On Tuesday, the US Navy launched a jet-sized drone from an aircraft carrier for the first time. Its new mobility will allow the drone “to be used around the world without needing the permission of other countries to serve as a home base.”

The Euro Zone economy shrank more than expected during the first three months of 2013, revealing a group of nations still deeply mired in recession.

The Euro Zone, which has relied on austerity measures to combat flagging economies, contracted by 0.2 percent during the beginning of this year.

Germany's economy remained stagnant, while France finished its second quarter of economic contraction, meaning it's now back in a recession.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the Euro Zone has struggled to restart economic growth, and has yet to experience a fun little bubble like the United States.

None of this is good news, as a deflated austerity-obsessed Euro Zone, coupled with the long-term effects of the sequestration in the United States, means an even longer recover (er, if there is one), and a whole lot more of these.

Artist John Currin painted this portrait (which Bea didn't model for) of the late, great Golden Girl in 1991. The New Yorker referred to it as part of a series by Currin that featured "acrid fantasy portraits of menopausal women." I think it's quite beautiful.

The painting is up for auction today and is expected to go for between $1.8-2.5 million... unless of course it's used as part of hostage negotiations with these airheads.

John Currin (B. 1962) "Bea Arthur Naked," oil on canvas, Painted in 1991.

So, how much would you pay?

The saddest thing is a baby polar bear in Alaska waiting and waiting for his mom to come home, but the mom never comes home because a hunter killed her, for sport. And this will always be the saddest children's story, because now the lonesome motherless bear is condemned to live forever in a zoo, in Buffalo.

Are you familiar with the hunting industry in Alaska? Here's what happened on a "routine expedition" by a person who goes out to kill polar bears:

The bear was orphaned in March after James Tazruk, a big-game Alaskan hunter, shot and killed the mother bear on a routine expedition detailed by the Anchorage Daily News.

Tazruk didn’t realize the bear was a mother and felt terrible about shooting her. So he followed the bear tracks back to the bear’s den, where he found the bear cub, later named Kali, sitting by himself.

Now why would that baby bear be sitting by himself? Oh right, because the heavily armed human who just burst into the den also just murdered Kali's mother, for fun.

Everything about this story is delightful. Did the hunter who "rescued" the cub he orphaned then want to name the cub after the corn-syrup drink Coca-Cola? Yes, of course. Did the terrified baby bear then get dropped off at a police station in the nearest town? Yes, obviously. Did the zoo in Alaska where the cub wound up then decide to get rid of it, because there "wasn't enough room" at the zoo in Alaska for an orphaned baby polar bear? Was the traumatized orphaned baby polar bear then put in a stainless steel box on a UPS cargo jet and flown halfway around the world to Buffalo?

Yes. Yes. Yes to every horrible thing.

The Alaskan cub—at least allowed the dignity of the Inuit name "Kali," which we can only hope has some etymological relationship to Kali the Destroyer of Worlds—will share his prison enclosure with another lonely little polar bear, Luna.

Luna was born in a zoo but has since been separated from her family. Her father was an "orphan," too, meaning somebody shot Luna's grandfather in Alaska, and then he was caught and put in a zoo as a captive breeding specimen.

These two young bears will have a lot to talk about, if they prove they can get along and are allowed to be around each other.

[Photo by Associated Press.]

Future gag-gift-giving uncle Prince Harry is wrapping up his Spring Break tour of the U.S. with a polo match in Connecticut today, because nothing says "I am a man of the people and I 'get' America" quite like a spirited polo event in the rough-and-tumble Nutmeg State.

Harry made a lot of friends on the six-day trip, charming the nation by gamely showing up to all of his scheduled events and taking off his suit jacket when it was time to get real. Many people even forgot why the United States fought so hard to free itself from British rule in the first place.

Everywhere he went, the prince was showered with truly adequate stocking stuffers and it was like ohmygodAmerica, please stop embarrassing me in front of Harry.

Here's a list of everything America gave to Prince Harry while he was here:

A voodoo doll to use on himself.

A fleece.

A shirt.

A shirt.

A shirt.

A bus pass.

An ass whuppin'.

Some skin.

Toys.


A gambling addiction.

The mic.

The ball.

The creeps.


Horns, if you squint.

Our attention.

Our undivided attention.

A deeper comprehension of the horrors and devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy.

A hat.

An 18-year-old girl in peak physical condition.


An idea for a weird sex thing.

Sneaks.

A good stern talking-to.

Vittles.

A crapper.

