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You are here: Home / Lynch Confirmed

Lynch Confirmed

by John Cole|  April 23, 20152:51 pm| 62 Comments

This post is in: Our Failed Political Establishment

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In other news, after 166 days, the Senate managed to unfuck itself long enough to hold a five minute vote, and Loretta Lynch was confirmed by a vote of 56-43. Profile in courage Ted Cruz did not vote.

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Reader Interactions

62Comments

  1. 1.

    sparrow

    April 23, 2015 at 2:55 pm

    Excellent. Finally.

    OT, but not — here is a local blogpost about the Freddie Gray case. Way down at the bottom you will find an opinion about O’Malley that is not uncommon in these parts of (pretty liberal) Baltimore.

    http://baltimorecrime.blogspot.com/2015/04/freddiegray.html

  2. 2.

    Zandar

    April 23, 2015 at 2:56 pm

    The HOT TAKE on her being worse than Holder from “even the liberal” journalist of your choice in 5…4…3…

  3. 3.

    srv

    April 23, 2015 at 2:59 pm

    Harry Reid held us all hostage and lost.

  4. 4.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    April 23, 2015 at 3:01 pm

    Turtles mover very slowly.

  5. 5.

    rrollhattan

    April 23, 2015 at 3:02 pm

    @srv:
    He make you take yet another sister wife, or something?

  6. 6.

    trollhattan

    April 23, 2015 at 3:03 pm

    @srv:
    Did he make you take yet another sister wife, or something?

  7. 7.

    Howard Beale IV

    April 23, 2015 at 3:03 pm

    Thread needs kitteh belleh skritches.

  8. 8.

    Amir Khalid

    April 23, 2015 at 3:04 pm

    I assume Ted Cruz didn’t have an actual objection to Loretta Lynch, or he would have voted against her confirmation. Did he say why he abstained?

  9. 9.

    nominus

    April 23, 2015 at 3:10 pm

    @Amir Khalid: According to TPM, he wasn’t there, in typical Cruz fashion.

  10. 10.

    Howard Beale IV

    April 23, 2015 at 3:11 pm

    BREAKING: Petraeus’s sentence: 2 years probation, fine upped from $40k to $100k.

    He should have lost his military pension.

  11. 11.

    Tom Levenson

    April 23, 2015 at 3:11 pm

    @Amir Khalid: Assumes a coherence intellectually not in evidence. The only way to unpack the Cruz’s action is to ask what effect a given decision has on the upcoming apotheosis of his Cruzedness.

  12. 12.

    trollhattan

    April 23, 2015 at 3:11 pm

    @Amir Khalid:
    Probably file under “games were played.” Perhaps he’s afraid of the “Obstructionist” label as he enters his doomed WH run. But it’s what he does, so a head-scratcher.

  13. 13.

    askew

    April 23, 2015 at 3:12 pm

    Finally some good news today. Figures that Cruz wouldn’t show up. He has skipped a lot of time in the Senate out on the campaign trail. I wonder if it burns him up that Rubio is doing better in the polls than him against Hillary right now and Rubio is an imbecile.

  14. 14.

    trollhattan

    April 23, 2015 at 3:12 pm

    @Howard Beale IV:
    Wow. How much time did Manning get, again?

  15. 15.

    Baud

    April 23, 2015 at 3:13 pm

    @Amir Khalid:

    If 43 GOPers voted against Lynch, I don’t see how Cruz votes for her. In this case, I don’t think his absence had anything to do with cowardice.

  16. 16.

    Hill Dweller

    April 23, 2015 at 3:14 pm

    Tom Brady couldn’t be bothered to attend today’s WH ceremony honoring the Patriots’ Super Bowl victory, because freedom or tyranny or some other Tea Bagger bullshit. Did he attend the ceremonies during Dubya’s time in office?

  17. 17.

    BruceFromOhio

    April 23, 2015 at 3:19 pm

    What shiny new toy will Mitch and his hatchlings find to plague the Legislature with next?

  18. 18.

    askew

    April 23, 2015 at 3:24 pm

    @Hill Dweller:

    Brady didn’t attend due to a family commitment. The screenshot that is going around about Tom Brady not attending b’/c he’s a teabagger was photoshopped from some nobody on the Patriots who skipped today.

