DEMS LIE (ABOUT EBOLA) – PEOPLE DIE!

The absurd claim that only Republicans are to blame for cuts to Ebola research earned Democrats Four (4) Pinocchios from the Washington Post Fact Checker

According to Glenn Kessler, the WaPo Fact Checker, in his 15 October 2014 Washington Post column, The left-wing Agenda Project Action Fund ad “Republican cuts kill” blaming Republican spending cuts for Ebola deaths is TOTAL BS! 

So what does the Agenda Project Action Fund do?  They double down with another lie-filled ad which the Fact Checker labels as “simply a more extreme version of a new Democratic talking point — that GOP budget cuts have harmed the nation’s ability to handle the Ebola outbreak” when nothing could be further from the truth! The actual article is included below this blog posting if you want to read what the Fact Checker really said.

Then the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee launched online a slightly more nuanced version of this theme ridiculously equating a congressional budget vote in 2011 with a vote for the House GOP budget in 2014 that they falsely characterize as protected special interests.

This attack was precipitated by remarks by the now thoroughly discredited Obama appointed National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins.  He told the Huffington Post (other than MSNBC the only quasi-news outlet that would believe him) that the agency has been working on an Ebola vaccine for more than a decade but was hampered by shrinking budgets. “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,” Collins said.  This turned out to be totally untrue but being an Obama appointee why should this surprise anyone.

The Facts, according to the Washington Post and verified by NIH are that the differences between the budget requests submitted to Congress by the NIH and the CDC and what they got amount to rounding errors.

For NIH, since 2006 there has been relatively little change in the size of the budget, going from about $28.5 billion in 2006 to $30.14 billion in 2014. That’s a slight increase, but in real terms that’s a cut given the impact of inflation. (The agency also received a $10 billion windfall in 2009 from the stimulus law.) Here’s an illustration of the budget in real terms.

Congress usually gives NIH about what the president requested in his Budget and in 2013 Congress even gave the NIH more than what the White House requested.  This was affected by Sequestration but don’t forget that Sequester was a White House proposal designed to force Congress to either swallow painful cuts or boost taxes. The law mandating sequestration passed on a bipartisan vote!

Then, for fiscal year 2015 it was the Obama White House budget that proposed to cut the NIH’s budget from the previous year. It was Republican President George W. Bush that was responsible for significantly boosting NIH’s funding while the high point for the Obama administration NIH funding request was 2011.  For the specific NIH branch that deals with infectious diseases, funding jumped from $1.8 billion in 2000 to $4.3 billion in 2004 — but funding has been flat since then. Funding in 2014 was again $4.3 billion – exactly what the White House requested but that’s effectively a cut over time because of inflation.

The CDC experienced a similar pattern with their budget around $6.5 billion in recent years.  Since 2010 CDC receives both a Congressional appropriation and hundreds of millions of dollars from the Prevention and Public Health Fund established by the Affordable Care Act.  Before 2008, CDC received less than $6 billion a year but in 2013, the White House proposed a cut in CDC’s funding, but Congress added about $700 million. Again In 2014, Obama proposed reducing the budget, but Congress boosted it to $6.9 billion.  CDC also is funded by nearly $4 billion in mandatory fees not reflect in the congressional appropriations.

The Washington Post Pinocchio Test found the Democrats attack absurd on many levels.  While Obama’s Republican predecessor oversaw big increases in public-health sector spending, in recent years both Democrats and Republicans have supported reining in federal spending. Sequestration was an Obama initiative that resulted in a bipartisan agreement and Congress often allocated more money for NIH and CDC than the Obama administration requested!  Contrary to the DCCC ad, there has never been a vote on Ebola funding.

It is true that spending has been cut because it failed to keep pace with inflation, but the fingerprints of both parties are on the knives. This blame game garnered a breathtaking Four Pinocchios MAX from the Washington Post – certainly no beacon of Conservatism – and when the WaPo criticizes a Dem, that real news!