[Images via AP, Getty, and Twitter/Top image by Jim Cooke/@GovChristie]

To contact the author of this post, email caity@gawker.com.

Monsanto is a $58 billion multinational Pesticide-'n-Frankenfood corporation that has moved on from selling Agent Orange to its new business of patenting actual seed genomes and then suing farmers who try to grow crops without paying the Monsanto corporation. Who could be opposed to such a thing. Only the elites, clearly.

Nobody really knows what sort of social and environmental consequences might result from the widespread use of genetically engineered Monsanto seeds that are resistant to Monsanto pesticides. I mean, what kind of weirdo would question whether that system has a downside? Latte-swilling, Mark Bittman-worshipping elitists, according to Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant:

“There is this strange kind of reverse elitism: If I’m going to do this [meaning "not bombard the world with genetically modified seeds and pesticides and also destroy any farmer who attempts to buck the system"], then everything else shouldn’t exist,” Grant said at Monsanto’s St. Louis headquarters yesterday. “There is space in the supermarket shelf for all of us.”...

“And the sad piece of this is, it ends up either or,” Grant said. “So you get conventional agriculture or broad scale or however you define it, and organic. I think we’re going to look back on this period and say, How on earth did that ever become the fight that it became.”

Alternately, we might look back on this period and say "Yes, May of 2013 is the date to which we need to send our Terminators back in time in order to stop the Monsanto people from distributing their Frankenseeds which will eventually decimate life on earth." I know, I know— typical elitist reaction.

KEY TAKEAWAYS FROM THIS STORY FOR THE BUSY EXECUTIVE: Only elitists care about small farmers; Monsanto CEO Hugh Grant (2012 compensation: $14.4 million) is the voice of the common man.

[Bloomberg. Photo: AP]

The world-famous 54-foot-tall "Rubber Duck" that's been seen floating in bodies of water all around the globe has met an untimely, albeit temporary demise in the rough waves of Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour.

Dutch artist Florentijn Hofman's inflatable sculpture had the wind knocked out of it sometime overnight, and many in China immediately rushed to suggest that someone had deliberately deflated the duck.

Several hours later, however, Harbour City officials suddenly claimed the deflation was part of planned maintenance work, and the duck merely "needs to freshen up."

In a statement to AFP, a spokesman for the event organizers said the "scheduled body check" will take two days, and "if everything is fine we can inflate it as soon as possible and the public can appreciate it again."

Once up and sailing again, and barring another unfortunate bout of "bird flu," the duck is expected to remain in the Harbour until June 9th.

[photos via AP]

As temperatures continue to skyrocket into the low to mid-sixties up and down the East Coast, many beautiful and strange-looking women will soon find themselves faced with the eternal conundrum of summer: how to deal with a too-hot boob. Luckily for some, the NYPD is here to remind us that anything goes in New Boob City! Whip off that top. Wipe off that top-colored body paint. Awkwardly unhook that bra with one hand unless the hook is stuck in which case pull it over your head but be careful not to stretch it. You cannot be detained, arrested, or fined for going topless in public in New York.

This boob freedom law is nothing new—the New York Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that it was legal for a woman to bare her breasts in public as long as she wasn't participating in a commercial activity or acting in a lewd manner—but every once in a while the cops mistakenly arrest someone, so it's always good to have a reminder.

The New York Times reports that, earlier this year, the Do Not Arrest Topless Women memo was read aloud at NYPD roll calls for 10 straight days, perhaps ushering in a new era of peace between boob and law.

So happy spring, friends. The opposite of tops for everyone!

(Watch out for bees.)

[Image via Shutterstock]

To contact the author of this post, email caity@gawker.com.

Former future dirty old man/cross-singer Prince granted a "rare and far-ranging, two-hour-plus interview late, late on Monday night" with his hometown paper The Star Tribune. One thing he wouldn't discuss? Minnesota's recent passage of marriage equality. Says the paper:

He dodged questions about the state’s new marriage-equality law...

Nice, thanks Prince. Not even a phoned-in, vague talk-around. Not even one of those piercing squeals used in the edited version of the "Sexy MF" chorus.

Prince became a Jehovah's Witness in 2001 and has been very vocal about it since. He's also expressed a shift toward conservative views about sex and cursing in pop culture. This is very convenient for someone who might not have the opportunity to voice such views today had he not built a career on being lascivious in the first place, but whatever. Prince does as Prince wants. Oh motherfucker, he's a motherfucker, can't you understand?

That said, the article reveals that he eats pizza with a fork, so at least he's kind of queer.

