Rant Rules: This is an opinion piece and I’m already riled up. Not ready to discuss: blowing off steam. This one has two parts, the first being Sen. Tuberville of Alabama and his blocking of military promotions, thus leaving the USMC without a Commandant for the first time in well over 100 years. Second part a neophyte Democrat changing parties because her colleagues scolded her about one of her votes.
Below is what I said to the person in Sen. Tuberville’s office who took my call, after I said I had a message for the Senator and could I leave it, and she said yes. I had written it down in advance, because I’m even madder at Sen. Tuberville today than I have been previously.
……………………………………………………………………………..
Sen Tuberville’s decision to continue obstructing the promotion of senior military officers, thus forcing the miltary to deal with a broken command chain is misguided and dangerous to national security. Sen Tubberville is ignoring the advice of qualified persons—military and veteran—and falsely claims that he is “more military than anyone.” He is not. He never served. He had NO idea what a broken command chain means to military personnel, and his lack of willingness to listen to those with military experience—his willingness to damage our military—means he is totally not acting as a patriot. Since he has acted against the national interest before, in his behavior before, during, and following the J6 insurrection, the only rational conclusion is that he is a domestic enemy and should resign immediately. This is Elizabeth Moon. I am a Marine Corps veteran, Vietnam era.
……………………………………………………………………………
If I had Sen. Tuberville alone in a room (horrid thought, actually; he’s the kind of man that arouses not just annoyance in me but complete and utter contempt; I’d be fighting myself the whole time) I would lay out all the strikes against him, and then tell him he’s acting like a guy who never played football, being a Monday morning quarterback to an NFL coach. He’d understand the reference though he wouldn’t agree. He thinks he knows all about the military, but of course–not having served *and demonstrating clearly why lack of experience leaves holes in someone’s military understanding*–he doesn’t know diddly. In addition to his disgusting behavior in obstructing promotions and leaving the USMC without a Commandant and other major positions unfilled, because of laws that require certain positions to retire on specified dates, he was one of the Senators who wanted to ignore the legal electors and vote for the false ones, wanted to overturn the election and have Trump back in office. He voted against investigating the J6 insurrection, tries to pass it off as nothing that important, voted against giving the Capitol police who were injured a Congressional medal, and is in favor of admitting known white nationalists to the military (which doesn’t want them–knows they’re divisive and a security problem as well.) He thinks it’s wrong to call white supremacists racists. So he’s not in my list of good senators. He’s down there in the list of “Don’t show up on my doorstep or I’ll be forced to consider Texas’ castle doctrine” people. People who want to destroy people like me, and who therefore fall into the category of “credible threat” if they show up here. Since I really don’t want to get to that point, and he’s in Alabama, I figure it’ll never be an issue, but just if he does, there is a good heavy frying pan on the stove at all times. He should resign. Anyone should resign who claims that their personal beliefs have gotten in the way of their duty to fulfill an oath of office. Resignation is honorable. Abusing your power because you are such a red-hot hater of anything related to abortion and think you have the right to decide that women in the military should have no way to get an abortion no matter what…is not.
Part 2. Mesha Mainor, Georgia state lawmaker. Left the Democratic party, she says, because she was scolded, yelled at, for voting for school vouchers and because the Democrats had “become radical leftists.” Standard MAGA phrasing which makes me wonder if she had run for office as a Dem specifically to prepare for leaving the party at a critical moment. She says it was a “moral decision”, that her morality required her to change parties. And I don’t believe her. Once again, as so many times over the past couple of decades, I see Republicans claiming “religion” or “morality” as the reason to refuse to do their duty (e.g. the clerk who would not marry a gay couple, a clerk in a different state who would not register an existing marriage with a name change by one person because the people were gay and *she* didn’t recognize gay marriage) or as an excuse to switch parties after being elected as a Democrat. We had that same thing happen in this county years ago. A D.A. who had served several terms as county D.A. as a Democrat, noticing that the county’s overall balance was changing to GOP, ran again as a Democrat and very shortly after election changed his affiliation to GOP. After that he was re-elected as a GOP, but every one of us who’d voted for him as a Dem was, of course, furious. He cheated us. He LIED to us. He could have a) run for D.A. as a Republican (changing his affiliation before filing)–might’ve won, might not. He could have resigned from office when he decided to switch, and run in the next election under his new label. Either of those would have been honorable. Moral. Honest. Instead he bilked his supporters, lied to them. And called it a moral decision.
Lying to the people you want to have vote for you is not OK. Running as one party while intending to change to the other because it’s gaining strength…is not OK. Running as one party and changing to the other after you’ve been voted in is not OK. Deciding after taking a job that it violates you religious identity, or your personal moral code, and then refusing to do the job while taking the salary…is not OK. It’s dishonest. Resign. Resign as soon as you know you’re in conflict about it. (The dishonest D.A., it turned out, was dishonest in more than one thing, which is predictable. He prosecuted a lawyer he had never liked, charging him with killing his wife, when the man was innocent. The D.A. also withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense team and of course the jury, and the jurors convicted the innocent husband. The murderer went free for years, committing more murders; the innocent man was in prison, and his son believed his father had killed his mother. The lying scum of a D.A. had destroyed the man’s career, his family, and years of his life before the actual murderer, after being arrested for another murder, confessed–and even then the D.A. tried to fight it off. He was finally exposed but by that time he’d become a judge–and think what qualify of judge!! and it took still longer to free the innocent man from prison, get the rotten lying scumbag off the bench and disbarred…and I will bet you the damage to the father & son has never fully healed.)
I find it particularly annoying when people use that moral/religion thing about something as an excuse to lie…when if they were really religiously motivated they’d know that “lying” is mentioned in the Ten Commandments they invariably bring up, and neither gay marriage nor abortion is mentioned there at all.
Like I said, this is not the day to pokc the old bear with a stick to see if she’ll bite…she will rip the stick out of your hands and bite hard and hurt your feelings, if you do.
There’s an awful lot of promising something when standing for election, then not doing it when in power about, over here as well as in the USA. I think it is despicable, if you know you will have to lie to get elected you are dishonest and should be open to removal if you won’t resign, that goes for changing party too in my book.
I read your rant(s) and appreciate it/them.
Me too
I also like your rants – right on lady. It appears that not only does the gop attract incompetents but also liars. Very sad.
You tell it like it is – and mobilize your fellow Marines.
From up here is very wet New Hampshire.
I had the “we was robbed” reaction when our state scoundrel Jeff VanDrew flipped parties.
Yes, indeed. For me it was the county D.A., Ken Anderson, flipped in the first month of his new term. And he lived up to his turncoat self. Or down to, however you want to describe it.
I find it more interesting to observe what upsets people the most than their overall political position. It is a representative’s job to represent the people. Representative who change parties, midstream, often appear to have had dishonest intentions. It seems that the Democratic party has of late endured more betrayals. My friends made substantial donations on a House representative who changed sides. I know they felt as though they had experienced extortion.
And justly so, IMO. But I have a very, um, military attitude to various forms of betrayal in both civilian and military contexts. It’s perfectly understandable that someone changes their views from time to time…I don’t consider changing one’s ideas is reprehensible. But there’s a right way to do it, and if someone has doubts about the party they’re running as, before an election, they ought not to run until they’ve settled in their mind which party they should belong to. Don’t make false promises to get elected, which is what Ken Anderson did in that DA election.