Posted on 03/21/2014 8:23:14 PM PDT by PaulCruz2016
It’s about guns, it’s about the midterms, and maybe it’s about the first primary states in 2016, too.
Democrats thought they would win confirmation for more of President Obama’s nominees by waiving the 60-vote filibuster hurdle for executive branch appointments, but they didn’t factor in nervous red-state senators afraid of taking tough votes that could sink their reelection in November.
The latest apparent casualty is Vivek Murthy, a 30-something British-born American doctor, whose parents are from India, and whose Ivy League credentials and activism on public-health issues includes co-founding Doctors for America, which launched in 2008 as Doctors for Obama.
Murthy is Obama’s nominee to become surgeon general, the nation’s top doctor and a mostly ceremonial post that occupants use to highlight and elevate health issues of national concern. Testifying before Congress, Murthy said he would focus on obesity, but Republican Sen. Rand Paul believes Murthy would use the post to “propagandize” on behalf of the Affordable Care Act and against the Second Amendment.
“I doubt there’s been a surgeon general dating back to the days of Lyndon Johnson that would pass the NRA litmus test,” says Jim Kessler with the centrist Democratic group Third Way. The most famous surgeon general in modern times, Dr. C. Everett Koop, appointed by President Reagan, helped educate the country about AIDS, drew attention to the dangers of secondhand smoke, and after leaving his post wrote an editorial for the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1992 titled “Time to Bite the Bullet Back,” arguing that the right to own or operate a firearm should carry the same restrictions as car ownership.
A surgeon general’s views on gun violence have never been a litmus test before, but Murthy got the attention of the National Rifle Association with this 2012 tweet: “Tired of politicians playing politics w/ guns, putting lives at risk b/c they’re scared of NRA. Guns are a health care issue.” The NRA went public with its opposition to Murthy, and says it will “score” any vote to confirm him, meaning the organization will hold it against lawmakers, a threat that makes vulnerable Democrats get all wobbly-kneed.
The White House is now “recalibrating” what to do, and with as many as 10 Democrats poised to defect, Murthy looks like a lost cause. “The last thing they want is to take a vote that is considered anti-Second Amendment,” says an aide to Sen. Paul, who is leading the effort against Murthy. “Nobody wants to walk the electoral plank for a surgeon general,” the aide adds. “If it were a Supreme Court nominee, maybe….”
Murthy is backed by a long list of public-health-minded organizations from the American Hospital Association to the March of Dimes, and on Wednesday, the influential New England Journal of Medicine challenged what it called the NRA’s “single-issue political blackmail,” quoting a team of doctors who know Murthy personally and say they are “appalled” that a candidate of such high caliber would be taken to task for “speaking out about a problem that lands thousands of people in emergency rooms every year.”
“The critical question is this: Should a special-interest organization like the NRA have veto power over the appointment of the nation’s top doctor? The very idea is unacceptable,” the editors declare.
Unacceptable, yes, but the way politics works in Washington when you have a president with a 41 percent approval rating, and his party’s control of the Senate hanging by a thread, the better part of valor on the part of the White House is to back off, at least for now.
“This is about Rand Paul making guns a signature issue in his run for the presidency,” says Kessler, who has tracked gun issues since he worked as an aide in the Senate. He points out Paul pushed an amendment to a bill that moved through the Homeland Security and Government Affairs committee last month to allow people to carry concealed weapons into post offices. A compromise was worked out to allow concealed weapons in your car in the parking lot. “He’s out of step with some Republicans because he’s a libertarian, so he’s making a stand on guns,” says Kessler. “It’s part of his plan to win New Hampshire and South Carolina [primaries], and he’s looking for places to highlight that issue where no gun legislation has gone before.”
If Democrats are now siding with Rand Paul, it’s because the NRA has weighed in. But this may not be the last word on Vivek Murthy. “We expect this is something they will put in their hip pocket and save for the lame duck,” says Paul’s aide. “The lame duck is when you do things that are unpopular. You don’t have to worry about the electoral backlash.”
If Murthy were confirmed in the special session traditionally held after the November election and is the last hurrah for defeated and retiring lawmakers, he could still serve two years. Another nominee that might be resurrected in the same way is Debo Adebile, whose defeat in the Senate this month Obama called “a travesty.” Seven Democrats joined Republicans to reject Adebile as the nation’s top civil-rights lawyer at the Justice Department. Adebile ran afoul of nervous Democrats for his work as a lawyer for the NAACP in its representation of a cop killer in Philadelphia who is serving a life sentence without parole.
