Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) has recently held up the confirmation of scores of prospective high-ranking military officers, leading to concerns about readiness within the intricately orchestrated system of the military.
He is objecting and substantially delaying these confirmations in connection to support that’s been made available from the Defense Department for personnel seeking an abortion. Authorities are not directly covering the abortion but are instead supporting these individuals with needs like travel expenses, if applicable. After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and swept away the national legal protections for abortion that were in place for decades, a substantial number of states with Republican leadership saw swiftly implemented bans on the procedure, some of which were pre-existing while others have been new. (The older bans were in some cases passed with the specific caveat the measures would take effect if Roe was undone.)
Outrage about Tuberville’s decision is growing. “@SenateGOP are you going to condemn Tuberville’s attack on our Troops and their families? We’re waiting…”, VoteVets said online. Some Republicans have distanced themselves from Tuberville, though some could argue it’s been tepid. VoteVets is a progressive advocacy organization that represents veterans’ interests and frequently provides its input amid public disputes around the military.
The organization was replying on Twitter to a clip of recent commentary from Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), a veteran. She criticized Tuberville during proceedings in the Senate this week for impacts from his antics on military families, whose livelihoods have been sometimes broadly upended.
Tuberville has also recently attracted controversy for his seemingly serious difficulty with settling on a perspective on white nationalism, the long established definition for which outlines beliefs in racial superiority. In a CNN interview, Tuberville explicitly contested the idea that white nationalists were inherently racists, though he later somewhat backtracked. To many, it’s not exactly promising for a member of the U.S. Senate to be so out-of-touch with the real-world impacts of an ideology that has been a documented factor in multiple mass shootings and other incidents of violence. Some have even made a connection to attempts by Trump and others to upend the 2020 election results, since geographic areas where they focused often had substantial populations of non-white residents.
👏@SenateGOP are you going to condemn Tuberville’s attack on our Troops and their families?
We’re waiting… https://t.co/5ly7fvrr8j
— VoteVets (@votevets) July 12, 2023
