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

Brad Haslett flybrad at gmail.com
Wed Oct 29 09:02:04 EDT 2008 

Those folks at the WaPo are so smart!  Six days before the election
they "smell a rat".  Boy that was some fast journalistic investigating
boys and girls. I'm sure they've been watching this since July when
Geller first spotted what was happening.

Brad

---------------

Obama Accepting Untraceable Donations
Contributions Reviewed After Deposits

By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 29, 2008; A02

Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign is allowing donors to use
largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be
used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to
give or to mask a contributor's identity, campaign officials
confirmed.

Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign
has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent
potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its
accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing
its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.

The Obama organization said its extensive review has ensured that the
campaign has refunded any improper contributions, and noted that
Federal Election Commission rules do not require front-end screening
of donations.

In recent weeks, questionable contributions have created headaches for
Obama's accounting team as it has tried to explain why campaign
finance filings have included itemized donations from individuals
using fake names, such as Es Esh or Doodad Pro. Those revelations
prompted conservative bloggers to further test Obama's finance vetting
by giving money using the kind of prepaid cards that can be bought at
a drugstore and cannot be traced to a donor.

The problem with such cards, campaign finance lawyers said, is that
they make it impossible to tell whether foreign nationals, donors who
have exceeded the limits, government contractors or others who are
barred from giving to a federal campaign are making contributions.

"They have opened the floodgates to all this money coming in," said
Sean Cairncross, chief counsel to the Republican National Committee.
"I think they've made the determination that whatever money they have
to refund on the back end doesn't outweigh the benefit of taking all
this money upfront."

The Obama campaign has shattered presidential fundraising records, in
part by capitalizing on the ease of online giving. Of the $150 million
the senator from Illinois raised in September, nearly $100 million
came in over the Internet.

Lawyers for the Obama operation said yesterday that their "extensive
back-end review" has carefully scrubbed contributions to prevent
illegal money from entering the operation's war chest. "I'm pretty
sure if I took my error rate and matched it against any other campaign
or comparable nonprofit, you'd find we're doing very well," said
Robert Bauer, a lawyer for the campaign. "I have not seen the McCain
compliance staff ascending to heaven on a cloud."

The Obama team's disclosures came in response to questions from The
Washington Post about the case of Mary T. Biskup, a retired insurance
manager from Manchester, Mo., who turned up on Obama's FEC reports as
having donated $174,800 to the campaign. Contributors are limited to
giving $2,300 for the general election.

Biskup, who had scores of Obama contributions attributed to her, said
in an interview that she never donated to the candidate. "That's an
error," she said. Moreover, she added, her credit card was never
billed for the donations, meaning someone appropriated her name and
made the contributions with another card.

When asked whether the campaign takes steps to verify whether a
donor's name matches the name on the credit card used to make a
payment, Obama's campaign replied in an e-mail: "Name-matching is not
a standard check conducted or made available in the credit card
processing industry. We believe Visa and MasterCard do not even have
the ability to do this.

"Instead, the campaign does a rigorous comprehensive analysis of
online contributions on the back end of the transaction to determine
whether a contribution is legitimate."

Juan Proaño, whose technology firm handled online contributions for
John Edwards's presidential primary campaign, and for John F. Kerry's
presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee in 2004,
said it is possible to require donors' names and addresses to match
those on their credit card accounts. But, he said, some campaigns are
reluctant to impose that extra layer of security.

"Honestly, you want to have the least amount of hurdles in processing
contributions quickly," Proaño said.

Sen. John McCain's campaign has also had questionable donations slip through.

Dan Pfeiffer, Obama's communication's director, said that "no
organization can fully insulate itself from these problems. The McCain
campaign has accepted contributions from fraudulent contributors like
'A for You,' 'Adorable Manabat,' 'The Gun Shop,' and 'Jesus II' and
hundreds of anonymous donors."

