“Every day brings more details about the first case of the Ebola virus to be diagnosed in the U.S.,” msnbc.com’s Krystal Ball and Anne Thompson report. “And while experts say there is essentially no risk of a significant outbreak here in the states, much of the public remains worried. . . . If only there was someone around who could educate the American public about the actual level of risk. Someone who was trusted as a public health expert and whose job it was to help us understand what we really need to worry about and what precautions we should take.” But no! There isn’t! Not one of Uncle Sam’s 2,723,000 employees is up to the job, apparently. And who’s fault is that? Dysfunctional government. And the NRA, of course . . .
Actually, that is one of the primary responsibilities of the United States surgeon general. There’s just one problem: Thanks to Senate dysfunction and NRA opposition, we don’t have a surgeon general right now. In fact, we haven’t had a surgeon general for more than a year now — even though the president nominated the eminently qualified Dr. Vivek Murthy back in November 2013 . . .
As I reported previously, Murthy’s nomination has been held up by Republicans and a few red state Democrats due to this surprisingly controversial stance: He believes that guns can impact your health. Well, to be fair, this conservative coalition is not troubled by his stance, so much as they are fearful of the NRA, which decided to try to scuttle Murthy’s confirmation. The NRA wrote a strongly worded letter, Rand Paul put a hold on the nomination, and Red State Democrats begged Harry Reid to not force them to vote. It’s funny that the strongly worded letters of ordinary citizens don’t seem to have quite the same effect.
As TTAG reported previously, Dr. Murthy is an ardent anti-gunner who believes that “gun violence” is a public health issue, and who supported the President’s post-Newtown call for a renewed “assault weapons” ban and “universal background checks.” Just the sort of man Americans who value their natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms would prefer not to be the next Surgeon General (or hold any public office, really). Hence the NRA’s opposition.
Anyway, hello? While we wait (and wait and wait) for the Obama administration to nominate a non-partisan Surgeon General, there is an acting Surgeon General: Rear Admiral (RADM) Boris D. Lushniak, M.D. [above]. And speaking of people qualified to inform the American public about the dangers of Ebola (or lack thereof) please note that Dr. Lushniak worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for sixteen years.
Instead of bitching about an anti-gunner’s failure to become America’s top doc, Ball and Thompson could have reached out to Dr. Lushniak and reported on some of that advice they claim the feds can’t give because the NRA is protecting firearms freedom (which could come in mighty handy should Ebola become an epidemic). And the progs claim the NRA is playing politics with Americans’ health. Jeez. [h/t BC]
Another classic case of Projection from the Statists. I wonder what Dr. Lushniak would have to say about that? 😉
“It’s funny that the strongly worded letters of ordinary citizens don’t seem to have quite the same effect.”
A strongly-worded letter from the NRA has a big effect precisely because it is a strongly worded letter from ~ 5 million ordinary citizens who are members and tens of millions more who say they agree with or identify with the stances taken by the NRA and vote accordingly. They still refuse to acknowledge that the only reason the NRA is a powerful lobby is because millions and millions of people actively vote along the same principals represented by the NRA.
MSNBC reports are general-ly misleading…
Not your best work, for sure. Weak.
Yep, real PUN-ishment….
Quite the outbreak of word play…
Perhaps I have been slipping lately… Just last week I enter 10 jokes in a contest and hoped one would win, but no pun in-ten-did!
Good save.
Two thirds of a pun
P – U
Now they’re exploiting a potentially deadly outbreak for political purposes.
Anti-gun pols and their spokespeople in the media are vile blood dancers.
Never let a good tragedy go to waste.
You’d figure Ebola infected blood would be the kind they’d refuse to dance in.
And waving that bloody shirt could be a bio-hazard
That’s not supposed to be a partisan position. Maybe if The Holy One nominated someone who has a solid reputation as a clinician, not a politician, we might actually have a Surgeon General.
Yes, well, the IRS isn’t supposed to be partisan either, but with the modern Dems Every Damned Thing must be political. Maybe Obama could find a candidate who could stick to his knitting and then he’s be approved.
Dang, they caught us again! The NRA’s opposition to Murthy obviously wasn’t because we knew he would politicize the Surgeon General’s Office to push an anti-liberty agenda (just like our AG has done to the DOJ) – oh no, it’s because the NRA wants to kill off everyone in America! Plus all of the aliens from Nibiru who inhabit MSNBC! Note to the Puffington Post: This is a really serious comment! It isn’t sarcasm! Tell everyone!
so I wonder how the acting SG feels now that the media powerhouse (stop laughing) MSNBC labelled him as an after-thought. . . . sorta like the last kid picked at dodgeball ?
