NEWS ON THE Singularity Summit in NYC.

MYRA ADAMS: The Florida GOP Debate As Political Game Show.

THEY TOLD ME IF I VOTED REPUBLICAN, WE’D HAVE A PRESIDENT TALKING ABOUT GOD IN HIS FOREIGN POLICY. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! Bill Clinton: God May Not Want Peace In The Middle East.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: RETURN OF THE REAL OBAMA. “A most revealing window into our president’s political core: To impose a tax that actually impoverishes our communal bank account (the U.S. Treasury) is ridiculous. It is nothing but punitive. It benefits no one — not the rich, not the poor, not the government. For Obama, however, it brings fairness, which is priceless. . . . The authentic Obama is a leveler, a committed social democrat, a staunch believer in the redistributionist state, a tribune, above all, of ‘fairness’ — understood as government-imposed and government-enforced equality.” He wants to spread the wealth around (though mostly to his cronies). I want to spread the power around, to ordinary Americans. He’s no redistributionist there.

YOUR TAX DOLLARS RESTING IN PEACE: Report: $120 Million Annually Paid To Dead Federal Retirees. “Improper payments to dead retirees increased 70 percent in the past five years, far higher than the 19 percent climb in overall annuity payments, the report said.”

SOLARGATE UPDATE: Waxman Says Energy and Commerce Dems Would Support GOP Subpoena of Solyndra Execs. “But Waxman drew a bright line between a potential subpoena of the company and a July edict that Republicans issued to the Office of Management and Budget for emails related to its review of the Solyndra loan guarantee.” Executives must testify, White House to keep silent? Hmm.

Related: Revealed: Intense lobbying, “alarming” negligence in loan approvals led to Solyndra loan.

More of that tax money Elizabeth Warren was extolling.

UPDATE: A reader emails:

The question I have not heard asked is, How many Solyndras are there?

How many have already failed? Or on the brink of failure? How many are still being planned?

When I first discovered I can Google my screen name and see posts I wrote from a few years ago, I had two choices: 1, abandon posting my thoughts and therefore my screen name, or 2, post so many thousands of posts no one would bother checking what I have said. I chose the 2nd route, although I have no idea if my strategy has worked.

But when you are talking TRILLIONS of dollars, I would think an overwhelming number of Solyndras would do the trick, as even the most ardent of watchdogs do not have the budget to seek out every Solyndra possible. It will take hundreds of volunteers hundreds of hours, even if they know what they are looking for. How many Social Security checks would these Solyndras pay for? How many Humvees could be armored? It is just disgusting in every way thinkable.

We seniors used to think Congress, specifically the House, controlled the purse. Now it seems as though anyone can start the presses and print up a zillion dollars. It has made our nation fling toward the poor house. My wife and I gave up our home and 4 acres. I weep for my country. I say the pledge with tears in my eyes. Time is standing still due to the thought that they still have time, 7 days a week to ‘good ole boy’ spending into oblivion. Republicans cannot unite even on this one issue, maybe because they too, know it is almost too late to grind out a solution.

Indeed.

MORE: A reader emails: “It’s amusing to consider that Elon Musk has built an entire manned spaceflight program for less money than Obama pissed away on Solyndra. (Well, actually, it’s horrifyingly depressing. But a useful comparison, withal.) If you print this, please don’t use my name.” Okay.

DISASTER AID SPENDING: FEMA’S Track Record.

SCIENCE: Judge questions honesty of Interior Department scientists.

U.S. District Court judges aren’t known for using inflammatory language in deciding the weighty issues that come before them on the federal bench. So it was remarkable to read the scorching indictment of a federal environmental agency and two of its scientists last week by Judge Oliver W. Wanger. . . . The case concerns how the government should manage California water supplies and at the same time seek to preserve the delta smelt, an allegedly endangered species of minnow-like fish. . . .

Wanger was angered by testimony from the two scientists, Frederick V. Feyrer and Jennifer M. Norris, that he said was “false,” “contradictory” and “misleading.” He accused the Interior Department of “bad faith” in providing the two scientists as experts, and claimed their testimony was “an attempt to mislead and to deceive the court into accepting not only what is not the best science, it’s not science.” An Interior Department spokesman defended Norris and Feyrer, telling the New York Times that “we stand behind the consistent and thorough findings by our scientists on these matters and their dedicated use of the best available science.”

Read the whole thing.

AT AMAZON, it’s the Friday Sale.

CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: Obama’s Tax Math Doesn’t Add Up.

BARACK OBAMA ON RAISING TAXES IN A RECESSION:



RELATED: George Soros, Billionaire Investor, Says U.S. Already In A Recession.

SPENDING MEASURE PASSES HOUSE but Senate Democrats may try to provoke a government shutdown. That didn’t work out so well for them last time, did it?

WHOEVER’S PROGRAMMING HIS TELEPROMPTER MUST BE A GOP MOLE: L.A. Times: New gaffe: Obama hails America’s historic building of ‘the Intercontinental Railroad’. “A railroad between continents? A railroad from, say, New York City all the way across the Atlantic to France? Now, THAT would be a bridge! It’s yet another humorous gaffe by the Harvard graduate, overlooked by most media for whatever reason. Like Obama saying Abraham-Come-Lately Lincoln was the founder of the Republican Party. Or Navy corpseman. Or the Austrian language. Fifty-seven states. The president of Canada. Etc.”

ACCOUNTABILITY IS FOR THE LITTLE PEOPLE: Censure briefly forgotten as House leaders honor Rep. Charles Rangel. “House leaders honored Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y) with an official Capitol portrait Thursday, sweeping aside two years of scandal and a formal rebuke to recognize a man who rose from humble beginnings to become a congressional pioneer.”

A READER POINTS OUT THE RESULT of all that heavy taxation Elizabeth Warren was bragging about.

It’s no wonder that Americans think the government wastes more than half of every dollar. Warren’s defense of taxation rings hollow when the money’s going to pay off Democratic lobbyists and buy $18 muffins. Why is America’s infrastructure crumbling? Not because there isn’t enough tax money. It’s because the political class can’t extract enough graft from fixing infrastructure to make it worth their while.

A REVIEW of Spengler’s new book, How Civilizations Die (and Why Islam Is Dying Too).

FASHION ITEMS FOR THE BLOOMBERG ERA: In the trenchcoats: Designer hopes to make a killing in New York with bulletproof fashion line.

SCRUTINIZING grad school outcomes at Yale.