  19. 19.

    Baud

    April 23, 2015 at 3:25 pm

    @askew:

    I can’t believe the internet lied to us again.

  20. 20.

    Howard Beale IV

    April 23, 2015 at 3:25 pm

    @trollhattan: 35 years.

  21. 21.

    David Hunt

    April 23, 2015 at 3:27 pm

    Was Cruz actually in Washington? I kind of assumed that he’d be spending a huge amount of time in Iowa seeing how far up his ass he could stick an ear of corn.

  22. 22.

    Hill Dweller

    April 23, 2015 at 3:30 pm

    @askew: Thanks for the clarification.

  23. 23.

    gratuitous

    April 23, 2015 at 3:41 pm

    Rafael seems to be missing a lot of votes and committee meetings lately. I wonder what’s up? Some rumor going around that he’s looking for a new job. Usually someone missing work as much as Rafael has, and maybe dipping into the labor pool, the boss fires that person.

    Texas is probably in thrall to some union, though, which means it can’t fire such an irresponsible and incompetent employee.

  24. 24.

    gene108

    April 23, 2015 at 3:41 pm

    @sparrow:

    an opinion about O’Malley

    I have family that lives in Baltimore and their opinion of O’Malley is mixed at best.

  25. 25.

    Howard Beale IV

    April 23, 2015 at 3:43 pm

    BREAKING: Comcast plans to abandon TWC take-over

  26. 26.

    Woodrowfan

    April 23, 2015 at 3:44 pm

    @David Hunt: Was Cruz actually in Washington? I kind of assumed that he’d be spending a huge amount of time in Iowa seeing how far up his ass he could stick an ear of corn.

    thanks for that image. You owe me a large bottle of brain bleach.. ew

  27. 27.

    germy shoemangler

    April 23, 2015 at 3:45 pm

    @Howard Beale IV: Ha! excellent.

  28. 28.

    askew

    April 23, 2015 at 3:46 pm

    @Howard Beale IV:

    Excellent. Two pieces of good news today.

  29. 29.

    boatboy_srq

    April 23, 2015 at 3:50 pm

    @Baud: Indolence, yes; cowardice, no.

    BTW:

    confirmed by a vote of 56-43

    That’s probably the most despicable part of this. This is the ATTORNEY GENERAL – the chief law enforcement officer in the entire US of A. Eminently qualified. And she got 43 NO votes.

  30. 30.

    boatboy_srq

    April 23, 2015 at 3:51 pm

    @David Hunt: @Woodrowfan: Meh. It’d just replace the broomstick that’s usually there.

  31. 31.

    Amir Khalid

    April 23, 2015 at 3:55 pm

    I see. So the most likely explanation for Ted Cruz’s non-vote is just “absent as usual”. Doesn’t Mitch expect his caucus to show up and do the Senatoring they were elected for? Isn’t Ted worried about a primary opponent using that poor attendance record against him?

  32. 32.

    Baud

    April 23, 2015 at 3:57 pm

    @boatboy_srq:

    I blame Hillary.

  33. 33.

    Elizabelle

    April 23, 2015 at 3:58 pm

    From The Hill:

    Ten Republican senators broke ranks and sided with Democrats to get Lynch over the 50-vote threshold: Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Susan Collins (Maine), Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Mark Kirk (Ill.), Rob Portman (Ohio), Thad Cochran (Miss.), Ron Johnson (Wis.) and Mitch McConnell (Ky.).

    Ayotte, Kirk, Portman and Johnson are up for reelection in 2016.

  34. 34.

    Elizabelle

    April 23, 2015 at 4:03 pm

    No Democratic defections. Joe Manchin did the right thing. John McCain voted against, as did Lisa Murkowski.

    Thomas roll call vote.

  35. 35.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 23, 2015 at 4:03 pm

    Mark Kirk (Ill.), Rob Portman (Ohio), Thad Cochran (Miss.), Ron Johnson (Wis.)

    Three of those are scared of 2016

  36. 36.

    Brachiator

    April 23, 2015 at 4:06 pm

    Well, this is kinda interesting:

    Comcast Corp. is planning to walk away from its proposed $45 billion takeover of Time Warner Cable Inc., people with knowledge of the matter said, after regulators planned to oppose the deal.

