News
No Regrets: Tuberville to Continue Blocking 4-Star Generals While Releasing Hold on Other Officers
U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), facing mounting pressure from Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as well as his fellow Republican colleagues, on Tuesday announced he is releasing his near-10-month blockade more than 450 top U.S. Military officers whose promotions must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate — but he will continue to block all four-star officers, among the most important to the nation’s defense.
“I’m releasing everybody. I still got a hold on, I think, 11 four-star generals. Everybody else is completely released from me.” Tuberville told reporters Tuesday afternoon, NBC News reported. “But other than that, it’s over.”
The Alabama Republican Senator told Punchbowl News’ Andrew Desiderio he has no regrets that he held up the promotions, pay increases, and life plans of over 450 U.S. Military officers and their families.
READ MORE: ‘Years to Recover’: Tuberville’s 300+ Military Holds to Have Long Impact Says Top Biden Navy Pick
“We didn’t get the win that we wanted. We’ve still got the bad [abortion] policy. We tried to stand up for the taxpayers,” Tuberville added.
Fox News Radio’s Ryan Schmelz also reports “Tuberville says he has no regrets about his tactics used in combating the DOD’s military abortion policy and responds to those saying he caved.”
Those eleven four-star generals, according to Desiderio, include the Commander of Pacific Air Forces, Commander of US Pacific Fleet, Air Component Command for INDOPACOM, Commander for Air Combat Command, the head of the Navy’s Nuclear Propulsion Program, the head of Northern Command, the head of U.S. Cyber Command, along with the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army, Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, Vice Chief of Space Operations, and Vice Chief of Naval Operations.
Just last Thursday The Washington Examiner reported Tuberville “has insisted he will not be lifting his hold on every nominee and would be still enforcing holds on Biden nominees he deems ‘woke.'”
Tommy Tuberville, facing defeat on the floor with push to change Senate procedures and confirm stalled Pentagon nominees, signals that next week he will back off. Wants to focus on “woke” nominees instead.
“We will promote people in the very near future.” pic.twitter.com/x3nmCFIKzl
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) November 30, 2023
Tuberville back in August revealed his plan to target what he called “woke” Biden military nominations, claiming he was doing so to keep politics out of the military. The Alabama freshman Senator had teamed up with a right-wing dark money group, The American Accountability Foundation. AAF’s founder in 2021 told Fox News he wanted to throw “a big handful of sand” in the gears of the Biden administration.
READ MORE: ‘Jaw Dropping’: Democratic Senator Slams Tuberville’s ‘Open’ Talk About ‘White Supremacy’
“I see the group right now as getting up every morning and with the goal of making it as difficult as possible for the Biden administration and their allies on the Hill to implement their agenda,” said AAF’s founder, Tom Jones.
Tuberville on social media had promoted AAF’s attacks on individual military officers, which targeted one officer who allegedly “joined a ‘Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion panel,’” and one who “celebrated Ruth Bader Ginsburg.”
Sen. Tuberville, who has a history of defending white nationalism, also reportedly had 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.”
Tuberville’s blockade was allegedly a response to the Pentagon’s policy of reimbursing service members forced to travel out of state to obtain abortion services. Tuberville opposes abortion. He admitted anger that Pentagon chiefs refused to budge or negotiate with him on the policy, which was put in place after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade. Some experts have said the policy was legally required to ensure all members of the U.S. Armed Forces have equal access to health care.
But even if Tuberville had succeeded in forcing the Pentagon to scrap its policy, he would not have reduced the number of abortions service members have. He would only have reduced an already negligible dollar amount the military incurred on travel and related expenses.
Enjoy this piece?
… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.
NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.
Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.
 |
Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
