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OPINION

Tuberville Turns His Battle on Pentagon Abortion Policy Into Waging War Against Individual US Military Officers

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U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), the far-right hard-core conservative who since February has been single-handedly holding up the promotions of over 300 U.S. Military officers, has now expanded his fight from a battle against the Pentagon’s policy supporting service members needing to travel out-of-state to obtain abortion services into a war whose targets are individuals: career U.S. Military officers awaiting promotions.

Among the reasons for the attacks: one officer allegedly “joined a ‘Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion panel,'” and one “celebrated Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”

“There is nobody more military than me,” “Coach” Tuberville infamously said last month, when his hit list holding up promotions requiring Senate confirmation had just reached 265 U.S. Military officers. Senator Tuberville’s remarks were not well-received, especially since, as multiple news outlets reported, he had never served in America’s Armed Forces, and had been caught misrepresenting his father’s World War II military record.

“I don’t care if they promote anybody,” Tuberville admitted last week. “To be honest, we got 44 four-star generals right now. We only had seven in World War II. So I think we’re a little overloaded to begin with.” In a wild rant the Alabama GOP Senator also suggested another reason he is blocking the promotions is because – he alleges – the Senate hasn’t followed the U.S. Constitution since Trump left office.

Since he began his lone-wolf attack on the Pentagon’s policy – instituted in response to GOP state legislatures around the country imposing bans on abortion – Tuberville has insisted his only goal was to get the U.S. Military to rescind its policy of reimbursing service members for travel expenses if they have to go out-of-state to get the health care they need.

Up until now.

READ MORE: Tommy Tuberville Pledged to ‘Donate Every Dime I Make When I’m in Washington’ to Vets – He Hasn’t

“The Biden Administration’s liberal and woke policies are the real threat to military readiness. I’m trying to keep politics out of the military,” Senator Tuberville claimed on social media Tuesday evening – as he reposted a thread of tweets from a far-right dark money group created to derail President Joe Biden’s nominees across many parts of the federal government, from the executive branch to the judicial branch, and now, to the Armed Forces.

Sen. Tuberville, who has a history of defending white nationalism, also reportedly emailed out those posts, which attack career military officers’ comments supporting LGBTQ equality, embracing diversity, pledging to address systemic racism, and more.

In May, Tuberville declared white nationalists are simply “Americans.”  He also said, “I look at a white nationalist as a, as a Trump Republican. That’s what we’re called all the time.”

The first attack promoted by Tuberville cites a 2017 article at MilitaryTimes.com that reads: “USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) Commanding Officer Capt. Craig Clapperton speaks about the importance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender celebration.”

These officers are not political appointees. As some of the attacks reveal, these officers have been serving in America’s Armed Forces for years, well before Joe Biden won the presidency.

“Sen. Tuberville takes a new approach to defending his hold on military nominations by emailing out this thread personally attacking individual military officers up for promotion,” wrote Politico’s national security and military reporter Paul McLeary.

“If you thought Sen. Tuberville might back off his military promotions blockade any time soon…,” added Punchbowl News’ senior congressional reporter Andrew Desiderio. “His office just blasted out this thread highlighting criticisms of the nominees themselves. Remember — these nominations are typically approved by unanimous consent.”

The attacks on America’s military officers come from The American Accountability Foundation, a conservative dark money opposition research operation co-founded by “a longtime Beltway operative specializing in opposition research.”

READ MORE: South Carolina’s All Male Conservative Supreme Court Rules Abortion Ban Is Constitutional

Last year The New Yorker’s award-winning investigative reporter Jane Mayer called the American Accountability Foundation, “The Slime Machine Targeting Dozens of Biden Nominees.”

So what attacks on U.S. Military officers is Tuberville promoting?

The American Accountability Foundation calls the hundreds of officers awaiting promotions, “one of the WOKEST slates of military nominees ever assembled.”

“Biden’s agenda is clear,” they add.

Of course, any president, although being Commander-in-Chief, rarely would get directly involved in the promotion of a flag officer, certainly not hundreds of them. But as Mayer pointed out, “the A.A.F.’s approach represents a new escalation in partisan warfare, and underscores the growing role that secret spending has played in deepening the polarization in Washington.”

“The A.A.F., which is run by conservative white men, has particularly focussed on blocking women and people of color,” Mayer added. She notes, “Evan Hollander, then the spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee, told The Hill that, ‘for a group that purports to concern itself with ethics, using fake identities, misrepresenting themselves as Congressional staff and surreptitiously recording meetings is hypocritical in the extreme.'”