    Today is NOT a slow news day.

    Not too sure what this might mean in the long run.

  37. 37.

    Bill Arnold

    April 23, 2015 at 4:07 pm

    @Howard Beale IV:
    Whew. I have had both Comcast and (currently) TWC as providers, and TWC is better, mostly. Except when it snows. TWC starts dropping packets when it snows.
    (Really. a router nearby me gets overloaded.)

  38. 38.

    Elizabelle

    April 23, 2015 at 4:11 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yup.

    And Lindsey Graham, Thad Cochran and Mitch McConnell are the only Republican votes yes from the South. They each beat back Tea Party challengers in 2014.

    And get my hearty appreciation for supporting the nomination.

  39. 39.

    Hal

    April 23, 2015 at 4:17 pm

    43 no votes? It’s amazing the level of disrespect Republicans have shown Loretta Lynch.

  40. 40.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    April 23, 2015 at 4:17 pm

    @Elizabelle: the only vote that surprises me, really, is Murkowski, who sometimes seems better than her party. IIRC it was 2010 when she lost the primary and had to run as an indy? So I guess she doesn’t want to go through that again.

    I knew as soon as old man McCain announced he was going to vote against the nominee that he had a few days earlier called uniquely or supremely or somthingly qualified that he was running again, and a couple days later, he announced he was. Like Byrd, he wants to die in office and get the fancy funeral, one like old King Tut.

  41. 41.

    Germy Shoemangler

    April 23, 2015 at 4:19 pm

    @Bill Arnold: I have TWC. My monthly bill went up the same time the pending merger announcement went out. And today, when the merger is kaput, I feel like it’s 1999 dial-up time, my computer has been so slow. A coincidence? Most likely. [LOOKS NERVOUSLY AROUND]

  42. 42.

    Germy Shoemangler

    April 23, 2015 at 4:25 pm

    Just saw this news item (one egg for each “NO” vote?:

    In Southern China, 43 dinosaur eggs were discovered by construction workers as a road was being upgraded, state media reported.

    The fossils were discovered in recent weeks in Heyuan in Guangdong province, the website Chinanews.com reported. From South China Morning Post:

    The fossilised eggs were large with one 13cm in diameter, Du Yanli, the director of the city’s Dinosaur Museum, was quoted as saying. Nineteen were completely intact.

    Experts at the Chinese Academy of Sciences will examine the eggs to find out what species of dinosaur they belonged to, the report said.

  43. 43.

    Elizabelle

    April 23, 2015 at 4:26 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, real disappointed in Murkowski.

  44. 44.

    Yatsuno

    April 23, 2015 at 4:28 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: To be fair, so is Ayotte.

  45. 45.

    MattF

    April 23, 2015 at 4:33 pm

    I’ve had a suspicion that Cruz doesn’t really belong in the Senate. He’s a lot of things, many of them unpleasant, but he’s not one of the boys.

  46. 46.

    Rex Tremendae

    April 23, 2015 at 4:37 pm

    I don’t see how Cruz’s absence could be due to cowardice. Of course he would have voted against. If anything, he’s exposing himself by not voting against. Practically no one who will vote for Cruz wants Lynch to serve.

  47. 47.

    philpm

    April 23, 2015 at 4:37 pm

    @Germy Shoemangler: Heard about this a couple of days ago. My daughter wants them to hatch.

  48. 48.

    MattF

    April 23, 2015 at 4:38 pm

    @Germy Shoemangler: First time I read that, I saw ‘dragon’ eggs.

  49. 49.

    Germy Shoemangler

    April 23, 2015 at 4:38 pm

    @philpm: If they hatched, they’d be preferable to the 43 “nay” senators.

  50. 50.

    Germy Shoemangler

    April 23, 2015 at 4:42 pm

    @MattF: Me too! As I get older, I find my mind rushing to fill in more blanks.. Can be colorful and fun, but it’s wreaking havoc with my reading comprehension.

    43 dragons hatch and circle the Capitol, demanding campaign finance reform. There’s a scenario.

  51. 51.

