Today, the senate finally got agreement on the language of human trafficking legislation. The next order of business, we are told, will be the Loretta Lynch nomination for Attorney General.
As you may be aware, the holdup in this bill was that Republicans inserted language into it that would prevent the money – which is supposed to help people who were enslaved – from being used to fund abortions.
This language – A version of “The Hyde Amendment”, has been in every such bill for something like 40 years, and has never been any issue to Democrats – until now, when they decided to make it one, knowing it would hold up the Lynch confirmation, thus enabling them to claim that Republicans are making war on women and are racist…..for a change.
But if you read Sarah Mimms\’ article at nationaljournal.com, you will not understand this to be the way things happened. If you read Ms. Mimms\’ article, you will see this:
The bipartisan trafficking bill had the overwhelming support of members from both parties-it is, after all, legislation to set up a fund to help the victims of modern slavery-was nearly killed last month over abortion language that Republican members put into the bill and Democrats hadn\’t noticed.
That is absolute, unadulterated, US Government Prime BS.
Democrats certainly knew this would be inserted into the bill; it is inserted in EVERY bill. They certainly could have read it; far from being buried somewhere in the middle of the legislation, it was on pages 4 and 5. And – with the wording there – it passed through the senate judiciary panel on a unanimous vote…i.e. every Democrat voted in favor.
Only when the bill went to the full senate did Democrats start their phony fulminating routine.
To read Ms. Mimms\’ account, you would swear that this is some new, draconian requirement which those dastardly Republicans snuck into a nondescript part of the bill right at the end, when those poor Democrats had no chance to see it was there.
Sarah Mimms is either ignorant of what actually happened, or is intentionally not mentioning it….which, where I come from, is a lie of omission.
Either way, she owes her readers an apology.
