Is There a Doctor in the House?

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Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian national who was hospitalized in Dallas TX with the Ebola virus, has died. He is the first patient in America to die of the virus, but will likely not be the last.

This is not a good time to be without a Surgeon General, Truthseekers. Thanks to pressure from the NRA, Obama's pick for the Top Doc position, Dr. Vivek Murthy, failed to be confirmed in the Senate. Dr. Murthy publicly stated that gun violence is a public health concern in America (no kidding) and the gun nuts went postal on him. The Senate bowed to their masters and here we are -- in the face of a major public health crisis with no Surgeon General.

Once again, the NRA proves itself more concerned with making things dead than keeping them alive.

But the fact that Neocons are responsible for the lack of a Surgeon General has not stopped them from attacking the (nonexistent) Surgeon General for not speaking out about Ebola. Yeah, it's kind of confusing. They are criticizing an entity that doesn't exist and they are responsible for its nonexistence. It's good that we're re-reading Orwell's 1984 on the program right now. This kind of doublethink would make O'Brien proud.

This is from Brietbart.com:

"On Wednesday, Breitbart News reported that the U.S. Surgeon General's office had not said anything about the ongoing Ebola crisis, as public confusion, fear and frustration continue to mount. ... That silence matters, because the doctors most directly involved in fighting the Ebola outbreak seem unable to explain -- or stop -- the disease. The problem began when staff at the Dallas hospital where the Ebola patient first sought treatment failed to recognize his symptoms and sent him home with antibiotics. Statements by other officials, including the director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), have been contradictory and opaque. ... Increasingly, the U.S. is beginning to resemble a third world country in its approach to the disease. It was South Africa that told people dying of Aids to eat fruits and vegetables. It was Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea that struggled to contain the outbreak because of poor medical training and ineffective government bureaucracies. The public has lost trust in President Barack Obama, who said it was 'unlikely' any Ebola victims would arrive.

"In the Reagan era, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop was popular and ubiquitous. None since then has compared: President Bill Clinton's appointee, Joceyln Elders, resigned over remarks about masturbation. Obama's first appointee has yet to be replaced. In a time crying out for leadership, that silence is deafening."

Wow. Just wow. The silence is deafening? How can a Surgeon General respond if there isn't one ...? No mention of the fact that Brietbart's comrades in the NRA and their puppets in the Senate are the reason we lack this crucial national health official.

And to invoke the Reagan administration as some kind of shining example of public health excellence is embarrassing. How many years did it take for Ronnie to even utter the word "AIDS"? It wasn't until little kids got sick from blood transfusions that Saint Reagan even deigned to admit there was a virus killing thousands of Americans. Of course, most of them were gay men, so who cares, right? Such compassionate conservative values.

And the GOP isn't content with blaming the invisible Surgeon General for the crisis, they also blame the president directly. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus had a conniption on Meet the Press Sunday, blaming Obama for the Ebola crisis.

Politicusa.com has this:

"Faced with the fact that the economy is getting better under this president, RNC Chairman Reince Priebus blamed Obama for Ebola on Meet The Press. Chuck Todd pointed out that unemployment is below six percent and asked him how this was bad for Democrats.

"Priebus answered by blaming Obama for Ebola, 'I think you guys spelled it out pretty well when you had Mr. Pfeiffer on. From the real unemployment rate, for how many people are out of work. The labor participation rate is at record lows. People don't feel better off than they were five years ago, and obviously whether it's the GSA, the IRS, Syria, Ebola, the Secret Service, I mean what's going well in regard to this administration and those senators who have followed him in lockstep?'

"Priebus can't discuss the fact that the economy is doing better, so he had to change the subject by blaming President Obama for Ebola. Republicans, obviously, do not understand how crazy they sound. The leader of the Republican National Committee is blaming the President for a fake IRS scandal that Republicans created, a Secret Service scandal that is based on the agency's repeated failures to keep the president safe, and Ebola."

Of course! It must be the president's fault. Everything is. When all else fails, blame the Democrats for everything from the ISIS uprising to masturbation. Meanwhile, the do-nothings in Congress continue to block the president's appointees, meaningful health care legislation, public health funding, education and every social program that would improve the average American's health, welfare, and standard of living.