Conservative take: Dem Dishonesty on Zika Funding
Senate Democrats have once again killed a funding bill to fight the Zika virus, citing a supposed GOP “poison pill” clause on Planned Parenthood which they charge “would have robbed funds directly from the women’s health provider.” Yet Alice B. Lloyd in The Weekly Standard notes that “rather than defund Planned Parenthood, it would simply not send any new money their way.” Moreover, “the vast majority of anti-Zika funding goes toward mosquito prevention and vaccine research,” while only “a small chunk goes toward public health efforts.” So Democrats are “intentionally misleading the public in order to make political hay of a public health crisis.”
From the right: Hill Memory Lapses: Crisis or Dodge?
All the talk about Hillary Clinton’s health may seem like “just another chew toy for conservatives,” says Eric Fehrnstrom in The Boston Globe, but “new documents from the e-mail scandal . . . cast serious doubt on her understanding of national security risks and possibly her underlying health.” Specifically, Clinton’s “inability to recall” three dozen times during her FBI interview “evokes former president Ronald Reagan’s hazy recollection of events in the 1990 Iran-Contra trial of his national security adviser, John Poindexter.” Four years later, Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Asks Fehrnstrom: “Does her forgetfulness raise the question of a real health issue? Or is it just more of the dishonest dodging we’ve come to expect from Clinton? Either way, it doesn’t look good.”
Texas AG: Why I’m Fighting Obama’s Bathroom Order
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton says he and 23 other AGs have a specific reason for “waging a massive legal battle” against President Obama’s directive on transgender students using any school bathroom: “The president does not have the power to rewrite Title IX, or any other law, of his [own] accord,” he writes at National Review. “Control over intimate facilities in schools has always been left to the states,” which “have never ceded [it] to the federal government.” Moreover, he notes, Title IX, which forbids sex discrimination in schools, defines “sex” as “an individual’s biological sex at birth,” with no mention of “gender identity.”
Security expert: More Mysteries on Iran Payments
With the revelation this week that the entire $1.7 billion sent to Iran was paid in cash, some of the mysteries surrounding the controversial deal are becoming clearer — while others are deepening, writes Claudia Rosett for the New York Sun. We now may know why the cash-for-hostages payments were made in multiples of $99,999,999.99: “The Automated Clearing House format for electronic transfers allows for a maximum of 11 digits.” This still “leaves the question of why the administration has refused to provide any explanation for dicing up the payment. Whatever the reason, the effect was to help hide it for months,” in line with the administration’s “extreme” secrecy “about this cash-for-Iran saga.”