All about the optics! Obama Plays 200th Round of Golf as 2nd Ebola Case Emerges AUSTIN, Texas -- After hearing the news shortly after midnight early Sunday morning that a second Ebola case had been diagnosed in a Texas Presbyterian Hospital nurse, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings stayed up through the night putting together an action plan. In contrast, President Barack Obama's response is being criticized as not adequately prioritizing the crisis. As Fox News Channel's Greta Van Susteren tweeted, Obama made a phone call to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell and then "headed out to play golf." CBS White House correspondent Mark Knoller had posted that the press corps had been escorted to vans in the presidential motorcade to go to the golf course, but then were led back to the White House for a photo opp of Obama on the phone with Burwell that "lasted only 40 seconds." Knoller tweeted several photos of Obama wearing a casual windbreaker, sitting at his desk in the Oval Office while speaking on the phone. Knoller also reported shortly after 11:30 a.m. Eastern Time that Obama has arrived at Fort Belvoir Golf Club for "his 200th round of golf as President." The Golf Channel confirmed that this was the 200th round of golf for Obama -- or, as they dubbed him, the "First Duffer" -- since he became president. Twitchy.com reported several negative reactions questioning how seriously the president was taking the Ebola crisis, allowing only a short delay in his golf game and quipping "What a workaholic!" Conservative lawyer and author David Limbaugh tweeted a cartoon of Obama in ancient Roman garb, golfing as the city burned around him as "unfair to Nero," referring to the Roman emperor who was rumored to have played a fiddle during the Great Fire of Rome in 64 A.D. Austin-based Republican consultant Matt Mackowiak weighed in, "Obama is closely monitoring the #Ebola crisis and our war with ISIS from Gwyneth Paltrow's house and the golf course." [Disclosure: Mackowiak is a Breitbart Texas contributor.]
Ebola Vaccine Would Likely Have Been Found By Now If Not For Budget Cuts: NIH Director "NIH has been working on Ebola vaccines since 2001. It's not like we suddenly woke up and thought, 'Oh my gosh, we should have something ready here,'" Collins told The Huffington Post on Friday. "Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this that would've gone through clinical trials and would have been ready." It's not just the production of a vaccine that has been hampered by money shortfalls. Collins also said that some therapeutics to fight Ebola "were on a slower track than would've been ideal, or that would have happened if we had been on a stable research support trajectory." "We would have been a year or two ahead of where we are, which would have made all the difference," he said. Speaking from NIH's headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland, the typically upbeat Collins was somber when discussing efforts to control the Ebola epidemic. His days are now spent almost exclusively on the disease. But even after months of painstaking work, a breakthrough doesn't seem on the immediate horizon. Money, or rather the lack of it, is a big part of the problem. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/12/ebola-vaccine_n_5974148.html
Hilarious, but still bullshit. Ebola vaccines were not important because the virus was a third-world problem. It's only now, in the last 8 months that the issue has become relevant for everyone not poor in some third-world cesspool part of Africa, and guess what? We're behind the curve.
Larry Fish · 1. We'd have lower unemployment rates if it weren't for budget cuts. (Links below) 2. Our infrastructure wouldn't be falling apart if it weren't for budget cuts. (Links below) 3. College tuition costs wouldn't be so high if it weren't for budget cuts. (Links below) 4. The crime rate would be lower if it weren't for budget cuts. (Links below) 5. The Secret Service wouldn't be in shambles if it weren't for budget cuts. (Links below) I could go on..... 1. http://www.bostonglobe.com/business...engren-says/QLZVXJg4Do5uB2xoPPkOIM/story.html 2. http://www.theatlantic.com/business...investment-budget-in-recorded-history/275032/... See More
You mean to tell me a bureaucrat could be using this situation to get more money for his bureaucracy? I never would have thought those noble government workers would do such a thing.
Happy Halloween From the GOP. Republicans have adopted a Halloween-themed campaign strategy that they hope will incite voters to run screaming from Democrats. The GOP message: Americans should be very, very afraid because the homeland is under attack from ghouls and goblins manifest as Ebola and ISIS. Republicans even threaten boogeymen in the form of ISIS suicide agents strapping themselves with Ebola virus vests and sneaking across the southern U.S. border. This embrace of Halloween tricks is not surprising from the party pushing voter suppression while masquerading as a democracy-loving founding father. The GOP is warning Americans that they should be scared witless of impending government disintegration because a guy with a knife got into the White House. This “caution” comes from the political party that favors government disintegration. Republicans have, after all, repeatedly shut down government and announced their intention to drown it in a bathtub. Republicans want America to summon the GOP to save the day, like it’s the political version of Ghostbusters. Most Americans, though, see right through the GOP, like it’s a gooey glob of ectoplasm. There is, for example, the scary story concocted by U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. He told Fox News last week that border agents apprehended 10 Islamic State fighters in Texas. The Department of Homeland Security described this as “categorically false.” You know, like the one about border agents apprehending 10 vampires in Texas. Unlike Hunter’s flashlight-in-the-face, camp-tent tales, ISIS and Ebola are real. ISIS has beheaded several Westerners overseas and Ebola has killed one person in the United States – a man who contracted the disease in West Africa. Both can elicit fear. But more immediately frightening and more justifiably alarming to most Americans are other threats that Republicans have refused to help resolve. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leo-w-gerard/happy-halloween-from-the_b_5973050.html