Is Jay Carney a disciple of the Baghdad Bob School of Public Relations?

WHY OBAMACARE IS OBAMA’S IRAQ WAR: Shikka Dalmia of The Washington Examiner says it’s time for Americans to ready an exit strategy from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Why? Because “the Iraq War cost $1 trillion and produced a quagmire abroad. Obamacare will cost $1 trillion and will create a quagmire at home.”

ENERGY STATES TO FEEL UNCLE SUGAR’S SEQUESTRATION BLUES: Watchdog.org’s Rob Nikolewski reports that 35 states, including New Mexico, Colorado and Wyoming, have been told to expect a 5 percent cut in their federal mineral payments, thanks to sequestration. It’s real money, too, as seen in the $53 million hit for Wyoming and $26 million for New Mexico.

HAS DARRELL ISSA FOUND OBAMACARE’S SOLYNDRA? Maybe, maybe not. What is certain is that reporting by The Washington Examiner’s Richard Pollock on the Obamacare co-ops has prompted an expanded investigation by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN POLITICIANS AND BUREAUCRATS GIVE AWAY TAX DOLLARS FROM BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: Another $112 million handed out by HHS to fund new Obamacare co-op in Iowa and Nebraska headed by a politically connected entrepreneur with a spotty record of successful startups. Previously reported: New York/New Jersey/Oregon and Ohio. From the most transparent administration ever.

IS OBAMA THE (IMPERIAL) PRESIDENT NIXON ALWAYS WANTED TO BE? It’s an immensely important question, but the fact that Jonathan Turley is raising it in USA Today is also rather significant. If this becomes an MSM meme …

[jwplayer config=”Instapundit” mediaid=”165711″]

STEPHEN LATHROP IS A VICTIM OF BIG GOVERNMENT: Sen. Ron Johnson, R-WS, says Lathrop’s case answers the question “what difference does it make?”

UPDATE (From Ed): Video added; don’t miss this one.

IT’S NOT NICE TO FOOL …Well, Rep. Frank Wolf for starters: NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told a House Appropriations Committee panel last week that he counts 192 Chinese nationals working in jobs that provide them with physical access to space agency resources and facilities. The Washington Examiner’s Richard Pollock reports on the 118 Bolden didn’t mention.

TIME TO ADD BUREAUCRACY TO SAUSAGES AND LAWS AMONG THINGS YOU DON’T WANT TO SEE BEING MADE: Thanks to The Washington Examiner’s Watchdog special reporting team, which aimed a burst of sunlight 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 spend-it-all-now-or-lose-it culture. And that’s just for starters! Go here, here and here.

SPEAKING OF PUBLIC WORRIES ABOUT CORRUPTION IN WASHINGTON: The Washington Examiner’s Mark Flatten has found at least $2.1 million in spending on employee conferences by the Inspector-General at the Agriculture Department. Here’s the twist: The Ag IG neglected to tell Congress about the conferences when asked and the events weren’t included in an online spending database the sprawling department is required to maintain. The IG’s job is to expose waste, fraud and corruption in USDA spending. So this is what the watchers do when they think nobody in Washington is watching?

PASS THE CATSUP, PLEASE: I don’t claim to know why the 2012 election came out as it did, but a few tentative observations are very much on my mind as I munch on a plateful of crow.

NATE SILVER ALSO GAVE SHARRON ANGLE A 75 PERCENT CHANCE OF WINNING IN 2010: The Washington Examiner’s Joel Gerhke offers a telling reminder for all those folks who think the New York Times blogger is the last word on election numbers.

ROMNEY WINS 53-47 ON TUESDAY. NO, OBAMA WINS THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE, 277-261. The Romney win is my prediction, while the Obama win is from my highly esteemed colleague at The Washington Examiner, Philip Klein.

WHAT WILL YOU DO IF THE ‘WRONG GUY’ WINS TUESDAY? A key to understanding James Madison’s genius was grasping how the Constitution he mainly authored forces competing interests to compromise, usually with the result that the public interest is at least protected, if not advanced, and political stability follows. Such a result had no precedent among history’s democracies. Here are some thoughts on this question to ponder over the weekend. Perhaps somebody might want to address the question of whether compromise becomes impossible as Big Government continually raises the stakes of losing?

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.

[youtube 8Cv_SbBDBjE]

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.