Why no, Senate Republicans are not going to allow a vote on Loretta Lynch as Attorney General, nor will they suffer any consequences for continuing to refuse to allow it. Why do you think they keep moving the goalposts?
Republican leaders have tied a vote on Lynch to the passage of an unrelated bill targeting sex trafficking. That bill, which normally would be bipartisan, has stalled for weeks because Republicans tucked an anti-abortion provision into it that Democrats won’t support. As long as the bill doesn’t move, neither does Lynch.
“The Senate should pass this bipartisan bill right away,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky) said Tuesday. “And as soon as that happens, we’ll turn to the Loretta Lynch nomination.”
But it’s not that simple, and there’s no end in sight to the abortion fight. The Senate is voting Thursday to take up an amendment that Republicans say is a way forward on the impasse, but Democrats call it a gimmick and vow to oppose it.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the bill’s author, will offer to tweak the bill’s language relating to the Hyde Amendment, the federal provision that bans the use of public funds for abortions except in cases of rape or incest. But the tweak doesn’t address Democrats’ core concern that the bill, for the first time, would expand the Hyde Amendment to apply to non-taxpayer funds. The bill would allow fees collected from human traffickers to be funneled into a new public fund for victims, to which the Hyde Amendment would be applied.
Democrats say any expansion of the Hyde Amendment is a non-starter for them.
“Senate Republicans are trying to restrict the health choices of women and girls who have been sold into sex slavery,” said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.). “The latest proposal from Senator Cornyn does nothing to change that fact. He is still attaching Hyde to non-taxpayer, offender dollars.”
So no, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans have made it clear that until the Democrats fold on expanding Hyde to victims of human trafficking, Lynch will never get a vote. For now anyway the Dems are hanging in there, but Loretta Lynch is the one paying the price, and nobody seems to give a damn (certainly not the Villagers.)
But this is the extent that our “smaller government” friends on the other side of the aisle will go to in order to control women’s bodies. Not only do we have to further shame victims of modern slavery, we have to bring them in for judgment from a bunch of wrinkled old white guys too just to try to flip off President Mandingo Reallyfromkenya from even appointing people to his own cabinet.
Compassion, thy name is the Republican Party.
Baud
Coloradoans are OK with that.
Robert Sneddon
What would happen if Holder just upped and said “I’m outta here at the end of April. You’ve had a nomination for my successor sitting in front of Congress for months now waiting for a vote. Deal with it, bye.” ?
Dupe70
@Robert Sneddon: I would prefer Holder saying that he was planning on being out of here by now but since he isn’t he is opening investigations into torture and will subpoena Cheney, Bush, Rummy, et. al.
Mustang Bobby
@Robert Sneddon: The Republicans would love that. They’d get rid of Holder and leave President Obama with no one confirmed at the DOJ and then blame him for it.
I suggested that while he’s still in office, AG Holder should announce that the DOJ is opening an investigation into Dick Cheney’s secret dealings with the oil company executives in 2003. Loretta Lynch would be confirmed that afternoon.
OzarkHillbilly
Big Foot is in the house stomping all over threads left and right.
On topic, I wonder when some Dem is going to introduce legislation regulating men’s sexual healthcare? You know saying things like “there is a connection between the use of Viagra by men and lesbian female offspring and hypersexualized male offspring foreshadowing an epidemic of rape that no doubt is just around the corner. Or, before a man can buy condoms he must first convince a doctor that they are medically necessary and provide a prescription to a pharmacist for them, but a pharmacist my exercise his religious freedom and refuse to provide them. Or, before a man can get a vasectomy, he must first sit thru a 15 minute film about the gravity of his actions, have his penis internally inspected by a technician, then must jerk off in front of said technician (preferably a man, who is allowed to critique said penis)(or maybe a lesbian would be better?) whereupon successful ejaculation he must watch all the little sperm thru a micrscope and see all the potential little lives he will destroy thru proposed medical procedure.
Then to top it all off, he should be arrested for murder. After all, he did just destroy thousands of potential people, did he not?
OzarkHillbilly
I am in moderation, I think I used the big “P” word in conjunction with a jerking motion.
Ryan
This makes perfect sense to me. They have a sadistic hatred of Holder; how could he be better tortured than to be forced to stay in his job until 2016?
raven
“Paying the price ” how? The job sucks and the “American people” are douche bags.
gene108
@Mustang Bobby:
Or impeach Obama or find some alternate means of retaliation against Obama, if and when Republicans get the White House back.
