‘It will take years to recover’ from Tuberville blockade, top Navy nominee says
Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s No. 2 officer, has been leading the service on an acting basis because of the impasse.
President Joe Biden’s nominee to be the Navy’s top officer, Adm. Lisa Franchetti, said it could take the service years to recover from the impacts of Sen. Tommy Tuberville‘s blockade of hundreds of senior military promotions.
Franchetti told the Senate Armed Services Committee during her confirmation hearing Thursday that the impasse has created “a lot of uncertainty” for Navy families.
“Just at the three-star level, it would take about three to four months just to move all the people around,” Franchetti said. “But it will take years to recover … from the promotion delays that we would see.”
More than 300 general and flag officer nominees have no clear path to confirmation over Tuberville’s objections, which he put in place over his opposition to the Pentagon’s policy that reimburses troops who need to travel to seek abortions and other reproductive care. The Pentagon is standing by the policy and Tuberville has vowed to continue his procedural hold, so there’s no end in sight to the standoff.
As the Navy’s current No. 2, Franchetti has been doing the top job on a temporary basis since Adm. Mike Gilday retired in August. The Army and Marine Corps are also being led by interim chiefs who are waiting to be confirmed.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who quizzed Franchetti about the impact of the blockade, said the long-lasting effects create a “propaganda win for our enemies.”
“Our military experts project China wants to be able to take Taiwan by 2027, and we’ll still be trying to repair the damage inflicted by these holds,” Warren said.
“The Republicans’ failure to end this blockade makes it clear: they don’t care about our leaders,” she added. “They don’t care about the families who have served their country honorably for decades.”
Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) shot back at Warren’s comments, noting that the blockade would end if Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin simply repealed the abortion travel policy.
“One person. Secretary Austin, come on, do the right thing,” Cramer said.
Democrats, who’ve urged GOP leaders to talk Tuberville down from his tactics, estimate that nearly 90 percent of general and flag officers will be impacted by the hold between the over 600 officers requiring confirmation this year and other officers who will have to temporarily cover vacant jobs.
Confirming all the delayed promotions individually isn’t practical and would take hundreds of hours. But Republicans contend Majority Leader Chuck Schumer should at least hold one-off votes on members of the Joint Chiefs. The problem worsens at the beginning of next month, when Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley retires with no Senate-confirmed officer to take his place.
Franchetti also underscored the “uncertainty” the blockade had created for Navy families, who face delayed moves, issues with school enrollments and other problems.
“Our Navy families are dealing with a lot of uncertainty,” she said. “I have heard a lot of concerns from our families that they are having difficulty navigating that space right now.”
Recently retired US veteran here. When I joined the service in 2002, almost everyone I served with were die-hard Republicans. When I retired last summer, most of the people I served with were liberal Democrats.
Just in the past 2 decades since 9/11, we've watched as Republican politicians publicly flaunt support for us, while privately cutting all our pay and benefits and sending us off to die in countries we have no business being in.
The Republican party continues to claim that they support veterans and service members, but we know the actual truth. Democrats have done more for us than Republicans, and most of us are already voting Blue.
I enlisted in 1998 while things were quiet. Clinton got us a nice raise back then. Then 9/11 happened and the military was inundated with right wing "patriots" reacting to events and looking to kill uppity brown people. I saw the quality of recruits diminish as the military lowered standards to surge troop strengths to engage in an illegal war. I recently met someone who was in my old unit only a few years ago and I didn't recognize the Marine Corps he described.
Personally, being ordered to partake in an illegal war in Iraq after having just left Afghanistan in an unresolved state only strengthened my liberal beliefs. Going to other parts of the world and seeing what politicians and superpower governments do to people, and the amount unnecessary pain and suffering that takes place at the hands of ideologues and dogma, should radicalize anybody against fascists and right wing ideology. People who see and experience all that and return even more hateful and bigoted are psychopaths.
I am proud of my service and my conduct in it, even if I don't agree with the missions I was on. I would do it all again. I loved being a Marine. The only people you'll find me hating are fascists and religious radicals. THAT'S who I learned to hate in the military because that is where most human suffering came from.
It surprises some people that I'm a liberal veteran. I tell them that you can't go through that and see all that and not be a liberal, not if you have a heart and brain.
And to anyone I piss off with this opinion: You're just telling on yourself.
I signed up for the US Air Force literally a month before 9/11 happened, and I had to seriously reconsider what I was getting myself into when the Twin Towers fell. What was supposed to be a chill peacetime enlistment ended up being a potential start to WWIII (at least, that's what we thought when it happened).
I still went through with my enlistment, but I remember going to the MEPS that December and having one guy in my processing group who was joining the US Army. All he would talk about was how he couldn't wait to be issued his weapon and how many "towelheads" he was going to take down. He kept harassing the Marine in charge of our group, asking questions like how soon he'd get his weapon (before we're sent to Basic Training?) and how they tracked confirmed kills (has anyone gotten one before they finished Basic? Do we get to shoot terrorists as part of our training?)
No idea what happened to that dude, but I'm hoping he didn't make it far in his career.
I don't know about Army because I've always hated how shitty soldiers tended to be. Mouthing off to Sargents and being generally undisciplined pigs. Couldn't even follow a joint battle plan for a joint patrol and nearly got my convoy wasted by friendly fire. But PRIOR to 9/11 people like you describe wouldn't have made it through Marine boot camp if they didn't stop acting like that. I doubt they would have made it through USAF or USN basic/boot either. But army... yeah, probably went in and got his ass shot off.
This is good to hear. An issue of big importance to me (and now thankfully a big name like Jon Stewart) is veterans’ healthcare & acknowledging the detrimental health effects and conditions caused by things like Agent Orange and burn pits.
The VA needs a lot of help, and for years as I have kept up with this, the GOP has been pulling stunts like this - political theater - that does actual harm to the military members and their families all the while demanding unquestioned patriotism. They wear a flag pin so they support the troops, of course.
And they get outraged when people, say, don’t stand up for the national anthem…but they never fail to vote for people like this. My dad was a disabled veteran, so got to spend years seeing him go through life in his debilitating condition as a result of being deployed into combat.
These people - who have never had to - chose not to - do any of this - support the people who do the most harm to veterans via these kinds of stunts, but then foam at the mouth the instant anyone doesn’t follow their “rules of patriotism”.
I know I’m preaching to the choir here, but it’s just so fucking revolting. Anyway, have a good one and o7.
Thank you for your service.