Loretta Lynch is a lesbian?
"Obama to nominate Loretta Lynch for attorney general" by Nedra Pickler | Associated Press November 08, 2014
WASHINGTON — President Obama intends to nominate the federal prosecutor in Brooklyn to become the next attorney general and the first black woman to lead the Justice Department.
What is with the quotas?
Obama’s spokesman said Friday that he will announce his selection of Loretta Lynch at the White House on Saturday. She would replace Eric Holder, who announced his resignation in September.
See: Obama Puts a Hold on Holder Resignation
If confirmed by the Senate, Lynch would be Obama’s second trail-blazing pick for the post after Holder served as the nation’s first black attorney general.
Obama had planned to wait until after a trip to Asia next week to announce the choice but then moved up the decision after CNN reported that she was his choice.
Lynch, 55, is the US attorney for Eastern New York, which covers Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and Long Island, a position she also held under President Bill Clinton.
‘‘Ms. Lynch is a strong, independent prosecutor who has twice led one of the most important US attorney’s offices in the country,’’ said Obama press secretary Josh Earnest.
Obama decided against the option of trying to push Lynch’s confirmation while Democrats still control the Senate and instead will leave it up to the Republican-controlled Senate to vote on the choice in 2015, according to the people who described Obama’s plans. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.
Not immigration, not the escalation of wars, but this?
Democrats on Capitol Hill have told the White House it would be difficult to win confirmation for a new attorney general during the lame-duck session of Congress beginning next week, especially considering the other competing priorities they face before relinquishing power to Republicans in January.
It’s unusual for Obama to pick someone he doesn’t know well for such a sensitive administration post. But at a time when Obama is under political fire, Lynch’s distance from the president could be an asset in the confirmation process.
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Holder is close to Lynch and appointed her as chairwoman of a committee that advises him on policy. Since Lynch is unfamiliar to many on Capitol Hill, senators will have to get up to speed on her record quickly.
In other words, she will protect all the secrets and hide all the scandals for the next two years.
Lynch grew up in North Carolina, the daughter of a school librarian and a Baptist minister. She received undergraduate and law degrees from Harvard, where Obama graduated from law school seven years after her.
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NEXT DAY UPDATE:
"AG nominee at home in the spotlight" by Stephanie Clifford | New York Times November 09, 2014
NEW YORK — When Kenneth P. Thompson was a young federal prosecutor in Brooklyn in 1999, he was assigned to one of the biggest cases the office had ever handled, that of the police officers accused of beating and sodomizing Abner Louima, a Haitian immigrant.
The officers were white, Louima black, and the harrowing episode rekindled racial tensions and anger at the police in late-1990s New York City.
What this tells you is this whole thing about police brutality that has come up has been going on for decades, in fact, for the entirety of this country. Authority has always stamped down a boot. It's nothing new here in AmeriKa.
So Thompson was startled when Loretta Elizabeth Lynch and another senior prosecutor in the case told him he would be delivering the much anticipated opening statement.
“That tells you a lot about Loretta,” Thompson, now the Brooklyn district attorney, said of Lynch, the US attorney for the Eastern District of New York who was nominated by President Obama on Saturday to be the nation’s next attorney general.
The Louima trial is perhaps the clearest gauge of Lynch, 55, as a prosecutor, associates say: a calm, under-the-radar lawyer who could also fight hard when it helped her cause. During that case, she was willing to work in the background when needed, and she relied on a keen sense of courtroom tactics rather than rhetoric.
The perfect person to keep government skullduggery a secret.
This appointment means nothing, which is why it is getting so much attention.
While race was a bitter undercurrent of the case, she rarely focused on it — until the defense tried to. Then she and her team took the potentially explosive issue head on.
I'm tired of being divided by race, gender, sexual orientation, age, whatever. We are all getting our asses kicked and doors knocked down by authority -- even if the mouthpiece media minimizes it.
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The trial opened on May 4, 1999. Five police officers were charged in the case. Prosecutors said the officers had arrested Louima after a scuffle outside a club and beaten him in a car en route to the precinct, with the assault culminating in the precinct bathroom. There, one officer, Justin Volpe, forced an end of the broomstick into Louima’s rectum.
Only a demon does that.
Zachary W. Carter, who was the US attorney for the Eastern District during the Louima trial, had assigned Lynch, his number two, to the trial team, along with Alan Vinegrad, the other senior prosecutor, and Thompson. The courtroom was packed and tense. On one side sat policemen’s family and supporters. On the other, Louima’s.
Thompson rose and gave the opening statement, arguing that the police escalated the violence as time went on. “Abner Louima was tortured in that bathroom,” he told jurors.
That's the word, yup.
Lynch “was very comfortable because it was exactly the right thing to do, to have Ken take the lead in opening and basically be the proxy for Abner Louima as the first communicator — direct communicator — to the jury,” Carter said.
She was also skilled in handling the variety of witnesses, who ranged in this case from police officers to clubgoers to medical experts.
“She’s got top-flight education credentials, but she can talk like a real person to real people,” Vinegrad said.
