Don't Believe The Headlines
In the “Don’t Believe The Headlines” category, you have heard that Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) has blocked all military promotions for more than six months. The readiness of our armed forces has been imperiled by this one Senator from Alabama.
Just read the headlines:
Blocking Military Promotions Is Unpatriotic (Washington Post 07/14)1
How Sen. Tuberville is holding up military promotions over abortion policy (NPR 07/15)2
Senator’s Blockade of Military Promotions Begins to Cut Deep (New York Times 09/13)3
Don’t believe it. Tuberville has not blocked promotions; he has merely exercised his right under Senate rules to force an individual vote on each promotion. That’s right. All Tuberville has done was ask to vote on each promotion individually rather voting on them as a group in a process called “unanimous consent.” Democrats could bring any (or all) promotion(s) to the floor for a vote but choose not to.
The tradition has been to use unanimous consent to avoid lengthy floor debates and the politicization of votes around military commanders. Democrat leaders say that making an exception could set a dangerous precedent. I guess they don’t want we the people to get even a glimpse into the process.
Tuberville objects to the new military policy of granting time off and paying the travel expenses of military personnel who travel to a different state to get an abortion (when they are unable to get the abortion in the state in which they are stationed). The military is prevented by law from paying for abortions but is using this work-around to facilitate servicewomen’s abortions. When his discussions with Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III failed, Tuberman resorted to placing holds on promotions to force a discussion of the policy.
The Democrats finally relented on one promotion, that of Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Jr. as the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on September 20.4 Subsequently, they relented and brought two more promotions for the Army chief of staff and the Marines commandant to individual votes on September 21.5 These votes scheduled by Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority Leader, demonstrate that Tuberman has not in fact prevented the promotions.
The point of this post is not so much to discuss Senator Tuberman’s use of Senate Rules to call attention to the Pentagon’s pro-abortion policy as it is to urge everyone to read past the headlines. Often you have to read deep into the article to get the fact that proves the headline false. And other times that fact is omitted completely and you have to read multiple sources to learn all the facts.
Unfortunately, so many read only the headline or maybe the first few paragraphs and are successfully misled. Yes, that terminology is intended – misled. The leftstream media outlet could claim, if anyone ever pressed them, that all the facts were in the article (albeit maybe in the 25th paragraph). But just like a skilled magician, the media outlet focuses the reader on the hand that the magician waves before them (the headline), causing the unschooled reader to miss what the other hand is doing (revealing important facts buried near the end of the article).
But we trust that you, our faithful and alert readers, know to read past the headline to learn the truth.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/07/14/tuberville-s-holds-on-pentagon-promotions-are-unpatriotic/e1674542-2240-11ee-8994-4b2d0b694a34_story.html
https://www.npr.org/2023/07/15/1187530846/tuberville-senate-rules-abortion-military
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/13/us/politics/military-promotions-tuberville.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/09/20/senate-military-schumer-tuberville/?wpisrc=nl_the7
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/21/politics/senate-confirmation-votes-tuberville/index.html