The Obama administration is demanding that Congress immediately approve new tax funding for Zika research, but has so far failed to mention that Obama already diverted $500 million worth of infectious disease research funds to illegally finance the United Nations “climate” bureaucracy’s slush fund. In the meantime, to deal with the alleged budget shortfall caused by the previous illegal diversion of funds, the White House has diverted tax money from other programs to pay for Zika research.
But the supposed problem is entirely self-inflicted. In March, after Congress refused to approve funding for the UN’s global-warming agenda — funding that is now officially illegal under federal law — Obama illegally raided the funds previously approved by Congress for use in battling infectious diseases such as Zika. Instead of using those funds for the Zika research that Obama now claims is so crucial, though, he sent the half of a billion U.S. tax dollars to a UN “Green Climate [slush] Fund” (GCF) controlled by brutal dictators and other unsavory regimes.
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Lawmakers have highlighted the Obama fraud, though. “Congress refused to allocate funding for the U.N. Climate Change Fund last year, so the president used this account designated for international infectious diseases to pay for his priority,” explained U.S. Senator James Lankford, a Republican representing Oklahoma. “While I understand that intelligent people can disagree on the human effects on the global climate, it is hard to imagine a reason why the administration would prioritize the U.N. Green Climate Fund over protecting the American people, especially pregnant women, from the Zika virus.”
Unfortunately, though, “it gets worse,” Lankford continued in a piece published in May by the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal news portal. Among other concerns, he pointed out that funding for the UN climate slush fund was illegal under a federal law signed by President Bill Clinton. That is because the parent UN organization, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), accepted the “State of Palestine” as a member, thereby triggering the funding prohibition. “So, the administration found a way to offend our ally Israel, delay the Zika response and, if Congress allows him, add another billion dollars to our national debt,” the Oklahoma GOP lawmaker said. “That is a busy month.”
Noting that the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of State, and International Assistance Programs have some $80 billion in “unobligated funds,” Lankford said the administration could use some of that money for Zika. Why Congress handed that “unobligated” $80 billion (borrowed money) to Obama in the first place was not immediately clear. But according to the senator, a “small fraction” of that could be “reprogrammed and redirected to respond to the Zika emergency” without piling even more odious debt on the backs of American children. “Zika is an important international crisis, but every crisis does not demand new ’emergency funding’ that is all debt,” the senator added.
So far, the establishment media, which has been relentlessly promoting Obama’s demands for more money, has completely failed to report the dishonesty and lawlessness coming from the White House as it relates to the Zika scheming. It has also largely ignored the fact that Democrats in the Senate killed a Zika funding bill over prohibitions on abortion funding.
Last week, apparently with a straight face, Obama demanded that lawmakers set aside “politics” and immediately give him more money — apparently the trillions that establishment GOP leaders have sent him already were not enough. “Our experts at the CDC, the folks on the front lines have been doing their best in making due by moving funds from other areas, but now the money we need to fight Zika is rapidly running out,” Obama said at a press conference at the Pentagon.
Aside from Obama, Democrat presidential candidate Hillary Clinton and Senate Democrats are also loudly calling on Congress to send Obama more money. “I am very disappointed that the Congress went on recess before actually agreeing on what they would do to put the resources into this fight,” Clinton complained in Miami, Florida, which has had some reported Zika cases. “I am asking the Republican leaders in the House and the Senate to call Congress back into session immediately and pass the bipartisan funding bill that the Senate passed.”
In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan, a coalition of Senate Democrats also called on the congressional leaders to call lawmakers back from summer recess for an “emergency session” to approve the Zika funding demanded by Obama. It was not immediately clear whether the funding would actually go to its intended purpose, or how lawmakers would prevent the White House from simply diverting the money again, as occurred with the $500 million sent to the UN “climate” scheme. However, the two establishment Republican leaders have funded virtually all of Obama’s demands, including tax money for ObamaCare, Obama’s illegal amnesty, the “refugee resettlement” schemes, abortion giant Planned Parenthood, illegal executive decrees, and more.
A recent “compromise” bill to fund Obama’s Zika demands with more than a billion dollars was killed twice by the same Senate Democrats now demanding the money. They were upset because the bill would have blocked Obama from spending tax money to perpetrate or promote abortions. The Democrats basically want another bill without that provision. In a piece published in USA Today, though, Speaker Ryan called on the White House and Senate Democrats to “drop politics and put the public’s health first.” A spokesman for McConnell, meanwhile, said Democrats could allow the current Zika bill, which bans abortion funding, to pass by unanimous consent in a “perfunctory” session.
For its part, the UN has also been exploiting the Zika scare, using it and American tax dollars to promote abortion in nations with laws protecting the lives of unborn children. “Laws and policies that restrict [women’s] access to these services [contraception and abortion] must be urgently reviewed in line with human rights obligations in order to ensure the right to health for all in practice,” stated UN “Human Rights” boss Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein of Jordan in response to Zika. The tax-funded abortion industry, a major source of donations to Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Democrats generally, has also been exploiting the Zika virus to promote abortion worldwide.
The alleged link between Zika infection and birth defects has been coming under fresh scrutiny, especially after a predicted explosion of birth defects across Brazil failed to materialize despite the spread of the virus. “We were preparing for an explosion [of Zika-related defects] and it didn’t come,” said an official at the Brazilian Health Ministry, which is investigating. Obama’s demands for more funding from Congress, though, are being framed as essential to developing a vaccine, which would supposedly protect pregnant women from getting Zika.
Late last week, the administration announced that it would be raiding other programs to fund the Zika research. “The failure to pass a Zika emergency supplemental has forced the administration to choose between delaying critical vaccine development work and raiding other worthy government programs to temporarily avoid these delays,” complained Obama’s Health and Human Services boss Sylvia Burwell. Republicans blasted the delay in shifting the funding as an effort by the White House to “squeeze maximum political advantage” out of the issue. Unsurprisingly, the increasingly discredited establishment media was only too happy to help.
Whether Zika is truly the gigantic emergency it is portrayed as being remains unclear, especially considering new revelations in Brazil that cast doubt on the narrative. Either way, though, the “debate” is being framed by the press and the politicians in an entirely misleading way. Research into diseases and medical approaches to dealing with them, while important, are not among the constitutional responsibilities or powers of the federal government. That means without a constitutional amendment, Zika research should constitutionally be left to state governments — or, better yet, the private sector, which is far better suited to developing medicine than Washington, D.C., bureaucracies. Lifting the deadly DDT ban imposed by governments would also help in controlling mosquito populations.
Instead of coming back from recess to surrender to Obama’s demands again, Republicans should demand answers on the illegal squandering of $500 million in infectious disease money on the UN’s “climate” slush fund for dictators and cronies. And in the meantime, the media should stop aiding and abetting Obama’s fraud.
Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU.
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