05 February 20
New Details Show How Deeply Iowa Caucus App Developer Was Embedded in Democratic Establishment
Lee Fang, The Intercept
Lee Fang, The Intercept
Fang writes: "Ahead of the caucuses, questions swirled inside Shadow over the company's ability to deliver a quality product, and there was concern from at least one staff member that senior leaders of Shadow and Acronym have been far from neutral in the Democratic primary."
emocratic operative Tara McGowan is denying that her high-profile liberal firm ACRONYM played a role in the Monday evening caucus debacle, claiming that her firm was merely an investor in the company Shadow Inc., which developed the app at the center of the controversy. But internal company documents, a source close to the firms, and public records show a close and intertwined relationship between Acronym and Shadow.
In addition, ahead of the caucuses, questions swirled inside Shadow over the company’s ability to deliver a quality product, and there was concern from at least one staff member that senior leaders of Shadow and Acronym — both of which were launched as a new Democratic bulwark against President Donald Trump — have been far from neutral in the Democratic primary.
Throughout the caucus yesterday, Democratic officials reported widespread problems downloading the app and inconsistencies uploading caucus results, leading to the Iowa Democratic Party’s decision to take the unusual step of delaying the release of the results. This is the first year the app was used, and ahead of the caucuses, the Iowa Democratic Party asked that the app’s name be kept secret. The New York Times reported that “its creators had repeatedly questioned the need to keep it secret.”
Kyle Tharp, a spokesperson for Acronym, released a statement on Monday night downplaying his company’s affiliation with Shadow.
“ACRONYM is an investor in several for-profit companies across the progressive media and technology sectors,” Tharp said. “One of those independent, for-profit companies is Shadow, Inc, which also has other private investors.”
David Plouffe, a former campaign manager to Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential bid who joined Acronym’s board, also distanced himself from the company during an MSNBC panel last night. “I have no knowledge of Shadow,” said Plouffe. “It was news to me.”
But previous statements and internal Acronym documents suggest that the two companies, which share office space in Denver, Colorado, are deeply intertwined.
Last year, McGowan, a co-founder of Acronym, wrote on Twitter that she was “so excited to announce @anotheracronym has acquired Groundbase,” a firm that included “their incredible team led by [Gerard Niemira] + are launching Shadow, a new tech company to build smarter infrastructure for campaigns.” McGowan also noted that “With Shadow, we’re building a new model incentivized by adoption over growth.” The acquisition was announced in mid-January of last year.
In an interview on a related podcast last month, McGowan described Niemira as “the CEO of Shadow, which is the technology company that Acronym is the sole investor in now.”
What’s more, internal documents from Acronym show a close relationship with Shadow. An internal organizational chart shows digital strategy firm Lockwood Strategy, FWIW Media, and Shadow as part of a unified structure, with Acronym staff involved in the trio’s operations.
In an all-staff email sent last Friday, an official with Lockwood Strategy reminded team members about “COOL THINGS HAPPENING AROUND ACRONYM.” The list included bullets points such as, “The Iowa caucus is on Monday, and the Shadow team is hard at work,” and “Shadow is working on scaling up VAN integration with Shadow Messaging for some Iowa caucus clients.” (VAN refers to the widely used Democratic voter file technology firm.) Acronym staffers also attended the Shadow staff retreat.
A person with knowledge of the company’s culture, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, shared communications showing that top officials at the company regularly expressed hostility to Sen. Bernie Sanders’s supporters. McGowan is married to Michael Halle, a senior strategist with the Buttigieg campaign. There is no evidence any preference of candidates had any effect on the coding issue that is stalling the Iowa results.
Acronym launched with a promise to compete with the Trump campaign’s strong emphasis on digital media, launching Democratic messages through paid advertisements on Facebook and other platforms. But the source said the company in many ways was woefully unprepared for the many challenges it had taken on, including the Iowa caucus app.
A precinct captain for Sanders, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press, confirmed that the rollout was rushed. “We didn’t know about the app until like a month ago. And we didn’t have access to the app until like three days ago,” the source said.
“This app has never been used in any real election or tested at a statewide scale and it’s only been contemplated for use for two months now,” David Jefferson, who also serves on the board of Verified Voting, a nonpartisan election integrity organization, told the New York Times.
Federal campaign finance records show that the Iowa Democratic Party and the Nevada Democratic Party retained Shadow to develop its caucus app. Shadow has also been retained for digital services by Buttigieg’s campaign, which paid the company $42,500 for software-related services last July, and by Joe Biden’s campaign, which paid Shadow $1,225 for text messaging services, last July as well.
Shadow was launched by former staffers to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, including Niemira, Krista Davis, Ahna Rao, and James Hickey, according to professional biographies listed on LinkedIn. Shadow did not respond to a request for comment.
Acronym, which includes a hybrid model of a 501(c)4 entity that does not disclose donors and a Super PAC that does, has been a favorite for deep-pocketed Democratic donors. Donald Sussman, the founder of Paloma Partners, and Michael Moritz, a partner at Sequoia Capital, each donated $1 million to Acronym last year. Filmmaker Steven Spielberg gave $500,000. Investor Seth Klarman, once a major donor to Republican causes, gave $1.5 million to Acronym.
