After facing unhinged attacks from his Senate GOP colleagues, Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville is receiving backup from more U.S. military veterans who support his ongoing efforts to stop the Pentagon’s radical abortion policy.
On Thursday, former service members now working for The Heritage Foundation penned a statement in support of Tuberville’s ongoing protest of the Defense Department’s use of U.S. taxpayer money to fund abortion-related travel for Pentagon employees.
For the past several months, Tuberville has been using his position on the Senate Armed Services Committee to slow-walk votes on President Biden’s military nominees. Rather than allow the committee to confirm a large number of military nominations “en masse,” the Alabama senator’s protest forces the body to vote on each nomination one at a time.
In addition to facing attacks from Senate Democrats — who possess the power to bring these nominations to the floor for individual confirmation — Tuberville has more recently come under fire from his spineless Republican colleagues. Last week, a group of GOP senators led by Alaska’s Dan Sullivan had a melodramatic meltdown on the Senate floor over Tuberville’s protest, in which they openly criticized his stand for unborn life and regurgitated baseless Democrat talking points about harms to “military readiness.”
In their Thursday statement, Heritage’s military veterans professed their unwavering support for Tuberville’s opposition to the Pentagon’s “illegal and immoral policies,” and noted how the agency’s guidance attempts “to bypass U.S. law and … further erode[s] America’s trust in the capability of the U.S. armed forces to fulfill its mission.”
“The American people have indicated time and again that they do not approve of using taxpayer funds to fund and promote abortions,” the statement reads. “It is essential those who take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States comply with our laws. Failure to do so undermines public trust and confidence and the chain of command.”
Signatories of the statement include Heritage’s Robert Greenway, JV Venable, Dakota Wood, Wilson Beaver, James Jay Carafano, and Steven Bucci.
The aforementioned veterans didn’t just use Thursday’s statement to voice their support for Tuberville’s protest. They also used it to debunk Democrat and establishment Republicans’ unsubstantiated claim that Tuberville’s holds “leave gaps” in military readiness.
As noted in the statement, the military is equipped with enough “fully qualified officers capable of fulfilling the duties of any vacant position in its ranks.” Moreover, if there ever were a position that had to be filled for national security reasons, Senate Majority Chuck Schumer “can, and has, invoked cloture and moved select promotions to the floor for a vote.”
“The approval of key service leaders over the past few months is proof of this; when it is actually important enough to have an official in a specific job, the Senate finds a legal, common-sense, and timely remedy. Nothing that Sen. Tuberville is doing prevents this,” the statement reads.
In concluding their remarks, the veterans highlighted how ongoing attacks against Alabama’s senior senator are nothing more than “[a]ttempts to misdirect public attention from unlawful policies of the Department of Defense, which undermine civil-military relations and erode the foundation of our armed forces by pursuing a political agenda at the expense of its mission.”
“Sen. Tuberville is taking a principled stand that strengthens our constitutional democracy, and as veterans we support his opposition to these policies for the sake of our military, the rule of law, and the unborn,” the statement added.
Thursday’s statement is not the only instance in which Tuberville has received reinforcements from America’s veterans. In July, more than 5,000 current and former service members signed and sent a letter to Schumer and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell expressing support for Tuberville’s protest.
