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While McGowan has received praise for founding and serving as CEO of the digital-first Democratic outfit ACRONYM, a nonprofit organization that aims to spend a massive $75 million on digital ads combating President Donald Trump during the 2020 election, shes also received blowback.

In particular, her groups sprawling and opaque structure has frustrated fellow Democrats, with some arguing that ACRONYMs company-within-a-company collection of progressive news sites, consulting services and experimental merchandise vendors lacks transparency regarding its payments to consultants and staff, obscuring potential conflicts of interest or governance issues.

They point to the mix of for-profit entities under the nonprofit parent company as especially problematic.

People are really frustrated and skeptical about the structure that Tara has created, said one Democratic operative, who did not want to be quoted for risk of alienation. Theres a nonprofit and then there are for-profits below it, like a nesting doll. Its moving money around in a way thats unclear to people.

Other critics acknowledge that McGowan is a talented messenger but argue she revved up her donors on the idea that her fellow Democrats were not doing enough while getting clobbered by Trump online in order to launch ACRONYMs $75 million anti-Trump digital program, and then has been slow to spend the money she pledged to bring to the fight.

To them, Shadows failure in Iowa was not shocking, nor was the way ACRONYM sought to distance itself from the organization in the wake of the caucuses.

In a tweet on Tuesday, McGowan called Shadow an independent company ACRONYM invested in.

We dont have any information beyond the public statements the IDP has put out + like all of you, eagerly await learning what happened and who won the IA caucus, McGowan wrote, referencing the Iowa Democratic Party. In a statement posted on Twitter, ACRONYM said it was not a technology company and had not provided any technology to the Iowa Democratic Party, Presidential campaigns, or the Democratic National Committee.

But ACRONYM trumpeted the group in 2018, and Shadow staffers work in the same offices as ACRONYM, according to a person familiar with the group.

Its the cover-up that f---ing kills you. The idea that [McGowan] was out there saying no one has any idea who was involved with this. Youre telling me she had no idea the firm she launched was being hired to run this project? said one longtime Washington Democratic operative.

Critics of ACRONYM declined to speak on the record because they are concerned about maintaining party unity and retribution from the groups donors. Allies declined to speak on the record to POLITICO, too, saying they didnt want to become a part of the online firestorm surrounding Shadow. McGowan is a talented operative who has rapidly built a powerful organization and helped the party in 2018, they said.

From my perspective, shes been able to raise a lot of funds and help state legislative races, said one Democrat familiar with McGowans work.

Shadows failure in Iowa has fed skepticism of the increasingly popular venture-style approach to Democratic infrastructure that ACRONYM reflects. The organization, which has ties to big Silicon Valley donors including LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, is busting norms in Democratic politics. But while some Democrats see such risk-taking as being absolutely necessary in order for the party to win elections, others argue it has no place playing a role during a high-stakes caucus night.

Jane Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party and a critic of big-money investment in Democratic data infrastructure, said she would never consider using an app with funding from Silicon Valley to help Nebraska select delegates or with other processes.

My bottom line as party chair is we should not be using electronic voting for any elections at the party level or for candidates, Kleeb said. It's just not an accessible form of voting and having your voice heard for older voters or for people with different disabilities, visual disabilities.

McGowan, who is in her mid-30s, directed digital strategy at Priorities USA Action, the main super PAC aiding Hillary Clinton during her 2016 White House campaign. But McGowan clashed with Priorities USA Chairman Guy Cecil over how to approach digital advertising, which had become a major part of the election for the first time in 2016.

Even though both McGowan and Cecil run major anti-Trump Democratic groups, the two have had virtually no relationship since McGowan left Priorities USA after the 2016 election, according to multiple people familiar with the situation.

McGowan launched ACRONYM after Trumps election as a digital-first political organization" with the goal of electing progressive Democrats, mostly in state legislative races. The group quickly attracted attention, especially in Silicon Valley, from newly galvanized major donors including LinkedIns Hoffman, who was wading into politics and looking for projects to disrupt the Democratic status quo. (Hoffman and other donors in his network took a chance on ACRONYM, McGowan told POLITICO in 2019.)

More recently, longtime Democratic donors Steven Spielberg and Hollywood producer Jeffrey Katzenberg cut six-figure checks to the groups affiliated super PAC, PACRONYM.

McGowan created ACRONYM as a 501(c)(4), an increasingly common type of political nonprofit. But then she did something highly unusual: She began buying and forming new, for-profit companies affiliated with ACRONYM but still separate from it.

