President Obama got a big win over the NRA as his nominee to be Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, was confirmed by Senate, 51-43.
The NRA had stalled Murthy’s nomination for months
because they claimed that he was an anti-gun activist, but as part of
the deal to get the government funding bill passed, repugicans lifted
their hold on the nomination, which passed 51-43.
Earlier this year, The Nation discussed the
real reason why the NRA opposed Murthy’s nomination, “With public
health professionals engaging more forcefully on the gun issue, the NRA
has a pressing interest in muting their calls for stronger policy.
Really, the campaign against Murthy is the continuation of a
longstanding effort to make discussion of gun violence taboo. For years
the NRA has worked to bury information about gun violence and its public
health implications. The NRA has campaigned successfully to ban
registries that collect data on guns used in crimes, and in 1996 the
group fought for and won legislation that froze federal funding for
research on gun violence. Although Obama lifted the restriction last
year in the wake of the Sandy Hook shootings, there’s still very little
money—federal and private—for gun research and not enough data, said
David Hemenway, an expert on injury at the Harvard School of Public
Health.”
The NRA doesn’t want a Surgeon General who will use
his platform to talk about gun violence, much less encourage research
into the causes and solutions to the problem.
After the Senate vote, President Obama said in a
statement, “I applaud the Senate for confirming Vivek Murthy to be our
country’s next Surgeon General. As ‘America’s Doctor,’ Vivek will hit
the ground running to make sure every American has the information they
need to keep themselves and their families safe. He’ll bring his
lifetime of experience promoting public health to bear on priorities
ranging from stopping new diseases to helping our kids grow up healthy
and strong. Vivek will also help us build on the progress we’ve made
combating Ebola, both in our country and at its source. Combined with
the crucial support for fighting Ebola included in the bill to fund our
government next year, Vivek’s confirmation makes us better positioned to
save lives around the world and protect the American people here at
home.”
The passage of the government funding bill was not a
happy day for many Democrats, but one of the upsides of repugicans
being so eager to get home for xmas is that they gave away the farm
when it came to getting the Senate schedule cleared. President Obama
has two dozen more posts filled because repugicans didn’t want to do
any more work this year.
This president has not been afraid to challenge the
NRA, and his persistence is one of the reasons why Harry Reid was able
to seize the opportunity to get a confirmation vote on a nominee that
the NRA never wanted to see confirmed. It takes time, patience, and
persistence, but the NRA can be defeated.
The nation now has a Surgeon General who is willing
to speak out, and this is going to be one xtmas defeat that will
come back to haunt the NRA over the next two years.
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