But R. Rebecca Donatelli, who handles online contributions for the
McCain operation and the RNC, said security measures have been
standard in the GOP nominee's fundraising efforts throughout the
campaign. She said she was "flabbergasted" to learn that the Obama
campaign accepts prepaid cards.

"Yes, a gift card would go through the same process as a regular
credit card and be subject to our same back-end review," the Obama
campaign said in its response to questions about the use of such
cards.

Campaign finance lawyers said there is a long history of debate within
the FEC about how to ensure that donors use their own credit cards.

Election lawyer Brett Kappel said the FEC has never grappled with the
question of cash cards. "The whole system is set up for them to accept
the payment, then determine whether it is legal or not. And if it's
not, send it back. That's what the statute requires," he said.



On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 8:32 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, well, well, the MSM is sloooooooly getting around to the story.
> Pam Geller has only been on this since last July.
>
> http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4550749n&tag=centerColumn;centerColumnContent
>
> CBS still couldn't bring themselves to ask the real question: why did
> the Obama campaign turn off the AVS system?
>
> Brad
>
> On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 8:02 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Rummy,
>>
>> Turns out, the "bailout" package had nothing to do with keeping banks
>> solvent.  It was all about keeping you in hootch.
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> ----------------------
>>
>> US territories defend bailout package's rum bill
>>
>> By DAVID McFADDEN, Associated Press Writer
>>
>> Thursday, October 2, 2008
>>
>> (10-02) 17:05 PDT SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) --
>>
>> A tax break for rum produced in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin
>> Islands may trigger a hangover for proponents of Congress' huge
>> bailout bill after the U.S. Senate tacked on tax reductions for the
>> islands' liquor.
>>
>> A group of House Republicans in Washington who have opposed the US$700
>> billion bailout indicated Thursday they would support the bill if it
>> is slashed to US$250 billion and if several tax breaks added by the
>> Senate — including the one for rum — are removed.
>>
>> But authorities in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands pointed out
>> Thursday that the bill to cover federal taxes on rum from the tropical
>> territories dates back to a 1917 act and is typically renewed with
>> little fanfare.
>>
>> "People who didn't notice it previous years, well, they definitely
>> noticed it now due to the financial mess," said Jaime Gonzalez, senior
>> policy adviser for Puerto Rico's nonvoting representative in Congress.
>>
>> Territory officials says the measure is not a payout to rum producers,
>> and the proceeds help finance infrastructure and public services.
>>
>> Ryan Alexander, the president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a
>> Washington-based watchdog group, said including tangential items such
>> as the rum provision in the midst of a high-stakes debate over a
>> historic bailout package was "pulled out of an old bag of tricks."
>>
>> "Many of these tax extenders have been waiting in the wings for
>> months, hoping for a legislative train to leave the station,"
>> Alexander said in Washington. "In these times of historic economic
>> turmoil, it is hard to believe that these narrow tax benefits are in
>> the best interests of the country."
>>
>> Donna Christensen, the nonvoting congressional delegate from the U.S.
>> Virgin Islands, denied the rum measure is "pork barrel" spending. She
>> described it as part of Washington's traditional benefits to the
>> governments of the U.S. islands, where rum is a key industry. The tax
>> break expired on Dec. 31, 2007, and the bill would extend it.
>>
>> In Washington, a group of 23 House Republicans — 20 of whom voted "no"
>> on Monday to the bailout — held a news conference Thursday to call for
>> the amount of bailout to be lowered and for the removal of the four
>> tax breaks. Republican Rep. David Hobson of Ohio called the add-ons
>> "outrageous."
>>
>> In its current form, the estimated cost of the U.S. Caribbean rum tax