Those for-profits include Shadow, which ACRONYM launched in January 2019 after spending nearly $1 million to acquire a peer-to-peer texting company called Groundbase that provided the underlying technology, according to information shared with POLITICO at the time. McGowan is also raising $25 million for a liberal local news network, Courier Newsroom, that will generate left-leaning political news content and then pay to have the content placed favorably in individuals Facebook feeds.

McGowans own digital consulting company, Lockwood Strategy, also received $1 million in payments from ACRONYMs PAC during the fall of 2018, disclosures show, for work marked as Digital Ad Buy.

Proponents of McGowans approach say Democrats need to be willing to experiment and move quickly, investing in projects like Shadow and Courier Newsroom, if they want to match Trumps prowess online.

But skeptics in the Democratic Party are unsure why Shadow or Courier Newsroom are being run as separate, for-profit companies, which shields them from even the minimal transparency that ACRONYM is subject to. When ACRONYM files mandatory tax disclosures, it must reveal top employees salaries and payments to its biggest consultants, and provide assurances that the ACRONYM empires different arms arent paying the same people multiple salaries basic assurances to the nonprofits donors.

Everything may be perfectly above board here. Then again, it may not be, said nonprofit attorney Marcus Owens, a partner at Loeb & Loeb. For example, a nonprofit like ACRONYM may want to maintain a for-profit company so it can offer shares in the company to top employees, Owens said. It will be possible to discern some more information about ACRONYMs relationship with the companies when more tax filings for the group are publicly available, Owens said.

Kyle Tharp, spokesman for ACRONYM, did not answer questions POLITICO posed about ACRONYMs structure.

ACRONYM ballooned in 2019, thanks in part to support from David Plouffe, Obamas celebrated 2008 campaign manager and a former senior vice president at Uber. Plouffe joined the groups board in the fall of 2019. In November, ACRONYM announced it would spend $75 million on digital advertising to counter Trumps online spending onslaught.

Three months later, that deluge of spending has barely begun, despite McGowans public urgency: ACRONYM spent only $781,000 on advertising on Facebook and Google since the start of November, according to the tracking firm Advertising Analytics. (It has likely spent some money other places online, but Google and Facebook are major hubs for political advertising.)

ACRONYM had also announced last year it would spend $1 million on digital ads focused on impeaching Trump, but with its total spending at less than $1 million, its not clear whether that spending materialized.

Tharp, the ACRONYM spokesperson, wrote in an email that ACRONYM has spent spent several million dollars since July 2019 across Facebook, Google, Hulu under various campaign and brand names.

On Monday, Shadow was one part of a caucus meltdown that could have ramifications for years to come on Iowas first-in-the-nation status. Precinct captains reported issues logging into Shadow, and the Iowa Democratic Party said a coding issue was to blame for the technical woes.

By Tuesday, Shadow had issued an apology, tweeting, We sincerely regret the delay in the reporting of the results of last nights Iowa caucuses and the uncertainty it has caused to the candidates, their campaigns, and Democratic caucus-goers.

And the Nevada Democratic Party, which has also paid Shadow, preemptively announced that it would not use the app.

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, state party chairman William McCurdy II said in a statement.

Zach Montellaro and Laura Barron-Lopez contributed to this report.

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The divisive Democratic operative behind Shadow, the app that broke Iowa - POLITICO

Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville sounded the alarm bells on Tuesday night over what he described as the Democratic Party turning into an ideological cult, specifically singling out would-be presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

In the wake of Monday nights chaotic Iowa Democratic caucus that featured delayed vote results due to a faulty app, Carville appeared on MSNBC to warn that regardless of the final tallies, the Dems appear to be in big trouble.

The polling averages have not been very good the last 10 days, he sighed. And Ive seen some pretty good polls that show enthusiasm among Democrats is not as high as we would like it. So theres something as people are watching this process that is concerning.

Saying the party needs to wake up and make sure that we talk about things that are relevant to people, the former Clinton adviser grumbled that he is not very impressed with the Democratic field and suggested DNC chair Tom Perez should be canned.

After complaining that the campaigns have to be more relevant, Carvillewho is backing longshot presidential hopeful Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) was asked if he would get behind Sanders if the progressive senator ended up getting the nomination.

Well, Ill get behind him. I have no choice, an unenthused Carville replied. But look at the British Labour Party. Were like talking about people voting from jail cells. Were talking about not having a border. I mean, come on, people.

He continued to rail against Sanders policy positions, describing the independent Vermont lawmaker as being for open borders and stressing that he doesnt want the Democratic Party of the United States to be the Labour Party of the United Kingdom, something he's told The Daily Beast before.