Elsewhere, he discusses his new band, 3rdEyeGirl. "It’s time for their legacy," he promises. (Prince also helped usher in the legacy of Carmen Electra.)

He's been touring with 3rdEyeGirl for about a month now, but it seems like as good of a time as ever to point out that he lied about this band when asked about them during a January interview for Billboard, during which Prince made Gail Mitchell refrain from recording and note-taking as she chased him around his Paisley Park estate while he rose from a series bathtubs, threw doves at her and sneered. Here's Mitchell's account of the 3rdEye stuff:

And then it's back to the conference room, where we talk about the recent leak of unreleased Prince material. A mysterious person with the Twitter handle 3rdEyeGirl (whose Twitter bio describes her as an "International Art Thief") was posting links—since removed—to new material. Was this a publicity stunt or Prince himself? He counters that it was indeed a bootlegger. But why then is 3rdEyeGirl's Twitter avatar pasted on the face of the drum kit on the soundstage I've seen him rehearsing on? Prince says it's just the girls (his backing trio and [his manager] Ramadan) poking fun at the situation. "As a band, they don't even have a name. They're not 3rdEye."

And now they are. Animals strike poses that are as curious as ever.

Ramadan, by the way, is 22 and 3rdEyeGirl's drummer is 24. "I don’t have time for old people," says Prince. Why, though? They are so weird and fun!

Prince turns 55 next month.

[Image via Getty]

Attorney General Eric Holder, who is currently embroiled in the Justice Department's AP phone records controversy, was having none of it today when Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA) got a little acerbic during a House Judiciary Committee hearing.

In a round of questioning about why the DoJ hadn't released private emails from Tom Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division and President Obama's nominee for labor secretary, Issa suggested that Holder "didn't want us to see the details." The congressman gave a little smirk at his jab and attempted to move on, but Holder quickly interrupted him, saying, "I'm not going to stop talking now."

The rest of the exchange is garbled by the men speaking over each other, but it ends with Holder saying very clearly, "It is inappropriate and too consistent with the way in which you conduct yourself as a member of Congress. It's unacceptable, and it's shameful."

Issa ended up looking a little hurt.

The Washington Post reported today that Issa has become rather eager of late as the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chairman, a position from which he'll attempt to take the administration to task for the Benghazi attacks and the IRS' targeting of conservative groups.

The Politico, America's worst news outlet, is all over the news that President Obama ordered IRS agents to murder Americans in Benghazi or whatever exactly is going on with these very big scandals: "D.C. turns on Obama"! "Obama's dangerous new narrative"! "Scandals could roil 2014 elections"!

There is also a good and interesting story by Josh Gerstein about how the Justice Department's horrifying grab of the Associated Press's phone records may have resulted from the White House's attempts not to interfere with investigations:

Mark Corallo, a former George W. Bush Justice Department spokesman, said he and other political appointees actually protected journalists from prosecutors’ subpoenas—and the Obama administration should have done the same.

“It’s incumbent on the political leadership to say no to the process. It smacks to me of people being asleep at the switch or just being cowards, not being willing to stand up to the prosecutors,” said Corallo. “I am absolutely shocked at these guys,” he said of the Obama DOJ officials.

But back to what matters: D.C turns on Obama (translation: This story itself is being written, in The Politico). Obama's dangerous new narrative (translation: The Politico is writing a story about the story being written by The Politico). Scandals could roil 2014 elections (translation: The Politico plans on continuing to write stories about this story The Politico is writing).

Inside its own little mirror-lined cause-and-effect box, excited by its own excitement, The Politico gets a little confused:

The uproars over alleged politicization of the IRS and far-reaching attempts to monitor journalists and their sources have not been linked directly to Obama.

The uproars, of course, are being linked directly to Obama, for instance all over the website of The Politico. What's not being linked directly to Obama is the ... substance of the scandals?

So eventually Alexander Burns and John F. Harris tip their hand:

In Obama’s case, the narrative emerging from this tumultuous week goes something like this: None of these messes would have happened under a president less obsessed with politics, less insulated within his own White House and less trusting of government as an institution.

"Obsessed with politics" and "insulated within his own White House" are both generic and contradictory critiques of a president. Every presidency is out of touch with the public; every presidency is desperate to be in touch with public opinion. And that is the heart of The Politico's case:

There is little doubt that Obama and Democrats would be making precisely this argument if the same set of controversies had descended on a Republican president.

This is the only sentence from The Politico's coverage of the story of The Politico's coverage that anyone ever needs to read. Here it is again:

There is little doubt that Obama and Democrats would be making precisely this argument if the same set of controversies had descended on a Republican president.