******************************
Also, Democrats should’ve brought this up, when the bill was in committee. They let it sail out of committee without reading the damn thing.
Republicans now get to parade up and down about how it passed out of committee on a unanimous vote, but now Democrats want to be obstructionists.
*******************************
WTF is wrong with McConnell? Why the fuck can’t Republicans “walk and chew gum” at the same time.
The rest of us multitask all the time. How hard would it be to do one cabinet confirmation and debate one bill simultaneously?
Bunch of assholes.
But that’s what voters want, so what do I know.
Kryptik
Under sane circumstances, I would be happy for these assholes to try and pull this crap, and sit back and watch them get pilloried. But the fact that they get to do this shit and pay exactly no tangible price whatsoever is just such a fucking galling thing, that I can’t help but despair. Our system is fully and utterly fucking broken and apparently the only way to ever have to pay a price it seems like is to be a Democrat who isn’t unerringly fucking perfect.
rikyrah
Eric Holder should just go out and do something to irritate them everyday until Lynch is confirmed.
Kryptik
Under sane circumstances, I would be happy for these assholes to try and pull this crap, and sit back and watch them get rightly taken to the stocks. But the fact that they get to do this shit and pay exactly no tangible price whatsoever is just such a fucking galling thing, that I can’t help but despair. Our system is fully and utterly fucking broken and apparently the only way to ever have to pay a price it seems like is to be a Democrat who isn’t unerringly fucking perfect.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I got moderated too for a p-word, but likely one less explicit than yours.
gene108
@rikyrah:
Holder’s existence as AG irritates them, but Republicans view the way to handle irritation is to make everyone miserable.
Kryptik
Christ, sometimes I wish I remembered all that gets moderated around here. Trying to find the one word in your post that is triggering moderation is like a needle in a haystack.
Kryptik
Under sane circumstances, I would be happy for these assholes to try and pull this crap, and sit back and watch them get taken to the stocks. But the fact that they get to do this shit and pay exactly no tangible price whatsoever is just such a fucking galling thing, that I can’t help but despair. Our system is fully and utterly fucking broken and apparently the only way to ever have to pay a price it seems like is to be a Democrat who isn’t unerringly fucking perfect.
Edit: Also, always fun to have a typo in your email field that you missed, and wondering why all your posts were getting moderated.
PIGL
It was at about this point that Oliver Cromwell marched into Parliament, saying ” get you gone and give place to honest men” and dubbed himself Lord Protector. That is how this ends.
terraformer
This is just another example in a very long line of examples about how the Village media choose to ignore the lunacy of Republicans. This one, as are most of them, is pretty cut-and-dried in terms of what the issues are and what the Republicans are trying to do, and yet we hear crickets in terms of not only substantive compare-and-contrast, but also the larger picture and the continuing hypocrisy.
Is our media learning? Depends on the context: if it is whether they are learning to report facts and nuance, then no; if it is whether they are honing their skills of obfuscation in service of conservatives, then yes, our media is learning – and indeed they have been displaying expert skill for many years.
Mike E
@PIGL:
Thus, ushering in the ‘parliament era’. If only we were so lucky.
GregB
Lynch has to pull a Clarence Thomas, hold a press conference and call this slow motion bureaucratic lynching of her career. She needs to say the Republicans wouldn’t do this to a white man.
Bill
Didn’t we hear the Republican bleating on and on about how much they hate Holder? How they think he’s the worst AG ever?
Now they have a chance to replace him. So, of course, in the conservative mind the only thing to do is force him to stay in office.
Cervantes
@Mustang Bobby:
And maybe even retroactively.
MomSense
I just listened to a minute and a half of Cokie Roberts and Diane Rehm and I want to barf. They were talking about how amazing Cokie’s mom was because she had a baby on her hip while she hosted some party for 1,500 people.
Try working at walmart for 7.35 an hour with an irregular schedule and trying to find quality child care, decent transportation, enough healthy food, adequate housing…
ETA oh and they were reminiscing about when DC was a tight knit community where everybody knew and liked each other.
...now I try to be amused
@Dupe70:
YES YES YES YES YES. A subpoena a week until the hostage is freed!
Punchy
This is a pretty clear blueprint for what will happen should Obama or Pres. Clinton need to fill a SCOTUS vacancy. They’ll just refuse to vote on someone until “X”, “Y”, and “Z” is complete (with X, Y, or Z being O-care repeal, SS reform, or some tax policy). Hold the nominee in limbo in perpetuity.
