Sunday, April 7, 2013
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Jane Fonda’s latest apology for her infamous trip to North Vietnam — which earned her the notorious name “Hanoi Jane” — is still too little, too late for many Americans who say they can never forgive the Academy Award-winning actress.
Newsmax readers flooded us with comments about Fonda’s recent appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Network in which she lamented: “I made one unforgivable mistake when I was in North Vietnam, and I will go to my grave with this.”
Related: Jane Fonda Says Vietnam Debacle ‘Unforgivable Mistake’
“What a disgrace to our nation,” one doctor from Key Largo, Fla., told us. “She should be totally forgotten and never show her face in public again.”
Rex, from Orange, Texas, said: “I don't believe a word she says. She will always be Hanoi Jane as far as I am concerned.”
The 75-year-old star, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of a shaggy-haired hooker in “Klute,” was photographed smiling and singing with North Vietnamese soldiers as she sat on an anti-aircraft gun in 1972.
She told the program “Oprah’s Master Class” the event happened on the last day of her visit to the war-torn country when she was tired. She also insisted the gun she was shown holding was not operable.
Gun Control: Was Harry Reid right to Reject It?
Not everybody believes that.
“Her story gets bigger and bigger,” Eugene from Greenacres, Fla., said. “Now the gun didn’t work. How would she know …”
Phyllis from Bridgewater, N.J., told us: “Jane Fonda is and always has been a spoiled, self-centered seeker of fame and adulation. She has never cared about anyone but herself — and [she] betrayed the men and women who fought and died for her comfort.”
Many Newsmax readers said Fonda, the daughter of Hollywood legend Henry Fonda and ex-wife of CNN founder Ted Turner, should still face charges for her alliance with North Vietnam.
“No more ‘song & dance’ with Hanoi Jane,” said Robert, from Beverly Hills, Fla. “She should be tried, convicted, and dealt with accordingly. The Germans learned that war crimes never expire.”
T.J. from Clovis, Calif., said “Ms. Fonda can say anything she likes NOW. If she thinks the passage of time will render her less odious to those of us who remember how she gave aid and comfort to the enemy, I say think again, Benedict Arnold Fonda!”
Several readers slammed Fonda for a widely circulated rumor that she passed to the Viet Cong the Social Security numbers and other information about American prisoners of war, allegedly resulting in them being beaten and tortured.
Fonda has strenuously denied this story and war veterans groups, who decry her visit to North Vietnam itself, have also discredited it.
Some believe Fonda is trying to atone for her behavior as she grows older and reflects on life. But it’s doubtful she’ll ever heal what are too many still-open wounds.
“She was a traitor then and it will not change,” said Kathy from Cleburne, Texas. “She should have thought of that before we lost so many friends, husbands and fathers.”
A San Francisco commenter said: “There is nothing that this traitor can do or say to change her anti-war, anti-American views. Her history on the Vietnam conflict is well documented and the facts do not change some 40 years later. She should have been sent to prison to rot.”
Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/jane-fonda-apology-vietnam/2013/04/05/id/498074?s=al&promo_code=130B5-1#ixzz2PgIqfBi5
Urgent: Should Obamacare Be Repealed? Vote Here Now!
Friday, April 5, 2013
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Thursday, March 28, 2013
AARP really sucks!
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
Monday, March 25, 2013
Administration moves $500M in Palestinian aid, as agencies scramble to delay furloughs
The State Department confirmed this month the administration has moved forward with $500 million in aid, and is trying to secure another $200 million from Congress. Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland says the aid is important, because an “economically viable Palestinian Authority” would help regional peace and security.
The administration confirmed the transfers as President Obama, along with Secretary of State John Kerry, toured the Middle East last week. Obama met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, as well as top Israeli officials.
But lawmakers have heavily scrutinized a number of foreign aid transactions, given the fiscal crunch facing Washington. The capital was awash last week with memos and updates from federal agencies scrambling to manage sequester cuts and cushion their staff from the impact of furloughs.
After initial warnings that furlough notices would start to go out for thousands of civilian employees at the Pentagon last Thursday, the Defense Department announced it would delay those notices for about two weeks while it continues to analyze the situation.
