Free Republic

The government shutdown may be keeping furloughed federal workers at home, but on Monday the U.S. Army contracted to buy a mechanical bull. The $47,174 contract was awarded on Oct. 7 to Mechanical Bull Sales Inc. of State College, Penn. … Lt. Col. Hank McIntire of the Utah National Guard tells CNSNews.com that the mechanical bull is regularly used as a tool by recruiters at fairs and other events. …

The Food and Drug Administration would have greater oversight over large volume compounding pharmacies like the Massachusetts company that triggered a deadly meningitis outbreak, under federal legislation winning bipartisan support. Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, the Democratic chairman of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, said Wednesday that the bill calls for an “unprecedented tracing system that will track prescription drugs from manufacturing to distribution.” The FDA would be able to monitor the pharmacies much the way they regulate drug-makers, including through inspections. The system would replace what critics say is the existing patchwork of federal regulations over the...

The U.S. Department of Energy will put up for auction this week a $50 million loan awarded to the now-closed Vehicle Production Group LLC, an unusual move by the DOE that may give U.S. taxpayers a chance to recoup a portion of their investment. The auction may also mark a path for the government to offload non-performing loans made to other troubled, taxpayer-backed companies, including hybrid sports car maker Fisker Automotive, which owes the DOE $192 million and has so far failed to secure a buyer. "I just don't see a great argument for making the bid and resurrecting either...

The Ecotality case wasn’t the biggest payoff, but it was particularly outrageous because it got stimulus money when it was already under SEC investigation.The company received a subpoena from the Securities and Exchange Commission in October of 2010.The president of Ecotality North America Don Karner was sent an additional subpoena in December of 2011, which specifically asks for any and all documentation surrounding the public announcement of the first Department of Energy grant to the company for $99.8 million on August 5, 2009.Ecotality was awarded $99 million in 2009 and an additional $26 million in October 2011. Since the beginning...

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Most of the city’s 2013 mayoral candidates came together to broach public-transportation issues in back-to-back forums at Baruch College in Manhattan on Wednesday. Anthony Weiner was there, looking very determined to come across as thoughtful and focused rather than bored (as the press corps has branded him at previous debates). But it was John Catsimatidis, the grocery-store baron and long-shot Republican hopeful, who made the biggest splash of the morning when he called for building a monorail alongside the Long Island Expressway. “Not subway, ABOVE-way,” he said, dismissing the possibility of expanding the existing underground rail system as a pipe...

Fisker Automotive hasn't built a car in nearly a year. It fired most of its workforce, hired bankruptcy advisers and is seeking a buyer. Co-founder Henrik Fisker resigned in mid-March in a dispute with some of the directors. And despite raising $1.4 billion in private and public funds since its founding in 2007, the company is out of cash. For months, key investors have been footing the car maker's day-to-day expenses to keep it alive in diminished form. The Energy Department has repeatedly defended its handling of the Fisker loan. Nicholas Whitcombe, who previously led the DOE loan program, told...

This ought to make your day. Barack Obama’s massive “mother of all databases” includes information on your children.Barack Obama reads a book about himself to a group of children ages 3 to 5 back in 2011. (USA Today) Tea Party Nation reported: Speaking of databases, there’s one out there that’s more than a little bit disturbing. It’s but one more devious plan created by none other than Barack Hussein Obama to store personal information on our children. No wonder Maxine Waters spouted off that Obama’s database knew everything about everybody – this is one of the few times that Maxine...

The Energy Department has $9 million more taxpayer dollars to spend on projects that may make a very expensive car less expensive and more acceptable to consumers. The latest round of funding is intended to accelerate the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles, backup power systems, and hydrogen refueling stations. … Ironically, the Energy Department credits cheaper fossil fuel with reducing the cost of producing hydrogen fuel cells: “Recent development of the United States’ tremendous shale gas resources has not only helped directly cut electricity and transportation costs for consumers and businesses, but is also helping to reduce the costs...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama on Monday will nominate longtime adviser Jason Furman to be his new chief White House economist, an administration official said. Furman, who will replace economist Alan Krueger as chair of the White House's Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), has a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University and has advised Obama since his 2008 election campaign. Furman has been instrumental in formulating administration policies on taxes, the response to the U.S. recession, the formulation of a sweeping healthcare overhaul and efforts to avoid a "fiscal cliff" at the end of last year. "Furman has been...