There may actually be some doubt that Obama would be making precisely this argument under a Republican president, because under a Republican president, Obama would not be president, and so he might not have the platform or the inclination to make arguments about the scandals that would be covered by The Politico at that counterfactual moment.

But where The Politico says "Obama and Democrats," what it means is "The Politico." And it is true: The Politico would be writing these stories no matter who was president, and no matter what was happening.

[Photo via Getty]

Are you married to a man who committed the ultimate act of betrayal and cheated on you? Are you finding it impossible to forgive him because he ruined your relationship and destroyed the sense of trust you thought you shared? Not sure how to move on? Well, Pat Robertson has some advice for you: Get over it because men can't help but cheat and it's probably your fault anyway.

"Stop talking about the cheating!" the televangelist orders a viewer who sought his wisdom on the subject. "He cheated on you, well, he's a man."

Seriously, why are you getting all worked up over your husband going behind your back and sleeping with another woman when you could instead be focusing on what your idyllic life was like before you found out he's an adulterous scumbag: "Does he provide a home for you to live in, does he provide food for you to eat, does he provide clothes for you to wear, is he nice to the children…is he handsome?"

Seriously, though, is he? Because handsome men get carte blanche to cheat. Actually, make that all men. It's the law. Well, not God's law. Nature's law. Which is apparently what Pat Robertson believes in now: "Like it or not, males have a tendency to wander a little bit."

But all is not lost: "What you want to do is make a home so wonderful that he doesn’t want to wander."

Of course. So simple. Then what?: "Begin to thank God that you have a marriage that is together and that you live in America and good things are happening."

Boom. Solved. Next.

[H/T: Christian Nightmares]

Physicists say they have discovered a new type of friction. Yeah right.

A Pennsylvania bus driver survived a terrifying encounter with a wild deer that burst through the windshield before frantically jumping around looking for a way out. The driver had some minor cuts on his hands from the broken glass but otherwise just wanted a copy of the security video "before it went viral."

Bus driver John Porter was at the wheel Tuesday night with just one (human) passenger aboard when the deer was struck on the road somewhere around Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The deer flew through the glass and recovered enough to immediately begin hunting for an exit.

The driver pulled over, allowing the deer to exit through the front doors, which is generally discouraged on American public transit systems.

[Video via WPXI.]

Jezebel This Week in Tabloids: Teen Mom Farrah Is One Delusional Bitch | Kotaku Valve Launches Steam Trading Cards, So Much Better Than Achievements | Gawker Ricky Gervais Can't Not Be an Asshole| io9 New Riddick trailer reveals deadly foes and deadlier enemies | Valleywag Three Men Busted in Massive Facebook IPO Scam

Grandmothers. Grammas, Nanas, Meemaws, and Grammys. She's a lot older than you and you love her for it. The next time you've got a little down time to spend with yours, assuming you're lucky enough to have one or know one or know where a bunch of them like to hang, maybe flip on My Grandmother's Ravioli on the Cooking Channel. In the show, Mo Rocca travels around the U.S. visiting kitchens and learning to cook family recipes like chicken kiev and paprikash from old people with "big personalities."

More like the Charming Channel!, you probably just smirked to your schnauzer napping at your feet. And you'd be right with this astute joke. Kind, yet fiery apron-clad little ladies (and sometimes Grampas too) goofin' off and talking about life in the old country is the most charming. Sure, Mo is a little on the grating side, what with his constant limerick-writing and floppy hair-combing, but whatever, you're drunk Mo Rocca.

I like to watch Ravioli on hungover rainy Saturdays, but it's your life, I'm just blogging in it. Watch it any old time: alone, while you're babysitting, after Thanksgiving, with your religious boyfriend's parents, in a minimized window at work- literally, any time! Now go call your Grandma.

[New episodes of My Grandmother's Ravioli air Wednesday's at 8:30 P.M. EST. This is not an ad for My Grandmother's Ravioli, I just really like it and want you to watch it.]

The U.S government's green car program has been under scrutiny with the recent failure of two of the companies that received the loan, including coverage of a $675 million lawsuit by an inventor claiming he was denied funding for his inflatable electric car company because of politics. What hasn't gotten much scrutiny is the unsuccessful serial inventor behind the lawsuit.

Pretend you’re the U.S. Department of Energy for a moment. Your job is to hand out billions in taxpayer-funded loans to companies who want to produce green cars. An entrepreneur comes to you seeking $40 million to develop an electric car made out of an inflatable polymer foam instead of metal. Would you do it?

