U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Alabama) has given further information about his proposed energy solutions and responded to criticism of his analysis of Russia as a communist country.
On Wednesday, Tuberville, in a press conference call, first took an opportunity to criticize President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address that took place the night before.“Yesterday, President Biden delivered his State of the Union address amid the crisis and chaos his policies have created," Tuberville said. "The American taxpayer was watching to see if he would speak to the concerns facing our nation. But instead, he left the tough topics on the table and opted for the easy way out. He did not give the American people the answers they needed. He did not embody the strength of a leader, but the weakness of a follower.”
Tuberville claimed the national defense is not a priority for the current administration. Instead, “woke” training was at the top of Biden’s priorities.
At the same time, the president sought to cut defense spending, his administration injected a leftist socialist agenda into our ranks," said Tuberville. "Since the president took office, service members spent nearly six million man-hours on woke training; think about that. It’s no wonder that Americans have lost faith in our military.”
A report was released in July of 2021
that echoed Tuberville’s concerns of excessive training on social justice and
systemic racism. The report was commissioned by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) and
other members of Congress.
“I guarantee you every unit in the Navy is up to speed on their diversity training," Cotton said.
Cotton subsequently released a memorandum outlining the perceived problem within the armed forces. One member of the military, whose name was kept confidential, outlined a series of courses he was forced to endure that seemed to be espousing a certain political ideology. One such course involved training in combatting extremism, in which the unnamed soldier claimed only one side of political extremism was mentioned.
“When several of us asked in a survey why Antifa and Islamic Jihadist groups were not included in the training guidance, we never received an answer during the telephone conference event led by the general officer in charge of our organization,” the soldier said. “This training would have been much better received if it was balanced and condemned all elements of extremism (ie, Antifa, ISIS, neo-nazis, KKK). However, several people in my office were disappointed and believe the training to be politically driven with an evident bias against conservative members of the military. Many of us are afraid to voice our concerns. I have grave concerns that the DoD extremist working group will target military members with conservative views versus pursuing legitimate extremist concerns from extremist political groups (left and right).”
Tuberville also discussed Russia’s developing military operations against Ukraine, taking the opportunity to criticize Biden for his alleged inefficiency in preempting the conflict.
“For months, the administration watched passively while Putin amassed 150,000 [troops] on the Ukrainian’s borders,” Tuberville said. “When President Biden failed to take action, President Putin saw an opening and took it. Now, we have the largest conflict in Europe since 1945 and World War II.”
Tuberville also addressed the controversy surrounding statements he made this past week. He referred to Russia as a communist country, a claim that many pointed out as being less-than-accurate since Russia has not officially been considered communist since 1991. 1819 News asked Tuberville if he wished to clarify the statement or if he stood by his original comments.
“Well, they are an authoritarian country,” Tuberville said. “They do have a couple of parties that they say gets to vote on elections. They do say that they let their people vote. They do say that they have freedom, but they have not near what we have in the United States of America. Yeah. They have huge handcuffs on themselves as citizens of Russia. They’ve had this dictator, murderer, and thug as president for 22 years. He has controlled everything personally that Russia does. He’s invaded Georgia, he’s invaded Crimea, and now he’s killing thousands of citizens and individuals in a country that used to be part of the old USSR; friends and neighbors of Russia. Yes, he is a thug, a killer, and an authoritarian government that dictates everything that their people do. It is not free speech in the government of Russia. All you have to do is watch television when they’re rioting and saying, ‘we don’t want to go into Crimea,’ and they’re locking their people up right and left.”
Tuberville was very much critical of Biden’s reaction to Russian escalation that was showing itself months ago. He claimed that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for preemptive sanctions against Russia months ago.
“We didn’t do one thing to deter Putin and Russia –the communist country– from going into Ukraine,” Tuberville said. “All we did was say, ‘if you do something, then we might do something, but you’re not going to know at this point how tough these sanctions are going to be.’”
Tuberville also addressed his recent cosponsoring of the American Energy Independence Act (AEIA) of 2022, which seeks to reverse Biden’s policies in the American energy sector and return American energy to total production. One of the main strategies put forward by the AEIA is to restore the permit for the Keystone XL Pipeline after its cancellation by the Biden administration and ease the process for constructing new pipelines.
“We import nearly 600,000 barrels of oil per day from Russia,” Tuberville said. “The Keystone pipeline in the United States would have provided us 800,000 barrels per day.”
To connect with the author of this story, or to comment, email craig.monger@1819news.com.
