“Give Me a Break”: Tuberville Sneers at Military, Fellow GOP Senators (Again)

Senator Tommy Tuberville doesn’t think it’s a big deal that military leaders are having to work minimum 18 hours a day because of his blockade on military promotions.

The Department of Defense has repeatedly warned that Tuberville’s stunt is hurting military readiness. As if more proof were needed, the commandant of the Marine Corps has been hospitalized after suffering a heart attack over the weekend.

General Eric Smith has been working as both commandant and his own assistant commandant since mid-September because the Senate has been unable to confirm an official deputy for him. He had previously warned that his schedule—getting up at 5 a.m. and working until 11:30 p.m. every day—was “not a sustainable thing.” There is no indication that Smith’s workload contributed to his heart attack, but working two jobs likely didn’t help.

When asked about the strain that his blockade is causing Smith and other military leaders, Tuberville said Thursday, “[He’s] probably got 2,000 people who work for him, OK?”

“Somebody said he’s working 18 hours a day. Jack Reed blamed me for his heart attack. Come on, give me a break,” Tuberville told CNN’s Manu Raju.

The Alabama Republican was referring to Democratic Senator Jack Reed, who said earlier this week that Smith’s intense workload “contributed to his condition.”

“This guy’s gonna work 18–20 hours a day no matter what,” Tuberville continued. “That’s what we do. I did that for years because you gotta get the job done.”

Tuberville was referring to his previous job as a college football coach. While he may well have put in 18 hours a day for the various teams he led, the demands of his job are likely a little different from what Smith is handling.

Tuberville has blocked almost 400 military promotions since March in protest over the Defense Department’s policy of reimbursing travel costs for service members who have to go out of state for an abortion.

The Pentagon has warned repeatedly that Tuberville’s blockade harms military readiness, with the secretary of the Navy accusing Tuberville of “aiding and abetting” Communist regimes by holding up promotions.

Even Tuberville’s fellow Republicans are getting sick of his shenanigans, with several calling him out by name on the Senate floor Thursday night. Dan Sullivan delivered the most scathing rebuke, saying it was “ridiculous” that Tuberville continues to insist he isn’t harming military readiness.

“Xi Jinping is loving this. So is Putin,” Sullivan said, referring to the presidents of China and Russia. “How dumb can we be, man?”

Welcome to the stand, Ivanka Trump.

A New York appeals court ruled on Thursday that the Trump sister must testify in the family’s $250 million bank fraud trial, rejecting Ivanka’s pathetic attempt to waylay her testimony via an appeal.

She is scheduled to take the stand on November 8.

Ivanka Trump was originally cast as a defendant in the case alongside Donald Trump and sons Eric and Donald Jr, but narrowly avoided inclusion earlier this year when an appeals court ruled her actions were outside the statute of limitations. The trio stands accused of deceiving banks and insurers by massively overvaluing the elder Trump’s net worth.

Ivanka was ordered to testify in the trial last week—but then appealed the decision on the grounds that she would face “undue hardship” if she had to find childcare in order to testify during the school week. It looks like the judge thinks finding a babysitter isn’t all that hard.

So far, Don Jr. has wrapped his testimony, while Eric’s will continue through Friday.

Mary Trump, the former president’s estranged niece, doesn’t see the children’s testimony helping their father.

“They’re going to have to walk a very thin line between obfuscating in a way that’s not perjury and appeasing their father’s ego so that he doesn’t throw them under the bus when he testifies, which of course he’s going to do no matter what they do,” Mary Trump said in a newsletter exclusive, referring to the two sons.

That might change when Ivanka hits the stand.

Ivanka is likely to be less coy about her father’s business dealings, according to Mary, who believes that the heiress will “tell the truth and throw him under the bus,” since she’s “legitimately wealthy” without her father and doesn’t need to rely on him.

So far, Judge Arthur Engoron has ruled that Trump and his sons committed fraud and has stripped the Trump Organization of its business certificates. Trump is fighting hard to appeal that decision.

