David Axelrod wants Democratic donors to stop donating to Hillary Clinton's team

David Axelrod, President Obama's top strategist when he defeated Hillary Clinton in 2008, wants Democratic donors to focus on the 2014 elections, rather than Clinton's likely campaign.

"With the Senate seriously at risk, and the Koch Brothers spending prodigiously, shouldn't Dem funders be focused on '14 and not '16 races?" Axelrod tweeted Thursday afternoon, in what appears to be a very thinly veiled allusion to the Clinton machine that is already coming together.

The tweet comes just days after a Wall Street Journal report on Democratic concerns that the early support for Clinton could hurt the Democratic Party's midterm efforts.

"The formidable campaign apparatus that has sprung up to support a possible 2016 presidential bid by Hillary Clinton is rattling some Democrats, sparking concerns that it could suppress competition for the party nomination and siphon money from candidates running in the midterm elections this fall," the Journal said.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Why your Facebook could start affecting your credit score

Looking up loan applicants’ social media activity has become a popular trend among lenders, and major credit rating agencies like Fair Isaac Corp (FICO) are starting to catch on.

Facebook factors like the number of friends an applicant has, the number and time span of jobs they have listed on their timeline and status updates about losing a job help to decide whether they’re approved or denied, and now will likely begin to influence their credit score as well.

“There could come a time where certain social media could be predictive and we’re looking at that, but it isn’t yet,” FICO consumer-credit specialist Anthony Sprauve told the Wall Street Journal.

FICO scores are used in more than 90 percent of all credit worthiness lender decisions.

Twitter and LinkedIn are also used to follow a potential borrower’s tweets about their job, and whether or not the job they have listed on their application matches the one posted on their LinkedIn profile. Lenders also check and see whether the friends and connections of an applicant have paid back their loans.

Some are even using it to communicate with current borrowers about their repayment options and urging them to make payments on loans. Lenddo, a platform that helps potential borrowers build creditworthiness through social media, sends messages about repayment directly to users’ accounts.

Government regulators and privacy advocates like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission have begun examining lenders’ use of social media, with early reports calling it a violation of consumer privacy.

With laws already on the books in some states to keep employers from using social media from judging job candidates and schools from evaluating prospective students, a similar law against the use for approving loans and establishing credit ratings is a possibility.

Via: Daily Caller

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CHAMBER OF COMMERCE TO SPEND $50 MILLION TO CRUSH TEA PARTY

On Christmas Day, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce says it plans to spend at least $50 million to "support establishment, business-friendly candidates in primaries and the general election, with an aim of trying to win a Republican Senate majority." 

"Our No. 1 focus is to make sure, when it comes to the Senate, that we have no loser candidates," said U.S. Chamber of Commerce top political strategist Scott Reed. "That will be our mantra: No fools on our ticket." 

GOP establishment officials hope to elide Tea Party challenges by shrinking the nomination process down to a tight four-month window replete with penalties for states that shirk the rules. 

The WSJ reported that Republican leaders "hope a less restive Republican caucus will allow the House to pass a farm bill and push ahead on at least incremental overhauls of the immigration system." 

The Chamber's comments are just the latest salvo in a widening battle between the conservative Tea Party grassroots and the establishment wing of the Republican Party. Increasingly, the Tea Party's growing power and influence has unmoored Republican politicians from their traditional alliance with Wall Street in favor of grassroots conservative activists. 

The shift comes as grassroots activists have re-framed the GOP's old "pro-business" stance into a "pro-free markets" positioning that eschews corporate welfare and taxpayer-funded crony capitalist giveaways to industries that make major political contributions and reap big government contracts paid for by voters.  

The Journal says that joining the Chamber of Commerce will be groups like Karl Rove's American Crossroads, who "are preparing an aggressive effort to groom and support more centrist Republican candidates." 

Via: Breitbart

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A dishonest presidency

The Wall Street Journal broke the news this weekend that, even as President Obama was telling the American people they could keep their health plans, “some White House policy advisors objected to the breadth of Mr. Obama’s ‘keep your plan’ promise. They were overruled by political aides.”

Overruled by political aides? This is simply damning.