Four Pinocchios

Although NIH and CDC and their Dem lackeys have been crying about not having funds for Ebola vaccination research because of Republicans, here is a sample of the wasteful programs they did spend money on totaling spent $15,135,574,669.00 which they could have used to find a cure for Ebola:

Telling Taxpayers How to Eat ($15 billion) – Obamacare gave the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) $15 BILLION which they then gave away through “Community Transformation Grants” (CTG) in a futile attempt to coerce Americans into making “healthy” choices by modifying behavior through anti-obesity and anti-smoking campaigns and pro-sin tax regulations and legislation.

Grant Money to China ($90 million) – NIH awarded over $90 million to Chinese researchers to work on projects that benefit only China such as a vaccine for a parasite disease common only in China.  Don’t they already hold over a trillion dollars of US debt?

Duplicate Agricultural Programs ($22 million) – CDC spent $22 million on their Agriculture, Forestry, and Fishing Program that is nearly identical to another ongoing Department of Agriculture program.

“Why Are Lesbians Fat?” Study ($2.87 million) – so far but the study continues into 2016!   This ongoing study is searching for why “women of minority sexual orientation are disproportionately affected by the obesity epidemic.”  For some reason Obama believes three-quarters of lesbians are obese.

Drunken Monkeys ($3.2 million) – NIH spent $3.2 million getting monkeys drunk just to see what would happen.  The agency apparently has quite a fascination with excessive drinking, since it also wasted money researching binge-drinking in mice, inebriated gamblers and pilots seeking the sensation of flying drunk.

Bizarre Sex Studies ($1.5 million) – NIH is spending $1.5 million to spend on these 4 ridiculous obscure sex studies: “Mood Arousal and Sexual Risk Taking,” “Sexual Habits of Older Men,” “San Francisco’s Asian Prostitutes/Masseuses,” and “American Indian Transgender Research.”

Funds for Homosexual Activists in Public Schools ($1.4 million) – CDC gave The Gay, Lesbian & Straight Education Network (GLSEN), a homosexual activist group, $1.4 million to create “safe spaces” in public schools.

Centers for ‘Gun Disease’ Prevention ($2.6 million) – CDC spent $2.6 million on studies that favor greater gun control and for FY 2015, the Obama budget is asking for CDC to get $22.2 million in new funding – is this a health issue?  Fortunately, Obama’s previous year similar requests have been shot down by Congress.

National Institutes of ‘Gun Control’ ($5 million) – Separate from the CDC, NIH also handed out about $5 million for research promoting gun control despite the issue being well outside the organization’s domain.

Cocaine Enhances Japanese Quail’s Sex Drive ($181,406) – This ridiculous NIH sponsored study uses quails because they provide a convenient and interesting alternative to standard laboratory rats and pigeons.  Go figure?

Empowering Women to Choose Contraception … in Jail ($279,789) –NIH allocated $279,789 “to improve contraceptive use for incarcerated women” to reduce unexpected pregnancies and Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) among recently jailed women.  Wonder who exactly who these jailbirds are having sex with … Guards?  Other women?

Bogus AIDS Experiments ($4.9 million) – Results of a $19 million NIH funded HIV/AIDS vaccine study were faked by researcher at Iowa State University to made the vaccine appear far more effective than it actually was. Thankfully NIH refused to pay ISU the final installment of the grant money, but the university was allowed to keep more than $4.9 million after having to pay back nearly three-quarters of the original grant.

Sex Workers Spreading STDs ($675,786) – Although the answer to the question why sex workers spread HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) might seem obvious, NIH is spending $675,786 in search of the answer.

Examining ‘Barriers to Correct Condom Use’ ($423,500) – It seems “young, heterosexual adult men” weren’t using condoms as frequently or in a manner NIH would prefer. Hence, NIH spent $423,500 to get to the bottom of this perplexing problem.

And these are just a sampling of NIH/CDC waste.  Other items include: $2.4 million for a new condom design whose inventor is now being investigated for fraud,” $939,000 to discover that male fruit flies prefer younger females, $257,000 to create a companion website for first lady Michelle Obama’s White House garden,” a whopping $592,000 to determine that chimpanzees with the best poop-flinging skills are also the best communicators, and another $117,000 to learn that most chimps are right-handed. The NIH also spent $325,000 to learn that marriages are happier when wives calm down more quickly during arguments with their husbands and $548,000 to find out if 30-something partiers feel immature after they binge drink while people in their mid-20s don’t.