Poor Attorney General Eric Holder has been trying to quit his job since September. And you'd think, given the way Republicans hate his intestines and all his other parts too and want to impeach him for seizing all our guns, not disbanding the IRS, homo-lovin', and blacking while black, they'd be eager to see him leave. But no, they are committed to making him attorney general for life, by refusing to hold a vote to confirm the president's replacement nominee, Loretta Lynch. Why? Is Lynch worse than Holder? Nah, Senate Republicans have already agreed she's fine enough, they guess, and they'd like to confirm her, no really. Maybe they're even sorry she's had to wait longer for confirmation than the previous seven AG nominees combined. So what's the hold up? Payback, bitches:

When former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) triggered the "nuclear option" to eliminate the filibuster for most nominations in November 2013, the top Senate Republican issued a categorical threat.

"You'll regret this," said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). "And you may regret this a lot sooner than you think."

So because McConnell and his fellow Republicans got their feelings all hurt when Reid took away their power to block the president's nominees when the GOP was in the minority, they're going to teach that sumbitch Reid a thing or two by, that's right, blocking the president's nominees. Like Lynch. And just about anyone else the president dares to nominate:

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the chairman of the Armed Services Committee and a consistent defender of the filibuster, signaled Monday on CNN that the slowdown was partially as payback for the nuclear option. "I also told them when they did the nuclear option," he said, "that I was not going to be in any hurry to confirm nominees that were not very important. And I'm not going to be embarrassed about saying that."

Well, sure, no reason for McCain to be embarrassed to admit that he's taking his job of representing the people of Arizona and conducting the legislative business of the American government real serious like, by using his position of power to throw a temper tantrum because he is a bitter grudge-holding sore loser.

Meanwhile, McConnell keeps saying he is going to find the time to hold a vote to confirm Lynch any day now. Which he has been saying for months, including in March, right before the Senate took yet ANOTHER vacation.

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McConnell's latest on-the-record rationale for holding up Lynch's confirmation -- unlike McCain, he at least has enough sense of shame to not openly state that he's just not going to let any Obama nominations go through, because revenge -- is that Democrats must first cave on their filibuster of a human trafficking bill in which Republicans shoved some unrelated anti-abortion language too, because that is what they do.

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Democrats have said they'd be happy to vote on the bill, sans the unrelated anti-abortion language, but nah, you can't possibly stand up for women unless you're simultaneously kicking them in the vagina, so suck it, Democrats, and suck it, Loretta Lynch, too:

[McConnell] says Lynch, who has cleared committee and has the votes to be confirmed by the full Senate, won't get a vote until Democrats drop their filibuster and pass the bill with anti-abortion language. "As soon as that happens," he said, "we'll turn to the Loretta Lynch nomination."

What does Lynch's confirmation have to do with the human trafficking bill? Not a damn thing, of course. But so what? What is more important -- passing legislation and filling important positions in the government, or exacting revenge? Duh. So because McConnell gets to be in charge of the Senate now, he's just going to keep being too busy to do his actual job and waste time instead writing letters to the world about how Obama is not really president that much.

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So while Republicans have been wanting to get rid of Attorney General Holder since he first got the gig, they're going to keep him there forever, it seems, for spite and to teach Democrats, and the country, an important lesson -- and that lesson is that they are dicks. Which, yeah, we've already figured out.

[TPM]