[Rhodes22-list] How Much for the White House?

[Herb Parsons]

I deliberately sat out one Presidential election since I've been able to 
vote. Actually, I didn't "sit it out" (I had local stuff to vote on), 
but I didn't vote for a President.

I cheered Bush '41 on when he said "Read my lips, no new taxes" and 
soundly defeated Walter Mondale in 1988. Then he broke his promise 
(please, none of the technicalities that they weren't "new" taxes), and 
I remembered the promise when it was time to vote again in '92.

He didn't get my vote. No one did. My people did not vote for him, or 
voted against him, for the same reason.

We, as a nation, have lowered our standards since then.

Brad Haslett wrote:
> The 2008 Presidential campaign will go down in history as the most
> corrupt in our nation, ever. What we're witnessing here is something
> you'd expect in some third-world banana republic. Remember the pledge
> to take public campaign funds?  Vanished down the memory hole like so
> many incriminating characters from the past.  Here's the latest
> example-
>
> ------------------------
>
> October 23, 2008  Posted by Scott at 6:52 AM
>
> We've previously noted the gusher of illegal campaign contributions
> flowing into the Obama campaign from contributors such as "Doodad Pro"
> and "Good Will." More recently, incidents have been reported in which
> people have seen credit card charges surface suggesting they donated
> to Barack Obama when they did not. Matthew Mosk and Sarah Cohen noted
> one such incident earlier this week:
>
>     Now comes the story of Mary T. Biskup, of Manchester, Missouri.
> Biskup got a call recently from the Obama campaign, which was trying
> to figure out why she donated $174,800 to the campaign -- well over
> the contribution limit of $2,300.
>
>     The answer she gave them was simple. "That's an error."
>
> Is the Obama campaign knowingly receiving illegal contributions?
> Yesterday one of our readers reported the results of an experiment he
> conducted:
>
>     I've read recent reports of the Obama campaign receiving donations
> from dubious names and foreign locales and it got me wondering: How is
> this possible?
>
>     I run a small Internet business and when I process credit cards
> I'm required to make sure the name on the card exactly matches the
> name of the customer making the purchase. Also, the purchaser's
> address must match that of the cardholders. If these don't match, then
> the payment isn't approved. Period. So how is it possible that the
> Obama campaign could receive donations from fictional people and
> places? Well, I decided to do a little experiment. I went to the Obama
> campaign website and entered the following:
>
>     Name: John Galt
>     Address: 1957 Ayn Rand Lane
>     City: Galts Gulch
>     State: CO
>     Zip: 99999
>
>     Then I checked the box next to $15 and entered my actual credit
> card number and expiration date (it didn't ask for the 3-didgit code
> on the back of the card) and it took me to the next page and... "Your
> donation has been processed. Thank you for your generous gift."
>
>     This simply should not, and could not, happen in any business or
> any campaign that is honestly trying to vet it's donors. Also, I don't
> see how this could possibly happen without the collusion of the credit
> card companies. They simply wouldn't allow any business to process,
> potentially, hundreds of millions in credit card transactions where
> the name on the card doesn't match the purchasers name.
>
>     In short, with the system set up as it is by the Obama camp, an
> individual could donate unlimited amounts of money by simply making up
> fake names and addresses. And Obama is doing his best to facilitate
> this fraud. This is truly scandalous.
>
> Our reader was not yet done. He tried the experiment on the McCain
> site: "I tried the exact same thing at the McCain site and it didn't
> allow the transaction." He then repeated the experiment at the Obama
> site:
>
>     I went back to the Obama site and made three additional donations
> using the names Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Bill Ayers, all
> with different addresses. All the transactions went through using the
> same credit card. I saved screenshots of the transactions.
>
> Our reader reports, incidentally, that he was using his MasterCard for
> the contributions. We submit this report in the spirit of inquiry and
> would especially appreciate hearing from readers who can illuminate
> how credit card procedures might (or might not) allow this to happen.
>
> UPDATE: Readers have replicated the experiment reported in this post.
> We will have to revisit the issue tonight or tomorrow and appreciate
> any information you can provide in the meantime.
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