More than 5,000 veterans voice support for Tommy Tuberville’s hold on military promotions
U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) has been denounced by President Joe Biden, congressional Democrats, senior leaders at the Department of Defense (DoD), and the mainstream media for his refusal to give unanimous consent to senior military and DoD civilian promotions over his objection to Biden era rules on ensuring abortion access. Tuberville, however, says he is receiving strong veteran support for his standoff with President Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin over the department’s decision to pay for abortion-related expenses for servicemembers using taxpayer dollars. Tuberville announced on Tuesday that he had received more than 5,000 veterans expressing their support for Senator Tuberville’s decision to place a hold on Pentagon general and flag officer promotions, joining a growing army of those backing the senator. Tuberville recently forwarded a letter to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky). The letter from the veterans outlined the need for a strong military that is focused on fighting to preserve life rather than end it. “As current and former service members of the United States Military, and organizations which support and advocate for the safety and well-being of our service members, we firmly support Senator Tuberville’s position of holding civilian, general, and flag officers from confirmation by unanimous consent until the DoD rescinds its recently instituted policy of subsidizing abortion,” the veterans wrote. “The undersigned stand united in condemning this policy. This policy is not just illegal, it shamefully politicizes the military, circumvents the authority of Congress, and exceeds the authority of the Department of Defense.” “While some claim that Sen. Tuberville’s position is negatively impacting military readiness, the Department of Defense has failed to present any evidence that substantiates this claim,” the veterans continued. “To the contrary, it appears true that the politicized agenda of Secretary Austin and the Biden administration are significantly diminishing military readiness. The American people, including its servicemembers, are disappointed by President Biden and Secretary Austin’s recent decisions to mandate receipt of the COVID-19 vaccines, promote the radical LGBT agenda, and now subsidize abortion. Because of these policies, the military now faces an unprecedented crisis of recruitment – missing its recruitment goal for the first time ever last year. The focus of our military must be on keeping the American people safe, not advancing the left-wing social agenda.” “There is no truth more profound than the fact that all human life is sacred,” the Veterans added.“The mission of the United States Military is to defend and protect all American lives – not subsidize the practice of destroying innocent and vulnerable American children via abortion with taxpayer dollars. By pledging to hold these nominations to the Department of Defense until administration officials reverse course, Senator Tuberville is doing a great service for the American people – including its service members.” Tuberville meanwhile cites what he says is growing support for his position among Republican members of Congress. Tuberville has 20 statements of support from members of Congress. “Thank you, Senator Tuberville, for standing up for American taxpayers, who are being forced to fund abortion through the DoD. As threats against our country continue to grow, the DoD should be focused on protecting Americans instead of being an abortion travel agency,” said U.S. Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL-02). “Senator Tuberville is not blocking them on the floor. He is just saying you can’t do them by unanimous consent because President Biden has created this new abortion policy out of whole cloth. This is a moment where Senator Schumer is just trying to embarrass Senator Tuberville. Senator Tuberville is strong and passionate about the value of children and sees this as important,” said U.S. Senator James Lankford (R-Oklahoma). Sen. Tuberville was elected to the Senate in 2020. To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.