Is the reporter’s name really Krystal Ball?
(disclaimer: of course that’s not an ad hominem attack I’m just clarifying 😛 )
WOW just WOW…
I guess the NRA is the boogie man hell bent on world destruction… Or was that Bush’s fault?
No wait it must be Ted Cruz, I mean after all he wants to deny the government to force everyone to have healthcare, so he must be the problem! No no it is the house, I mean they passed over 200 bills all bent on destroying the democratic party, so Harry Reid had to sit on those in the Senate to protect us! But really it is the GOP! I mean come on people, they want will be the downfall of civilization if they gain the Senate, Pelosi SAID SO!
No well, your racist, you misspelled three words, and I am an economic expert even though I have no idea what the difference is between U3 and U6 unemployment reporting!
IT’S ALL BUSH’S FAULT!
Whew glad to finally get that off my chest…
Bush was too hard to spell.
Barry Soetero does NOTHING that ISN’T political. And NRA =OFWG. It’s like Kanye “George Bush doesn’t like black people”. After W saves millions of Africans. I had a bizarre conversion with a black guy at the gym. He claimed those African lives don’t count because they’re not American…
Maybe not, but they are still African-Americans due to political correctness because their skin color is black.
The risk of a major outbreak in the US is very unlikely only if people behave rationally.
Here in reality, people are not always rational. A man who knew he had been exposed to ebola lied about his exposure, got on a plane, travelled to the US, lied again, had significant close contact with family and friends here, went out in public, went to the hospital when he became symptomatic and lied again, went home, and then back to the hospital. His family have refused to allow cleaners into the home to remove bedding and disinfect the property, and have had to be forcibly confined to the house because they refused to not go out in public. Meanwhile, the people living in the original guy’s neighborhood in Liberia had chased away healthcare workers and lied about the presence of ebola but are now being decimated by the disease.
The risk of a major outbreak in the US is in fact very high where people refuse to face reality or take responsibility.
It would also help if the government used its existing powers more effectively like require all entrants, citizens and non citizens alike who have been in West Africa to undergo a 21 day Quarantine being allowed out on their own.
Actually it’s worse than that, he didn’t lie when he went to the hospital the first time… they just didn’t connect Ebola-like symptoms plus travel to an endemic region.
Typical stellar attention to detail and high level reasoning skills displayed by Hospital workers here on an H-1 visa.
Because people think it is impossible for bad things to happen in the US until they do. And then a few months or years later, people forget about the bad things and go back to thinking they are untouchable.
Perhaps if the CDC&P would forget about guns, and concentrate on controlling and preventing disease, there wouldn’t be 100 people exposed to ebola just a couple of miles from my Dallas relatives.
But they NEED a good pandemic scare to maintain their funding. Remember the swine flu flap? And Ebola is sexier than the Enterovirus that’s now claiming lives.
Guy, find a bottle of reality and take a double dose.
Then do a search on “Pandemic 1918”. Ebola is worse and the feckless Democrat Party was turned it loose in the US.
The useless Eunuch in Chief is not going to restrict travel from West Africa, Africa, outside Conus, quarantine travelers to the US, limit the ongoing unrestricted illegal migration into the US.
CDC is talking out both sides of their ass loudly saying “nothing to worry about, move along” yet quietly telling emerg responders to stock up on Infectious disease control gear. Which I spent today doing for my FD/EMS Dept.
Like SOME fed agencies there are a few useful types at CDC. If interested: http://www.cdc.gov/vhf/ebola/hcp/interim-guidance-emergency-medical-services-systems-911-public-safety-answering-points-management-patients-known-suspected-united-states.html
If the administration hadn’t tried to bring politics into the position we’d have one right now.
And in any case I think the federal government is doing a fine job of incompetence with regards to Ebola without putting a ‘general’ in charge of it.
Boris? You trust a guy named Boris? You are being stupider than the antigunners.
/sarc
But it does show how bad journalists are. “We don’t have a general surgeon. Just ignore the acting general surgeon doing the job of the general surgeon”.
