Murphy elopes with his publicist

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Founder of Soros-funded 'propaganda' news network has visited Biden's White House nearly 20 times

Courier Newsroom CEO Tara McGowan has close access to Biden's White

Here’s a hagiography about Murphy’s new hottie — he’s obviously in good hands as he drives for the presidency:

Published November 3, 2020

Tara McGowan, the 34-year-old founder and CEO of the progressive political org Acronym was running late to Politico’s Women Rule conference last December at the JW Marriott in Washington, D.C. Women Rule is a full day of back-to-back discourse among dazzling power women—Nancy Pelosi popped over for a 40-minute sit-down with Politico’s senior Washington correspondent and premier badass Anna Palmer shortly after announcing the Articles of Impeachment against President Donald Trump—and the atmosphere is downright heady, an estrogenic bath of passion and purpose. McGowan slipped into the full ballroom during a session in which three prominent opinion makers were talking about the difficulties of being female in a male-dominated universe. After a few minutes of polite panelist cross talk, McGowan leaned over to her seatmate and whispered, “When do we get to the part where we just take over?”

She could run that panel herself, having launched something of an insurgency in the world of big-money, big-D Democratic political fundraising, trying to modernize the methods campaigns use to influence “we the people.” As entrepreneurial missions go, hers was bracingly succinct: to make sure Donald Trump doesn’t get re-elected.

Acronym is a digital-first, data-driven nonprofit that was built, according to its “about” page, to advance “progressive causes through innovative communications.” Its affiliated super PAC Pacronym can’t give money directly to a campaign; its employees aren’t even allowed to talk to people working on a campaign. But super PACs can fund political communications, and they often outspend the campaigns themselves. Acronym is the majority investor in the local-news-site organization Courier Newsroom and the communications firm Lockwood Strategy. Courier, which supports local-news sites across multiple states, has drawn fire for intentionally serving up a "progressive" point of view to readers. One could say that reporting a positive take on a local congresswoman bringing health funding to her community is slanted, but it's not fake news.

…. Shadow had dissolved by July, but McGowan and Acronym hadn’t, and she continued her march toward November 3, strategically spending the $100 million she’s raised from investors and donors such as Steven Spielberg, Laurene Powell Jobs, Jeffrey Katzenberg, and George Soros’s Democracy PAC.

Acronym is a digital-first, data-driven nonprofit that was built, according to its “about” page, to advance “progressive causes through innovative communications.” Its affiliated super PAC Pacronym can’t give money directly to a campaign; its employees aren’t even allowed to talk to people working on a campaign. But super PACs can fund political communications, and they often outspend the campaigns themselves. Acronym is the majority investor in the local-news-site organization Courier Newsroom and the communications firm Lockwood Strategy. Courier, which supports local-news sites across multiple states, has drawn fire for intentionally serving up a "progressive" point of view to readers. One could say that reporting a positive take on a local congresswoman bringing health funding to her community is slanted, but it's not fake news.

McGowan herself will tell you that the structure of Acronym is complex, in the same legal-but-sometimes-frustrating way of similar Republican groups. And it’s true that her data-driven, no-consultants evangelism has upset the ecosystem of the establishment, which pumps most of its money into traditional media. But there’s a reason seasoned investors (many of whom have been flexing their political muscle nearly as long as McGowan has been alive) have given her their trust—i.e., their money—and made hers one of the largest organizations of its kind on the Left and the only one run by a woman.

Watching her pitch what she’s selling to a very small group of very rich capitalists, you see the storyteller in her come out, as she deftly mixes emotion and logic into something quite persuasive. A digital native whose impatience with boomer naivete sometimes trickles out, McGowan has a throwback, almost WWII-era idealism about the sanctity of American democratic principles. Like many successful entrepreneurs of her generation, she possesses what The New Yorker’s Andrew Marantz has called a “techno-utopian” viewpoint, writing, “McGowan doesn’t seem reckless or sinister enough to intentionally rig an election. Rather, she seems…starry-eyed…prone to believing that a wide array of societal ills can be cured by another innovation, another round of investment, or another app.”

It’s an apt description, but it doesn’t quite capture the hard-knocks realpolitik animating her vision. She’s faced a lot considering she is the founder of a three-and-a-half-year-old business; it’s understandable that she’s grown more suspicious of the transactional nature of D.C. relationships.

McGowan talked with Marie Claire via Zoom from her home/temporary HQ in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, about building a progressive organization, achieving instant notoriety, and, well, just taking over.