House censures Rep. Adam Schiff over Trump-Russia investigations
The House voted Wednesday to censure California Rep. Adam Schiff for comments he made several years ago about investigations into Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, rebuking the Democrat and frequent critic of the former president along party lines. Schiff, who will stand in front of the House while the resolution is read, becomes the 25th House lawmaker to be censured. He was defiant ahead of the vote, saying he will wear the formal disapproval as a “badge of honor” and charged his GOP colleagues of doing the former president’s bidding. “I will not yield,” Schiff, who is running for the Senate in his home state, said during debate over the measure. “Not one inch.” More than 20 Republicans voted with Democrats last week to block the censure resolution, but they changed their votes this week after the measure’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, removed a provision that could have fined Schiff $16 million if the House Ethics Committee determined he lied. Several of the Republicans who opposed the resolution last week said they opposed fining a member of Congress in that manner. The final vote was 213-209. The revised resolution says Schiff held positions of power during Trump’s presidency and “abused this trust by saying there was evidence of collusion between Trump’s campaign and Russia.” Schiff was one of the most outspoken critics of the former president as both the Justice Department and the Republican-led House launched investigations into Trump’s ties to Russia in 2017. Both investigations concluded that Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential election but neither found evidence of a criminal conspiracy. “Representative Schiff purposely deceived his Committee, Congress, and the American people,” the resolution said. Schiff, the former Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and the lead prosecutor in Trump’s first impeachment trial, has long been a top Republican political target. Soon after taking back the majority this year, Republicans blocked him from sitting on the intelligence panel. The House has only censured two other lawmakers in the last 20 years. Republican Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona was censured in 2021 for tweeting an animated video that depicted him striking Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., with a sword. Former Democratic Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York was censured in 2010 for serious financial and campaign misconduct. The censure itself carries no practical effect, except to provide a historic footnote that marks a lawmaker’s career. But the GOP resolution would also launch an ethics investigation into Schiff’s conduct. While Schiff did not initiate the 2017 congressional investigation into Trump’s Russia ties — then-House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, a Republican who later became one of Trump’s most ardent defenders, started it — Republicans arguing in favor of his censure Wednesday blamed him for what they said was the fallout of that probe, and of the separate investigation started that same year by Trump’s own Justice Department. Luna said that Schiff’s comments that there was evidence against Trump “ripped apart American families across the country” and that he was “permanently destroying family relationships.” Several blamed him for the more than $30 million spent by then-special counsel Robert Mueller, who led the Justice Department probe. Schiff said the censure resolution “would accuse me of omnipotence, the leader of some a vast Deep State conspiracy, and of course, it is nonsense.” Democrats aggressively defended their colleague. Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, who led Trump’s second impeachment, called the effort an “embarrassing revenge tour on behalf of Donald Trump.” Mueller, who led the two-year Justice Department investigation, determined that Russia intervened on the campaign’s behalf and that Trump’s campaign welcomed the help. But Mueller’s team did not find that the campaign conspired to sway the election, and the Justice Department did not recommend any criminal charges. The House intelligence committee probe launched by Nunes similarly found that Russia intervened in the election but that there was no evidence of a criminal conspiracy. Schiff was the top Democrat on the panel at the time. Schiff said last week that the censure resolution was “red meat” that Speaker Kevin McCarthy was throwing to his conference amid squabbles over government spending. Republicans are trying to show their fealty to Trump, Schiff said. He said he warned the country during impeachment proceedings three years ago that Trump “would go on to do worse. And, of course, he did worse in the form of a violent attack on the Capitol.” After Democrats won the House majority in 2018, the House impeached Trump for abuse of power after he threatened to withhold military aid to Ukraine and urged the country’s president to investigate then-candidate Joe Biden. Schiff was the lead House prosecutor making the case for conviction to the Senate, arguing repeatedly that “right matters.” The Republican-led chamber ultimately acquitted him. Trump was impeached a second time a year later, after he had left office, for his role in the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the Capitol. The Senate again acquitted Trump. In the censure resolution against Schiff, Luna also cited a report released in May from special counsel John Durham that found that the FBI rushed into its investigation of Trump’s campaign and relied too much on