WASHINGTON — The Senate could vote by the end of the week on President Obama’s choice for surgeon general, Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, whose nomination the White House pulled back on last spring after intense National Rifle Association opposition.

In what would be one of his final acts as majority leader, Senator Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, is leaning toward holding a vote before Congress adjourns, a senior Democratic aide said Monday. When lawmakers return to Washington in January, both the House and Senate will be under Republican control, and Dr. Murthy will stand virtually no chance of confirmation.

Mr. Reid is eager for a resolution to Dr. Murthy’s nomination even though he cannot be assured of the outcome, the aide said, speaking anonymously because no final decision has been made.

The White House is guardedly optimistic that Dr. Murthy would be confirmed if a vote is held now. Since Senate Democrats changed filibuster rules for nominees last year, he would need only a simple majority of 51 senators rather than 60. Dr. Murthy has been pressing his case personally, in private meetings with many of the Democrats who were initially wary of supporting him.

When his nomination became imperiled last winter, the trouble stemmed from difficulty with about 10 reluctant Democrats. But now several of those senators have committed to supporting Dr. Murthy or are no longer expressing skepticism.

Some just lost their seats and are freer to vote without fear of political repercussions. Others represent states where a vote against the National Rifle Association could be politically dangerous and waited until after the elections to take a public stance.

Although the surgeon general’s office has no formal role in overseeing federal firearms policy, gun rights advocates objected to Dr. Murthy’s nomination because of his support for restricting how guns can be purchased and who can own them. Dr. Murthy, an internal medicine physician, has said his concerns about guns stem from his experience in emergency rooms.

The National Rifle Association said Monday that its position had not softened. “Dr. Murthy’s penchant for political activism is deeply troubling,” said a spokesman, Andrew Arulanandam.

Dr. Murthy’s life long anti-gun activism makes him wholly unqualified for the job of surgeon general.

His opinion that firearms are a “public health issue” are misguided at best.

Due to Murthy’s anti-gun activism-he has no business being in a position to impose his own warped view of firearms on the rest of us.

Anyone who votes to confirm this moron needs to be publicly humiliated,and voted out of office-by a recall election if possible.

I already posted a rant about Murthy,back when MSLSD was blaming the NRA for Ebola…

Anti-NRA Ebola Theme Infects Media, Spreads Rapidly

Defying the recently-passed Washington State Initiative 594 requiring background checks on gun sales, videographer and citizen journalist “LaughingAtLiberals” and an unidentified accomplice made a point of defying the law as soon as it became effective Thursday. To document the sale, the transaction was recorded and posted on You Tube.

The new law, which took effect at midnight, was heavily backed by Michael Bloomberg’s “Everytown” effort, with additional financing from billionaires like Microsoft’s Bill Gates. In spite of campaign rhetoric that such measures are supported by 90 percent of the populace, even a solid “blue state” like Washington, where a massively-funded campaign war chest and resultant advertising dwarfed opposition financing, only passed the initiative with just under 60 percent of the vote.

“Washington’s I594 is now in effect, but LAL doesn’t care, as he commits a blatant violation of the new law by not conducting a background check to transfer a firearm,” the video description explains. It begins at 11:50 p.m. Wednesday, seconds before the initiative becomes enforceable law.

At 12:00 a.m., “LAL” announces it is December 4, 2014, He then proceeds to explain that he is in Vancouver, and about to become the first citizen to violate the new law by “purchas[ing] a gun from a buddy of mine without going through the background check.”

Further explaining he and the seller are not exempt from background check requirements, the physical transfer of a “Glock Model 22” for “a wad of cash” is then completed. What’s not clear is if there is anything authorities can do about it.

Enough advance care has been placed into what would be shown and admitted to on camera to make pinning an actual violation of law on specific individuals problematic, if not impossible. That said, the purpose of the video appears to be not to test the law in court, but to demonstrate how it is utterly useless at preventing “undocumented” transfers.

Showing they can be done without repercussions as a staged act of civil disobedience demonstrates that the entire justification behind I-594, “making sure that firearms don’t get into the hands of dangerous people who shouldn’t have them,” is a premise unsupported by reality. An edict that won’t stop peaceable rights advocates from making a point is hardly likely to deter predatory criminals from making victims.

Those behind the effort in Washington, who are now relentlessly attempting to finance and impose similar decrees in states like Nevada and beyond, are well aware of that. As such, it makes their true motives an important and legitimate subject for unbiased media inquiry and investigation.

http://www.examiner.com/article/activists-defy-new-washington-gun-law-to-demonstrate-its-unenforceability?CID=examiner_alerts_article

WASHINGTON — Fresh off a string of election victories, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg’s gun-control group is gearing up for a “significant” legislative push in more than a dozen states to curb gun violence, its leaders say.

First up: Nevada, where election officials could certify this week that the group and its allies have collected enough signatures for a 2016 ballot initiative that would impose stricter background checks on people buying firearms from private sellers and at gun shows. Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety also is weighing similar background-check initiatives in Arizona and Maine.

It also plans to back legislation in several states that would either expand background checks for gun purchasers, remove guns from the hands of domestic abusers or give family members the power to seek court orders to temporarily confiscate firearms from people they fear may commit gun violence — modeled on a “gun-violence restraining order” law signed by California Gov. Jerry Brown earlier this fall following a shooting rampage in Santa Barbara.

The California law, the first of its kind, is one of a slew of little-noticed victories gun-control groups have scored at the state level — even as Congress has rebuffed expanding background checks on all commercial sales of guns or restrictions on high-capacity magazines.

Six states have enacted measures that make it harder for people convicted of domestic violence to have firearms. In Colorado last month, two legislative seats lost in the state’s historic 2013 recall election over the state’s stricter gun-control laws moved back to Democratic control. One of the victors, Michael Merrifield, once worked for a Bloomberg gun-control group.

On Thursday, meanwhile, a voter initiative that expanded background checks in Washington state will take effect — joining six other states and the District of Columbia that require background checks on all firearm sales, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The successes come as the second anniversary of the Dec. 14, 2012, mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school approaches. The massacre left 20 schoolchildren and six educators dead and sparked a national debate about gun laws.

“This is a huge amount of movement in two years on an issue where Republicans and Democrats ran for the hills for more than a decade,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “We’re going to build on the successes of 2014 and do more.”

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/12/02/bloomberg-plans-gun-control-push-in-states/19785161/

WOW ! Common sense prevails in the virulently anti-gun state of New Jersey?