[Wondergirl]

One of Obama's green energy successes just went to....China.

Chinese company buys battery maker that got recovery funds

That's not Obama's fault.

Why is the Massachusetts company bankrupt?***

"Wanxiang's top executive and an Energy Department spokesman said last week that the point of the economic stimulus grant was to create jobs by building a Michigan manufacturing facility, which Wanxiang said it plans to keep open."

"Wanxiang would not acquire A123's Ann Arbor, Mich.-based government business, which includes all of its U.S. military contracts. Those would be acquired for $2.25 million by Navitas Systems, a Woodridge, Ill.-based [minutes from Wondergirl] provider of energy storage products for commercial, industrial and government agency customers."

***ADDED "[A123's] financial stability has been in question for more than a year. The company suffered a major setback when it had to recall defective batteries in Fisker cars. And despite orders from carmakers, A123 could not generate sufficient revenue or profit from the slowly growing market for electric vehicles." (10/16/2012, NYT)

[speechlesstx]

That's not Obama's fault.

How much of that $133 million taxpayer dollars his administration gave them might we see returned?

[NeedKarma]

How much of that $133 million taxpayer dollars his administration gave them might we see returned?

Is that the standard procedure where a company receives grants and fails afterwards?

[Wondergirl]

How much of that $133 million taxpayer dollars his administration gave them might we see returned?

Why weren't you buying an electric car?

[paraclete]

Just so you know I drove an electric car once, a very disconcerting experience

[tomder55]

republican states have a history of doing the same thing. I think it has something to do with concentration of power in the hands of one person

Nope it has more to do with Alexander Fraser Tytler's warning .

[paraclete]

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to selfishness;
From selfishness to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage."
~ Alexander Fraser Tytler

Then according to his timetable you have run your course, although you might just have one or two steps to go

[tomder55]

Yup ;apparently we are on the' from apathy to dependence' step.

[speechlesstx]

Why weren't you buying an electric car?

Why would I want to waste $30,000?

[speechlesstx]

The National Counterterrorism Center now apparently has a "PreCrime" department, tasked with scouring data on you and me to prevent future crimes. They're even sharing it with foreign governments.

Top U.S. intelligence officials gathered in the White House Situation Room in March to debate a controversial proposal. Counterterrorism officials wanted to create a government dragnet, sweeping up millions of records about U.S. citizens—even people suspected of no crime.

Not everyone was on board. "This is a sea change in the way that the government interacts with the general public," Mary Ellen Callahan, chief privacy officer of the Department of Homeland Security, argued in the meeting, according to people familiar with the discussions.

A week later, the attorney general signed the changes into effect.

Through Freedom of Information Act requests and interviews with officials at numerous agencies, The Wall Street Journal has reconstructed the clash over the counterterrorism program within the administration of President Barack Obama. The debate was a confrontation between some who viewed it as a matter of efficiency—how long to keep data, for instance, or where it should be stored—and others who saw it as granting authority for unprecedented government surveillance of U.S. citizens.

The rules now allow the little-known National Counterterrorism Center to examine the government files of U.S. citizens for possible criminal behavior, even if there is no reason to suspect them. That is a departure from past practice, which barred the agency from storing information about ordinary Americans unless a person was a terror suspect or related to an investigation.

Now, NCTC can copy entire government databases—flight records, casino-employee lists, the names of Americans hosting foreign-exchange students and many others. The agency has new authority to keep data about innocent U.S. citizens for up to five years, and to analyze it for suspicious patterns of behavior. Previously, both were prohibited. Data about Americans "reasonably believed to constitute terrorism information" may be permanently retained.

The changes also allow databases of U.S. civilian information to be given to foreign governments for analysis of their own. In effect, U.S. and foreign governments would be using the information to look for clues that people might commit future crimes.

If only they had the Precogs. So now the Obama admin wants to track our every move. Is that a drone I hear?

[excon]

Hello again, Steve:

If only they had the Precogs. So now the Obama admin wants to track our every move. Is that a drone I hear?

If George W. Bush would have PRESERVED our Fourth Amendment rights, there would be NO Obama spies today.

You guys really DO suffer from memory loss. But, that's why I'm here.

Excon

PS> I suppose if he tortured somebody you'd come down on him hard, wouldn't you? Bwa, ha ha ha..

[NeedKarma]

now apparently has a "PreCrime" department

You've had that since 9/11. Your conversations and emails have been listened to since then.

[speechlesstx]

Hello again, Steve:

If George W. Bush would have PRESERVED our Fourth Amendment rights, there would be NO Obama spies today.

You guys really DO suffer from memory loss. But, that's why I'm here.

Nah, anyone could have predicted your response.

[speechlesstx]

You've had that since 9/11. Your conversations and emails have been listened to since then.

This goes way, way, beyond scanning communications.

[NeedKarma]

So does the Patriot Act.

[speechlesstx]

So does the Patriot Act.

This goes way, way beyond the Patriot Act (passed by Congress). The administration bypassed congress and gave itself unilateral authority to mine the data of innocent Americans and share it with other countries. The Patriot Act at least has some safeguards in place. They can't just wiretap any ol' American citizen, they still have to go through the courts.

[NeedKarma]

Wrong: Patriot Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also the organization charged with it is Counterterrorism Center enacted under Bush.

If you don't have anything to hide why are you worried?

[tomder55]

And we all know that the biggest threat to the country is those right wing extremists in funny tri-cornered hats .

(U//FOUO) DHS/I&A will be working with its state and local partners over the next several months to ascertain with greater regional specificity the rise in rightwing extremist activity in the United States, with a particular emphasis on the political, economic, and social factors that drive rightwing extremist radicalization.

Homeland Security Report Warns Of Rising Right-Wing Extremism

[speechlesstx]

Wrong: Patriot Act - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also the organization charged with it is Counterterrorism Center enacted under Bush.

If you don't have anything to hide why are you worried?

a) You didn't even read the Wikipedia article. You really should do such things before counting on something to prove me wrong. Read the section on Title II. The courts are still involved.

b) "The National Counterterrorism Center" was the first four words of my post, which also noted "the attorney general signed the changes into effect." That would be Eric Holder, Obama's AG.

[tomder55]

I wonder how that new law mandating black boxes in all new autos fits in with the new Precogs ?

Horace Cooper, an analyst with the National Center for Public Policy Research, writes in a recently published analysis that privacy are inevitable because "once the law goes into effect, the DOT will then act to tell us exactly what data the EDRs will collect and what devices can be used to access the data."

Analyst worries auto black boxes invite privacy abuse by officials - National Cars | Examiner.com

So just like Obamacare . They have to pass the law so we can find out what is in it.

But is there a double standard here ? Well yes because while the adm is looking to know everything we do ;including how and where we drive ; they are still stonewalling on Benghazi .

Congressman Jason Chaffetz said that he has been 'thwarted' by the State Department from seeing any Americans who survived the attack in Benghazi .He is talking about the 30 or so survivors who have disappeared off the face of the planet.

My understanding is that we still have some people in the hospital. I'd like to visit with them and wish them nothing but the best but the State Department has seen it unfit for me to know who those people are—or even how many there are. I don't know who they are. I don't know where they live. I don't know what state they're from. I don't even know how many there are. It doesn't seem right to me.

This is so patently different than any other experience I've had.

Chaffetz: State Dept Hiding Benghazi Survivors

Maybe the adm doesn't know what really happened in Benghazi (guffaw ) . Maybe if they used their data bases ,their black boxes ,their drones to keep tabs on our enemies instead of our driving habits...