Rep. Chaffetz demands surgeon general head Ebola efforts.

[JEDIYoda]

Are Republicans actually this stupid???
Rep. Chaffetz demands surgeon general head Ebola efforts. Thanks to Republicans, there isn't one.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/...o-Republicans-there-isn-t-one?detail=facebook

You would be forgiven for believing that there was not one member of the Republican Party that was serious about governing the nation. You would be forgiven because it is true, as Republican House member Jason Chaffetz helps demonstrate during, of course, one of his many Fox News appearances. Now that Obama has indeed appointed an "Ebola czar" as demanded, you see, it turns out that decision was completely wrong.

“Why not have the surgeon general head this up?" Chaffetz asked in a Wednesday appearance on Fox News. "I think that’s a very legitimate question. At least you have somebody who has a medical background who's been confirmed by the United States Senate.”
“It begs the question, what does the surgeon general do?" he added. "Why aren’t we empowering that person?”An astute observer would note that the United States currently has no surgeon general. The United States has no surgeon general because the president's nominee for the position once opined that yes, getting shot by one of America's many guns would be bad for a person's health, and that was all it took for the conspiracy theorists at the NRA to have a fit, and for Jason Chaffetz's party to block the nomination until the president nominates a surgeon general who correctly reckons getting shot with one of America's many guns should be considered a nutritional supplement. Chaffetz does not know this because he is not serious about governing, and therefore appears on Fox News only to spout whatever criticism of Obama comes to mind.
But then someone told him.


Chaffetz told The Huffington Post that he was not saying that the non-existent surgeon general should be in charge of the Ebola response, but rather that the Office of the Surgeon General should be.
"Well I do know there's an acting surgeon general, I understand that. The surgeon general is also an office. It's the Office of the Surgeon General. I know there's some confusion there, but I don't think I was confused," Chaffetz said.
That would be a good save, had he not specifically been referring to, exact quote, "somebody who has a medical background who's been confirmed by the United States Senate," and "that person." Nonetheless he quickly moved on to repeat his prior complaint that the new "Ebola czar," who we had to have only because steadfastly anti-czar Republicans were beside themselves demanding Obama get a new czar, has been on the job for nigh on a day or two now and still hasn't come to calm Congressional Republicans and talk them off the ledge they've been on.

"I question why we would have a person that was put forward as a czar, when you do have an acting surgeon general," he added. "The point is the person the president has appointed doesn't feel prepared to come before Congress."
In other words, there is absolutely nothing Obama can do that will not result in Rep. Jason Chaffetz appearing on Fox News to declare that Obama is Doing Everything Wrong. Why is there no czar? Why is there no surgeon general? Why is the nominee for surgeon general so divisive? Why is the czar not a different person? Why has not the czar come before me to show his respect? Why are we not closing the airports? Why are we not listening to Donald Trump on whether the virus has mutated into an entirely new form? Why does Obama want to send teams to fight Ebola in Africa? Why are we spending money on any of this?

This is because Jason Chaffetz is not serious about governing, but instead appears on Fox News only to spout whatever criticism of the opposing president comes to mind.

 

[ivwshane]

Yes, yes they are that stupid! Part of why people buy what they are selling is because of how strong they believe in their product.

They believe in their product so strongly because of their CBD.

 

[MongGrel]

Pretty amazing, some days isn't it.

Boris Lushniak

Still the usual "did I really say" that crap though.

 

[werepossum]

lol My first thought was that having an imaginary person in charge of our Ebolla response would probably be better than having a political hack in charge of our Ebolla response.

 

[Paul98]

We need people to call them out and tell them to shut the F up, and stop lying. When they try to lie just tell them to shut their mouth as they have no clue what they are saying.

I am sick of letting these people talk over and over again about shit they have no clue about. No they should not be given a chance to respond if they clearly are just ignorant or stupid.

 

[theeedude]

Cut the government then complain about it not doing enough. That's pretty much standard operating procedure for the GOP.

 

[compuwiz1]

Dailykos and Huff Poop......lol You do realize those are the right's view, like lefties view Faux news, don't you?

 

[werepossum]

Cut the government then complain about it not doing enough. That's pretty much standard operating procedure for the GOP.

Yeah, the Pubbies certainly have made some draconian cuts. Why, in 2008 the federal government spent $2.98 trillion dollars, but in 2013 the federal government spent only $3.45 trillion dollars . . .

Wait, how do you do that math again, where you transmogrify a 16% increase into a draconian cut?

http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_2008_2013USb_16s1li111mcn_F0f

Just for the slow, Chaffetz was complaining about appointing yet another czar - as always, a political hack with zero expertise nor experience in the subject he'll be czaring - instead of the federal government's agencies doing the tasks for which they nominally exist. Granted, he did a clumsy job of it as his own party (and Obama's nomination of a 36 year old gun grabber rather than a non-partisan health care expert) prevented the position he named from being filled by someone vetted by Congress, but his point is certainly valid.