Electric car sales hummed along in May amid a solid month for the auto industry. But the surprise story this year was May's strong full-size pickup truck sales – not exactly a sign an endorsement of efficiency and alternative fuels. Nissan sold 2,138 Leafs in May, up 319 percent over last year. In March, the company sold a record 2,236 units of its all-electric vehicle. General Motors sold 1,607 Volts in May, down 4.3 percent from a year ago. In the first five months of 2013, the company sold only 100 more Volts than during the same period last year.

It turns out that Paul Scott will not be meeting President Obama after all. The passionate electric car advocate (and co-founder of Plug In America) puts his money where his mouth is by selling Nissan Leafs in Los Angeles. He had sent in $32,400 — a good chunk of his relatively modest savings — for a chance to briefly meet President Obama at a forthcoming fundraiser and talk about climate change and his personal story — 10 years driving an electric car fueled by solar power. But on Monday in an email, Scott was disinvited by the Democratic National Committee...

Bidding wars are breaking out. Foreign buyers are moving in. A new wave of contemporary architecture is taking hold. And a growing class of tech executives is helping to fuel the boom. All this is happening in Washington, D.C., a town known for its relative affordability compared with cities such as New York and San Francisco, and for architecture about as exciting as its fashion sense. Today, home prices in Washington and its surrounding suburbs are rapidly rising to new levels. As other American cities have been buffeted by an uneven economy, Washington's property market has been buoyed two forces...

While the White House claims its stimulus package “supported as many as 3.5 million jobs,” none were yielded from a $152,000 project to ready lesbians for “adoptive parenthood.” The $833 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), commonly known as the stimulus, awarded the tustees of Clark University, in Worcester, Mass., $152,000 to interview roughly 50 lesbian couples about their adoption experiences. “The goal of this project is to investigate the unique strengths and potential challenges of lesbian couples across the transition to adoptive parenthood,” the grant states. “Given that parental mental health has implications for child development, and the...

The Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP) was established to assist the nation’s underwater borrowers get out from under their massive mortgage debt. In a Congressional Budget Office report, both Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae have been found to be responsible for nearly 13 percent of underwater borrowers. The report, “Modifying Mortgages Involving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Options for Principal Forgiveness,” finds that, in order for the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) to use principal forgiveness for borrowers in an effort to provide assistance for those to benefit from HAMP: + Result in small savings to the government, + Slightly reduce mortgage...

Unemployment rates fell in nearly 90 percent of large U.S. cities in March, though most of the declines likely occurred because more Americans stopped looking for work, rather than found jobs.

A grant of $10 million in Wyoming produced zero jobs, no results, and plush salaries.Two Elks Energy Park in Wyoming What kind of project pays a couple of politically connected people hundreds of thousands of dollars for producing next to nothing? An Obama stimulus project, of course. More than four years after President Barack Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus package into law, troubling details continue to emerge. Earlier this month, for example, the nonprofit news site WyoFile reported that a $10 million stimulus project in Wyoming has been suspended and referred to the U.S. Attorney’s office for an investigation...

Kim Jong Un building 'mini world' with replica Big Ben and Eiffel Tower Chubby tyrant Kim Jong Un is building a “miniature world” in North Korea – with a replica of London's Big Ben at its heart. The dictator is set to open the theme park in capital Pyongyang – and has included the iconic clock tower. The new attraction, which opens this year, will also boast a copy of Paris’ Eiffel Tower. The secretive state famously doesn’t allow its citizens to leave the country – so it appears Jong Un has decided to bring the world to his people....

The federal government is spending $152,000 to study “voice therapy” for transgenders, saying it is incumbent to being “accepted as one’s preferred gender.” “This study will illuminate the capabilities of the human larynx and inform the relationship between voice production and perception,” states a National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant, awarded to George Washington University. “The long term goal of this research is to inform and provide new directions for Transgender (TG) voice care, thereby improving the lives of TG people who feel their voice is a great obstacle to living as their preferred gender.” …

If you want to see where a little bit of your $833 billion stimulus went, head south from St. Louis on Interstate 44 until you reach the Mark Twain National Forest. On March 13, 2009, less than a month after President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) into law, the federal government awarded $462,912.30 to a Spokane, Washington, construction firm called CXT Incorporated to build and install 22 “precast concrete toilets” in the park. These bunker-style commodes did not add to the number of bathrooms in the forest; they replaced existing toilets that didn’t meet Forest Service...