Carville would go on to exclaim that Democrats need to be more concerned about taking power back in Washington, repeatedly stating that only 18 percent of the population controls 52 Senate seats.

It matters who the candidate is, it matters what a party chooses to talk about! Carville shouted. Im 75 years old. Why am I here doing this? Because I am scared to death, thats why! Lets get relevant here, people, for sure.

I just love you, former Democratic senator and current MSNBC contributor Claire McCaskill cooed in response.

Carville, meanwhile, went on to make his case that the party was leaning towards a centrist candidate over a liberal one, wondering out loud: Do we want to be an ideological cult? Or do we want to have a majoritarian instinct to have the majority party?

You and I know that 18 percent of the country elects 52 senators, he continued, addressing McCaskill. The urban core is not gonna get it done. What we need is power! Do you understand? Thats what this is about.

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James Carville Rages Over State of Dem Party: 'I'm Scared to Death!' - The Daily Beast

This will be the Trump campaign agenda throughout 2020 if Mr. Biden gets the Democratic nomination not to portray himself as ethical, but to get voters to say, Well, both of them have scandals, so whatever. And some political journalists will feel compelled to acknowledge the accusations against the Bidens. Theyll offer caveats, of course, as one news story from 2019 did, saying, Theres no evidence that Hunter or his father acted improperly or violated any laws. But the arrangement, government ethics experts say, raises concerns. The raises concerns part is the key it will be just enough to plant seeds of doubt in voters minds about the Democrats ethical commitments.

But the Trump approach is nothing if not flexible. Hed use it against any Democratic nominee. If Mr. Sanders is nominated, Mr. Trump might pull from many things in the senators long political history. For one, Mr. Sanders honeymooned in the U.S.S.R. in 1988. It wouldnt take too much effort for Mr. Trump to suggest that Mr. Sanders did something untoward or un-American during that 10-day trip, and he has friends in high places in the Russian government who could help in this regard.

If its Pete Buttigieg, hell accuse the former mayor of being racist through his leadership in South Bend, Ind., or of being corrupt through his consulting work with McKinsey. If its Elizabeth Warren, hell accuse her of racism, of fraudulently using ancestry claims to get into schools and of taking millions of dollars in shady legal consulting fees.

My argument here is not that Democrats should focus on picking a clean nominee who cant be smeared with scandal. The leading Democrats are all pretty clean. Rather, Im saying that Mr. Trump and his Republican allies will attempt to make the nominee look dirty, legitimately or not, no matter who it is. Thats his one go-to campaign tactic.

Now, its not obvious that this tactic works all that well. According to John Sides, Michael Tessler and Lynn Vavrecks study of the 2016 election, Identity Crisis, media coverage of the general election was a net negative for Mr. Trump. Even while tearing down Mrs. Clintons reputation, he was still at a disadvantage.

On the other hand, the relentless focus on the email scandal most likely pressured James Comey, the F.B.I. director at the time, to announce the agency would review new material in the investigation of Mrs. Clinton in late October of 2016, and that may well have influenced the elections outcome.

But once Mr. Trump starts going after the Democratic nominee this way, Democrats shouldnt kick themselves for not picking a cleaner champion. No matter who it is, Mr. Trump will find a scandal.

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Trump Will Slime His Democratic Opponent, No Matter Who It Is - The New York Times

And it was the inability or unwillingness of the Obama administration to seize the political mantle for change it had won in the election in 2008 that created the conditions for the emergence of Occupy Wall Street and the Black Lives Matter movement. Both of them focused on the systemic problems facing American society. The young people at the center of these movements demanded transformation, not just piecemeal reforms.

By the end of Mr. Obamas first term, 95 percent of the financial gains of his economic recovery plan had gone to the richest 1 percent of the county. In the last decade, median income has stood virtually still. The inattention to Mr. Obamas record, though, has meant that the conventional wisdoms explanation for white voters' defection from the Obama coalition is racist backlash, not economic hardship.

True, Mr. Trump manipulated white racial resentment and peddled the false notion that Mr. Obama was helping black voters at the expense of whites. Surely, however, there must be some connection between the financial stagnation of tens of millions of ordinary white people and the drop in life expectancy driven by opioid addiction, alcoholism and suicide. Economic anxiety is real even when it overlaps with racist pandering.

Of course, its not just white people who express their despair with extreme hopelessness. The suicide rate among African-Americans aged 10 to 19 is rising faster than that of any other group in the United States. Taken together, the moment seems grim, despite all of the chatter about the strength of the economy and the health of the stock market.

