Roy Blunt voted against confirming Vivek Murthy today. There was never any chance whatsoever that he would vote for confirmation. Obama nominated Murthy to be surgeon general just over a year and a month ago. The NRA , who have made the nomination into a cause célèbre-- flipped out and the senators they control decided to obstruct the confirmation process-- although after he had made it through the Senate Health Committee hearings last February. The absence of a Surgeon General was felt most acutely in the context of the battle to protect the country from Ebola. Republicans , though, would rather fantasize on their Hate Talk Radio outlets that the disease, which originates in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, is being brought into America by Mexicans coming over the southern border. It fits the hateful Republican ideology, racism and xenophobia.In dubbing the Republican Party insanity about Ebola "the lie of the year," PolitiFact rated 16 separate claims about Ebola as Mostly False, False or Pants on Fire on our Truth-O-Meter in 2014... Fox News analyst George Will claimed Ebola could be spread into the general population through a sneeze or a cough, saying the conventional wisdom that Ebola spreads only through direct contact with bodily fluids was wrong.
"The problem is the original assumption, said with great certitude if not certainty, was that you need to have direct contact, meaning with bodily fluids from someone, because it’s not airborne," Will said. "There are doctors who are saying that in a sneeze or some cough, some of the airborne particles can be infectious." False.U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., described Ebola as "incredibly contagious," "very transmissible" and "easy to catch." Mostly False.Internet conspirators claimed President Obama intended to detain people who had signs of illness. Pants on Fire. Bloggers also said the outbreak was started in a bioweapons lab funded by George Soros and Bill Gates. Pants on Fire.A Georgia congressman [who is also a crackpot and a and medical doctor] claimed there were reports of people carrying diseases including Ebola across the southern border. Pants on Fire.
After Ted Cruz stumbled badly over the weekend-- in his rush to make Mitch McConnell look bad and to make sure everyone knows he and his posse want to forcibly deport between 11 and 14 million Hispanic and Asian immigrants-- Harry Reid was able to get Murthy's confirmation onto the calendar just as the Senate was ready to adjourn for the session. Obviously, with the Republicans taking over in January, the Senate would have never otherwise given Murthy a vote-- or would have easily defeated the nomination. The cloture vote to shut down the Republican filibuster passed 51-43 with NRA shills Joe Manchin (D-WV), Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Joe Donnelly (D-IN) crossing the aisle to vote along with every Republican except Mark Kirk (R-IL). A few minutes after shutting down the GOP/NRA filibuster, the Senate confirmed Murthy by the same margin, again Kirk voting with the Democrats and Donnelly, Heitkamp and Manchin voting with the NRA.