This is exactly the pitch Scott Redmond, CEO of now-dissolved California startup XP Vehicles, made in 2008. The Energy Department turned down his request, and now Redmond has filed two lawsuits in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims and U.S. District Court against the government seeking a combined $675 million in damages.

Their lawsuit continues to move through the federal courts, and in late April the Energy Department asked a judge to dismiss the case.

We wrote about Redmond's lawsuit, as did the Washington Post, Autoblog, BusinessWeek, Fox News, and host of conservative-leaning news outlets.

But until now, no one's coverage of the suit has appeared to mention that Redmond is a serial entrepreneur with a 20-year history of building hype and then getting funding for unrealistic tech ventures that never go anywhere.

XP Vehicles appears to be one of them, as does his other venture Limnia Inc., which he said was to manufacture batteries for the cars.

Still, what makes Redmond’s lawsuit interesting is his claim that he was turned down because his company lacked ties to the Obama administration and several Democratic elected officials. He claims that the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing program was compromised by political bias at the top, and that the car was turned down because they weren’t connected to the right Democrats like people involved with Tesla and Fisker were.

XP was hardly the only company turned down for an Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing loan. Scores of startups jumped at the chance to apply for the loans, but only five companies — Ford, Nissan, Tesla, Fisker and the Vehicle Production Group – were awarded any money.

Those five received a combined $8 billion between the five of them, with Ford and Nissan getting the lion’s share. The program has received a great deal of scrutiny as of late with the failure of Fisker and now also VPG, since there are doubts as to whether those companies will be able to pay their loans back.

Compared to those companies, however, Redmond’s proposed car was far more questionable, and his claims about its feasibility are in line with other bizarre statements he has made online in the past.

But does his claim that ATVM's loans were awarded based on politics hold any water?

The Inflatable Car

The ATVM program was first established in 2007 with strong bipartisan support in Congress The goal was to help American manufacturers develop the next generation of fuel-efficient automobiles and add thousands of new jobs across the country.

According to their lawsuit, XP Vehicles pitched an SUV concept to the Energy Department in late 2008 that would be driven by easily-swappable batteries running motors in the rear wheels and ultimately cost less than $20,000. They said they and Limnia had been working on the technology behind the car since the early 2000s along with the government-run Sandia National Laboratory. They said in the lawsuit that they offered the Energy Department $100 million in independently-verified collateral as security for the loan.

Here’s the real kicker. They said the four-seat SUV, which looked like an elongated Smart car, would weigh a mere 1,400 pounds but would be as safe as any car on the market. It would supposedly pull this off by being an “inflatable” car — the car was made from a flexible polymer foam material.

XP’s argument was that since the technology had already been developed for use in boating equipment, and perhaps most famously, on the Mars rover’s landing system, all they had to do was apply it to the automotive world.

It’s not the first time they had pushed for this technology to be used on a car. Previously, XP had floated concept drawings for a small, sub-$5,000 electric sports car for the southeast Asian markets they called the “Whisper.”

It would supposedly use the same inflatable foam technology to create a car they claimed was essentially made of airbags, safe enough to drive off a 25-foot cliff without injury. Oh, and they said the Whisper could go a staggering 2,500 miles on a single electric charge.

The inflatable Whisper seemed to be mostly hot air, but XP got somewhat more realistic with their SUV, and that’s what they pitched to the Energy Department. They say it would have the best power-to-weight ratio of any car on earth, and it would be capable of running 125 miles on a single electric charge — all while carrying passengers around in total safety and comfort in an inflatable body that rides on skinny bicycle-like tires. (For his part, Redmond denies that the car was "inflatable," though his company described it that way in earlier news releases.)

For years, the car made the rounds on various tech and automotive websites, only occasionally with a hint of skepticism. But when we’re talking about a car company that can be realistically developed, built, brought to market and then sold to a wide audience of consumers, doesn’t it sound far-fetched?

It’s all par for the course for Scott Redmond.

Is This Thing For Real?

At the 2011 Consumer Electronics Showcase in Las Vegas, Redmond unveiled what was at the time one of his latest ventures known as Peep Wireless, a service that promised free phone calls and mobile Internet.

