Free Talk Live

SEATTLE -- Cars are becoming more and more fuel-efficient, and you would think that's a good thing. But Washington state is actually losing money because of it and as a result, the state is now considering a "pay-by-mile" tax. The state predicts gas tax collected today won't add up to enough cash to pay for future road projects. Drivers of fuel-efficient cars are spending less at the pump, which means they are paying less in gas tax while driving the same amount of miles.

Barack Obama campaigned that he would create 5 million “green collar” jobs. In January, President Obama announced $2.3 billion in tax credits for a clean energy economy will create 17,000 jobs. (Hmmmm... $135,300 per job) “Building a robust clean energy sector is how we will create the jobs of the future,” he said.
Make no mistake; this government-run plan will kill more jobs than it aims to create.

he Obama administration proposed new rules Friday that would effectively require passenger cars to be equipped with video cameras and in-vehicle displays to eliminate driver blind spots behind the vehicle.

The rule would be phased in starting in 2012 and would apply to all cars manufactured after Sept. 1, 2004.

Rearview video is the most expensive single technology in vehicles, regulators said, and they estimated that equipping all new cars in a given year could cost between $1.9 billion and $2.7 billion.

There's more talk on Capitol Hill about requiring all U.S. citizens to carry a worker ID card before getting a job. It's part of a major overhaul of immigration policy, and the plan could go before President Obama as soon as this week.

WASHINGTON — As President Barack Obama considered adding as many as 40,000 U.S. forces to a backsliding war in Afghanistan in 2009, Vice President Joe Biden warned him that the military rationale for doing so was flawed, a new book about Obama's expansion of the conflict says.

Google has been working in secret but in plain view on vehicles that can drive themselves, using artificial-intelligence software that can sense anything near the car and mimic the decisions made by a human driver. With someone behind the wheel to take control if something goes awry and a technician in the passenger seat to monitor the navigation system, seven test cars have driven 1,000 miles without human intervention and more than 140,000 miles with only occasional human control.

The Obama administration more than doubled spending on cycling and walking initiatives to $1.2 billion (£810 million) last year as it seeks to coax Americans out of their cars.

The Obama administration laid out plans Monday to work aggressively with other nations to monitor the Internet, enable censorship and ensure that citizens everywhere are prosecuted for criticizing governments.

President Barack Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 on Wednesday, despite his own threat to veto it over prohibitions on closing the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. Civil liberties advocates had roundly criticized the bill over Guantanamo and a separate section that could allow the military to indefinitely detain American citizens on suspicions of supporting terrorism.