a pair of stimulus bills through Congress and enacted. It’s not the 37th Congress, the New Deal or the Great Society, but these are significant bits of legislation, much better than the Republican record going back to mid-1985 (time chosen as similar periods occupying the presidency). Most of these went through against unified Republican opposition. It’s not like Democrats don’t know what to do when they have the power - it’s that the system is designed with lots of friction, so that it’s easier to stop things than to get them going.
I mean the senate produral hurdles that are part of what you cited could be changed–that’d be an effective hardball tactic if the Sinema"s of the world were willing to support it.
New developments on the Tuberville front:
So, he’s going the Joe McCarthy route. We know how that ended for McCarthy.
Obviously, Tuberville knows what he’s doing, given all his military experience…Wait, I’m now being told that he was never in the military.
I’m starting to believe that this delay tactic is to hold up promotions until the 2024 election. If an R wins the current list will be scrapped and more “acceptable” officers will be promoted. If this is the case then it has the tacit approval of McConnell and other R leaders.
Or it’s a showboating asshole junior senator from his state trying to make a splash.