Just for the REALLY slow, our acting Surgeon General is Rear Admiral Boris Lushniak, a man with experience at the Epidemic Intelligence Service of the CDC, who was recently Counterterrorism Policy and Director of the FDC's Office of Counterterrorism and Emerging Threats. (He's also a dermatologist by training, so YMMV.) By contrast, Obama's chosen Ebolla czar, Ron Klain, is an attorney by training, a political hack with a reputation as a policy wonk who previously served as Al Gore's chief of staff and later as Joe Biden's chief of staff, whose extensive medical experience consists of, um . . . Absolutely nothing. However, Mr. Klain is on record in an interview as saying that the world's biggest "leadership problem" is dealing with over-population. That's right kiddies, the czar in charge of preventing an American Ebolla epidemic is a political hack who believes that the world's biggest "leadership problem" is dealing with over-population - a problem which, coincidentally, Ebolla could solve. http://mediachecker.wordpress.com/2...n-says-overpopulation-top-concern-africaasia/

Yeah, you guys are the party of smartitude all right.

 

[trenchfoot]

Surely this is a leftist plot to have Chaffetz believe that we actually do have a Surgeon General political hack cowering under his desk while a specifically formulated Ebola pandemic, created from an secret executive order by Obama, sweeps the nation killing every Repub in sight while leaving the Dems alive and well so as to let in the illegal immigrant hordes and have them take over the nation.

Let's see how long it takes FOX to run with this fair and balanced fact.

 

[theeedude]

Dailykos and Huff Poop......lol You do realize those are the right's view, like lefties view Faux news, don't you?

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...eon-general-should-be-heading-ebola-response/

Rep. Chaffetz: Surgeon general should be heading Ebola response
Published October 22, 2014 FoxNews.com

 

[theeedude]

 

[compuwiz1]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/201...eon-general-should-be-heading-ebola-response/

Rep. Chaffetz: Surgeon general should be heading Ebola response
Published October 22, 2014 FoxNews.com

Exactly....moron.

Yes, someone with some medical cred should be heading the ebola response, not some hack lefty politician. This appointment has political underpinnings and you know it. It's another bullshit move on Obama's part. Goodbye mid terms. Obama has fucked his own.

 

[theeedude]

I don't think you got the whole part about GOP obstructing the nomination to Surgeon General position. Fox News missed that part in their rush to deliver fair and balanced reporting.

 

[compuwiz1]

I don't think you got the whole part about GOP obstructing the nomination to Surgeon General position. Fox News missed that part in their rush to deliver fair and balanced reporting.

Okay, buddy, I might have missed that part. I'm sure you're right on top of it.

 

[cubby1223]

We're living in an age of instant gratification else outrage. If it were an R in the whitehouse, the partisan left would be calling the response inadequate.

I don't know the details about aids in the 80's. But I do know it was an unknown disease, versus ebola that has been known for a long time before today. I don't know how long it took before aids became an identifiable disease.

 

[trenchfoot]

OK, that does it, I'm going to be watching FOX for the giggles from now on. No more Daily
Show and Colbert Report for me. FOX just made the top of my watch list for comedy and satire.

 

[compuwiz1]

Well, they do have the hotter women. You gotta admit it. Way easier on the eyes than watching Maddow! Was that her wearing pajamas, telling us we need to have a conversation about healthcare? The only women on Fox that I wouldn't cast a bone to would be Gretta and Hasselbeck.

 

[ivwshane]

We're living in an age of instant gratification else outrage. If it were an R in the whitehouse, the partisan left would be calling the response inadequate.

I don't know the details about aids in the 80's. But I do know it was an unknown disease, versus ebola that has been known for a long time before today. I don't know how long it took before aids became an identifiable disease.

Avian flu under bush:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B05EEDA1130F936A35753C1A9639C8B63

Democrat response:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2005/11/02/bush-unveils-71-billion-bird-flu-strategy/

Elsewhere on Capitol Hill, Senate Democrats praised Bush for finally releasing a plan that they say was only created after their efforts over the past two years to push for federal preparation for the virus.

“I am pleased to see that the president has finally followed our lead and released his avian flu plan today,” said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., in response to Bush’s plan.

President bush signs bird flu bill:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/19/AR2006121900797.html


So no, the dems wouldn't be calling a response as inadequate unless there was no response to begin with.

And they certainly wouldn't be complaining about bush not doing something that they were actively blocking.

False equivalency found.

 

[trenchfoot]

Well, they do have the hotter women. You gotta admit it. Way easier on the eyes than watching Maddow! Was that her wearing pajamas, telling us we need to have a conversation about healthcare? The only women on Fox that I wouldn't cast a bone to would be Gretta and Hasselbeck.

