The U.S. Senate, circumventing holds by Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, on Thursday confirmed the nominations of two senior military leaders, including the first female member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Adm. Lisa Franchetti was confirmed by a vote of 95-1 to lead the Navy, making her the first woman to serve as a Pentagon service chief and hold a seat on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gen. David Allvin was also confirmed by a vote of 95-1 to be chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force. The Senate was expected to vote later Thursday to confirm Lt. Gen. Christopher Mahoney to serve as assistant commandant for the U.S. Marine Corps.
Franchetti’s historic confirmation as the chief of naval operations comes as Tuberville has drawn bipartisan criticism for holding up almost 400 military nominations in an effort to protest Pentagon abortion policy. In a remarkable display, several Republican senators angrily held the floor for more than four hours on Wednesday evening and called up 61 of the nominations for votes, praising each nominee for their military service. Tuberville, of Alabama, showed no signs of letting up, standing and objecting to each one.
Allvin is the vice chief of staff of the Air Force but has been serving as acting chief, since the previous top Air Force officer, Gen. CQ Brown, became chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Oct. 1. Allvin is a career air mobility pilot with more than 4,600 flight hours and key deployments in Afghanistan and Europe.
I’m not expecting them to do all 400 that way, just the ones I keep being told are critical.
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Great, why’d it take so long?
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They kept taking suggestions from random assholes on the internet who just want to hear themselves complain, clearly.
Because that’s not the whole story.
Yes, they can (and have) done a few individually.
The reason they’ve resisted doing that for the most part is two-fold:
They don’t want to normalize what Tuberville is doing. If they “give-in” and start considering promotions individually, then they signal that any senator can use this as a tool.
They think that what Tuberville is doing is ultimately harmful to Republicans and will help Democrats win more seats in the next election. They will run ads saying that Tuberville and his fellow Republicans are hurting American military members and weakening our military readiness.