Mary Trump delivered an epic burn to her cousin Eric after he was caught lying in court about his knowledge of the Trump Organization’s finances.

Eric Trump claimed Thursday during the company’s business fraud trial that he had “never worked” on the Trump Organization’s statement of financial condition and that he wasn’t even aware of it until the trial began. Moments later, he was shown an email in which he told employees he was working on the statement, forcing him to admit he actually knew about it as far back as 2013.

“They lie so much, they can’t even keep track of their own bullshit,” Mary Trump tweeted gleefully on Thursday evening.

“Sounds like perjury is on today’s menu.” She also predicted that Eric “basically just lost the entire case.”

Mary Trump, who has contributed to The New Republic and participated in TNR’s “Stop Trump Summit,” regularly and brilliantly drags her family on social media. In September, she marked her uncle Donald Trump being found liable for fraud by listing all of his historic accomplishments—including being the first former president to be impeached twice, accused of inciting an insurrection, indicted, found liable for sexual assault, and found liable for fraud.

New York state Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron ruled in September that Donald Trump had committed business fraud and ordered all his New York business certificates be canceled. This makes it nearly impossible to do business in New York and could effectively kill the Trump Organization as it exists today.

Both of Trump’s older sons, Eric and Don Jr., testified in court this week. Donald Trump freaked out about their pending testimony ahead of time. And now it’s clear why. His sons’ words have hurt his case more than helped him.

A conservative activist has unveiled a fellowship that aims to help “conservative journalists, activists, and opinion leaders” foment a culture war.

Christopher Rufo, an ally of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has become a leading figure in conservative education policy. He first gained national attention by instigating the explosive debate of “critical race theory,” which has now become a right-wing buzzword for diversity of thought.

Rufo unveiled the “Manhattan Institute Logos Fellowship” on Monday. “Fellows will bring a specific ‘culture war’ project to the program, which our team will help nurture over the course of the year,” he wrote in the announcement.

“The goal is to help move these independent projects from conception to execution, so that they begin to shape the discourse and change public policy. Some topics that we hope to address are critical race theory, gender ideology, higher education reform, crime and policing, and civil rights law.”

One benefit of the program is that fellows will be able to network with “cable news bookers, policy makers, and aligned organizations to promote the dissemination of ideas and policy proposals.”

Rufo already has considerable sway over school campuses throughout the United States. He was placed on the board of the New College of Florida after DeSantis helped oust the liberally minded school’s former president. Rufo has also helped push to ban books and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs across the country. Now the man who lied about his Harvard degree is trying to extend his influence further by nurturing the next generation of the far right.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is chugging along with jury selection in Donald Trump’s federal election subversion case, despite attempts to delay the proceedings by the former president’s legal team.

On Thursday, Chutkan endorsed a set of jury procedures that note prospective jurors will fill out a preliminary questionnaire on February 9, just over three months away. (As a reminder, Trump’s trial is scheduled to begin on March 4, 2024, one day before Super Tuesday.)

Certain language in the court order also hints that Chutkan is getting wise to Trump’s antics.

After slapping Trump with a gag order in the D.C. trial for leveraging his platform on social media and at speaking arrangements to lambaste prosecutors and office clerks associated with the case, Chutkan’s legal outline reads more like a warning to his defense to keep the former president from trash-talking his own jury.

“The parties must ensure that anyone permitted access to sensitive juror information understands that he cannot publicly disclose the information, and no party may provide jurors’ identifying information to any other entity (e.g., the defendant’s campaign) that is not part of the defense team or Government team assisting with jury selection,” Chutkan wrote.

The date, just three months from now, breezes past concerns over other possible Trump-induced delays in the trial. In October, Trump’s legal team claimed presidential immunity in the D.C. case charging him with plotting to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, in an attempt to argue that Trump’s actions fell within his White House responsibilities.

Trump also ran into issues with his social media addiction in his $250 million bank fraud trial. Up in New York, Trump has already violated his gag order twice so far, first earning a $5,000 fine and then a $10,000 fine, along with the threat of jail time.