The American Accountability Foundation in a series of 21 posts (so far) attacked U.S. Military officers (some examples below) for reasons including a promise to “promptly address the full spectrum of systemic racism.”

The AAF attacked a Brigadier General for saying, “we’re gonna continue to strive to make sure that we’re the most diverse force in the Army,” “Our army is built on the foundation of diversity,” and, “we’re the most powerful army in the world, and we get that power from having a force that looks like different people.”

The AAF also attacked a Colonel for promoting “an article on how the military was ‘preparing’ for Trump.”

See more of AAF’s posts that Sen. Tuberville promoted below or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Unsafe’: Defense Secretary Warns on US Military Readiness as Tuberville’s Armed Forces Block Hits ‘Painful Milestone’

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OPINION

Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’

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15 hours ago

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April 26, 2024

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Republican Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota, a top potential Trump vice presidential running mate pick, revealed in a forthcoming book she “hated” her 14-month old puppy and shot it to death. Massive online outrage ensued, including accusations of “animal cruelty” and “cold-blooded murder,” but the pro-life former member of Congress is defending her actions and bragging she had the media “gasping.”

“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” Noem writes in her soon-to-be released book, according to The Guardian which reports “the dog, a female, had an ‘aggressive personality’ and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.”

“By taking Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, Noem says, she hoped to calm the young dog down and begin to teach her how to behave. Unfortunately, Cricket ruined the hunt, going ‘out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life’.”

“Then, on the way home after the hunt, as Noem stopped to talk to a local family, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, ‘grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another’.”

READ MORE: President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

“Cricket the untrainable dog, Noem writes, behaved like ‘a trained assassin’.”

Except Cricket wasn’t trained. Online several people with experience training dogs have said Noem did everything wrong.

“I hated that dog,” Noem wrote, calling the young girl pup “untrainable,” “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with,” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.”

“At that moment,” Noem wrote, “I realized I had to put her down.”

“It was not a pleasant job,” she added, “but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done.”

The Guardian reports Noem went on that day to slaughter a goat that “smelled ‘disgusting, musky, rancid’ and ‘loved to chase’ Noem’s children, knocking them down and ruining their clothes.”

She dragged both animals separately into a gravel pit and shot them one at a time. The puppy died after one shell, but the goat took two.

On social media Noem expressed no regret, no sadness, no empathy for the animals others say did not need to die, and certainly did not need to die so cruelly.

READ MORE: ‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

But she did use the opportunity to promote her book.

Attorney and legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold says Governor Noem’s actions might have violated state law.

“You slaughtered a 14-month-old puppy because it wasn’t good at the ‘job’ you chose for it?” he asked. “SD § 40-1-2.3. ‘No person owning or responsible for the care of an animal may neglect, abandon, or mistreat the animal.'”

The Democratic National Committee released a statement saying, “Kristi Noem’s extreme record goes beyond bizarre rants about killing her pets – she also previously said a 10-year-old rape victim should be forced to carry out her pregnancy, does not support exceptions for rape or incest, and has threatened to throw pharmacists in jail for providing medication abortions.”

Former Trump White House Director of Strategic Communications Alyssa Farah Griffin, now a co-host on “The View” wrote, “There are countless organizations that re-home dogs from owners who are incapable of properly training and caring for them.”

The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson blasted the South Dakota governor.

“Kristi Noem is trash,” he began. “Decades with hunting- and bird-dogs, and the number I’ve killed because they were chicken-sharp or had too much prey drive is ZERO. Puppies need slow exposure to birds, and bird-scent.”

“She killed a puppy because she was lazy at training bird dogs, not because it was a bad dog,” he added. “Not every dog is for the field, but 99.9% of them are trainable or re-homeable. We have one now who was never going in the field, but I didn’t kill her. She’s sleeping on the couch. You down old dogs, hurt dogs, and sick dogs humanely, not by shooting them and tossing them in a gravel pit. Unsporting and deliberately cruel…but she wrote this to prove the cruelty is the point.”

Melissa Jo Peltier, a writer and producer of the “Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan” series, also heaped strong criticism on Noem.

“After 10+ years working with Cesar Millan & other highly specialized trainers, I believe NO dog should be put down just because they can’t or won’t do what we decide WE want them to,” Peltier said in a lengthy statement. “Dogs MUST be who they are. Sadly, that’s often who WE teach them to be. And our species is a hot mess. I would have happily taken Kristi Noem’s puppy & rehomed it. What she did is animal cruelty & cold blooded murder in my book.”