As is common in the world of tech journalism, early coverage was enthusiastic and hardly questioning (although CNET described the company as less of a startup and more of a "psychotic Bell Labs.") But then our sister site Gizmodo explored the fact that the Peep Wireless technology was essentially impossible, and then went through a number of Redmond’s other ventures that never panned out in any way. Here’s what they said in their story, "The Greatest Scam in Tech":

The pattern is easy to pick out: This dude shows up whenever there's a bubble or hot trend in the tech business world that has yet to make it to the marketplace. Then he strings together a bunch of technical jargon that hardly informs what he's doing, and presumably gets some kind of funding. After that, he generally forms not one but two companies around said bubble. (Peep Telephony has Peep Wireless; Limnia, a fuel cell company, Fuel Sell; Clever Homes, FabModern). All the companies are listed at the same address in San Francisco.

Ultimately, the companies just disappear, legacies reduced to comically vague blurbs on Redmond's resume—if that. There's no point trying to ascribe motives to what Redmond does, and we don't want to make this about character or intent. Point is, these ventures rarely—if ever—work. And through the harsh lens of hindsight, some look like they weren't ever meant to.

Redmond wasn’t happy about that story, although he and Peep Wireless never returned requests for comment until after it was published. Even when Gizmodo published Redmond’s rebuttals on top of their original story, he still filed a libel lawsuit.

He was not successful. A judge dismissed the suit in August.

Gizmodo’s story even mentions “an inflatable car” and Limnia, about which Redmond said that government funds were in negotiation. That would be XP Vehicles. And like Redmond’s other ventures, there’s not much evidence to suggest that the car was anything more than a product of his imagination.

Redmond has made some other unusual claims on his various personal blogs and websites, including that he patented an "electric propulsion" system used by the ships in The Matrix, that he had patents on touch-screen phones before Apple did, and that he invented virtual reality and a graphical interface for the Internet.

Even his own website, which promises "strategic innovation" consulting, lists numerous projects but offers very few details as to whether they were ever actually commercialized or completed. His Twitter account is the same thing: mostly links to photos of supposed projects on his Facebook page without real proof of their existence.

His XP Vehicles obviously wasn’t the only car company to get turned down for a government loan. Carbon Motors’ BMW diesel police car was rejected, as was Aptera Motors’ ultra-aerodynamic three-wheeler, and hybrid vans made by Bright Automotive. But those companies had working prototypes by the time they applied for Energy Department assistence; the buff books even drove some of them.

But besides some patent filings and some extremely unconvincing mockups of the car — which appear to be such a blatant Smart car knockoff it would make a Chinese automaker blush — XP does not appear to have had a whole lot. Most of the images of the XP SUV (and the Whisper, for that matter) seem to have been made with simplistic, shimmery computer graphics that would have looked dated on a Nintendo 64 game.

Even XP’s promotional videos, if you want to call them that, look more like something that came out of the Super Replicas garage than a legitimate, professional car company that wants millions in taxpayer money. I have seen no proof that an actual car had been made, was being made, or even could be made.

These days, there’s little to be found of what was once XP Vehicles online. Their website is divided into two sections, one where you can supposedly purchase custom-ordered cars and parts from a company called Exclaim Automotive Services that has licensed XP’s technology, and the other is devoted to how XP supposedly got screwed over by the government.

It's the same story with Limnia. When searching around the Internet, it's nearly impossible to find any examples of things Limnia has actually done besides write press releases, secure patents, and file lawsuits. They do have a video that shows off what they claim is an energy storage and distribution system hooked up to a non-moving Prius, but it's hard to tell exactly what it does, if anything.

When Jalopnik asked XP Vehicles for comment about these issues, we received this response:

Scott Redmond sued Gawker, which runs Jalopnik, and is assisting federal law enforcement with their investigation of Gawker regarding the hired hit on Mr. Redmond By Gawker and is unable to comment at this time.

Gawker Media is not under federal investigation for a "hired hit on Mr. Redmond."

It’s hard to believe that anyone ever considered the XP SUV to be a viable concept based on all of this, and so it seems fitting that the company was turned down for a taxpayer-backed loan.

But why exactly was XP denied the funding? According to their lawsuit, that depends on who you ask and when.

The Lawsuit

In their lawsuit, XP says that the denial of their loans came as a shocking surprise after months of dealing with the Energy Department. During that time, they say government officials assured them things were going fine and that XP met the criteria for a loan.

XP was turned down in August 2009. According to exhibits filed with their lawsuit, in the first rejection letter they received, ATVM director Lachlan Seward told the company that the department could only choose “applications that are most likely to use the limited loan proceeds in a way that will best achieve the goals of the program.” That was all the explanation they got.

