IACCOCA ENDORSED ROMNEY, TOO: Lee Iaccoca and Hal Sperlich have been on the same wave length for a long time. Part of the reason they left Ford was rejection of their proposal for a family van that would fit in the typical suburban garage – aka the “minivan.”  They’re still talking the same language in 2012, endorsing Romney, in part because of what they term Obama’s “misleading attacks” on the Republican presidential nominee’s stance on auto industry issues.

ISSA DEMANDS ANSWERS ON WHITE HOUSE STATE DINNERS, RELEASES “ALL THE PRESIDENT’S PARTIES” VIDEO: House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa says “excessively lavish” dinners contradict President Obama’s professed desire to eliminate “stunning” federal spending. DO NOT MISS the video!

KIA, HYUNDAI ADMIT INFLATED MILEAGE CLAIMS: Hyundai has been getting grief for two years for its 40 mpg Elantra claim. That’s just one of multiple models from the South Korean conglomerate that will now get revised EPA figures.

“STOP THE MARATHON” FACEBOOK PAGE JUST WENT LIVE: This can’t be good news for Mayor Bloomberg.

A FRIDAY MEDITATION ON WHAT’S AT STAKE TUESDAY: Among other things, we will likely get an answer to old Ben Franklin’s question of whether we can keep the republic.

THINGS YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE MADE INCLUDE SAUSAGES, LAWS AND BUREAUCRACY: So naturally The Washington Examiner’s Watchdog special reporting team raised the hood on the bureaucracy at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Out popped a former soap opera starlet and beauty queen on the public payroll, friends helping friends get jobs, employees who rarely do any work, hiring senior executives without even pro forma background checks, and a culture that doesn’t know how not to spend more tax dollars. And that’s just for starters! Go here, here and here.

MAYBE THIS HELPS EXPLAIN WHY OBAMA SPENDS SO MUCH MORE ON STATE DINNERS: Michael Walsh is deputy chief of protocol, a key cog in White House state dinner planning and payment. He’s also a founding partner with Bryan Raffanelli in Raffanelli Event Management, another key cog and one that gets paid. The Washington Post not long ago called this duo the capital’s “new power couple.” The Washington Examiner has questions of a quite different sort about their relationship.

HURRY ON DOWN NOW! YOU CAN’T AFFORD TO MISS CRAZY BARRY’S CAR LOT BLOWOUT SALE ON CHEVY VOLTS!! Politizoid strikes again, with a hilarious animated take-off of those irritating but irresistibly cheesy new-car dealer television spots. You know, the ones that magically make your volume go way up when they come on. This is the Obama GM bailout like you’ve never seen it before and it’s really good.

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NEW EMAILS RELEASED BY HOUSE PANEL CONTRADICT OBAMA DENIAL OF POLITICAL INFLUENCE ON DOE LOANS: A batch of 150 previously undisclosed emails made public today by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee sharply contradict claims by Obama and several of his top aides that no political considerations entered into Department of Energy approval of clean energy program loans.

Committee chairman Darrell Issa, R-CA, said this of how the “most transparent administration ever” handled transparency on this issue: “The Administration should have disclosed these emails directly to Congress and the American people. The Department of Energy failed to produce many of these emails, but the Committee received them from other sources.”

And there’s a Harry Reid angle here, too.

BET THE WHITE HOUSE ISN’T CELEBRATING THIS ANNIVERSARY! It’s been a whole year since the $1.6 billion MF Global bankruptcy debacle became public. You may remember that one as the occasion for MF Global’s chief, former Sen. Jon Corzine – President Obama’s BFF on Wall Street – to admit that he had no idea what happened to $1.6 billion of his customers’ money. Rep. Tim Huelskamp would like to know why no charges have been filed by Obama’s Attorney General against Corzine.

IS OBAMA’S BLUE-STATE FIREWALL, INCLUDING OHIO, HOLDING? Fox News’ online politics editor Chris Stirewalt was politics editor at The Washington Examiner before joining the Ailes Brigade. So I know first-hand how sharp he is at deciphering political strategies and tactics. His daily Power Play column is a must-read. Here’s a quote from today’s installment that ought to give pause to everybody who thinks a Romney landslide is taking shape:

“Like any good scary story, the tale of the churning electorate now has a strong element of suspense. Hurricane Sandy has made it harder to poll, and given the existing challenges nationally and in survey-saturated Ohio – cell phones, caller ID, voter fatigue, dishonest answers – we can only guess at what changes are currently taking place in the electorate.”

Read the rest … if you dare.