Attorney General Eric Holder also said in a memo that he was using his “limited authorities” to shift around funds and give the Bureau of Prisons $150 million to avoid furloughing correctional workers at federal prisons. This, he said, would have created “serious threats to the lives and safety of our staff, inmates and the public.”
But he said he was still “evaluating” whether his department can avoid other furloughs.
Foreign aid to the Palestinian Authority alone, though, easily eclipses the amount Holder used to spare the correctional workers division.
Nuland explained that the U.S. has moved forward with $295.7 million in fiscal 2012 funds, part of which is for economic development and humanitarian assistance, and part of which is for law enforcement aid.
Another $200 million falls under fiscal 2013 assistance.
Further, the administration notified Congress in February that it wants another $200 million for programs under the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Despite suggestions that the administration had “quietly” released the money, Nuland on Friday stressed that she had publicly announced the aid at a March 15 briefing.
Congress in 2011 voted to freeze part of the U.S. aid package to the Palestinians in response to their push for statehood before the U.N.
But President Obama last year signed a waiver removing those restrictions on national security grounds. He reportedly moved to unfreeze hundreds of millions of dollars in aid last month.
The International Monetary Fund this month warned that the Palestinians were facing serious fiscal shortfalls, in part because of dwindling international aid packages.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
Stupid out of control government.
The federal government is ready to pay people $45,900 to attend an
annual snowmobile competition in Michigan for the next two years.
They're also ready to shell out $516,000 for scientists to develop an ecoATM that will give out cash in exchange for old cell phones and other electronics. And why not drop another $349,862 for a study that looks at the effects of meditation and self-reflection for math, science and engineering majors?
These are just a few of the 164 grants the National Science Foundation approved two weeks ago. Yet around the same time, the administration was warning that the sequester would cut into critical research on chronic diseases.
While some of the less critical grant ideas were scrapped as the NSF looked for ways to scale back and prioritize, the number of allegedly frivolous grants still in play is not sitting well with Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
The GOP senator has been on a campaign to call out what he sees as pockets of wasteful government spending. Since the sequestration took effect March 1, he's sent 11 letters to various department heads highlighting places where they can fiscally trim down.
In a letter to NSF director Subra Suresh, Coburn suggested cutting the grants above along with nine others, including a $515,468 grant used, in part, to study how a shrimp running on a treadmill responds to alterations in oxygen and carbon dioxide levels.
"These may be interesting questions to ponder or explore, but just because each is currently being supported by NSF should not mean guaranteed future funding if new applications with greater merit or potential are submitted," Coburn wrote in his March 12 letter. "I appreciate your agency's commitment to continuing grants, but ensuring the most promising new research can be supported next year may require ending or reducing spending on lower priority grants now being funded. Robo-squirrel may have survived its encounters with the rattlesnake but it may have met its match in sequestration if we hope to provide support for more promising scientific projects."
"Robo-squirrel" has long been criticized by Coburn as a big government boondoggle. Researchers at San Diego State University used funds from a $325,000 grant provided by the government-bankrolled NSF to invent a robotic squirrel used for researchers. Coburn has used robo-squirrel as an example multiple times as a government program that needs to be cut.
NSF spokeswoman Dana Topousis told FoxNews.com Friday that they receive 40,000 to 50,000 proposals a year. Of those, 10,000 to 11,000 get funded. Topousis says decisions are based on two criteria – “intellectual merit” and the “broader impacts”, which addresses the benefits of the proposed study to society.
She also says Coburn shouldn’t get caught up with the quirky names of the projects but try to see beyond it. One of the most successful projects the NSF has had a hand in was one in 1996 called “BackRub,” a search engine research project by Stanford University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
“BackRub sounds ridiculous but if we didn’t take a chance on it things would be a lot different today,” she said.
In 1997, BackRub changed its name to Google.
Still, others argue that a few success stories don't make it ok for the NSF to spend taxpayer money. Shortly before the sequester took effect, the administration warned that up to 12,000 scientists and students could be impacted by the cuts due to reduced NSF research grants. The administration also warned about cutbacks at the National Institutes of Health, which "would delay progress on the prevention of debilitating chronic conditions ... and delay development of more effective treatments for common and rare diseases affecting millions of Americans."