Elections have consequences, apparently.
Cervantes
@MomSense:
Lindy Boggs was a good person and a perfectly acceptable — though not outstanding — member of Congress from New Orleans. The tragedy of her life was that of her four kids, two — Cokie and Tommy — were and are lousy human beings.
liberal
The problem is that Dems don’t fully do tit for tat.
CONGRATULATIONS!
That’s fine. I don’t mind finishing out Obama’s term with AG Holder.
@liberal:
That’s an understatement. And yes, that is the problem. People here bitching about how the GOP always gets away with it? That’s because there are never any consequences, and the blame for that is staring at Democrats from the nearest mirror.
BobS
On the other hand, it’s heart-warming that Republicans in congress are apparently willing to overlook Obama’s blackness in granting him the Fast Track trade authority that would enable him — in fact grant him the tyrannical power they so fear — to railroad through the TPP that demonstrates our progressive president’s actual positions, i.e. “fuck ’em”, on labor, the environment, the internet, financial regulation, etc.
Rand Careaga
I’m going to predict that should HRC win the election with short coat-tails next year — that is, if she takes office with a GOP majority in both houses — the Senate will be sufficiently far gone in what Pierce calls the GOP prion disease that it will, as a matter of set policy, deny her the confirmation of any cabinet officers, a sort of “scorched earth offense.”
Bobby Thomson
@Dupe70: I would prefer Holder getting medieval on their asses and being the AG they think he is. Make it painful.
Violet
@Rand Careaga: Is there a rule that the Cabinet officers must resign when the administration changes? If not, then it seems they could stay on if she can’t get anyone confirmed. They could play it like AG Holder has played it–stay until the next person is confirmed.
Hal
Would there be the possibility of a court challenge to this bill if it does pass given the fees collected would not be tax payer dollars?
Frankensteinbeck
Yeah, it’s not worth freeing those sex slaves if they don’t have to go through with the pregnancies forced on them in the process.
@liberal: and @CONGRATULATIONS!:
Bullshit. They get away with it with no consequences because their voters love this kind of dick move and don’t care about good government. They are doing what their constituency wants, so no, they will never pay for it. Half the country are insane racists. That is the problem.
If Democrats pulled this stuff, they would not get away with it. Their constituents actually care about the government running. We, us, the people who would like to see the Republicans thwarted, are already voting Democrat. The squishy Democrats who stay at home during midterms are depressed by government dysfunction, and will vote less, not more, if we abandon trying to make the system work.
Kryptik
@Frankensteinbeck:
The press is wired the exact same way too. GOP bad behavior is just ‘boys being boys’, but if Dems try to play the same game, it’s the greatest scandal in the history of ever and proves how Dems and liberals are the worst most irresponsible monsters ever.
We can’t play ‘tit for tat’ because the game is rigged.
Amir Khalid
@Violet:
Obama got George Walker Bush’s last SecDef to stay on, so I figure there is indeed no rule to that effect. It’s customary that they resign, since an incoming president (especially one from the other party) will of course want like-minded people in their Cabinet. But President Hillary could ask as many of Obama’s Cabinet officers as she wanted to stay on. In practice, though, four years is a long time to be in DC, let alone eight.
MomSense
@Cervantes:
I have no doubt that she was a fine person. I just don’t think Cokie and Diane have a clue about how tough women have to be to cope with trying to raise healthy children while living in poverty.
PaulW
I would argue that by failing to bring up her nomination for a vote, the Senate has abandoned its responsibility of “advise and consent” and that Obama can just fill the nomination. Let the Senate take it to court to where Obama and the White House can argue that the Senate’s constant refusals to fill vacancies is unconstitutional.
I’m also partial to the idea that as long as Holder sits as AG, he’ll investigate Cheney and his cronies for war crimes over their torture regime and lying us into Iraq.
Violet
@Amir Khalid: Yeah, that’s what I thought–that it’s customary but not a requirement that they resign. Given the insane Congress I am thinking it might be smart if Hillary–or some other Democrat–wins the presidency that they ask the Cabinet to stay on until they can get someone confirmed. At least the time between the election and the inauguration would give people time to discuss such things.
Chris
@Bill:
I always thought Holder’s resignation was at least partly an act of trolling, since he said he’d stay on as long as they hadn’t replaced him. Every day they see a story about Eric Holder (who seems to be the cabinet member they loathe the most out of the entire list), they’re reminded that they’re the reason he’s still there.
