Loretta Lynch is a black white litmus test for racist Representatives and Senators

Congratulations Attorney General Loretta Lynch!

Senators and Congressmen who vote against the appointment of qualified Loretta Lynch for US Attorney General better have a reason why they oppose her appointment. Otherwise, without a valid reason, the "nay" votes will be rooted in racism. In other words, those who oppose Ms. Lynch are racists, unless they can confirm a viable reason why they oppose her appointment to the position of Attorney General.

Republicans are in  a quandary over the vote on Loretta Lynch because there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to oppose her appointment. Obstinate Republicans give the reason for their reticence is because of Lynch's support of President Obama's executive immigration actions. That's a petty excuse to oppose her appointment.  It seems to me, if Republicans are holding back their Lynch "yeah" votes because of the President's immigration actions, they're missing a golden opportunity to gain favor with newly Americanized immigrant voters.

By CARL HULSE reports in The New York Times

April 17, 2015

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans do not want to be held responsible for rejecting the historic nomination of Loretta E. Lynch, the first African-American woman picked to be attorney general. But they also are in no hurry to see her confirmed because of her defense of President Obama’s immigration policies.

That contradiction showed signs of being self defeating on Friday, when a visibly emotional Mr. Obama elevated the issue at a news conference by saying “Enough! Enough!” about the record delay, after a call the day before from Jeb Bush, one of the top Republican presidential prospects, to confirm Ms. Lynch.

Ms. Lynch is nearing six months in a state of suspended Senate animation, her nomination moving neither forward nor backward but instead becoming a bargaining chip in an unrelated battle, a calculation that carries no small irony given that no Republicans have challenged her credentials, and almost all of them had expressed their enmity for the man she would replace, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.

The inert situation shows just how Republican anger and resentment over the president’s immigration actions color issues ranging from Ms. Lynch’s status, to trade negotiations, to the nuclear talks with Iran. Republicans’ central rationale, remains that they cannot trust the president.

After months of simmering over the very slow walk of Ms. Lynch’s nomination by the new Republican majority, Democrats unloaded this week.

The White House spokesman accused a leading Republican senator of duplicity over the treatment of Ms. Lynch. Democrats threatened procedural tactics that would force Republicans to block a vote on bringing up her nomination, stirring additional political repercussions.

So far, though, Senate Republicans have adopted the position of their leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, that he would not bring Ms. Lynch’s nomination for a vote until senators had passed a human trafficking bill. That bill contains some abortion provisions that Democrats find untenable.

Mr. Obama on Friday called the Republican refusal to set a vote on Ms. Lynch an “embarrassing” example of partisanship by the Republican majority. “There are times where the dysfunction in the Senate just goes too far,” Mr. Obama said during a news conference with Prime Minister Matteo Renzi of Italy. “This is an example of it. It’s gone too far. Enough! Enough! 

Call Loretta Lynch for a vote. Get her confirmed. Put her in place. Let her do her job.”

Senator McConnell sought to quiet the growing furor over the Lynch stalemate, telling his colleagues the Senate would get to her next week, just as he had always planned.  (?? says Julie?)

“I have indicated, gosh, (oh paaaleeze!)  at least for six weeks now, we are going to deal with the Lynch nomination right after we finish trafficking,” Mr. McConnell said on the floor Thursday.

Just the fact that Mr. McConnell, by his own admission, has been talking about it for at least six weeks is galling to Democrats, who think she should have been confirmed months ago. 

They see the Lynch nomination as a prime case of Republican partisan mischief and ill-treatment of woman with a distinguished career as a prosecutor.

While some difficulties were always expected with Ms. Lynch, given the traditional political sensitivities of the post of attorney general, no one anticipated after her nomination on Nov. 8 that a vote would still be pending in late April.

As the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, Ms. Lynch had a formidable reputation as a prosecutor and administrator and had the strong backing of law enforcement and civil rights groups. Some of the most conservative Republicans were expected to oppose her, but her ultimate approval never seemed in doubt.

But at her confirmation hearing on Jan. 28, Ms. Lynch said she found it reasonable that the Justice Department had concluded that Mr. Obama was acting within the limits of his power when he decided to unilaterally ease the threat of deportation against millions of undocumented immigrants. 

That quickly cost her backing among Republicans, who said they could not vote for Ms. Lynch if she was willing to side with the president on his immigration actions.

It is unclear what the Republicans thought she should say, since she could hardly be expected to use her confirmation hearing to denounce the actions of the man who had picked her for the post, or assert that he had broken the law and would be held accountable once she became the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.

Republicans certainly realized this. 

But, their rush to declare opposition made it clear that they did not want to be viewed as endorsing the president’s immigration policy, even through an association as tangential as voting for a nominee, who had nothing to do with shaping the policy, but simply refused to condemn it. 

Ms. Lynch has won public backing from five Republicans, just enough to secure her confirmation when a vote takes place.

Democrats initially thought Mr. McConnell held back on scheduling a vote to demonstrate that he was in charge and was not about to hurry things along for the president.

As the weeks passed with no movement, Democrats became more concerned. Then there was the abortion-related blowup on the sex trafficking bill and Mr. McConnell declared he would not move forward with Ms. Lynch until that fight was resolved.

Mr. McConnell has been clear that he would eventually allow a vote and he most likely will at some point. He and his fellow Republicans might not be thrilled with Ms. Lynch, but they will almost certainly allow her to be confirmed.

With the prospect of Hillary Rodham Clinton as the Democratic presidential nominee next year,  and given the party’s struggle with minority voters, the Senate’s new Republican majority does not want to be remembered for killing the high-profile nomination of a highly qualified black woman.