It’s not easy to get a lie into a presidential speech. Every draft address is circulated to the White House senior staff and key Cabinet officials in something called the “staffing process.” Every line is reviewed by dozens of senior officials, who offer comments and factual corrections. During this process, it turns out, some of Obama’s policy advisers objected to the “you can keep your plan” pledge, pointing out that it was untrue. But it stayed in the speech. That does not happen by accident. It requires a willful intent to deceive.

In the Bush White House, we speechwriters would often come up with what we thought were great turns of phrase to help the president explain his policies. But we also had a strict fact-checking process, where every iteration of every proposed presidential utterance was scrubbed to ensure it was both accurate and defensible. If the fact-checkers told us a line was inaccurate, we would either kill it or find another way to make the point accurately. I cannot imagine a scenario in which the fact-checkers or White House policy advisers would tell us that something in a draft speech was factually incorrect and that guidance would be ignored or overruled by the president’s political advisers.

Via: Washington Post

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Hayden: Obama 'Rebalance' of US Intel Could Harm National Security

The National Security Agency (NSA) is being relentlessly pilloried by resentful detractors abroad — and strident critics on the left and right at home — which could force the Obama administration to weaken the intelligence community's ability to protect critical U.S. interests, former CIA head Michael Hayden wrote Thursday in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
 

Hayden, who was CIA director from 2006 to 2009, cautioned that the White House "needs to be careful not to overachieve."

It is not the place of an American president to invite other countries to tell him "what aspects of our espionage make them uncomfortable," Hayden wrote.

In the 1990s, criticism of the CIA's human-intelligence operations led to reforms that held back the agency's ability to collect information from "bad" people.

"If we tell signals-intelligence collectors in the NSA that they cannot listen to any 'good' people' similar damage is in store," Hayden warned. The agency only recovered from the order not to talk to "bad people" after 9/11.

Hayden insisted that "a formal framework for national intelligence priorities" is regularly agreed upon at the National Security Council level. So when U.S. policy makers confirm they want to better understand the strategy of a friendly, but headstrong ally, "What is it they think they are asking the intelligence community to do?"

Even if European leaders are pandering — theatrically — to their outraged constituencies, and notwithstanding that some concerns about privacy are legitimate, the end result could be "reduced cooperation with the U.S. on a variety of issues," he cautioned.

America's allies ought to appreciate that, "It is bad politics and bad policy for good friends to put their partners in politically impossible situations, and recent reports of aggressive American espionage have done just that."

Espionage may well not be compatible with a "political culture that every day demands more transparency and more public accountability," Hayden wrote. A balance is needed that preserves the confidence Americans have in what their spy agencies are doing with the ability of the intelligence community to get the job done.

Morale is also a factor. Hayden warned that the men and women of the intelligence community — whose work is being branded "excessive" "unconstrained" and "out of control" — could lose heart.

Via: Newsmax

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Who Created the Gerrymandered Media?

New York Times media columnist David Carr thinks its shocking that some smart people don’t want to read his paper or the Washington Post. He was amazed to learn in a New Yorkmagazine interview that Justice Antonin Scalia a man who is widely acknowledged, even in the saner precincts of the left, to be an intellectual giant, won’t read either of them and that his daily sources for news are limited to the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times and conservative talk radio. Carr presents this as evidence that denizens of the right wing echo chamber are not just “a bunch of narrow-minded, politically obsessed characters who send mass e-mails from their mother’s basement.”

To understand this problem more fully, he then asks our John Podhoretz about the problem. John is introduced to the Times readership as a conservative but one that should rate some respect because he recently criticized the architects of the government shutdown tactic. John rightly dissects the shrill nature of some of the most popular cable news programs and points out that the bifurcated ideological media don’t just disagree but make anyone who disagrees with their point of view unwelcome. That helps gin up the intensity level and manufactures a level of vituperation that has caused the two sides to largely insulate themselves from opposing points of view.

Carr deserves credit for acknowledging this problem rather than merely rehearsing the usual liberal complaints about conservatives but there is something important missing from the piece. What he fails to acknowledge is that his own newspaper is as good an example of the media echo chamber as anyone on cable television or talk radio. Indeed, if we have a gerrymandered media that has helped to exacerbate political differences it is to no small extent the responsibility of institutions like the Times whose liberal bias made the creation of conservative alternatives inevitable as well as necessary.