Acronym appears to have deleted portions of its website showcasing its involvement in Shadow. “ACRONYM is thrilled to announce the launch of Shadow, a new technology company that will exist under the ACRONYM umbrella and build accessible technological infrastructure and tools to enable campaigns to better harness, integrate and manage data across the platforms and technologies they all use,” wrote Niemira in a now-deleted blog post.
This morning, William McCurdy II, the chair of the Nevada Democratic Party, released a statement announcing that the party will not be using the Shadow app for its February caucus.
“NV Dems can confidently say that what happened in the Iowa caucus last night will not happen in Nevada on February 22nd. We will not be employing the same app or vendor used in the Iowa caucus,” said McCurdy. “We had already developed a series of backups and redundant reporting systems, and are currently evaluating the best path forward.”
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders makes it to the stage to address supporters with his wife Jane Sanders during his caucus night watch party on February 3, 2020 in Des Moines, Iowa. (photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)
How Bernie's Iowa Campaign Organized Immigrant Workers at the Factory Gates
Meagan Day, Jacobin
Day writes: "On Monday at noon, Iowa's first caucus-goers filtered into a union hall in Ottumwa. Fourteen of them were there to caucus for Bernie Sanders, almost all immigrants, primarily from Ethiopia but also from Honduras and Macedonia. They were workers at JBS Pork, the largest employer in Wapello County."
Meagan Day, Jacobin
Day writes: "On Monday at noon, Iowa's first caucus-goers filtered into a union hall in Ottumwa. Fourteen of them were there to caucus for Bernie Sanders, almost all immigrants, primarily from Ethiopia but also from Honduras and Macedonia. They were workers at JBS Pork, the largest employer in Wapello County."
EXCERPTS:
Two-and-a-half thousand workers are employed at Ottumwa’s JBS plant. They come from nearly fifty countries. Their job is hard and can be dangerous. At a separate JBS facility in Kentucky, an ammonia leak sent fifty-one workers to the hospital. When hog waste from a JBS plant in Illinois spilled into a nearby waterway, it killed sixty-five thousand fish. In Ottumwa, JBS has been fined for not letting workers use the bathroom when they need to. Court documents from a little over a year ago say it was common knowledge that “If you say you are hurt and need to see an outside doctor, they will just fire you.”
Sanders himself struck a similar note in Iowa on Monday, saying, “I think we need a campaign that can reach out to working people, many of whom have become disillusioned with the political establishment and have given up on voting. I think we can bring many of them back into the process.”
In Ottumwa, the Sanders campaign put these values into motion and went directly to workers themselves. Immigrants with language barriers who work night shifts are not high-priority canvass targets for typical political campaigns, but the Sanders campaign met them at the factory gates and in their homes, talked to them about their struggles, and converted them into primary voters.
That approach sets the Sanders campaign apart not just from his competitors, but from every presidential candidate in modern American history. And it can put him and his “political revolution” on a path to victory.
Female members of Congress wearing white, hold up three fingers for the HR3 health care bill as Donald Trump talks about healthcare during his State of the Union address. (photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters)
Taunts, Groans and Walkouts: Trump's State of the Union Stokes Division With Cascade of Lies
David Smith, Guardian UK
Smith writes: "Tuesday felt worse than ever. Poison was in the air."
David Smith, Guardian UK
Smith writes: "Tuesday felt worse than ever. Poison was in the air."
EXCERPTS:
Now, more than ever, Trump can throw caution to the winds and act with impunity, fearless of retribution.
This is always the busiest night of the year for the nation’s factcheckers, but Trump delivered a State of the Union address overflowing with untruths, for example promising to protect patients with pre-existing conditions at the very moment his administration is in court trying to take those protections away,
He also pulled off a stunt that even the Trump of three years ago might have hesitated over. Right there, in front of the hallowed chamber packed with senators, representatives, supreme court justices and guests including Nigel Farage, he announced the presidential medal of freedom – America’s highest civilian honour – for talkshow host Rush Limbaugh.
Limbaugh, who revealed this week that he is suffering from advanced lung cancer, is notorious for countless sexist, racist and homophobic comments. His song “Barack the Magic Negro” claimed that President Obama “makes guilty whites feel good” and that Obama is “black, but not authentically”. Limbaugh once described a woman who wanted her university to alter its health insurance to cover contraception as a “slut” and “prostitute”.
When the president asked his wife, Melania, to hang the medal around Limbaugh’s neck there and then, Democrats audibly gasped and groaned in disbelief. Katie Hill, a former congresswoman who had returned to the chamber, tweeted: “Oh FFS Rush Limbaugh getting the Medal of Honor is a low I sure wasn’t expecting.”
Not for the first time, they remained riveted to their seats, stony-faced, as Republicans rose, cheered laddishly and applauded long and hard. “Thank you, Rush!” shouted one man. Here it was, impeachment revenge: not so much about honouring Limbaugh as goading liberals. Trump is the master of finding a wedge issue and hammering it like a tent peg.
