Alabama’s GOP coach in the Senate Tommy Tuberville has surpassed 300 flag and senior US military officers whose promotions he’s blocking in a protest of the Pentagon policy of paying for travel expenses of members of the military and their families who need to travel to get a safe abortion. According to the Washington Post–which created a great graphic to illustrate the backlog here–Tuberville is currently blocking promotions to fill key Pentagon positions, not including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Commandant of the Marines, and the chief of staff of the Army.
Coach Tuberville–who refuses to instruct his staff to call him by his proper title, Senator–is upset that the military policy on travel reimbursements for health care covers abortion, and he’s willing to jeopardize US military readiness and national security while he stomps his feet. The policy Tuberville wants eliminated ensures US military receive premium healthcare when they are assigned to underdeveloped nations, religious autocracies or primitive states where regimes ban accepted medical practices because of local oppression, like the Middle East, communist countries, and Alabama.