Seeking further clarification, XP says in their lawsuit that they called Energy Department official Chris Foster, who told them told them they were denied because their car was not designed for government fleet sales, was “too futuristic” for commercial use, that it was a “hydrogen vehicle” and did not run on E85 ethanol as they said was required for a loan.

If true, these are curious reasons for a denial. After all, XP’s vehicle supposedly ran on electricity, not hydrogen, and how much E85 ethanol does one of Tesla’s cars use?

XP discounts each of the government's claims in their suit. They say Seward wrote them a letter with contradictory reasons about why the car was turned down, saying their proposal seemed not ready for commercialization and production within three years, calling their design “high risk” and “far too early in the development process to qualify.”

XP disputes that by saying their technology was already in use in other applications, including cars and the retail market. They also claim they were at least as far along as Tesla and Fisker, although XP seems to have lacked a concept or even a prototype car.

As for battery maker Limnia, the lawsuit claims they were denied because Seward said their components did not appear to be designed for use in an “advanced technology” vehicle. Limnia was also turned down for a separate DOE loan for failing to pay the $18,750 application fee, which they claim Energy Secretary Steven Chu agreed to waive in a conference call — a promise they say he later reneged on.

In the Energy Department's response to the lawsuit in which they asked a judge to dismiss, attorneys said Limnia's application remains under review, so they have no grounds for a lawsuit. In addition, they said that as a dissolved corporation under California law, XP Vehicles is not eligible for the relief they seek in the suit.

Getting Political

According to XP’s lawsuit, the real reason the company never received the funding they say they deserved wasn't because little proof exists that Redmond's car was anything more than fantasy.

It was politics — specifically, that Energy Department money was set aside for those with the right connections to the right Democrats like Tesla and Fisker had. (Citing the ongoing litigation, an Energy Department spokesman declined to comment for this story.)

“...the taxpayer-funded ATVM Loan Program and LGP became cash cows for government cronies,” the lawsuit reads. “Politics and political pressure infected these programs, shaping, in whole or in part, the judgment of the agency’s ultimate decision makers."

In particular, the XP lawsuit points to Steven Westly, a venture capitalist and onetime Democratic contender for governor of California who sat on the Tesla Motors board during the time the company received its $465 million loan. Westly was also a high-dollar fundraiser, or “bundler” in political parlance, for President Obama’s reelection campaign.

On the Fisker side of things, the lawsuit says, there was venture capitalist and former “undisputed king of Silicon Valley” John Doerr. His firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers raised $1.4 billion in private investments for Fisker; former Vice President Al Gore is a partner at that firm, and Doerr himself has donated heavily to Democrats including Obama, former Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and others, according to a search of Federal Election Commission records.

XP’s lawsuit nails Fisker and Tesla for not hitting their performance targets. Although that’s somewhat less true of Tesla now, what with them having posted their first quarterly profit and generally receiving rave reviews.

It is the case with recently-failed Fisker, which, as the lawsuit (and the Congressman who took Henrik Fisker behind the woodshed in April) notes, received a commitment of $359 million from the government to develop the car that came to be known as the Atlantic even though no prototype had been shown to the public and the Karma had not completely gotten off the ground.

(The lawsuit also alleges that XP and Limnia technology was hijacked by the Energy Department and shared with “government cronies” General Motors and Ford, although their supposed proof appears more anecdotal than anything else.)

XP Vehicles themselves have become more political as well, having hired Washington-based nonpartisan watchdog group Cause of Action to represent them in the suit. The group, according to Fox News, has been linked to conservative issues in the past.

Do Fisker and Tesla’s connections to powerful Democrats prove beyond a doubt that the ATVM process was compromised politically? It's not unreasonable to assume that wealthy people, venture capitalists or not, would donate to political candidates.

But it certainly looks bad, if on the surface if nothing else. It makes the loan process seem like “Washington politics as usual” at best, and outright government corruption and cronyism at worst.

This isn’t the first time the ATVM program has been accused of being swayed by politics. The allegation was repeated by members of Congress when they called Fisker to the carpet in hearing last month.

However, given Scott Redmond's track record, it is hard to believe that XP Vehicles and Limnia could have ever actually put a car together had they been granted the loan money. And while Redmond claims the Energy Department was contradictory in their claims about why XP was turned down, the letter from Seward does say their technology was considered too risky.

The ATVM program, for its many faults, could have been in even more trouble had they loaned Redmond the money.

Who knows? Maybe he'll win his $675 million and the world will get an inflatable car after all.