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

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OPINION

President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

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19 hours ago

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April 26, 2024

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President Joe Biden gave an nearly-unannounced, last-minute, live exclusive interview Friday morning to Howard Stern, the SiriusXM radio host who for decades, from the mid-1990s to about 2015, was a top Trump friend, fan, and aficionado. But the impetus behind the President’s move appears to be a rare and unsigned statement from the The New York Times Company, defending the “paper of record” after months of anger from the public over what some say is its biased negative coverage of the Biden presidency and, especially, a Thursday report by Politico claiming Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger is furious the President has refused to give the “Grey Lady” an in-person  interview.

“The Times’ desire for a sit-down interview with Biden by the newspaper’s White House team is no secret around the West Wing or within the D.C. bureau,” Politico reported. “Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger. So much so that last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the newspaper’s midtown headquarters for an off-the-record meeting with around 40 Times journalists, Sulzberger devoted several minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing to grant the paper — or any major newspaper — an interview.”

“In Sulzberger’s view,” Politico explained, “only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency.”

But it was this statement that made Politico’s scoop go viral.

READ MORE: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“’All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,’ one Times journalist said. ‘It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.'”

Popular Information founder Judd Legum in March documented The New York Times’ (and other top papers’) obsession with Biden’s age after the Hur Report.

Thursday evening the Times put out a “scorching” statement, as Politico later reported, not on the newspaper’s website but on the company’s corporate website, not addressing the Politico piece directly but calling it “troubling” that President Biden “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”

Media watchers and critics pushed back on the Times’ statement.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“NYT issues an unprecedented statement slamming Biden for ‘actively and effectively avoid[ing] questions from independent journalists during his term’ and claiming it’s their ‘independence’ that Biden dislikes, when it’s actually that they’re dying to trip him up,” wrote media critic Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch.

Froomkin also pointed to a 2017 report from Poynter, a top journalism site published by The Poynter Institute, that pointed out the poor job the Times did of interviewing then-President Trump.

Others, including former Biden Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon, debunked the Times’ claim President Biden hasn’t given interviews to independent journalists by pointing to Biden’s interviews with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and a 20-minute sit-down interview with veteran journalist John Harwood for ProPublica.

Former Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob, now a media critic who publishes Stop the Presses, offered a more colorful take of Biden’s decision to go on Howard Stern.

The Times itself just last month reported on a “wide-ranging interview” President Biden gave to The New Yorker.

Watch the video and read the social media posts above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

 

 

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OPINION

‘I Hope You Find Happiness’: Moskowitz Trolls Comer Over Impeachment Fail

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3 days ago

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April 24, 2024

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U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) is mocking House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Comer over a CNN report revealing the embattled Kentucky Republican who has been alleging without proof President Joe Biden is the head of a vast multi-million dollar criminal bribery and influence-peddling conspiracy, has given up trying to impeach the leader of the free world.

CNN on Wednesday had reported, “after 15 months of coming up short in proving some of his biggest claims against the president, Comer recently approached one of his Republican colleagues and made a blunt admission: He was ready to be ‘done with’ the impeachment inquiry into Biden.” The news network described Chairman Comer as “frustrated” and his investigation as “at a dead end.”

One GOP lawmaker told CNN, “Comer is hoping Jesus comes so he can get out.”

“He is fed up,” the Republican added.

Despite the Chairman’s alleged remarks, “a House Oversight Committee spokesperson maintains that ‘the impeachment inquiry is ongoing and impeachment is 100% still on the table.'”

RELATED: ‘Used by the Russians’: Moskowitz Mocks Comer’s Biden Impeachment Failure

Last week, Oversight Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD) got into a shouting match with Chairman Comer, with the Maryland Democrat saying, “You have not identified a single crime – what is the crime that you want to impeach Joe Biden for and keep this nonsense going?” and Comer replying, “You’re about to find out.”

Before those heated remarks, Congressman Raskin chided Comer, humorously threatening to invite Rep. Moskowitz to return to the hearing.

Congressman Moskowitz appears to be the only member of the House Oversight Committee who has ever made a motion to call for a vote on impeaching President Biden, which he did last month, although he did it to ridicule Chairman Comer.

It appears the Moskowitz-Comer “bromance” may be over.

Wednesday afternoon Congressman Moskowitz, whose sarcasm is becoming well-known, used it to ridicule Chairman Comer.

“I was hoping our breakup would never become public,” he declared. “We had such a great thing while it lasted James. I will miss the time we spent together. I will miss our conversations. I will miss the pet names you gave me. I only wish you the best and hope you find happiness.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

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