Marie Claire: You studied journalism, not computer science. How did you build a $100 million digital-first, multiple-entity organization?
Tara McGowan: I’m a digital native. I didn’t have any formal training, but I was on the Internet from age 10. I was probably within the first 10,000 or 20,000 people on Facebook. In 2013, I got a call from a billionaire I’d never heard of in San Francisco named Tom Steyer. He flew me to San Francisco to start an organization making climate change a voting issue for young people. I was his second hire at NextGen Climate [now NextGen America]. I ran the first digital independent expenditure [i.e., PAC money] program, I think, in the country. Working for Tom is where I started building my reputation as a political strategist thinking differently about how we communicated online, especially in terms of [targeted] advertising.

….

MC: So, about that mission…
TM: From day one, it has been to build power and a digital infrastructure for the progressive movement. We didn’t have the digital strategies, tools, or the will to figure out a better way to get facts and progressive narratives into the news feeds, and psyches, of voters—especially those not paying attention to mainstream media. If we’re not countering disinformation on the same feeds, we’ve lost the information war, which is how Trump was able to be elected. We didn’t fully understand how information was reaching voters because we were using the 2012 playbook and Trump was playing [with] 2016’s.

This part should give any normal person pause before committing to the harridan, but then, Murphy is no normal person – a normal politician, yes, but that’s a different entity entirely:

MC: You must have been a pretty tough kid.
TM: I think it’s because I grew up fighting with my dad. We’re both argumentative, and it made me a strong debater, confident to have the courage of my convictions. It’s pissed off every person in every restaurant my entire life because we get into screaming fights in public.

Look for fun nights out on the D.C. dining circuit.

Uh oh

Lara’s going to have her work cut out for her if she’s to get her lover into the White House: The Washington Post released Top Ten list for preferred presidential nominees this weekend, and Big Ears ain’t on it. Tara’s probably on the phone with Soros and his son as I write _ we’ll see if that works when the next WaPo list comes out.

Oh, why me Lord, why ME?

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Connecticut, NY, and Maine have done the same thing, and their befuddled citizens will be asking the same question in the very near future.

Harhs, but fair — Glenn Reynolds sums it up: I GUESS STUFF LIKE THIS IS WHY THE WORD “RETARDED” IS COMING BACK INTO VOGUE:

Or, as a wise man once cautioned …

Well, yes, you don't want to rush that kind of decision before all extenuating circumstances are considered

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Boy, 10, crushed to death when 340-pound foster mom sits on him because he was ‘acting up’

A 10-year-old Michigan boy died after his obese foster mom sat on him for five minutes for “acting up” — crushing him under her 340-pound frame.

Jennifer Wilson told police young Dakota Stevens had fled from her home that morning, and that he was misbehaving after she retrieved him from a neighbor’s house.

Wilson said the 91-pound boy threw himself on the front lawn outside her home, at which point she sat on him while calling his caseworker as he screamed and eventually stopped moving.

Of course it’s a sad, tragic story; this detail also makes it a horrible one:

She was fostering three other children in her Berrien County home, but a Department of Child Services spokesman confirmed to the outlet that “her foster parent license is now suspended and being reviewed for permanent revocation.”

“Suspended”? “Reviewed”? WTF?

"There's not a penny to be cut — the cupboard is bare" N. Pelosi

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“Looking good, JP, looking good”

DOGE says $312M in SBA loans were given to children during COVID pandemic

DOGE said it identified that the Small Business Administration (SBA) granted nearly 5,600 loans for $312 million to borrowers whose only listed owner was 11 years old or younger at the time of the loan.

"While it is possible to have business arrangements where this is legal, that is highly unlikely for these 5,593 loans, as they all also used an SSN with the incorrect name," the agency wrote.

But not to worry, all ages were welcome to the ball:

3,095 SBA loans for $333 million went to borrowers over 115 years old.

(Much) more of this, please

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good riddance

ICE arrests Palestinian leader of Columbia’s anti-Israel protests, revoking student visa and green card

A Palestinian activist who led the disruptive anti-Israel protests at both Columbia University and Barnard College has been arrested by ICE agents at his campus apartment, according to his lawyer.

Mahmoud Khalil, a former graduate student who got his undergraduate degree in Beirut and completed his studies at Ivy League Columbia in December, also reportedly faces having his visa revoked and his green card canceled following President Trump’s crackdown on unrest at colleges.

He was inside his university-owned apartment a few blocks from campus Saturday night when ICE agents entered the residence and took him into custody, attorney Amy Greer told AP. [Question — if he is no longer a student, why was he permitted to remain in student housing?]

While a student, Khalil headed up student-run group Apartheid Divest, and was a lead negotiator during last spring’s protracted student protest on campus, in which dozens of tents jammed the lawn of the Morningside Heights campus.

He was also a political affairs officer with UNRWA — the United Nations’ agency that supports Palestinian refugees, which Israel says have been infilatred by Hamas — from June through November 2023, according to his LinkedIn.