Donald Trump Jr, the president’s eldest son, recently published a book titled Triggered. It’s all about “owning the libs”. No tweet caught it better than Republican strategist Andrew Surabian: “Forcing a room full of Democrats to have to watch Rush Limbaugh receive the medal of honor is the greatest own the libs moment in American history and I loved every second of it.”
But perhaps the hero of the night was Fred Guttenberg, who lost his 14-year-old daughter in the Parkland, Florida, school shooting. Forced to listen as Trump promised to defend gun rights and offered nothing to curtail future massacres, Guttenberg yelled out from the public gallery and was forcibly removed by a plainclothes police officer.
As the presidential cascade of lies continued, it was a sobering reminder of all that is at stake in November’s election.
Radio personality Rush Limbaugh was awarded the Medal of Freedom by First Lady Melania Trump during the State of the Union address on February 4, 2020. (photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
One of America's Most Prominent Racists Just Received the Presidential Medal of Freedom
Laura McGann, Vox
McGann writes: "Presidents have bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on some of America's greatest writers, artists, entertainers, journalists, and humanitarians - from Toni Morrison to Ansel Adams to Edward R. Murrow to Betty Ford. On Tuesday night, President Donald Trump gave it to one of America's most prominent racists."
EXCERPT:
READ MORE
Laura McGann, Vox
McGann writes: "Presidents have bestowed the Presidential Medal of Freedom on some of America's greatest writers, artists, entertainers, journalists, and humanitarians - from Toni Morrison to Ansel Adams to Edward R. Murrow to Betty Ford. On Tuesday night, President Donald Trump gave it to one of America's most prominent racists."
EXCERPT:
Limbaugh, like Trump, was a longtime birther. Trump was an early birther adopter and kept spreading the conspiracy nine months into his presidency.
Limbaugh’s racist rants continued beyond the 2008 election and started long before.
- In 1990, Newsday reported that Limbaugh snapped at a black caller who confronted him, saying, “Take the bone out of your nose and call me back.” (Limbaugh denies he said this.)
- In 2007, Limbaugh joked he was “singing a song in my head here during the break: ‘Barack, the Magic Negro, doo doo do doo.’”
- In 2004, he suggested that professional basketball players were criminals: “You just gotta be who you are, and I think it’s time to get rid of this whole National Basketball Association. Call it the TBA, the Thug Basketball Association, and stop calling them teams. Call ’em gangs,” he said.
- Three years later, Limbaugh described professional football players the same way. “Look, let me put it to you this way. The NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it.”
- In 2011, he mocked a speech by the president of China, saying on air, “Hu Jintao was just going, ‘Ching cha. Ching chang cho chow. Cha chow. Ching cho. Chi ba ba ba. Kwo kwa kwa kee.” Limbaugh continued this at length, then said, “Nobody was translating, but that’s the closest I can get.”
- In 2016, Limbaugh claimed that Obama’s race “amplified malcontent operations like Black Lives Matter. It gave rise to a thugocracy, and nobody had the guts to speak out against it for fear of what would happen to them.”
READ MORE
According to NASA, Mary Jackson 'may have been the only black female aeronautical engineer in the field' in the 1950s. Singer and actress Janelle Monáe plays her in the film Hidden Figures. (photo: Bob Nye/NASA Langley)
Before #BlackLivesMatter: The Roots of Black Digital Activism
Charlton D. McIlwain, YES! Magazine
McIlwain writes: "Will our current or future technological tools ever enable us to outrun White supremacy?"
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Charlton D. McIlwain, YES! Magazine
McIlwain writes: "Will our current or future technological tools ever enable us to outrun White supremacy?"
READ MORE
Honduran migrants traveling with a larger group prepare to be deported after being stopped by Guatemalan police in Morales, Guatemala, Thursday, Jan. 16, 2020. (photo: Moises Castillo/AP)
Women and Children Make Up Majority of Asylum-Seekers Sent to Guatemala Under Trump Deal
Camilo Montoya-Galvez, CBS News
Montoya-Galvez writes: "Women and children make up a majority of the nearly 400 asylum-seekers the Trump administration has shipped to Guatemala since it began implementing a controversial agreement with that Central American nation."
READ MORE
Camilo Montoya-Galvez, CBS News
Montoya-Galvez writes: "Women and children make up a majority of the nearly 400 asylum-seekers the Trump administration has shipped to Guatemala since it began implementing a controversial agreement with that Central American nation."
READ MORE
A Nez Perce tribal member fishes for Chinook Salmon in Idaho in May 2001. (photo: Bill Schaefer/Getty Images)
Indigenous Tribes Are at the Forefront of Climate Change Planning in the US
Naveena Sadasivam, Grist
Sadasivam writes: "As climate change leads to consistently warmer temperatures and lower river flows, researchers expect that fish kills will become much more common. Tribal members living on the Nez Perce reservation are preparing for this new normal."
READ MORE
Naveena Sadasivam, Grist
Sadasivam writes: "As climate change leads to consistently warmer temperatures and lower river flows, researchers expect that fish kills will become much more common. Tribal members living on the Nez Perce reservation are preparing for this new normal."
READ MORE
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