raw and unconfirmed intelligence. Durham said investigators repeatedly relied on “confirmation bias,” ignoring or rationalizing away evidence that undercut their premise of a Trump-Russia conspiracy as they pushed the probe forward. But he did not allege that political bias or partisanship were guiding factors for the FBI’s actions. Trump had claimed that Durham’s report would reveal the “crime of the century” and expose a “deep state conspiracy” by high-ranking government officials to derail his candidacy and later his presidency. But the investigation yielded only one conviction — a guilty plea from a little-known FBI employee — and the only two other cases that were brought both ended in acquittals at trial. On Wednesday, just before the vote, Schiff’s campaign sent out a fundraising email that said Luna had introduced “yet ANOTHER resolution to censure me.” “The vote and debate will happen imminently,” the email read,
Barry Moore cosponsors resolution calling for end of Ukraine aid
Congressman Barry Moore was one of ten cosponsors of a controversial Ukraine Fatigue resolution introduced by Congressman Matt Gaetz calling for an end to military and financial aid to Ukraine and calling for Ukraine and Russia to reach a peace deal ending the war. “The only person earning an easier buck than Ukrainian war profiteers is Hunter Biden’s art dealer,” said Rep. Moore on Twitter. Congress should support @RepMattGaetz’s resolution and end taxpayer-funded blank checks to Ukraine.” Moore was the only member of the Alabama delegation to join the resolution calling for an end to military aid for Ukraine – which is fighting off a massive invasion by Russia. The other nine cosponsors are Rep. Andy Biggs, Rep. Lauren Boebert, Rep. Paul Gosar, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, Rep. Thomas Massie, Rep. Mary Miller, Rep. Ralph Norman, and Rep. Matt Rosendale. “President Joe Biden must have forgotten his prediction from March 2022, suggesting that arming Ukraine with military equipment will escalate the conflict to ‘World War III,’” Rep. Gaetz said. “America is in a state of managed decline, and it will exacerbate if we continue to hemorrhage taxpayer dollars toward a foreign war. We must suspend all foreign aid for the War in Ukraine and demand that all combatants in this conflict reach a peace agreement immediately.” Moore has had a history of being skeptical of military aid for Ukraine. On January 20, Moore joined a letter led by Rep. Dan Bishop and Senator J.D. Vance to President Biden’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Shalanda Young demanding a “full crosscutting report” to Congress that includes “U.S. government-wide expenditures for Ukraine and ‘countries impacted by the situation in Ukraine’ since Feb. 24, 2022.” “With an ever-growing federal budget and national debt, Alabamians deserve to know how their tax dollars are being spent – or misspent – on a war between Ukraine and Russia,” said Moore. “I am proud to join Rep. Dan Bishop and Senator J.D. Vance to demand answers and transparency from the Biden administration on these huge outlays of American taxpayer dollars.” In the 117th Congress, Moore signed a resolution led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green requesting an audit of all American taxpayer dollars sent to Ukraine. “I was in Ukraine before Afghanistan fell, and at that point in time, the parliament was extremely concerned about [American] energy policy and how we were allowing Putin to basically move the [Nord Stream 2] Pipeline and start production,” Moore said in November. “Even then, parliament saw the issue, but when I got here and started talking to other members, the same group of people here gave Trump such a hard time about a few billion dollars at the U.S. southern border.” “As fentanyl and drugs and illegals poured across our southern border, a few billion dollars, four billion, was just a little too much money,” Moore continued. “And now we are looking at $40 billion one week, $14 billion the next week with little to no oversight. Ukraine is a young democracy, and we are sending American taxpayer money over there with no oversight. It creates problems, it creates corruption, it’s not good for the American taxpayer or the American people.” Gaetz and Moore’s position is not shared by even many Republicans. Congressman Mike Rogers, who chairs the powerful House Armed Services Committee, has been a vocal proponent of military aid for Ukraine. “Now is the time for the Biden and Scholz governments to follow the lead of our U.K. and Eastern European allies – Leopard 2 tanks, ATACMS, and other long-range precision munitions should be approved without delay,” Chairman Rogers said. The United States is providing Ukraine with over $100 billion in aid – including M1 Abrams main battle tanks, Lancer anti-tank missiles, Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, Stryker combat vehicles, Stinger surface-to-air missiles, Patriot surface-to-air missile systems, multiple rocket launch systems (MRLS), 155 mm Paladin self-propelled artillery systems, and other weapons. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is now asking the United States and allies to provide Ukraine with modern jet fighters, including F16s. Zelensky has been meeting with European leaders this week and appears to be close to a deal with EU members on fighter jets. There is wide speculation that in the coming weeks that Russia will launch a massive new offensive in the war. Moore is in his second term representing Alabama’s Second Congressional District. To connect with the author of this story or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.
