by Paul Rieckhoff<\/b><\/p>\n
Finally someone in Congress has stepped up to do something about radical Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville and his political assault on our military. And no surprise, it\u2019s combat veteran, West Point graduate, former IAVA Board member, my fellow New Yorker and friend, Pat Ryan. As first reported by NBC, this week Ryan introduced legislation demanding Tuberville lift hold on military nominations amid Israel-Hamas war<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s about damn time somebody in Congress took action. The impact of his months of delays has never been clearer than it is now, as critical components of our response to the unfolding crisis in Israel are paralyzed by Tuberville’s stubbornness. And action like this is why Ryan continues to have support from vets of all political sides, and why he won a purple district in a victory that sent shockwaves across the political world<\/a>. He\u2019s willing to take a stand. You can read his full statement introducing the legislation here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Everyone in Congress should sign on to support Ryan\u2019s legislation. Tuberville\u2019s holds continue to be radical, reckless and damaging to our national security. And, hurt our Ukrainian and Israeli allies deep in the fight right now. I\u2019ve been on MSNBC talking about it for months<\/a>.<\/p>\n As I told Ryan, I do wish he\u2019d go further and demand that Tuberville resign. The man I\u2019ve called \u201cSenator Redneck\u201d is a disgrace to the Senate, has embraced white nationalism<\/a>, and repeatedly shown he is willing to undermine our national security and hurt our troops. He\u2019s also dangerously dumb.\u00a0<\/p>\n I also shared with Ryan that I think the term \u201cMAGAists\u201d is not precise and effective enough. Tuberville is radical, extreme\u2014and part of what I call the #AmericanInsurgency. \u201cAnti-American\u201d or \u201cTrumpist\u201d are also more effective. Especially with people who are not Democrats.<\/p>\n Dems overuse \u201cMAGAists\u201d. It\u2019s Trump\u2019s language. It\u2019s counterproductive to repeat it. And critics can and should do better. \u201cMAGAists\u201d also unnecessarily drives away some Republicans (and some independents). I\u2019m glad at least they\u2019ve stopped using \u201cMAGA Republicans\u201d\u2014which is also less effective and definitely drives away Republicans who object to the connection of the two.\u00a0<\/p>\n Needless to say, Dems can definitely do much better on messaging and messengers overall. But Ryan is a strong and effective outlier for his party.\u00a0 If Democrats (or Republicans) want to attract independents like me\u2013especially veterans\u2013they should sound like him.\u00a0<\/p>\n And it takes courage to be first. Especially in politics. And Pat Ryan has again shown courage again. I\u2019m proud to know him. And hope that all Senators and Reps from both parties will follow his bold lead. Our national security is at stake. And every day Tuberville continues his asinine hold, Putin, Hamas and our enemies are celebrating.<\/p>\n Courage and effectiveness like this is one reason I asked Ryan to be my guest on Independent Americans back in Episode186<\/a>. And I hope he\u2019ll join me again soon. With news of many new co-signers to his legislation.<\/p>\n From both parties.\u00a0<\/p>\n Paul Rieckhoff is an independent political and national security analyst, frequent MSNBC guest, activist, US Army infantry combat veteran, the host of <\/i>Independent Americans<\/i><\/a>, President of <\/i>Righteous Media<\/i><\/a>, founder of <\/i>Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA)<\/i><\/a>, and the author of \u201c<\/i>Chasing Ghosts: Failures and Facades in Iraq, A Soldier\u2019s Perspective<\/i><\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Paul Rieckhoff Finally someone in Congress has stepped up to do something about radical Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville and his political assault on our military. And no surprise, it\u2019s combat veteran, West Point graduate, former IAVA Board member, my fellow New Yorker and friend, Pat Ryan. As first reported by NBC, this week Ryan… Continue reading Someone Finally Steps Up To Stop Tuberville. And It\u2019s a Veteran.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5037,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-op-ed","category-uncategorized","entry"],"rttpg_featured_image_url":{"full":["https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/TUBERVILLENAVALBLOCKADE.jpg",1024,870,false],"landscape":["https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/TUBERVILLENAVALBLOCKADE.jpg",1024,870,false],"portraits":["https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/TUBERVILLENAVALBLOCKADE.jpg",1024,870,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/TUBERVILLENAVALBLOCKADE-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/TUBERVILLENAVALBLOCKADE-300x255.jpg",300,255,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/TUBERVILLENAVALBLOCKADE.jpg",750,637,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/TUBERVILLENAVALBLOCKADE.jpg",1024,870,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/TUBERVILLENAVALBLOCKADE.jpg",1024,870,false],"post-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/TUBERVILLENAVALBLOCKADE.jpg",1024,870,false]},"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/author\/admin\/"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"OP-ED<\/a> Uncategorized<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"by Paul Rieckhoff Finally someone in Congress has stepped up to do something about radical Alabama Senator Tommy Tuberville and his political assault on our military. And no surprise, it\u2019s combat veteran, West Point graduate, former IAVA Board member, my fellow New Yorker and friend, Pat Ryan. As first reported by NBC, this week Ryan……","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5031"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5034,"href":"https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5031\/revisions\/5034"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.righteous-media.com\/IndependentAmericans\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}