In early June, Vinegrad gave the closing argument, followed by the defense lawyers, who singled out Volpe as the lone torturer.
(Blog editor snorts)
It was then the prosecution’s last chance, its rebuttal. Lynch had to stand up and dismantle the various defense lawyers’ arguments.
Vinegrad remembers exactly where he sat as he watched Lynch, who was smooth and persistent despite the weeks of trial and strain.
She went after one defendant, Thomas Wiese, whose lawyer had argued he would not say racist things because his fiancée is black: “He tried to hide behind the color of his girlfriend’s skin. And that’s insulting.
“Don’t let these defendants push us back to the days when police officers could beat people with impunity, then lie to cover it up,” she said.
??????
OMG! We have that now, and have had it for decades and decades! The whole AmeriKan Ju$tu$ $y$tem has been called into question at this point, primarily because of arbitrary enforcement and prosecution. Cops are still being cleared of murder.
“She just disposed of them in very workmanlike fashion,” Carter said. Volpe received a 30-year sentence. Another officer, Charles Schwarz, was convicted of assault and civil rights violations. Three defendants were acquitted.
Almost like an assassin, huh?
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Lynch also has prosecuted public officials and the planner of a subway-bombing plot. Her office prosecuted terrorists caught overseas, making the court, based in Brooklyn, into something of a World Court.
She's part of the show, folks!
In a city full of larger-than-life characters who conduct their careers like political campaigns, Lynch is mild, unflappable, and somewhat unknowable. Even people who worked with her for years paused and then grasped for examples when asked about her interests: She watches TV sometimes, reads books, goes to the gym.
I guess she's qualified (I must not be; mine is off this morning).
As for the larger-than-life, sorry, no one is.
Can I get my reporting without the $lavish arrogance and worship, please?
She has developed a reputation as a hard worker who is happy to remain outside the limelight, advising Justice Department officials and her staff on strategies. At news conferences, she often steps to the side to let others answer questions.
She won't be out of it and will be unable to do that if she gets and takes the job.
She is now poised to be the most powerful prosecutor in the nation.
Except her real job is to cover up IRSgate, Benghazigate, Fast and Furious, and all the other scandals that must be kept secret -- in addition to performing the ritual of staged and scripted trials for pathetic patsies who get set up.
With no personal ties to Obama, and two successful Senate confirmations in her pocket, she has already drawn muted support from Republicans.
Oh, that is why he picked her.
If confirmed, she would be the first black woman to hold the attorney general post....
So what? This specializing in "firsts" distracts from the fact that they are all from the same cla$$.
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Related:
"2 NYC police officers facing brutality charges" | AP November 06, 2014
NEW YORK — Two New York City police officers have been arrested on assault charges in the videotaped beating of a teenage marijuana suspect.
David Afanador and Tyraine Isaac pleaded not guilty at their arraignment Wednesday and were released without bail.
Security video from Aug. 29 captured the 16-year-old slowing down on a Brooklyn sidewalk as the officers caught up to him.
It shows a police officer identified as Isaac hitting the teen with a roundhouse punch. Seconds later, as the teen tries to surrender, Afanador appears to hit him with his pistol. The beating continues until the teen drops to the ground and is handcuffed.
There was no immediate comment from a law firm representing the officers.
The case comes after the July death of an unarmed man, Eric Garner, during a videotaped arrest on Staten Island.
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Related: de Blasio Endorses Death Squads
Oooo-kay (sigh). That stinks.
"Report finds lax security at NYC jails" Associated Press November 07, 2014
NEW YORK — Water bottles filled with vodka that go uninspected. Lunch boxes packed with drugs allowed to bypass X-ray machines. Razor blades and other objects waved on through, even when they set off metal detectors.
Gaping security holes at the city’s Rikers Island jail allowed guards and other staffers to easily smuggle in all manner of contraband — including heroin, marijuana, liquor, and weapons — to the inmates they are supposed to be watching, city investigators found.
This has been going on forever, and prisoners will tell you its way worse on the inside (and look who is profiting!)
Such porousness has proved lucrative to those willing to take the risk, with inmates paying an average of $600 in ‘‘courier fees’’ for each illicit delivery. In one case last year, a guard got $2,000 for smuggling in 150 grams of pot.
Just acting like Wall Street bankers. What's wrong with that?
And speaking of those Wall Street bankers, they on her watch?
‘‘Clearly our investigation indicates that this is a real problem,’’ said city Department of Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters, who released a scathing report Thursday that recommended an overhaul of screening at the 10-jail Rikers complex, including better-trained security workers and more drug-sniffing dogs.
More tyranny is always the $olution.
It followed a series of smuggling sweeps at Rikers, which this year alone resulted in charges against 10 guards and 30 inmates.
The report found one undercover investigator posing as a guard was able to smuggle in more than $22,000 worth of contraband at six Rikers jails. The booty included heroin, marijuana, vodka, and a razor blade.
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Also see: Taking a Trip to Rikers Island
How could she not see that?