>> proposal, which provides payment to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin
>> Islands for rum imported into the mainland, is US$192 million over 10
>> years.
>>
>> ___
>>
>> Associated Press writer Andrew Taylor in Washington contributed to this story.
>>
>> (This version CORRECTS Corrects to $250 billion in graf 2.)
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Oct 27, 2008 at 7:50 AM,  <R22RumRunner at aol.com> wrote:
>>> Paul,
>>> Do you really mean that someone can actually buy a political office? I'm
>>> appalled.
>>>
>>> Rummy
>>>
>>>
>>> In a message dated 10/27/2008 8:22:25 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
>>> pdgrand at nospam.wmis.net writes:
>>>
>>> David,
>>>
>>> No, I don't think it's any kind of conspiracy  either.  What I think is
>>> that it's a shameful attempt to collect a  much larger sum total of
>>> donations so that he can try to essentially buy  the election.  He's also
>>> making it easy for contributors to get around  the maximum limit.  Why
>>> won't he make the information public as John  McCain did?
>>>
>>> Paul
>>>
>>>> I made a contriubtion to the McCain site  with an improper address and
>>>> it went through just fine.  We'll  see if it hits my credit card.
>>>>
>>>> The Obama site asked people to  certify that I was authorized to give
>>>> the money, as did the McCain  site.  It didn't ask for the secuirty
>>>> code on my card, but it's  not the only e-commerce site that doesn't.
>>>>
>>>> Is it your  contention that this is a conspiracy of Obama and/or his
>>>> campaign, to  allow foreign interests to contribute and that he will
>>>> somehow be  indebted?
>>>>
>>>> If true, throw him in jail and throw away the key.  But I don't believe
>>>> it's true.  I don't believe in the conspiracy  theory.
>>>>
>>>> I have no problem at all with Obama forgoing public  financing and
>>>> raising a ton of money.  I have no problem with him  changing his mind
>>>> on that topic. I think it's interesting to see  people voting with
>>>> their wallets.
>>>>
>>>>  Dave
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Fri, Oct 24, 2008 at 10:44 AM,   <pdgrand at nospam.wmis.net> wrote:
>>>>>  Brad,
>>>>>
>>>>> I've intentionally waited awhile before posting  on this subject.  I
>>>>> wanted
>>>>> to hear specifically  what the Obama supporters had to say on the
>>>>> subject.
>>>>>  Is it just me or have they been strangely silent about this?  I  think
>>>>> this
>>>>> is a major issue because it speaks of the  character of the man and his
>>>>> campaign (along with other issues he  prefers to skirt or not respond
>>>>> to).
>>>>> Why is no one on  this list from the left leaning persuasion addressing
>>>>>  or
>>>>> speaking up about this?  Is it a non-issue for  them?
>>>>>
>>>>> Ben C., you're a thoughtful voice for that  side.  If I've missed one of
>>>>> your or other's posts on this  subject, please forgive me.  If you would,
>>>>> please re-send  it.  If not, please let me hear your opinion on this.
>>>>>  Specifically, how can this not matter to you?
>>>>>
>>>>> Even  though I won't vote for him, I honestly and respectfully want to
>>>>>  believe in him because he may be my next President.  So far, I'm  having
>>>>> a
>>>>> hard time believing he is anything but a  dirty, sleazy, smooth-talking,
>>>>> corupt politician.  I think  Brad's right.  He's got a lot of people in
>>>>> this country  fooled.
>>>>>
>>>>> Paul
>>>>>
>>>>>> 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.
>>>>>>  __________________________________________________
>>>>>> To  subscribe/unsubscribe or for help with using the mailing list go  to
>>>>>> http://www.rhodes22.org/list
>>>>>>  __________________________________________________
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>  __________________________________________________
>>>>> To  subscribe/unsubscribe or for help with using the mailing list go  to
>>>>> http://www.rhodes22.org/list
>>>>>  __________________________________________________
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>  --
>>>> David Bradley
>>>> +1.206.234.3977
>>>>  dwbrad at gmail.com
>>>>  __________________________________________________
>>>> To  subscribe/unsubscribe or for help with using the mailing list go to
>>>>  http://www.rhodes22.org/list
>>>>  __________________________________________________
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
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