Lynch and Reid vs. Justice for Victims of Trafficking
Democrats can’t make this issue go away
Maybe it’s just me talking here, but I think that if you’re going to choose a hill to die on, one involving a bill that helps put an end to modern day slavery seems like a pretty good choice.
Not so if you’re a Democrat, or have a seemingly vested interest in seeing Loretta Lynch become our next Attorney General. Democrats are digging in on the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act over the application of the Hyde Amendment, a decades-old add-on to federal spending legislation that will prevent the use of fee dollars collected via the Act to be used to pay for abortions.
Again, Democrats are obstructing the passage of a bill that would protect victims of rape and forced prostitution because of the inclusion of a provision that they have approved in decades of federal spending legislation. You can’t tell me this is about being pro-choice; I think this is about being pro-obstruction for the sake of obstruction itself.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell promised to delay a vote on the confirmation of Loretta Lynch as the new AG until Democrats put an end to their little game, and guess what hasn’t happened yet? Dems are still playing games, so Loretta Lynch is still waiting on a confirmation vote.
Guess which vote is creating the biggest scandal? You guessed right! Millions of men, women, and children are being exploited (and not just on the border) but the real injustice here is that Loretta Lynch has had to wait to start her new job.
Over at WaPo, Stephen Stromberg had a legitimate meltdown over it:
No, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is putting off Lynch’s vote; the delay is not an essential result of the unrelated fracas over abortion language in a human-trafficking bill. To be sure, Democrats have dragged their heels on the trafficking bill, but McConnell chose to link the two issues, refusing to give Lynch’s nomination floor time until the Democrats deal on trafficking. This is a power play that has nothing to do with Lynch’s merits, which have nothing to do with the trafficking bill.
It’s also not the case that the Senate is frozen until it clears the trafficking bill off its schedule.
…
Instead of even more delay, the Senate should confirm Lynch quickly and without controversy, as it should have done months ago. And if it doesn’t, blame Mitch McConnell.
Even Jeb Bush could help but open his mouth:
“I think presidents have the right to pick their team,” Bush said, according to reports of his stop at the “Politics and Pie” forum in Concord, New Hampshire, on Thursday night.
The former Florida governor made sure to get in a few digs at current Attorney General Eric Holder, saying that Republicans should consider that the longer it takes to confirm Lynch, the longer Holder stays.
…
“If someone is supportive of the president’s policies, whether you agree with them or not, there should be some deference to the executive,” Bush told reporters. “It should not always be partisan.”
Talk about the talking point that literally no one asked for. Thanks, Jeb.
The vast majority of MSM media outlets are framing this as a fight over the Lynch nomination, which is predictable. No one who wants to keep singing for their supper is going to hold tight on their huge megaphone and proclaim that Democrats don’t care about ending modern day slavery.
Except me. I will. Democrats don’t care about ending modern day slavery.
According to bill sponsor Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), some Democrats have come back to the table to talk about the Hyde language, but he wouldn’t give a date for a vote. I suspect this is on purpose—if you give Democrats their D-Day, they’re going to take advantage of the ticking armageddon clock hanging over everyone’s head and make as much media hay as possible before time runs out. Harry Reid is threatening to force a vote on Lynch, but that threat has gone largely unanswered by Republican leadership.
Let him threaten all he wants. We’ll get to a vote on Lynch’s nomination eventually—but not before Democrats are forced to reveal where they stand when it comes to protecting innocent people from the ravages of human trafficking. I hope they’re ready for that.
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Comments
I think you mean, a pretty bad choice.
Democrats claim that this an extension of the Hyde amendment to some place it hasn’t been applied before.
They are accusing Republicans of holding up the confirmation vote of Loretta Lynch for Attorney General because – well, they’d like to say they don’t want a black female there but they can’t quite say that. Harry Reid is now saying he’ll force a vote.
It is quite possible that the Republican leadership in the Senate is holding up the confirmation vote because they don’t want this to end with the trafficking bill dying.
Meanwhile Senator Grassley complained that if the timely or early conformation of Loretta Lynch was so important to them, they should have confirmed her in the lame duck session of Congress last year. White House Press Secretarty Josh Earnest then accused him of “an astounding degree of duplicity” and a “dramatic reversal” because last year he had asked for the vote to be postponed till the next Congress, and he and said it was sad because Grassley has cultivated a reputation of being true to his word and that perhaps he’s been in Washington too long (Grassley is running for re-election next year) Charles Grassley’s spokesman shot back that the reason the Democrats had postponed the confirmation was not out of any deference to Republicans, but because they wanted to confirm other people (less likely to win confirmation the next year)
I read a second time and I believe he means it’s a good hill for Republicans to die on. But his wording did make that more difficult to pick up. I’m used to this grammatical layout as a Japanese to English translator. But anyway, I agree with everything you wrote about the poor Democratic Party position here.
Lynch should NEVER be confirmed. She’s just Holder with ovaries.
THAT makes her MORE dangerous as an outlaw, which is why she was nominated by the head of the outlaw gang.
Let Dirty, Filthy Harry bloviate about “forcing” a vote. Poor, old, lying idiot.
Well, this is why Jeb said what he said. He’s an old school establishment Republican who expects people to confirm his own nominees once he is President, which is, for some reason, a certainty in his mind, being the family business.
The problem is that his statement amounts to a direct attack against the movement to end modern human slavery. Whatever the principle of the issue, that is the result of his choice of time and place. That is a very miserable hill for him, though I’d like to see who’s going to call him on it.
