Iowa and Democratic Party Corporate Corruption
The Intercept reports: "Sanders Campaign's Internal Caucus Numbers Show Them Leading Iowa, With Biden a Distant Fourth."
Max Blumenthal reports in The Grayzone: "Pro-Israel Buttigieg backer Seth Klarman is top funder of group behind Iowa's disastrous voting app."
Monday night, Chris Hayes asked Democratic Party consultant David Plouffe about his ties to the firm in question, Shadow Inc. and its backer, ACRONYM.
KEVIN GOSZTOLA, kevin at shadowproof.com, @kgosztola
Managing editor of Shadowproof, Gosztola's just had a viral Twitter thread on Shadow Inc. His Twitter thread of a week ago about new Democratic National Committee moves also went viral — see from Commondreams: "Tom Perez Stacks 2020 Convention Committees With 'From the Swamp' Nominations." Gosztola recently wrote the piece: "DNC Defends Diverse Group of Corporate Democrats Appointed to Convention Committees."
Today, he emphasized the pattern of corporate corruption in the Democratic Party establishment. He also scrutinized recent statements by Neera Tanden, former Clinton campaign aide and now president of the Center for American Progress, who tried to blame the Sanders campaign for the confusion in Iowa: "Just remember which campaign asked for reporting of three sets of data." And: "As we wake up and still have no results from the caucus debacle, it's a good time to remember the committee to set the Dem primary calendar was the Unity and Reform Committee. There were defenders of caucuses on the committee. Folks like me argued caucuses were anti-democratic."
Gosztola said today: "But Bernie Sanders' campaign had no role in contracting a startup company to create an app for the caucuses. All his people advocated for as part of the Unity and Reform Committee's recommendations was public reporting of the raw vote totals in caucus states. That could've easily been handled by the Iowa State Democratic Party if they had not added non-essential technology into the mix.
"In fact, Sanders advocated reforms that led Iowa State Democrats to adopt a paper trail that has become the fail-safe for tabulating and verifying caucus results.
"Plus, Iowa Democrats have prided the role these 'neighborhood gatherings' play in the presidential election. They have not wanted to do away with the caucus system so it is not all Sanders' fault for keeping caucuses in the 2020 presidential primary."
Regarding Shadow, Inc., Gosztola said: "The Iowa State Democratic Party kept the public in the dark when it came to the company that was involved in developing the app that was added to the process of reporting results. No explanation has been given for why the company's name was treated as a state secret. As it turns out, individuals who were software and tool developers for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign founded Shadow Inc. It was acquired by a dark money group called ACRONYM in 2019, which was founded by Tara McGowan, a former campaign official for Barack Obama. Her husband works for South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg's campaign, and McGowan has expressed support for Buttigieg.
"It is evident the Iowa State Democratic Party offered a contract to friendly Democrats and failed to take steps to ensure an app could be used by precincts. The net effect of this was to bury the story of Biden doing incredibly poorly in Iowa and that Sanders has apparently done very well."
"Additionally, the Des Moines Register reports, 'Iowa Democratic Party Chairman Troy Price worked as Clinton's 2016 Iowa political director.' This adds to the corruption around creating a process that could be outsourced to a company staffed with multiple former Clinton campaign developers."