Amir Khalid
@Chris:
There must be quite a few things they don’t like about Eric Holder. My guess is that they especially dislike his factory-original tan.
gene108
@liberal:
I think that will start changing, if and when Dems get control of Congress back. You saw it in the last session of the Senate, when Dems had control and they changed rules to get shit done.
Frankensteinbeck
@Kryptik:
I’m not sure we even want to play ‘tit for tat’. It’s really a game of chicken, and playing chicken is idiotic. When the other guy wants to ram you, whatever your best course is, it sure ain’t ‘floor the accelerator.’ To demetaphor the situation, we want a functioning government. They don’t. That gives them access to a slew of easy tactics that would be counter to our goals.
mikefromArlington
I think Holder should take the Senate Republicans to the Supreme Court on this issue.
tazj
I don’t think Republicans will pay the price for not confirming Loretta Lynch because very few people are paying attention to the process. For those that are, the explanation from most of the media is that the anti-abortion provision isn’t an expansion of Hyde but rather in keeping with the status quo. I believe even John Stewart said something like the Democrats didn’t win the last election so they should just go along to pass the bill and shut up.
I don’t agree with this of course, there should be nothing outrageous about making criminals pay for a woman’s healthcare but I don’t get the feeling many people agree with me or even care. I agree with Baud, and believe that most people think reproductive rights is too 2012.
Ian
@Baud:
Right. Which is why Colorado voted for a dem governor in 2010 and 2014. And why Colorado voters have voted down personhood amendments twice in the past decade.
MomSense
The Republicans won’t pay for not confirming Lynch. Their voters want them to obstruct government functions at all levels. The media let Republicans get away with it. Did anyone see the video of a bunch of reporters and photographers running across a field in Iowa to see if they could catch Clinton in her SUV? They looked ridiculous. They will now be totally occupied with the 2016 campaigns.
On a personal note, we have a free library stand in our neighborhood. About six months ago someone put in a hardcover Game Change. It has been sitting there untouched this whole time while the decent books are in constant circulation.
SFAW
@mikefromArlington:
He needs standing, and his “factory-original tan” (thanks, Amir!) disqualifies him.
Plus, he associates with a known bocialist fascist Kenyan Mooslim. Who may also be black, but definitely is a usurper.
Kryptik
@Frankensteinbeck:
Oh, I agree. Just pointing out that even if we tried to ‘give as good as we get’ like how people are asking, the environment right now would just demonstrate further the standard of IOKIYAR before anything decent actually came out of it.
SFAW
@MomSense:
That’s because Both Sides Do It.
mai naem mobile
Obama should be “caught” on a live mike about how awesome Eric Holder is and how he’s secretly glad.that Loretta Lynch hasn’t been confirmed so that Eric Holder can continue to nominate black muslim black panthers to career positions at the DOJ. Loretta Lynch will be installed at AG so fast Holder.won’t even get a chance to grab his personal pics of his wife and kids off his desk.
burnspbesq
@BobS:
PLEASE stop lying about what fast-track is, scumbag.
Gin & Tonic
@gene108: if and when Dems get control of Congress back
I can see the Senate flipping, but unfortunately I do not see a path to Democratic control of the House until 2022 in a best-case scenario.
Kryptik
@SFAW:
And with the unspoked corollary of “But Dems do it more and worse”
Botsplainer
Grandpa Safari paid for the trip, but apparently skipped the pre-hunt briefings.
http://gawker.com/tulsa-authorities-reportedly-falsified-reserve-deputys-1698133492
No harm, no foul. Bates simply did the equivalent of bagging a kill that was out of weight class, or a little out of season. Or maybe was doing jacketed ammo instead of muzzle-loaders. Just give him a ticket and a fine, don’t make it too painful,
After all, it was just a n****r that he killed in the course of a police organized sting. Nothing too important – don’t know why everybody’s so worked up.
Belafon
@Botsplainer: You forgot about black on black violence, and how that negates a white man shooting a black.
Botsplainer
@Belafon:
Because all those shootings in Chicago and single mom raised young bucks eating t-bone steaks. And black family dysfunction.
I win the debate, libtard.
