Dr. Vivek Murthy was confirmed as U.S. Surgeon General on Monday, after more than a year withthe position vacant.
Good Tuesday morning, the 350th day of 2014 and the first day of Hanukkah, so be sure to say Chag Urim Sameach! to a friend. Its also the first day since November 2013 that the U.S. will have a surgeon general; bonus points if you can name the last person to hold the job. And there are 15 days left until Republicans stampede into Washington as the majority party in both houses of Congress, and perhaps more than a few in the GOP might wish Ted Cruz were underfoot when that happens. With that, heres the Three-Minute Briefing give us 180 seconds and well give you All the News You Can Use:
Confirmed: Finally, the United States has a surgeon general, and his name is Dr. Vivek Murthy. At 37, hes the youngest person and the first South Asian-American to hold the job. He believes gun violence is a public health issue (one reason it took more than a year to for him to get a Senate confirmation vote) and hes accepting a post that nobody really understands.
[READ: Ted Cruz: The Most Hawkish of Them All?]
Ted Cruz Is Not Sorry: The Texas Republican and tea party darling made mischief over the weekend during the CRomnibus vote, leading an unsuccessful hard-line revolt against the CRomnibus a move that forced the Senate to work Saturday and earned him a tongue-lashing from his GOP comrades. Now some accuse him of reigniting a GOP civil war, dividing a party that should be unified ahead of taking control of both houses of Congress.
Neither Are the Dems: Cruzs shenanigans, however, did Democrats a huge favor. By forcing the Senate to work into the weekend, Cruz indirectly helped set up the Dems to cram through a bunch of stalled Obama nominees using the filibuster rule including Murthy, whom conservatives had blocked because of his stance on guns and they let Cruz know about it on Twitter:
Romney Redux: Dan Senor, a former Bush Administration official and Mitt Romney campaign adviser, says Romney whos leading the Republican 2016 presidential field in several polls will stay out of the race if Jeb Bush jumps in: “My general sense of it is that the theory of Romney possibly getting in is if we had a crack-up in the Republican primary, a real crack-up, the field blew up, there was no consensus candidate that can unite the party.”
Carolina on His Mind: And all signs are that Jebs going to run. He delivered a commencement address at the University of South Carolina yesterday, a state that could be his political firewall: his brother George W. won the state in the 2000 primaries, and their dad, George H.W., did the same in 1988.
That Old Feeling: His poll numbers are waterlogged, hes facing a hostile GOP-run congress and hes only got two more years left on the job (and counting). So why is The Atlantic predicting President Barack Obama will soon get some 2008-style love from the Beltway pundit class? Simple: the economys improving, consumer confidence is up, hes scored a few political victories (see above) and Latinos are bullish on the presidential executive action on immigration, along with some other stuff.
Immoral Hazard: Youve probably heard by now the $1.1 trillion spending bill Congress passed over the weekend includes rollbacks to the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform bill; Al Jazeera reports exactly whats at stake in that provision, and its not pretty for taxpayers.
See the original post here:
Three-Minute Briefing: Happy Hanukkah, A New Surgeon General and the Truth Behind Elf on the Shelf