Surgeon General

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The Triumph Of The Lame Ducks

December 16, 2014 by 5 Comments

The Senate voted at 5:59pm EST to confirm Dr. Vivek Murthy as the next Surgeon General of the United States. The final vote was 51 in favor with 43 opposed and 6 not voting. The confirmation of Dr. Murthy could be called the triumph of the lame ducks.

In March, the nomination of Murthy was dead in the water. It was going nowhere because a number of red-state Democrats were up for re-election and knew voting for Murthy would have been the kiss of death.

From the New York Times on March 14th:

The nominee, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, an internist and political ally of the president’s, has come under criticism from the National Rifle Association, and opposition from the gun-rights group has grown so intense that it has placed Democrats from conservative states, several of whom are up for re-election this year, in a difficult spot.

Senate aides said Friday that as many as 10 Democrats are believed to be considering a vote against Dr. Murthy, who has voiced support for various gun control measures like an assault weapons ban, mandatory safety training and ammunition sales limits.

Liberal journalist Dave Weigel attributes the death of the filibuster to putting the pressure on these Democrats. They could no longer hide behind a Republican filibuster to avoid taking a position.

Presumably the 10 Democrats including such “pro-Second Amendment stalwarts” as Kay Hagan, Mark Pryor, Mark Begich, Mary Landrieu, and possibly Mark Udall who all lost re-election in November.

It’s funny how a politician’s true colors come out when either they don’t face an election for a number of years or they are being sent home by the voters.

Only three Democrats voted against Murthy:  Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND), and Joe Manchin (D-WV). And the rest, including Hagan, Pryor, Begich, Landrieu, and Udall voted for Murthy.

Murthy’s confirmation was the triumph of the lame ducks. Their vote was a big “f*%k you” to the voters of their home states who had just turned them out of office.

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Vote On Obama’s Anti-Gun Surgeon General Choice This Week

December 15, 2014 by 2 Comments

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) will be pushing the vote on Dr. Vivek Murthy this coming week. According to the tweet posted on Saturday by Adam Jentleson, Reid’s Communications Director, the vote on cloture will be this week. Thanks to a change in a Senate rules pushed through by Reid last year, Murthy nomination will only need a simple majority to invoke cloture and be confirmed.

Reid is evidently trying to make the most of his remaining time as Majority Leader. Murthy cleared a procedural vote on Saturday by a vote of 52-40 that allows his nomination to come to a vote. Voting in favor of bringing his nomination to a vote include so-called pro-Second Amendment lame duck Democrats Kay Hagan (D-NC), Mark Pryor (D-AR), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), and Mark Begich (D-AK). It is interesting to see how being a lame duck brings out their true colors.

Dr. Vivek Murthy co-founded Doctors for Obama in 2008 which later became Doctors for America. He is profoundly anti-gun and views firearm ownership as a public health issue.

From the NRA-ILA on Murthy’s nomination and his anti-gun views:

A recent letter sent to Congress by “Doctors for America,” and signed by Dr. Murthy, urges mandatory licensing “for anyone purchasing guns and ammunition–including mandatory firearm safety training and testing.” Under Dr. Murthy’s scheme, further regulations would place “limits on the purchase of ammunition,” and establish a “mandatory waiting period of at least 48 hours.”

In the letter, Dr. Murthy also advocates for a “federal ban on the sale” of popular semi-automatic firearms and their ammunition, and proposes a “buyback” of these popular types of firearms to “reduce the number… that are currently in circulation.” Even some of the most ardent anti-gun researchers, along with the Department of Justice, have admitted the futility of gun “buyback” programs.

Another of Dr. Murthy’s proposals would strip vital privacy protections put in place to protect firearm owners and prevent the fracturing of physician-patient relationships. The letter, for example, calls for removing “the provision in the Affordable Care Act and other federal policies that prohibit physicians from documenting gun ownership.” While some advocates of the ACA had argued the provision prohibiting such documentation was unnecessary, given that the ACA had nothing to do with guns, Dr. Murthy obviously sees the ACA as playing a role in gun control.

And, in late 2012 and early 2013, Dr. Murthy took to his personal Twitter account to promote his gun control beliefs, including a statement on October 16, 2012, that “Guns are a health care issue.”

While the Surgeon General has no real power to effect change, he can use the position as a bully pulpit to push issues.

I’d suggest a call and email to your two Senators ASAP. You can get a list of their phone numbers and email contact pages here. Even if you know your Senators are anti-gun, call or email anyway. It still puts them on notice.

UPDATE: A copy of the letter that the NRA-ILA’s Chris Cox sent to Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell regarding Murthy can be seen here. The most salient takeaway from the letter is that they are going to score the vote on Murthy. Of course, this means nothing to the Democrats who lost but at least it should hold the Republicans in line.