‘MURKA! WOLVERINES!!!!! ELEVENTY!!!!11!!!!
scav
And for all the Sherriff “Operation Oops are just SOP!” bleeting, an operation that was truly funtioning and ‘tough’ on crime, wouldn’t they have this routine down to a fine art, that of of hunting down routine internal paperwork and revealing it in a flash to support their assertions like the fine-tuned machine they are? Isn’t it that sort of competence that brings about convictions in court? Or, is all the effort spent on the flashy chases and the bang!-bang!, not the law-jaw and the building of credible cases.
piratedan
@MomSense: MomSense, I don’t agree that the voters want government obstruction but I do believe that the people that frame and present what is “news” are in the pocket of the GOP else some of this bullshit would end up getting reported…. but that stuff doesn’t generate outrage clicks like plane crashes or a Mom abusing her kids. Because that would require context and at this stage in their evolution, the media is loathe to do that. Can’t wait for the death of the network TV model to happen because people will go elsewhere to get informed if they choose to be.
Denali
@burnspbesq,
Please enlighten us as to what exactly is in the TPP. Thanks.
Gin & Tonic
@Denali: Is it difficult to do your own reading? Or to look up the official position?
Chris
@Amir Khalid:
Yeah. Any black man who refuses to vote for them is by definition a scary black nationalist radical, so Holder was always going to be the Most Scariest Radical Death Paneling Socialist member of Obama’s cabinet.
D58826
somewhat OT but still pertains to crazy GOP. Over at Wonkette
Only two things that are a surprise. 1. 16% of the GOP prefer Obama. 2. the fact that I’m not really surprised by the results
MomSense
@piratedan:
I think Republican voters want obstruction, not all voters.
Chris
@piratedan:
I don’t think all voters do but *their* voters, certainly. (Well, really, their voters want whatever Fox News tells them to want).
ETA: or what MomSense responded.
Villago Delenda Est
@PIGL: Which culminated in the Glorious Revolut9ion and deep sixed the sick notion of Divine Right of Kings in the English speaking world.
Amir Khalid
Also somewhat off-topic: Roseanne Barr says she’s running for President again.
BobS
@burnspbesq: You obviously care passionately about Fast Track. What the hell, it worked out great with NAFTA & the WTO. @Denali: Since the Obama administration has kept details away from the prying eyes of the American public, anything burnsbesq knows is either due to Wikileaks or because he’s one of the the countless corporate negotiators planning our [email protected]Gin & Tonic: When you aren’t selling the neoconservative propaganda you’re apparently buying the neoliberal bullshit.
Denali
@BobS
Yes it is too difficult for me because the details have not been available to the public. One wonders why.
Gin & Tonic
@BobS: Maybe once in a while you could post a link or something.
Calouste
@D58826: I bet you dollars to donuts that if Netanyahoo had lost the election GOP support for Israel would have been in the 1-to-2 range rather than the 2-to-1 range. Because what the GOP voters really mean is that they support apartheid and warmongering in the form of Likud.
FlipYrWhig
@Villago Delenda Est: Until the rule of Simba I.
BobS
@Gin & Tonic: Is that all it would take to get you to reconsider your admiration of fascists?
Gin & Tonic
@BobS: You never know, do you?
BobS
@Gin & Tonic: No, one never does know — I would never have suspected you’d waver in your support of the neo-Nazis in Kiev.
Amir Khalid
@BobS:
Do you by any chance live in a town called Portland?
BobS
@Amir Khalid: Which Portland?
SFAW
@Kryptik:
I believe the proper conjugation of that word is “worserer.” Or would be, if it were a verb.
Gin & Tonic
@BobS: The “left” one. Har, har.
Yatsuno
@Gin & Tonic: You didn’t know? That’s our own dear propagandist from Oregon in the flesh yet again! Like a zombie he has arisen! It was right around Easter too come to think of it…
Bans are too easy to get around. Look at the many iterations of Durf.
BobS
@Yatsuno: What an impressive display of genius. Because Bob is certainly an uncommon name, and in a country of 300 million there can’t be more than one person whose politics are left of the Obama center that’s well represented here (as are PNAC acolytes like Gin&Tonic as well). You’re just too fucking smart to fool.
Gin & Tonic
@Yatsuno: I don’t think it’s the same. This one seems able to write a post of less than 500 words. And you can find posts of concise Bob back to last year sometime.
Gin & Tonic
@BobS: “PNAC acolyte.” Almost alliteration. A for effort, in choosing “acolyte” over “disciple.”
Given that I had to look up that acronym, and find that I have never read any of their papers, it’s overall a swing-and-a-miss.
BobS
@Gin & Tonic: Next time I’ll post a link or something. It didn’t occur to me that even Cheney and Wolfowitz are too moderate for some tastes (I’m sure you don’t need to look up Pravy Sektor).