(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



Kyrsten Sinema wants Biden and the military to negotiate with a hostage-taker [1]

['Daily Kos Staff']

Date: 2023-08-18  

Even for Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, this is a lot. Sinema’s traditional standout areas are 1) attention-seeking displays of ego and 2) peacocking about her moderate bipartisan compromising blah blah blah. She’s doing a fine job of combining the two as she attempts to insert herself into the ongoing drama of Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville’s hold on all military promotions, which has left three of the branches of the military lacking Senate-confirmed leaders.

In response to state abortion bans, the Pentagon instituted a policy paying for service members and their family members to travel out of state to obtain abortion care. Tuberville doesn’t like this, so he is blocking all military promotions and says he’ll continue doing this until the Pentagon relents. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and a number of retired generals have said that it’s harming military readiness. Tuberville’s position is that one single senator should be able to micromanage the decisions of even the largest federal agency. Sinema’s view—of course—is that what this situation needs is a compromise brokered by her.

“I know that Coach does not want to undermine the readiness of our United States military,” Sinema said when asked about the situation at a recent meeting of the Greater Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, the recording of which was obtained by NBC News. In that case, one solution to this would be for “Coach” (gag) to stop undermining the readiness of our United States military, but that is not Sinema’s preferred solution.

She continued, “And I know that the United States military and the administration does not want to undermine the authority and the right of any United States senator. What we need are for folks to step off a little bit from their positions and find that middle ground to solve the challenge that we’re facing.” Yeah, no. The authority of any United States senator does not extend to unilaterally making personnel decisions for federal agencies. What if another senator wanted to make a different personnel decision for the Pentagon? You can’t have 100 different senators all having their individual demands honored outside of the process of drafting legislation and passing it into law.

“I’ve volunteered to help do that,” Sinema said, always eager to make herself the center of any story. “We’ll see if they take me up on the offer.”

There is nothing to take her up on. There is no compromise possible here. There is only negotiating with a hostage-taker or not. A Department of Defense spokesperson recently made clear that the answer is “not,” saying: “If you are a service member stationed in a state that has rolled back or restricted health care access, you are often stationed there because you were assigned there. It is not that you chose to go there. And so a service member in Alabama deserves to have the same access to health care as a service member in California, as a service member stationed in Korea.” And the policy is not specific to abortion: “We have a travel policy that allows for our service members to take advantage of health care that should be accessible to them.”

But Sinema, who claims to support reproductive rights, doesn’t want to talk about what the policy actually does. She wants to talk about compromise. “What we’re in is a position of pain — we’re in a pinch point right now,” she said. “Coach wants something the military and the administration is not willing to give him. But it would be a mistake to take away that tool from a United States senator because it is an important tool to address unmet needs." The “tool” in question is the ability to create pain as long as that senator is willing to hold out and, importantly, their party is willing to back them. This kind of action from a Democrat simply wouldn’t fly because Democrats are not about breaking the government, even for causes they feel are righteous. And Sinema’s implication that this is some timeless matter of Senate prerogatives is false. The current heavy usage of holds in the Senate only emerged in the 1970s, and there have been repeated efforts to reform it since.

“So what I’m encouraging both Coach and the administration to do is to be flexible in finding a solution," Sinema continued. "There is always a solution to be had. It may not be everything the Coach wants. And it may not be everything that the United States military or the administration wants. But there is a solution to be found. And so what I have offered to both Coach and to the administration is to help in any way that I can to help find that solution, because it does exist. It always exists.”

No, no, and again no. Why should the administration make concessions to a single senator? If Tuberville wants this so much, let him get a law passed. Sinema would get her vote on that legislation if Tuberville brought it up. But as retired Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Arnold Punaro recently told Politico, Tuberville is “a coward, in my book. He won’t even bring an amendment to the floor and get it voted on to change the policy.” And Sinema thinks her desire for attention is better served by thrusting herself in as the one true bipartisan negotiator than by being one out of 100 votes in the Senate.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/8/18/2188034/-Kyrsten-Sinema-wants-Biden-and-the-military-to-negotiate-with-a-hostage-taker

Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/