Political Quotes

“I rise today to talk about a crisis in our military leadership driven by one of my Senate colleague's decision to place a blanket hold on now more than 250 apolitical nominations of senior military officers. The senior Senator from Alabama has done so. These 250 military nominations are soon to be joined by another 400 or so, which would mean that 650 individuals who volunteered to wear the uniform of this country and to defend the country, even at risk of their own lives, are being blocked in their professional advancement by a Senator punishing them for something they had nothing to do with-- nothing to do with. The Senator is concerned about a policy of the Pentagon's that would allow women servicemembers who cannot obtain reproductive healthcare where they are deployed or assigned to travel to other places to receive that care. That is currently the way we treat members of the military. If they are assigned at a base in the United States or elsewhere and they need medical care that they cannot obtain where they are assigned, they are able to travel to seek that care. But because the Pentagon, in the aftermath of the Dobbs decision, has said that longstanding policy allowing travel would also apply to women troops seeking reproductive healthcare, the Senator from Alabama has taken the drastic, radical, extreme, unusual step of saying he will block confirmation and approval of now hundreds of our military officers.…”