Yep, and hot looking babes to boot. I bet Maddow is locked onto FOX just for that too.

 

[Moonbeam]

We're living in an age of instant gratification else outrage. If it were an R in the whitehouse, the partisan left would be calling the response inadequate.

I don't know the details about aids in the 80's. But I do know it was an unknown disease, versus ebola that has been known for a long time before today. I don't know how long it took before aids became an identifiable disease.

It's wonderful to know that you don't know things. As a next step, you might try not having any opinions until you do.

 

[boomerang]

So why did Obama just give up when his first choice for SG didn't make the grade? Did it just become too difficult at that point?

 

[Victorian Gray]

So why did Obama just give up when his first choice for SG didn't make the grade? Did it just become too difficult at that point?

Didn't make the grade due to 'politics'

"Here are some of Murthy’s credentials as a health professional:

• Received his doctor of medicine degree in 2003 from the Yale School of Medicine;
• Is a physician and Harvard Medical School instructor at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, one of the best hospitals in the country;
• Has contributed to vaccine development and cancer research published in several medical journals,including the Journal of the American Medical Association, Science, and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute;
• Co-founded TrialNetworks, which provides medical researchers with information technology systems for managing clinical trials;
• Member of the U.S. Presidential Advisory Council on Prevention, Health Promotion and Integrative and Public Health.

Also of note: As a student, Murthy co-founded two India-based public health projects, one while as an undergraduate at Harvard University and the other while at Yale. The first focused on AIDS prevention, and the latter trained women in rural areas to address community health issues."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...bamas-surgeon-general-pick-not-health-profes/

 

[boomerang]

Didn't make the grade due to 'politics'

"Here are some of Murthy’s credentials as a health professional:

• Received his doctor of medicine degree in 2003 from the Yale School of Medicine;
• Is a physician and Harvard Medical School instructor at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, one of the best hospitals in the country;
• Has contributed to vaccine development and cancer research published in several medical journals,including the Journal of the American Medical Association, Science, and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute;
• Co-founded TrialNetworks, which provides medical researchers with information technology systems for managing clinical trials;
• Member of the U.S. Presidential Advisory Council on Prevention, Health Promotion and Integrative and Public Health.

Also of note: As a student, Murthy co-founded two India-based public health projects, one while as an undergraduate at Harvard University and the other while at Yale. The first focused on AIDS prevention, and the latter trained women in rural areas to address community health issues."

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...bamas-surgeon-general-pick-not-health-profes/

Well that's all very interesting. It didn't even begin to answer my question but I will give you a red star for your effort.

 

[Victorian Gray]

Well that's all very interesting. It didn't even begin to answer my question but I will give you a red star for your effort.

Point being, it's not a case of "not making the grade". But you already knew that.

Kids playing games on the internet. Wheee! What fun, so clever.

 

[Meghan54]

I don't know the details about aids in the 80's. But I do know it was an unknown disease, versus ebola that has been known for a long time before today. I don't know how long it took before aids became an identifiable disease.

Obviously. You sure you're not a young, single woman who's like healthy and hot and running around without a care in the world? Because you sure do sound like that.....you just don't get it.

History:

HIV was first described in 1981. By Feb. 1, 1983, 1,025 AIDS cases were reported, and at least 394 had died in the United States. On April 23, 1984, the CDC announced 4,177 reported cases in America and 1,807 deaths.

Pres. Reagan first publicly addressed the issue of HIV on May 31, 1987 (near the end of his second term), at the Third International Conference on AIDS in Washington. When he spoke, 36,058 Americans had been diagnosed with AIDS and 20,849 had died. The disease had spread to 113 countries, with more than 50,000 cases.

In the six years HIV was known and spreading, Reagan said nothing. But that's not surprising given the conservative view on HIV, summed up by Pat Buchanan pretty well in a 1983 syndicated op-ed piece when he wrote: "The poor homosexuals. They have declared war against nature, and nature is exacting an awful retribution."

And let us not forget the pronouncement by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority PAC which had been a significant source of Reagan's support from the religious right. Falwell said "AIDS is the wrath of God upon homosexuals."

Those two statements epitomize the conservative thought about HIV in the 1980's. It was the "gay" disease and therefore could be ignored and those infected, ridiculed.

Reagan could have chosen to end the homophobic rhetoric that flowed from so many in his administration. Dr. C. Everett Koop, Reagan's surgeon general, has said that because of "intradepartmental politics" he (Dr. Koop) was cut out of all AIDS discussions for the first five years of the Reagan administration. The reason, he explained, was "because transmission of AIDS was understood to be primarily in the homosexual population and in those who abused intravenous drugs." The president's advisers, Koop said, "took the stand, 'They are only getting what they justly deserve.' "