CV NEWS FEED // Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-AL, has for months blocked the promotions of military nominees in order to pressure the administration to end a controversial new pro-abortion policy. One of the nominees Tuberville is blocking was revealed this week to have a long track record of pushing highly controversial, far-left political positions.
Col. Kareem “Monty” Montague is one of the latest military officials blocked from promotion by Tuberville. The senator, who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee, started his series of holds in March in response to a new pro-abortion policy instituted by the Biden administration’s Department of Defense (DoD).
MSNBC’s Steve Benen published an article Wednesday alleging that Tuberville’s holds are “targeting career military leaders” rather than the administration’s abortion policy.
Benen cited Tuberville telling an interviewer last week, “I don’t care if we promote anybody to be honest.” Tuberville noted that the U.S. military has over six times more four-star generals than it did during World War II, concluding, “I think we’re a little overloaded to begin with.”
On Thursday, the American Accountability Foundation (AAF) replied to Benen on X (formerly known as Twitter) with a series of posts underscoring the radical views of Montague – one of the “career military leaders” to which Benen referred.
MSNBC is “crying” because Tuberville and AAF “exposed Biden’s woke military noms,” the group wrote. AAF also called Montague an “Ivy League Social Justice Warrior.”
Founded in 2020, the AAF regularly opposes President Joe Biden’s most controversial nominees. The group also helped expose the far-left turn of the American Library Association (ALA), leading to a series of states deciding to break ties with the association.
As reported by the AAF, Montague has a history of expressing support for certain aspects of Critical Race Theory (CRT). In a 2017 Facebook post, he wrote that he believes a “system of de facto and de jure segregation has created a long standing imbalance in our country.”
“As a result,” he continued, “there is a general advantage to being white in this country. There’s nothing any of us needs to do about it, just acknowledge that it is a real thing.”
In another 2017 post, the military officer “asked” visitors to Stone Mountain, a popular landmark outside of Atlanta that features engravings of Robert E. Lee and other Confederate generals, “to remember the act of treason perpetrated by those individuals and the resultant bloodshed.”
In February 2020, Montague railed against Aunt Jemima, stating that he considered the longtime breakfast brand to be racist and that its eponymous character conveyed the “southern ideal of an old, compliant black woman who cooks and is happy with plantation life.”
Montague’s rhetoric was not limited to the topic of race.
A Facebook post from 2011 endorsed a movie about LGBTQ activist Harvey Milk, calling him “an interesting person.”
As CatholicVote previously reported, “Milk infamously had a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old runaway boy, who committed suicide after their encounter.”
Montague is only one of a growing list of military officers whose controversial left-wing stances are being scrutinized due to Tuberville’s decision to pause their advancements.
As the AAF noted Tuesday, Navy Vice Admiral Craig A. “Clap” Clapperton was photographed attending a 2018 LGBT “pride” celebration with other service members. The Navy Office of Information noted that there, he spoke about the “importance” of such celebrations.
Clapperton, whom Biden nominated for re-appointment as vice admiral, then served as the commanding officer of the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71), an aircraft carrier.
Captain Neil A. Koprowski, another Navy officer whose promotion Tuberville is blocking, once expressed his desire for his fleet to “promptly address the full spectrum of systemic racism.”
As chronicled by the AAF, several more of the officers with pending appointments have spoken favorably of the military’s recent Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) efforts.
In a May letter to Tuberville, CatholicVote President Brian Burch expressed words of support and encouragement for the lone senator’s pro-life efforts.
“By pledging to hold all nominations to the Department of Defense until administration officials reverse course, you are doing a great service that Catholics unequivocally support,” Burch wrote. “As faithful Catholics and as Americans, we believe in living out the truths of our faith in public life. At this point in our nation’s history, there is no truth more important to us than the fact that all human life is sacred.”
Burch ended his letter by stating, “Please know that Catholics are with you 100%!”
As a result of Tuberville’s months-long campaign against abortion in the military, hundreds of appointments have been delayed. In July, the Marine Corps was left without a Senate-confirmed leader for the first time since 1859. The Army and Navy joined the Marines in that regard earlier this month.
All three branches have an acting chief, and as Tuberville noted, his efforts are “not affecting readiness.”
Tuberville has resolved to continue the holds until the DoD reverses the policy, which, as CatholicVote reported, “offers paid leave and travel reimbursement to service members in pro-life states who want to travel to pro-abortion states in order to abort their unborn children.”
“I hate to have to do this, but they’re going to listen,” the senator said in an interview with the Catholic News Agency (CNA) last month.
WRITE TO YOUR SENATOR NOW: STOP ABORTION IN THE MILITARY