Despite graduating months ago, Khalil has remained active in recent disruptive actions, including last week’s takeover of the Milstein Library at Barnard College. Videos and photographs posted on X depict him holding a bullhorn near the library entrance and engaged in discussion with school administrators.

As agents raided the apartment, the school put out a statement addressing the presence of agents in the vicinity of the campus, and stated its intention not to cooperate with ICE’s lawful actions except where required by law. [A bold, oh-so-brave stand that’s already cost the school $400 million, with more to come — well, to go*]

…. Last September, Khalil and his group were among those taking part in the Columbia campus takeover at the start of the school year. Local and state leaders, including Gov. Kathy Hochul condemned the protests, calling on school officials to enforce disciplinary codes and impose “swift actions” to punish wrongdoers, a source told The Post at the time.

Khalil told a Post reporter during September’s raucous protests that anti-Israel student organizers were undeterred, and promised to ramp up their actions, including establishing future encampments.

*Free Beacon:

The administration appears likely to pull more taxpayer funds from Columbia. The anti-Semitism task force is actively probing $5 billion worth of Columbia’s grants and contracts over the Ivy League institution’s "apparent failure" to protect Jewish students.

The Land of Muskeg, Mosquitos and Mounties? We don't want any of it, eh?

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Forget America's 'Red Scare.' Canada's 'Red, White, and Blue Scare' Is Beyond Parody

Don Brand, Calgary Herald: The U.S. will "invade" Canada and annex it as the 51st state.

But we’re learning to take Trump at his own words. Now he wants to tear up the 1908 treaty that fixed our border.

He told Prime Minister Justin Trudeau he considers the agreement invalid. He’s after land, the Great Lakes and access to rivers.

This is the Putin playbook. Claim that you own territory, then take it.

If Canada doesn’t agree to Trump’s mythical new boundary, the next step is sending troops to secure it.

What happens if fighting begins?

“Looking at the sheer size of the American military, many people might believe that Trump would enjoy an easy victory,” Dr. Ahmad wrote in a widely circulated article. *

That analysis is dead wrong, she says, because the result would not be determined by a fight between conventional armies.

“Rather, a military invasion of Canada would trigger a decades-long violent resistance, which would ultimately destroy the United States.

I know this because I have studied insurgencies around the world for more than two decades, and I have spent time with ordinary people who have fought against powerful invading armies.

All of which just shows the dangers of playing hockey without a helmet.

* Published in the widely circulated [sic] publication, “The Conversation”

We publish trustworthy and informative articles written by academic experts for the general public and edited by our team of journalists.

Speaking of artists, I asked X-Grok to create a picture “in the style of” the nation's former foremost painter (Updated)

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Crack pipe in that left hand? You’d have to ask Grok, because I didn’t specify it (although I would have had I thought of it)

Sic transit gloria mundi, am I right? Up until not too very long ago, Hunter Biden’s entry on the Georges Bergès Gallery’s “Our Artists” page touted him as an up-and-coming master:

A lawyer by profession, Hunter Biden now devotes his energies to the creative arts, bringing innumerable experiences to bear. The results are powerful and impactful paintings ranging from photogenic to mixed media to the abstract. His chosen substrates are canvas, YUPO paper, wood, and metal on which he affixes oil, acrylic, ink along with the written word; all of which creates a unique experience that has become his signature.

Georges Bergès himself was in on the charade, saying of Hunter back in Feb. 2023, by all accounts with a completely straight face: “I know that there’s a lot of politics involved at the moment which is a shame because his work is not only good, it’s important. Hunter Biden will become one of the most consequential artists in this century because the world needs his art now more than ever.”

Gaza for Gazans — no one else wants them — and let them work things out for themselves. Or not.

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The great thing about an AI picture generator is that you can toss in things like pyramids, whether or not they can actually be seen from Gaza (okay, the can’t — it’s what we artists call “an ironic reference”)

A Realistic Future For Gaza

France, Germany, Italy and the U.K. are now backing the Egyptian/Arab plan to rebuild Gaza at a cost of $53 billion, while leaving the Gazans in place. This proposal is touted as a “realistic” alternative to President Trump’s “Middle East Riviera” concept.

Perhaps I am an outlier here, but I am not in favor of any plan to rebuild Gaza at the expense of others. Should Gaza’s attempted genocide really be rewarded with $53 billion in other people’s money? I think Gazans need to learn the lesson that it is a bad idea to start a war, and lose it.

The burden should be on them to build some kind of normal economy, and actually do productive work instead of living on global welfare. Their sad enclave should be reconstructed only to the extent they can pay for it, and are willing to prioritize construction over terrorism.

There is no track record to suggest that Gazans, given the opportunity, will do anything so rational. In the meantime, they should live with the consequences of their own sadistic folly, unaided by others.