Graphic credit Jason Torchinsky

The only thing worse than actually investing in the Facebook IPO is probably thinking you'd invested in the NASDAQ stinker, when in fact the cash was stolen from you as part of an international scam. Let's take a trip to New Jersey.

Eliyahu Weinstein, Alex Schleider, and Aaron Muschel were all arrested yesterday, after Feds fingered them in the multi-million dollar bilking of an eager New Zealand investor—he'd been promised a cherry deal on some pre-IPO Facebook stock. Stock that didn't exist:

“According to the charges, the defendants took advantage of the buzz around the Facebook IPO to fleece unsuspecting investors,” said U.S. Attorney [Paul] Fishman. “Shamelessly, Eliyahu Weinstein allegedly committed these crimes while under federal indictment for another investment scheme, even using stolen money to pay his legal fees. Today’s arrest should put an end to his brazen conduct.”

Brazen indeed—the trio repeatedly suckered the kiwi and then poured his wired money into a Brooklyn synagogue, which had asked for a loan to help bankroll a shady $350 million life insurance plan it hoped to profit from on the deaths of its congregation. The entire thing reads like a sad mix of The Social Network and a Guy Ritchie film, and includes email gems from the defendants to their victim like this:

BTW I presume you have satisfied your appetites for a while however since the IPO/S 1 filing announcement last week it has gone viral they are now offering $44 a share ... a large block of shares has been offered to Eli @ $32.50 from the same source which is $2.50 more than we previously paid. He has a buyer that is willing to come in @ $42.50 with a non-refundable. deposit making it a great opportunity. Eli is putting together $16.250 MM to buy 500k shares and selling it for a $9 profit per share. It is a 2 week turnaround.

That's how easy it is to (allegedly) perpetrate wire fraud, guys. Just tell a sucker that $FB is going "viral," which must mean something else in New Zealand.

Until someone starts to suspect they're being screwed, and you're hit with some tough questions:

Defendant WEINSTEIN: All of [the Facebook transactions] are done. Completed. Completed. Completed.

Victim J.C.: Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!

Victim G.C.: Facebook one is not completed.

Victim J.C.: This one's not completed.

Defendant WEINSTEIN: I didn't say completed.

Victim J.C.: We thought it went into Belle Glade. See, it was supposed to ...

Victim G.C.: We were told it went into Belle Glade?

Victim J.C.: We were told it went into Belle Glade, and then we found it didn't. Defendant WEINSTEIN: There· is no Belle Glade. Belle Glade never was purchased. So the money.

Victim G.C.: But no, the money that we, the money that we sent down for it the $2.83 went to 148. The other.

Defendant WEINSTEIN: You never bought Belle Glade.

Fake stock transactions and fake property investments. But the fun is over: the District Attorney's Office says "the government is seeking the seizure and forfeiture of all funds fraudulently obtained by the defendants, including three pieces of real property allegedly maintained with the proceeds of the scheme." This will be a very lame, complicated bit of crime to explain in prison if the three are found guilty.

You can read the entire USDOJ complaint below. [via BW]

President Obama just announced in a press conference that IRS Acting Commissioner Steven Miller has resigned amid accusations that the tax body unfairly targeted conservative groups for scrutiny.

This Benghazi shit just won't stop: On Wednesday, the White House released more than 100 pages of emails showing the modification of various talking points by Obama administration officials, the CIA, and the State Department in the immediate aftermath of last September's attack. The emails reportedly suggest that the CIA took the lead in shaping the talking points to describe the attack, which killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.

Most of the modifications appear to be minor ones, but the CIA and State Department reportedly made several significant changes. Of those, the most damning appears to be the decision to excise a reference to the warnings the CIA issued about the Benghazi consulate's security vulnerabilities in the months before last year's attack. From CNN:

But that warning was eventually removed. Senior administration officials say that long before the CIA heard concerns from the State Department about warnings being put in the talking points, CIA Deputy Director Mike Morrell advocated for taking the warnings out, since he felt the talking points should focus on what happened in Benghazi on September 11, rather than the previous six months.

He also felt it was unprofessional and unfair for the CIA to cite its own warnings to the State Department, officials said. Victoria Nuland, then the State Department spokeswoman, raised concerns over the CIA's first version of the talking points, saying that they went further than what she was allowed to say about the attack during her briefings.

She also questioned including information about CIA warnings on extremist threats linked to al Qaeda in Benghazi and eastern Libya, saying "the penultimate point could be abused by Members to beat the State Department for not paying attention to agency warnings so why do we want to feed that either? Concerned..."

You can read all 100+ pages of the emails here.

[CNN]