The reluctance to fully interrogate the Obama years also means that Mr. Obama continues to have outsize influence in the party even as his cautious governing may have contributed to the disillusionment that played a role in producing Mr. Trump. It means that he is able to continue advocating for centrist politics as the guiding strategy for the party as it seeks to oust Mr. Trump. Last year, Mr. Obama weighed in on Democratic candidates proposals by saying, The average American doesnt think that we have to completely tear down the system and remake it. But aside from his own electoral success, why is he the best judge of the political direction of the party? During his tenure, Democrats lost some 970 seats in state legislatures, 11 governorships, 13 Senate seats and 69 House seats. More Democratic state legislative seats were lost during Mr. Obamas presidency than under any other president in modern history.

Mr. Obamas free pass is also extended to Joe Biden who has strong support among black voters. But we wont really know the sustenance of Mr. Bidens black support until the South Carolina primaries. Mrs. Clinton also had deep black support in 2008 until she didnt. If there looks like an electable alternative he might be in trouble.

Meanwhile, Mr. Biden continues to frame his own candidacy as an extension of the Obama administration. Its unclear what that means. Will it be a continuation of Mr. Obamas financial policies that benefited the richest Americans, including bank and Wall Street executives who were bailed out in the 2008 financial crisis? Or of his dreadful immigration policies that earned him the label Deporter in Chief from immigrant-rights activists? Will it be the same kind of reluctance to take on issues of racial inequality for fear of being pigeonholed as beholden to black interests? Or will it be the never-ending overtures to Republicans in the spirit of bipartisanship?

Democratic leaders are making a risky bet that the winning formula is to highlight Mr. Trumps scandals without doing anything that may make these leaders appear too liberal. In contrast, the surge of Bernie Sanders, whom I support, speaks to the deep desires for substantial change. The Sanders flank of the party is betting that a campaign fueled by big promises of transformative change will attract the tens of millions of disaffected nonvoters who may hold the key to victory.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor (@KeeangaYamahtta), an assistant professor of African-American studies at Princeton, is the author of, most recently, Race for Profit: How Banks and the Real Estate Industry Undermined Black Homeownership.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. Wed like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And heres our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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Democrats Gave Obama a Free Pass. That Could Hurt Us on Election Day. - The New York Times

At this moment there is a bill pending in Congress called the New Way Forward Act. Its received almost no publicity, which is unfortunate as well as revealing.

The legislation is sponsored by 44 House Democrats, including Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. At roughly 4,400 words, its almost exactly as long as the U.S. Constitution.

Like the Constitution, this legislation is designed to create a whole new country. The bill would entirely remake our immigration system, with the explicit purpose of ensuring that criminals are able to move here, and settle here permanently, with impunity.

TUCKER CARLSON: TRUMP'S ACQUITTAL WAS AS PREDICTABLE AS 'TITANIC' - MAYBE NOW WE CAN HAVE OUR COUNTRY BACK

You may think were exaggerating for effect. Were not not even a little.

The New Way Forward act is the most radical single piece of legislation weve seen proposed in this country. It makes the Green New Deal look like the status quo.

A document produced by Democrats to promote the bill says: Convictions should not lead to deportation.

Keep in mind, were not talking about convictions for double parking. The bill targets felony convictions serious crimes that send you to prison for years. A press release from Rep., Jesus Garcia, D-Ill., is explicit about this.

Garcia brags that the bill will break the prison to deportation pipeline. How does the bill do that? Under current U.S. law, legal U.S. immigrants can be deported if they commit an aggravated felony or a crime of moral turpitude that is, a vile, depraved act, like molesting a child.Under the New Way Forward Act, crimes of moral turpitude are eliminated entirely as a justification for deportation.And the category of aggravated felony gets circumscribed too.

What does that mean?

Consider this: Under current law, immigrants who commit serious crimes such as robbery, fraud, or child sexual abuse must be deported, regardless of the sentence they receive. Other crimes less severe ones like racketeering require deportation as long as the perpetrator receives at least a one-year sentence.

But if this bill passes the House and Senate and is signed into law by the president, there will no longer be any crimes that automatically require deportation. None.

And one crime falsifying a passport will be made immune from deportation, no matter what. Because apparently 9/11 never happened, and we no longer care about fake government documents.

If you just renewed your drivers license to comply with the Real ID Act, you must feel like an idiot. Under the proposed legislation, the minimum prison sentence for crimes that still require deportation would rise from one year to five.

We checked the Bureau of Justice Statistics. According to federal data, crimes like car theft, fraud, and weapons offenses all carry average prison sentences of fewer than five years. And thats just looking at averages. There are people who commit rape, child abuse and even manslaughter and receive sentences of fewer than five years. Lots of them.