OKAY, SO WHERE DOES FIAT PLAN TO BUILD JEEPS? There’s a flap on the presidential campaign trail sparked by questions over whether Fiat, which owns Chrysler, plans to move Jeep production from the U.S. to China. Turns out Jeeps will continue to be built here, may again be built in China, and will in the near future also be built in Italy. Confusing? Perhaps this will help.

THIS MAY BE THE LAST LOCAL NEWS INTERVIEW OBAMA GIVES: KUSA 9News’s Kyle Clark asks tough questions, including were the Americans under attack in Benghazi denied military support. HT to Ellen Carmichael, via Twitter.

RELATED (From Ed): Petraeus Throws Obama Under the Bus.

BY THE WAY, COULD FRANKENSTORM BE GOD’S OCTOBER SURPRISE?

MIDNIGHT CONFESSIONS AT THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY: Looks like at least one senior DOE official knew the clean energy program was no good at picking winners and losers. But if they knew that in the dark of night, why did they keep doing it in the light of day?

SO YOU WANT TO DRIVE AN AMERICAN CLASSIC: Ford may have just the ticket for you, brand new modern steel-reinforced, welded and rust-proofed 40 Ford Coupe bodies. It’s part of a restoration line that includes the 32 Deuce Coupe and the 65-70 Mustangs. All you add is a powertrain – “that thang got a Hemi?” – an interior, and a chassis, and you’re in business. See, free markets satisfy customer needs, dreams AND memories!

OBAMAS DID MILLION-DOLLAR MEALS IN THE WHITE HOUSE WHILE JOBLESS AMERICANS LOOKED FOR WORK: And trust me, there is much more to this story than a president and First Lady using tax dollars to make like Gatsby. Today’s piece in The Washington Examiner is just the first course, so to speak.

WHETHER OBAMA OR ROMNEY BECOMES THE NEXT PRESIDENT, EPA IS GOING TO BE HEADACHE CITY: Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-OK, wants to know why EPA is flouting the federal law requiring the agency to post its regulatory plans every six months. And Mark Levin’s Landmark Legal Foundation just sued EPA seeking documents about that regulatory agenda before they are disappeared, as has happened before. Read all about it here.

LOOK WHAT WE FOUND! COULD THIS HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH WHY THE JOINT IS OUT OF CONTROL? Found today buried in one of those ghastly tomes known as “Inspector-General reports” was the statement by the IG at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that the agency has no definition of “cost/savings” and even if it did, has no credible way of measuring the same. Now, aren’t you glad that the Watchdog team at The Washington Examiner actually reads IG reports for fun!

IN CHICAGO, THEY EVEN DEFRAUD THE FEDS! Cause of Action’s Daniel Epstein tells The Washington Examiner he and his intrepid investigators are determined to get to the bottom of what he calls the “Chicago-style fraud” perpetrated maybe as far back as 1982 by that city’s transit agency. It has to do with how the locals count mileage used to determine how much federal money the Chicago Transit Authority gets. Can you guess who was CTA’s board chairman from 1995 to 2003? Some people refer to her as “the other side of Obama’s brain.”

AND YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE JUST POSING FOR THE DMV! As more and more states use facial recognition/biometrics-driven photography for drivers’ licensing, the threat to individual privacy is growing exponentially, according to the National Motorists Association. And NMA just happens to offer the following helpful links for those who wish to know more about this: here, here, here and especially here.

WHAT IF SECURITY IS AS BAD AT OTHER FEDERAL DEPARTMENTS AS IT APPARENTLY IS AT DOE? And what if Al Qaeda is preparing to demonstrate the answer to that question in the near future? Washington Free Beacon has a very disturbing report.

HOW ABOUT $300 MILLION IN PUBLIC FUNDING FOR CLEAN ENERGY FIRM WORKERS TO SIT AND PLAY CARDS? That’s what is happening at LG Chem, another of those electric car battery makers that got major federal funding, according to a local Michigan television news operation. Only problem is there’s almost no demand for what LG Chem makes.

INHOFE CATCHES OBAMA DOING THE WASHINGTON WINK-WINK AT EPA. Trust me, it ain’t pretty!

YOU CAN HAVE BIG GOVERNMENT OR TRANSPARENT GOVERNMENT, BUT YOU CAN’T HAVE BIG, TRANSPARENT GOVERNMENT: That’s what I’ve been telling my liberal friends in the transparency advocacy community for years. Now, the Columbia Journalism Review and Pro Publica combine to compare Obama’s promise to have the most open government ever with the reality. It’s a sad, entirely predictable story, but well-worth reading.