The Patriot Post® · Democrats Traffic in Abortion
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced that the Senate will not vote on Barack Obama’s nomination of Loretta Lynch to take over Eric Holder’s position as attorney general until Democrats start cooperating on a human trafficking bill. Your move, Harry Reid.
Senate Democrats are furious over some of the language included in the trafficking bill, claiming they didn’t know it contained the Hyde Amendment, which stipulates the bill may contain no federal funding for abortions. So far, they’ve blocked a vote on it.
They didn’t know it contained this language? That’s a bit absurd considering that the trafficking bill contains the same language that was part of the legislation from the beginning. Furthermore, the Hyde Amendment has been a common addition to spending bills since 1976. Perhaps Democrats decided to read the bill this time – a novel idea for them.
Senate Minority Leader Reid gave his two cents, blustering, “Any attempt to hold a confirmation vote hostage because of this abortion provision is a sham.”
So says the man who spent his entire time as majority leader holding House legislation hostage.
John Cornyn (R-TX) noted, “When we offered them an opportunity to offer an amendment to change [the abortion language], they said: ‘No, we don’t want an amendment. We don’t want to change it by a vote of the Senate. We just want to block the bill.’”
The fact Democrats will not vote for a trafficking bill simply because it includes language blocking federal funding for abortion – language they helped pass before – reveals how twisted their minds are when it comes to the issue of life. Just as revealing of their warped thinking is that they are more concerned about voting on the Lynch nomination than they are about trafficking or protecting life.
And the street doesn’t run both ways. If Republicans were to block a bill on trafficking for any reason, Democrats and their Leftmedia lemmings would quickly label them “pro-trafficking.”
National Review’s Joel Gehrke writes, “[This is] the same tactic that Democrats used to kill the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill in order to avoid taking a vote on House-passed language targeting President Obama’s executive orders on immigration with a tweak: Democrats allowed the debate on human trafficking to begin, but they won’t offer an amendment during the debate to get rid of language they oppose.” Yet somehow they continue to get away with painting Republicans as the party of “no.”
McConnell is playing his cards right this time. And if he stands firm by holding off the vote on Loretta Lynch until Democrats cooperate and pass the human trafficking bill, then Republicans will have finally stood on principle against Democrats. If McConnell succeeds, then one has to ask, why in the world didn’t he use it on the DHS/executive amnesty bill?