Actually this is a just good example of how statist will lie when they are losing. Eboli and the NRA are not related. People understand that we live in a global world and they also understand that if a deadly epidemic has broken out in a distant part of the world it is logical to not let someone from there come here. But Ball/Thompson wanted to avoid the logic, the health danger to the US citizens and talk about the evil NRA. The less said in response the better.
Ebola or Obama
One of these two diseases will destroy the US.
Actually, neither will. A bit melodramatic.
OK Mr Pedantic. Tell us which disease will more damage to the US (either in total or in the next 2 years).
The Surgeon General position is a joke. It’s yet another made-up federal position charged with usurping local power and growing the fed. What the hell is the SG gonna do anyway? Come out and say “Ebola is bad,” to get the ball rolling?
Exactly. The position should be simply eliminated.
It hasn’t had any credibility since Elders was recommending teaching kids how to masturbate.
The single biggest failing of the liberal mentality is that they believe people need government to tell them how to do everything. We have a wonderful opportunity here to get rid of one of the most annoying busybody positions in the country and replace it with …. silence.
In all fairness to Joycelyn, she did correct my grip problem.
Some things must be learned by a lifetime of practice.
And I thought the moonbats were blaming Ebola on Global Warming.
Oh, I get it- it’s Global Warming AND the NRA’s fault. Perfect!
The howling moonbats are claiming that Islamic terrorist groups exist because of climate change. Whats next, some criminal defense attorney going to play that card in a court case?
Want to know what would have gone a long way to preventing ebola from showing up in the US?
Restricting travel to west Africa. I dunno, it’s just a guess. A wild hare of an idea, if you will. Obama had no problems restricting air travel to Israel, justified by “security and safety concerns.” He didn’t care if he offended Jews. But offend blacks in the US? Nope.
Instead, the kool-aid drinkers now want to try (in one of the most tortured jumps of illogic since the middle ages) that if only those evil pro-gun people hadn’t blocked the nomination of another figurehead to a position with no real results, no actual budget to do obtain any tangible results, we wouldn’t have ebola in the US now.
The dark irony (and karmic justice) is that if ebola really takes off in the US, it will ravage the racial cohort of people that Obama and his minions wished to appease with his policies.
It is almost enough to make the few rational, sane people left in this country ask the American black community: “At what point will you at least entertain the idea that Obama doesn’t actually care about you?”
“October Surprise!”
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/219407-expect-the-unexpected-5-possible-oct-surprises
I knew it! I knew it! When the IRA invented cancer, athlete’s foot, muscular dystrophy, flu, and Justin Bieber that this was going to happen!
I am surprised, that you are suprised about MSLSD making up an opportunity to bash on the NRA for the easily mislead.
Eminantly qualified…? They guy was a child in terms of medical expertise (his 2A stance aside). I want a grey haired Surgeon general…
Dr. Murthy was previously the head of an organization called “Doctors for Obama.” I guess that the only qualification one needs these days to be Surgeon General is to genuflect before the Great One. Although it’s a bit less, uh, personal than genuflecting before Bill Clinton.
If it wasn’t for made up news, MSNBC would report no news at all.
Its not looking so good for the progressive narrative lately- y’know-
no surprise the Talking Points Memos and StateRunMedia are sounding more and more hysterical…
Judge ordering release of emails on IRS Gate, F&F, Benghazi…
Complete collapse of credibility in US Foreign Policy,
and in ANYTHING coming out of the WH these days…
Ebola- well…
Interesting that Amazon is running ads for Tyvek suit, latex gloves and N95 masks…
Maybe we should blame it all on Jeff Bezos, or the WAPO.
The last Surgeon General I even remember was C. Everett Koop. And only because he could rock a beard and a mean bow tie.
With a name like that he almost HAS to rock a beard.
Mrs. Ball is an NRA member. She also knocks me out.
How do you know she is an NRA member?
It’s no secret. And her dad was a chemist studying crystals when she was born, which led to the name (in answer to your post below).
I see, very interesting, thank you for the information. I wonder why she is being critical of the NRA then. Be interesting to check her position on “assault weapons.”
Krystal Ball…did her parents think that was funny or something?
Last I heard was that ISIS was created by global warming so ebola being spread by the NRA seems normal.
I’LL TELL YOU HOW YOU CAN GET LIBERALS TO LIKE GUN. MAKE THE BARREL LOOK LIKE A PENIS
Hmmm.. since the libs are doing it why cant I? Can I blame the NRA for the gas I got from all those enchiladas I ate??
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