Todd Carney: Florida primary races to watch
The results of the Florida primaries, which will take place on August 23, will likely have a major impact on the midterms and on the political landscape. Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis will likely win reelection in November, but Democrats are seriously contesting the governorship. Democrats’ two major candidates are agriculture commissioner Nikki Fried and Congressman Charlie Crist, a former governor. Fried has faced ethical questions, has run an erratic campaign, and lags in the polls. Crist, who has been in politics for 30 years, has lost runs for statewide office twice in a row and last won an office statewide 16 years ago. It’s not clear who the better general election candidate would be. Fried is a fresh face and has won statewide more recently than Crist, but her far-left positions and scandals have hurt her. Crist is more moderate and came close to winning the governorship in 2014, but his reelection victory for Congress in 2020 was underwhelming, and many consider him a washed-up perennial candidate. DeSantis looks pretty certain to beat either one, but DeSantis’s reelection margin could influence his standing as a potential presidential candidate. In the race for Florida’s first congressional district, Congressman Matt Gaetz is the incumbent. The federal government has been conducting a sex-trafficking investigation into Gaetz. He has one main challenger, Mark Lombardo, a businessman, and veteran. Gaetz has spent about $5 million more than Lombardo. Despite his ethical issues, if Gaetz wins the primary, he will likely win the general election. A Lombardo victory, on the other hand, would free Republicans of Gaetz as a problem. Congresswoman Kat Cammack represents Florida’s third congressional district. Cammack is a rising star who had no problems until a few weeks ago when she compared opponents of gay marriage to racists. But Cammack has a significant funding advantage and high-profile endorsements. If she loses, it will demonstrate again the potency of cultural issues. If she wins, she could position herself for a later run at higher office. Florida’s seventh district has four main Republican candidates: businessman and veteran Cory Mills, state representative and National Guard officer Anthony Sabatini, former congressional aide Rusty Roberts, and pastor and veteran Brady Duke. Mills has led most polls and has received endorsements from classic conservative figures. Sabatini is very controversial and has secured endorsements from far-right figures. The race is likely to go Republican, but if Sabatini gets the nomination, he could put the seat at risk this November. Crist gave up his seat in the 13th district to run for governor and redistricting made it more Republican. Businesswoman and veteran Anna Paulina Luna has led most polling, raised lots of money, and has prominent endorsements. Luna is also a telegenic Latina, so if she wins, she will likely have a bright future in the GOP. Attorney Kevin Hayslett is running and has received support from several local politicians. Attorney and former congressional aide Amanda Makki is running as well. She is also telegenic and has a fascinating personal story – she fled Iran due to oppression. So she could become a prominent figure if she wins. Florida has a new seat, the 15th district, up for election. All media outlets rate it as “likely Republican.” State representative Jackie Toledo is a conservative Latina who will likely become a significant voice in the GOP if she wins. Former secretary of state Laurel Lee has raised a substantial sum of money and enjoys the backing of prominent party officials. As a charismatic female, she could also gain a high profile if she wins. State senator Kelli Stargel is also running and received endorsements from some local officials. Veterans Kevin McGovern and Demetries Grimes have raised money effectively as well and could be competitive. Florida’s primaries could decide control of the House of Representatives or at least play a significant role in the margins of a Republican majority, should the party win one. The state’s primaries could also help shape the future look of the Republican caucus. And finally, the primaries could serve to help or hinder DeSantis’s likely presidential ambitions. Todd Carney is a lawyer and frequent contributor to RealClearPolitics. He earned his juris doctorate from Harvard Law School. The views in this piece are his alone and do not reflect the views of his employer. Republished with the permission of The Center Square.