Jebbie has a firm hold on that straight-razor, and he just keeps dragging it across his own throat.
Let him.
“With the grain, Jeb. Cut with the grain.”
You and HH should work together at the local comedy club. Rarely do two commenters flow so well together.
Kudos to both of you, and thanks for helping my day go lighter.
Just to clarify the record, HH and I do not EVER engage in any activity correctly defined using the term “flow”…or anything else fluid-related.
Because…ewwwww.
But thanks.
Thanks right back atcha. We’ll be back at 7, 9, and 11 pm. Try the lobster!
Don’t forget Cleveland, Rags. We’ll always have Cleveland.
It was Toledo. You were SO drunk you just THINK it was Cleveland.
Besides, it never happened… That video is SO edited…that could be anybody.
Toledo, Cleveland… we were young and needed the money.
So it isn’t really about the amendment. That’s what I thought.
Good luck trying to convince people that Democrats don’t want a trafficking bill because they are in favor of tafficking. Ever heard of the ‘laugh test’?
Sure it’s about getting the bill passed.
We just aren’t going to let you assholes kill more minority babies on the Federal dime.
Clear now?
They haven’t scratched the surface with Lynch anyway, she has her own victim problems.
Federal law requires minimum fines and sentencing in financial fraud cases, including a mandatory restitution of any remaining assets (unfortunately, frauds are usually only discovered once they get in cash flow trouble), but Lynch habitually negotiated plea bargains that avoided either compensation or victim impact statements (both required).
It’s not a new complaint, this goes back for years, DOJ and the New York District Court both knew all about it and kept silent.
It would be a helluva issue to use against “anti-Wall Street” rhetoric, since they let their donors off easy to screw actual victims.
It’s interesting that you still fail to mention that John Cornyn himself has rejected an amendment that would have solved the “abortion” issue. According to your logic, John Cornyn, an upstanding Republican, must also be “obstructing the passage of a bill that would protect victims of rape and forced prostitution”.
From the AP:
“Heitkamp and Collins offered a similar proposal, but their amendment dropped the abortion reference, and Cornyn said no. He told reporters that, Democrats “now having made this the focal point,” he was unwilling to give in.”
http://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2015/03/21/divisive-issue-of-abortion-stalls-human-trafficking-bill?page=2
The Hyde Amendment language isn’t going anywhere, Skippy.
The longer the Republicans delay the Loretta Lynch confirmation, the more likely the clock will run out on this very idiotic nomination.
There’s no clock to run out. She has a government job and isn’t leaving. Eric Holder may possibly be getting impatient, because he can’t leave and make money until she is confirmed.
And, anyway, although most republican Senators will vote against her, there are just enough votes to confirm her, and this is not about blocking her conformation.
Between Lynch continuing to not answer if she would prosecute hillary clinton on her destruction of emails and Lynch’s answer that she would not uphold immigration laws, she should NOT be confirmed anyways…
Playing devil’s advocate here, but what are the chances that new legislation will be executed with anything resembling competence, that is, what are the chances it would succeed? (Devil’s advocacy, remember. Don’t taze me, bro).
Not devil’s advocacy: If Lynch is confirmed, nothing much changes. For all in tents and porpoises, Eric Holder will remain the AG, puppet of Obama,, Lynch a puppet of Holder, until 2017 when she’ll either get fired by the new GOP prez or feel the thumb of the new Dem prez, who will not have nominated her in and may want her out.
Annoy’s just upset that the party of slavery has been called out on them being the party of death as well, and wants the benefit of dead babies as well.
To paraphrase a certain pResident… “We won.”
Yes, that red herring again. Yep, modern democrats are the party of slavery and the proof of that is all the white democrats in power in the solidly democractic south.
Yes, republicans are the party of life because they are fixated on other people’s reproduction – even the forced reproduction of sexual slaves. Wow! Is there anything in the bill about taking care of the born fetuses or does the concern with life stop at birth? I get it. You did them the favor of being born. Now it is not your problem. How easy for you. You get to exercise your religious freedom at no cost – no effort – and no thought.
If you or any of the other commenters on this article gave a damn about trafficking, you would argue to get the best bi-partisan bill possible. Then you would work your a$$ off to make sure there weren’t any women forced into sexual slavery producing unwanted babies.
Everybody hide, the Moral Hall Monitor is here, high atop his high horse and loaded with Concern.
You lying sack of shit, Conservatives are the most charitable people on the planet.
And we have LESS division between poor and well-off people than your Collective, for all your bullshit preening, in RED cities and regions.
And, yeah, we ARE the part of life, and it has NOTHING to do with who you suck off, you POS. We just don’t care.
My wife and I have adopted two kids. How many have you adopted?
We HAD a very nice, bipartisan bill.
Then you Collectivist assholes ran backwards on it when the Coven of Death had a rolling cat fit because it would not provide FEDERAL money for abortions.
(BTW, how much do you contribute for abortions, SOS?)
Anyhow, you can suck it. Or YOU can encourage YOUR Senators to vote FOR the bill. Then, YOU can YOUR ass off to prevent sexual slavery.
Or you can STFU.
It may be really that the Democrats are trying to kll the human trafficking bill.
This would fit with the idea of Harry Reid having been beaten by the mob. What other kind of issue might there be where he was refusing to go along and yet it was important enough for someone to beat him?
Someone should bring that up and said that Harry Reid was beaten up because he was refusing to stop the human trafficking bill and he knows that because he read it on a blog.