Amen to that.
Dittos......he is an imported wacko gun grabber like Piers Morgan
“New England Journal of Medicine challenged what it called the NRA’s “single-issue political blackmail,” quoting a team of doctors who know Murthy personally and say they are “appalled” that a candidate of such high caliber would be taken to task for “speaking out about a problem that lands thousands of people in emergency rooms every year.”
Murthy is all of about 36 years old. With college and medical school he MIGHT have actually about 7-8 years of hands on Medical Practice. He is the most qualified for this position? Me thinks it’s the N.E. Journal of Medicine that has an agenda. Murthy is looking for a cushy meal ticket job from which to proselytize and never have to shove a tongue depressor in a mouth again. Hey Obongo, what about Dr. Ben Carson?
Rand Paul comes across to me anyway, as the mostdeftdaft politician of the 2016 possibles.
“Rand Paul is showing himself as a clever cookie.
Watch out for him.”
“HE’S A RINO!!!” “HE’S A LIBTARD!!!”
In before the old canned responses are posted.
I like the guy very much; he does have some critical thinking skills...but that must make him a RIMO, right?
“Those two should have been removed in 2009 after the 2008 loss. I was calling for that back then.
But it took years before most here caught on to that, like till 2011.”
You must be a RINO - a Yankee RINO!!! You can think past “What time does ‘The Price Is Right’ come on?”
A bunch of us “Yankee RINOs” here in the NE quit the NRA and went over to GOA a few years back - they (GOA) are the real deal.
I will NEVER forgive the NRA for backing Harry Reid; neither will some others.
Since doctors kill more people than guns, maybe they should be speaking out against themselves.
Might be the only winning formula in 2016. I had it with election losses. I wish Palin could get elected because she is both Socon + Fiscon. Ditto with Cruz. But can they win 2016 general with so much hate from the left?
Sadly, with the way the election (fraud) is, Fed. level is pretty unpredictable :/
He's an interesting character for sure.
I remember when he first started he went on Maddow’s show and she trapped him on the civil rights act,
but he has been getting craftier and craftier since, he plays very carefully. He avoids drawing negatives on himself,
“We have to change’ LOL
The NRA are a bunch of useless ass curls if you ask me. They give out “A’s” like a kindergarten teacher and endorse plenty of people that the GOA rate a C or worse.
I asked the GOA who was worse: Scott Brown (AWB) or Kelly Ayotte (12 million Democrats). They were not sure. I liked that answer.
I think the NRA needs to get involved when Democrats and Republican leaders decide to create 12 million new anti-gun voters via amnesty.
Mccookle and Bonehead need to be sent packing. They are the reason we are losing against the clown in chief. Afraid to say anything and just go with the flow.
Not really. The NRA tends to be timid. Not as bad as say Boehner, but in the same vein. Other more vocal organizations are usually the ones doing the heavy lifting. The GOA keeps them on their toes.
And yet... He has chosen to run with being pro gun as a center part of his platform. Clearly that is one of the most radioactive of social issues. Libertarians have ALWAYS been known for their pro gun views. Always. So you tell me, what really sets a Libertarian and a conservative apart, because I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that I'm leaning more and more heavily to the Libertarian side. I left the Republicans after 37 years of activism and donations in January 2013. Felt strange at first and then.... it felt soooooo good.
I have tired of the NRA's get-along approach and have decided to join the GOA, effective now. I like an organization that has no wishy-washy approach to gun rights. Here the NRA is doing the right thing...then you learn how they got behind Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell!!!
“Libertopians are NOT Conservatives”
Nonsense.
Ronald Reagan’s opinion on Libertarianism:
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg0Axyvlkm0
Well, when it comes to the parties themselves, there are several issues, including the main one that made Ron Paul a bad fit as a Libertarian candidate: abortion. Gay marriage is another. The Libertarian Party embraces abortion rights and gay marriage. They also tend toward an unrealistic view of the dangers of this world, and that includes open borders on immigration.
What we know as “conservatism” is a blend of libertarianism and traditionalism. They were once thought to be incompatible, and therefore ineffective as a counter to the march of liberalism, but they were philosophically blended by a man named Frank Meyer, popularized by William F. Buckley, Jr., and brought to the heights of the political world by President Reagan. Obviously, there were others involved along the way, but that’s the basics of it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.