But Coburn, among those who say the administration is taking unnecessary measures to comply with the sequester, says there are plenty of other ways to save.
Another program Coburn calls out is "Snooki" -- a robot bird that impersonates a female sage grouse to examine the importance of courtship tactics of males.
"Every dollar spent on projects such as these could have instead supported research to design a next-generation robotic limb to treat injured war heroes or a life-saving hurricane detection system," Coburn writes in his letter.
Coburn said the number of new research grants could be reduced by as many as 1,000.
Through audits and investigations, the NSF Inspector General identified more than $309 million in questionable and poorly spent funds in just the second half of fiscal year 2012.
They're also ready to shell out $516,000 for scientists to develop an ecoATM that will give out cash in exchange for old cell phones and other electronics. And why not drop another $349,862 for a study that looks at the effects of meditation and self-reflection for math, science and engineering majors?
These are just a few of the 164 grants the National Science Foundation approved two weeks ago. Yet around the same time, the administration was warning that the sequester would cut into critical research on chronic diseases.
While some of the less critical grant ideas were scrapped as the NSF looked for ways to scale back and prioritize, the number of allegedly frivolous grants still in play is not sitting well with Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma.
The GOP senator has been on a campaign to call out what he sees as pockets of wasteful government spending. Since the sequestration took effect March 1, he's sent 11 letters to various department heads highlighting places where they can fiscally trim down.
In a letter to NSF director Subra Suresh, Coburn suggested cutting the grants above along with nine others, including a $515,468 grant used, in part, to study how a shrimp running on a treadmill responds to alterations in oxygen and carbon dioxide levels.
"These may be interesting questions to ponder or explore, but just because each is currently being supported by NSF should not mean guaranteed future funding if new applications with greater merit or potential are submitted," Coburn wrote in his March 12 letter. "I appreciate your agency's commitment to continuing grants, but ensuring the most promising new research can be supported next year may require ending or reducing spending on lower priority grants now being funded. Robo-squirrel may have survived its encounters with the rattlesnake but it may have met its match in sequestration if we hope to provide support for more promising scientific projects."
"Robo-squirrel" has long been criticized by Coburn as a big government boondoggle. Researchers at San Diego State University used funds from a $325,000 grant provided by the government-bankrolled NSF to invent a robotic squirrel used for researchers. Coburn has used robo-squirrel as an example multiple times as a government program that needs to be cut.
NSF spokeswoman Dana Topousis told FoxNews.com Friday that they receive 40,000 to 50,000 proposals a year. Of those, 10,000 to 11,000 get funded. Topousis says decisions are based on two criteria – “intellectual merit” and the “broader impacts”, which addresses the benefits of the proposed study to society.
She also says Coburn shouldn’t get caught up with the quirky names of the projects but try to see beyond it. One of the most successful projects the NSF has had a hand in was one in 1996 called “BackRub,” a search engine research project by Stanford University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
“BackRub sounds ridiculous but if we didn’t take a chance on it things would be a lot different today,” she said.
In 1997, BackRub changed its name to Google.
Still, others argue that a few success stories don't make it ok for the NSF to spend taxpayer money. Shortly before the sequester took effect, the administration warned that up to 12,000 scientists and students could be impacted by the cuts due to reduced NSF research grants. The administration also warned about cutbacks at the National Institutes of Health, which "would delay progress on the prevention of debilitating chronic conditions ... and delay development of more effective treatments for common and rare diseases affecting millions of Americans."
But Coburn, among those who say the administration is taking unnecessary measures to comply with the sequester, says there are plenty of other ways to save.
Another program Coburn calls out is "Snooki" -- a robot bird that impersonates a female sage grouse to examine the importance of courtship tactics of males.
"Every dollar spent on projects such as these could have instead supported research to design a next-generation robotic limb to treat injured war heroes or a life-saving hurricane detection system," Coburn writes in his letter.
Coburn said the number of new research grants could be reduced by as many as 1,000.
Through audits and investigations, the NSF Inspector General identified more than $309 million in questionable and poorly spent funds in just the second half of fiscal year 2012.
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