Via: Commentary

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Paul Ryan’s Missing Op-Ed

Congressman Paul Ryan penned an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal forging a path to “ending this stalemate.”  What is amazing about this op-ed is what it fails to mention.  Amidst the garrulous piece on Medicare reform, Social Security, and tax policy, there is not one word about the very impetus for this so-called stalemate – Obamacare.

Ryan rightfully notes that this is “our moment to get a down payment on the debt and boost the economy. But we have to act now.”

There is nothing that affects the debt and economy more than the consummation of a new entitlement into our welfare state.  What better way to jump-start the economy than by pre-empting the worst piece of legislation from taking effect?

This op-ed is a confirmation of our worst fears.  Over the past few days, many in GOP leadership have been privately and publicly shifting the focus of this battle from Obamacare to a grand bargain over tax policy and entitlement reform in the abstract.  This is the road to cave city.  It is simply absurd to suggest that we ignore Obamacare yet fight on other things for a number of reasons:

1)      Social Security has been around since the ‘30s; Medicare has been around since the ‘60s; the tax system has been around for decades.  We’re not getting rid of any of this any time soon.  We are left with just a few ideas to tweak these programs.  That opportunity is not going away any time soon. Obamacare, on the other hand, is just taking root now.  Why would we ignore the most imminent threat for a long-term policy problem?

2)      Social Security and Medicare are very popular, and people are leery of any changes, even ones that we think are positive.  So we are going to ditch the fight over Obamacare, which is extremely unpopular, to fight for Medicare reform?  Really, Paul Ryan?  And they think we are politically stupid?

3)      How in the world are we going to implement Medicare premium support on top of a healthcare system built on Obamacare?  If you are a Republican who believes the fight against Obamacare is lost, which is presumably the view of Paul Ryan, then stop deluding yourself into thinking we will implement Medicare reform.

Via: Red State

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Online Health Exchanges Plagued by Pricing Glitch

With less than two weeks to go until the open enrollment period for the Obamacare health exchanges begins, the government’s software still cannot display reliable insurance quotes for consumers, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The problem is causing Obamacare and insurance officials to “scramble” behind the scenes for fear of “alienating” the initial wave of customers:

Less than two weeks before the launch of insurance marketplaces created by the federal health overhaul, the government’s software can’t reliably determine how much people need to pay for coverage, according to insurance executives and people familiar with the program.

Government officials and insurers were scrambling to iron out the pricing quirks quickly, according to the people, to avoid alienating the initial wave of consumers.

A failure by consumers to sign up online in the hotly anticipated early days of the “exchanges” is worrisome to insurers, which are counting on enrollees for growth, and to the Obama administration, which made the exchanges a centerpiece of its sweeping health-care legislation.

If not resolved by the Oct. 1 launch date, the problems could affect consumers in 36 states where the federal government is running all or part of the exchanges. About 32 million uninsured people live in those states, but only a fraction of them are expected to sign up in the next year.

Via: WFB

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WSJ op-ed writer Elizabeth O’Bagy fired for resume lie

The Syria researcher whose Wall Street Journal op-ed piece was cited by Secretary of State John Kerry and Sen. John McCain during congressional hearings about the use of force has been fired from the Institute for the Study of War for lying about having a Ph.D., the group announced on Wednesday.

“The Institute for the Study of War has learned and confirmed that, contrary to her representations, Ms. Elizabeth O’Bagy does not in fact have a Ph.D. degree from Georgetown University,” the institute said in a statement. “ISW has accordingly terminated Ms. O’Bagy’s employment, effective immediately.”

O’Bagy told POLITICO in an interview Monday that she had submitted and defended her dissertation and was waiting for Georgetown University to confer her degree. O’Bagy said she was in a dual master’s and doctorate program at Georgetown.

Kimberly Kagan, who founded the ISW in 2007, said in an interview that while she was “deeply saddened” by the situation, she stands by O’Bagy’s work on Syria.

(POLITICO reports - Obama’s Syria address: special coverage)

”Everything I’ve looked at is rock solid,” Kagan told POLITICO. “Every thread that we have pulled upon has been verified through multiple sources.”

Paul Gigot, editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal, told POLITICO in a statement that “we were not aware of Elizabeth O’Bagy’s academic claims or credentials when we published her Aug. 31 op-ed, and the op-ed made no reference to them.”

Via: Politico

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