If the New Way Forward Act becomes law, immigrants who commit those crimes and receive those sentences would remain in the country. Theyll all be eligible for citizenship one day, too.

But even that is understating the laws effect. Even a five-year prison sentence wont necessarily be enough to secure deportation. The bill would grant sweeping new powers to immigration judges, allowing them to nullify a deportation order.

The only requirement is that the immigration judge finds such an exercise of discretion appropriate in pursuit of humanitarian purposes, to assure family unity, or when it is otherwise in the public interest. In other words, anti-American immigration judges and many of them are exactly that would have a blank check to open the borders. No vote required.

Sound shocking to you? Were just getting started. Current U.S. law makes drug addiction grounds for deportation, because why wouldnt it? This bill would eliminate that statute.

Current law also states that those who have committed drug crimes abroad, or any crimes involving moral turpitude, are ineligible to immigrate here. The New Way Forward Act abolishes that statute.

A Mexican drug cartel leader could be released from prison, then freely come to America immediately. And if he wants, he could come here illegally, and it wouldnt be a crime because, and you were waiting for this, the bill also decriminalizes illegal entry into America, even by those previously deported.

According to a document promoting the bill, criminalizing illegal entry into America is white supremacist.

By this point, youre beginning to wonder if were making this up. Were not. In fact, were barely halfway through the bill.

The legislation doesnt just make it harder to deport legal immigrants who commit crimes. It doesnt just make it easier for criminals to legally move here. The bill would also effectively abolish all existing enforcement against illegal immigration.

To detain illegal immigrants, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) would have to prove in court that the illegal immigrants are dangerous or a flight risk. But of course, ICE wouldnt be allowed touse a detainees prior criminal behavior as proof he or she is dangerous. That's banned.

ICE would have to overcome even more hurdles if the detainee claims to be gay or transgender, under 21, or cant speak English and an interpreter isnt immediately available.

In other words, it would be much harder to arrest an illegal alien than it is to arrest you. Theyre the protected class here. Youre just some loser whos paying for it all.

But believe it or not, we saved the nuttiest part for last. What could be more destructive than changing U.S. law, specifically to allow rapists, child molesters, and drug dealers to stay in America? How about this: Using taxpayer money to bring deported criminals back into America.

Thats right. This bill would not only abolish your right to control who lives in your own country, but it invents a new right in return: the right to come home.

The bill orders the government to create a pathway for those previously deported to apply to return to their homes and families in the United States, as long as they would have been eligible to stay under the new law.

The Department of Homeland Security must spend taxpayer dollars transporting convicted criminal illegal aliens into the United States. Who will be eligible for these free flights? Tens of thousands of people kicked out of this country for all kinds of crimes. Sexual abuse. Robbery. Assault. Drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, human trafficking.

From 2002 to 2018, 480,000 people were deported for illegal entry or reentry into America. And under this bill, youd have to buy them all a plane ticket to come back. The tickets alone would cost about a billion dollars, and thats before Democrats make you start paying for these criminals free health care, too. Which they plan to.

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The New Way Forward Act fundamentally inverts every assumption you have about America. Under this legislation, the criminals are the victims. Law enforcement is illegitimate. Its racist, just like the country you live in, and the only solution is to get rid of both. America would be better off as a borderless rest area for the worlds worst predators and parasites.

This is a big deal. Its hard to believe any American would put these ideas on paper, much less pass them into law. Yet, remarkably, the press has ignored it. Scores of Democrats have backed it, but the bill hasnt been mentioned in The New York Times, or on CNN, or even in self-described conservative outlets like National Review.

If a lone Republican state legislator from Minot, N.D., had proposed a bill this extreme, that would remake America this completely, the president himself would be expected to answer for it.

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CNN would demand the president disavow, even if he knew nothing about it. But when one-fifth of the Democratic caucus backs a bill demanding that you pay to import illegal alien felons, its a non-event in American media. They dont think you should know about it. Thats dangerous.

Whether the press cares or not, these are the stakes of the 2020 election. A growing wing of the Democratic Party views America as essentially illegitimate a rogue state, in which everything must be destroyed and remade: our laws, our institutions, our freedoms, our history and our values. Thats the point of all this, of course. An entirely new country, in which resistance is crushed, and theyre in charge forever.

Adapted from Tucker Carlsons monologue on Tucker Carlson Tonight on Feb. 6, 2020.

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Tucker Carlson: Criminals would be protected from deportation under bill AOC and other House Democrats back - Fox News