Dead Drop: July 14

GENERAL CONFUSION:  We’ve been telling you for months about the mounting trouble caused by Senator Tommy Tuberville’s (R, AL) one-man ban on the Senate confirmation for the promotion of senior military officers – now numbering in the hundreds.  This week, the stars aligned for some major malfunctions.  The U.S. Marine Corps, for example, found itself without a confirmed Commandant for the first time in over a century. General David Berger retired, as scheduled, on July 10^th and instead of getting a change of command ceremony, his designated successor, General Eric Smith, got a nothing-Berger and became Acting Commandant…while still holding down his previous #2 position. Tuberville, meanwhile,  told interviewers that he was confident that he was not impacting readiness by holding up flag officer promotions. He was told that by (among others) some colonel he had lunch with. Tuberville said he really wasn’t blocking all these generals and admirals and if the powers that be wanted to deal with it, they could do so by holding votes for them one-by-one.  The Cipher Brief’s Walter Pincus tweeted “It’s time for Sen. Chuck Schumer to call Sen. Tuberville’s bluff and keep the Senate in session 24-hours-a-day voting on each of the military promotions.” According to Politico, each nomination could “eat up days of floor time in the Senate.” Perhaps if the Senators were forced to spend their planned August recess and the rest of the fall voting one-by-one, they might convince Tuberville to reverse course. The Pentagon says Tuberville is currently holding up promotions or assignments for 265 generals and admirals, but the number could grow to 650 by the end of the year. There is also a trickle-down effect with lower-ranking officers being unable to move to fill vacancies – and an impact on spouses and children who are left in limbo. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs nominee, General C.Q. Brown said at his confirmation hearing this week, that continued road blocks will have long term effects. “We will lose talent. The spouse network is alive and well, and the spouses will compare notes.”

SO THAT’S WHY BILL BURNS HAS BEEN MAKING THOSE TRIPS TO KYIV:  The Russian Embassy in the UK recently highlighted in a tweet, a statement from Maria Zakharova, the spokesperson for the Kremlin’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who claimed that CIA and other U.S. intelligence services “actually control all developments on the territory of Ukraine.”  She said Ukraine “has long been run from beyond its borders, and its sovereignty & independence have vanished without a trace.” Kind of ironic since vanishing Ukraine’s sovereignty and unity seemed to be Moscow’s goal when it started this war.  Oh well, we guess the Kremlin needs ‘some’ explanation for why their planned 3-day ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine has now gone on for more than five hundred days.