    Aleta

    April 23, 2015 at 4:44 pm

    @sparrow: thanks. lots of information.

  52. 52.

    MattF

    April 23, 2015 at 4:47 pm

    @Howard Beale IV: Y’know, the local news/traffic/weather station has been running ridiculous “better together” pro-merger ads in the minute before the traffic report (which is, by far, the most expensive ad time on the station)– and they’ve been running every time I tune in for the traffic report for quite a while– demonstrating that Comcast wanted that merger and was willing to spend lots of money. Then, just a couple of days ago, they stopped. Hmmm.

  53. 53.

    CONGRATULATIONS!

    April 23, 2015 at 5:03 pm

    What shiny new toy will Mitch and his hatchlings find to plague the Legislature with next?

    @BruceFromOhio: Think debt ceiling is coming up in June. That should be fun.

  54. 54.

    Howard Beale IV

    April 23, 2015 at 5:15 pm

    @Elizabelle: I live in one of those areas which would have been spun off into a new corporation (saddled with massive debt, BTW) had the deal gone through.

    Funny thing happened today, BTW: CenturyLink came knocking at my door asking who my ISP was (like that’s a real tough question) as asking if I knew about the upgrades that they did in my area. Being the technical bastard prick that I am, and knowing full well that they haven’t done shit in this immediate area for years, I fire my Stinger:

    Fiber To The Premises, or Fiber To The Node?

    That usually gets them to start mumbling and then I put them out of their misery by saying unless you’re FTTP, no deal. Especially when I have to take their POTS at an obscene rate when I pay just $10/month for T-Mobile @Home?

  55. 55.

    MissBarbie

    April 23, 2015 at 5:50 pm

    @MattF: Yeah, me, too!

  56. 56.

    VOR

    April 23, 2015 at 5:56 pm

    @Howard Beale IV: CenturyLink keeps sending mailers advertising their “new” high speed rates. But when I check my address on their website I see there is nothing but 1.5 Mbps available to my house. Maybe if they spent more money on their network and a little less on Marketing?

  57. 57.

    Howard Beale IV

    April 23, 2015 at 6:16 pm

    @VOR: Crazy thing is that there’s been some significant progress made with twisted pair and getting the speed up-problem is that the maintenance costs of keeping POTS alive is nibbling the bottom lines of AT&T, Verizon and CenturyLink-that’s one reason why AT&T and Verizon have been hell-bent to trying to trying to kill POTS and force everyone onto wireless networks. What’s surprising as all get out tho, is that Dish (yes, Dish) is sitting on (and just bought a metric shitton of spectrum with the recent AWS-3 auction) and hasn’t done shit with it.

    @MattF: Within the last three days both USDOJ and the FCC started to sqwak. Just even one of them sqwaking was enough to put the blade to the AT&T-TMobile merger-which, right now, turned out to be the right call-ya got to love TMUS’s foul-mouthed CEO John Legere-go look at YouTube between the T-Mobile US capital markets day from 2012 and 2015.

  58. 58.

    Hungry Joe

    April 23, 2015 at 6:34 pm

    @askew: “Rubio is an imbecile.”

    Oh yeah? Obviously you didn’t read David Brooks’ column titled “The Talented Mr. Rubio.” (Of course, David Brooks is himself an imbecile. So there’s that … )

  59. 59.

    burnspbesq

    April 23, 2015 at 6:56 pm

    @trollhattan:

    Manning got a sentence that was commensurate with the severity of the crimes she committed. That Petraeus arguably didn’t doesn’t change that.

  60. 60.

    Howard Beale IV

    April 23, 2015 at 7:07 pm

    @burnspbesq: 18 USC 1001 usually commands a prison sentence. And he was charged with more than one, IIRC.

    As usual: “only the little people get prison sentences.”

  61. 61.

    Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)

    April 23, 2015 at 8:11 pm

    @Germy Shoemangler: TWC has been for sh#t for the last two weeks. Word is that they’re upgrading their services ahead of the Google Fiber rollout. I’m thinking that they’re not very clear on the meaning of the word “upgrade.”

  62. 62.

    Davis X. Machina

    April 23, 2015 at 8:18 pm

    Did she get any D ‘no’ votes? Because Digby thinks she should have.

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