Secret, Foreign Money Floods Into Obama Campaign SECRET MONEY More than half of the whopping $426.9 million Barack Obama has raised has come from small donors whose names the Obama campaign won't disclose. The Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee began September with $95 million in cash, according to reports filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). The McCain camp and the Republican National Committee had $94 million, because of an influx of $84 million in public money. But Obama easily could outpace McCain by $50 million to $100 million or more in new donations before Election Day, thanks to a legion of small contributors whose names and addresses have been kept secret. Unlike the McCain campaign, which has made its complete donor database available online, the Obama campaign has not identified donors for nearly half the amount he has raised, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). Federal law does not require the campaigns to identify donors who give less than $200 during the election cycle. However, it does require that campaigns calculate running totals for each donor and report them once they go beyond the $200 mark. Surprisingly, the great majority of Obama donors never break the $200 threshold…But those small donations have added up to more than $200 million, all of it from unknown and unreported donors. Already, the FEC has noted unusual patterns in Obama campaign donations among donors who have been disclosed because they have gone beyond the $200 minimum. FEC and Mr. Doodad Pro When FEC auditors have questions about contributions, they send letters to the campaigns finance committee requesting additional information, such as the complete address or employment status of the donor. In a letter dated June 25, 2008, the FEC asked the Obama campaign to verify a series of $25 donations from a contributor identified as Will, Good from Austin, Texas. Mr. Good Will listed his employer as Loving and his profession as You. A Newsmax analysis of the 1.4 million individual contributions in the latest master file for the Obama campaign discovered 1,000 separate entries for Mr. Good Will, most of them for $25. In total, Mr. Good Will gave $17,375. Following this and subsequent FEC requests, campaign records show that 330 contributions from Mr. Good Will were credited back to a credit card. But the most recent report, filed on Sept. 20, showed a net cumulative balance of $8,950 still well over the $4,600 limit. There can be no doubt that the Obama campaign noticed these contributions, since Obamas Sept. 20 report specified that Good Wills cumulative contributions since the beginning of the campaign were $9,375. In an e-mailed response to a query from Newsmax, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt pledged that the campaign would return the donations. But given the slowness with which the campaign has responded to earlier FEC queries, theres no guarantee that the money will be returned before the Nov. 4 election. Similarly, a donor identified as Pro, Doodad, from Nando, NY, gave $19,500 in 786 separate donations, most of them for $25. For most of these donations, Mr. Doodad Pro listed his employer as Loving and his profession as You, just as Good Will had done. But in some of them, he didnt even go this far, apparently picking letters at random to fill in the blanks on the credit card donation form. In these cases, he said he was employed by VCX and that his profession was VCVC. Following FEC requests, the Obama campaign began refunding money to Doodad Pro in February 2008. In all, about $8,425 was charged back to a credit card. But that still left a net total of $11,165 as of Sept. 20, way over the individual limit of $4,600. Just as with Mr. Good Will, there can be no doubt that the Obama campaign noticed the contributions, since its Sept. 20 report specified that Doodads cumulative contributions since the beginning of the campaign were $10,965. Foreign Donations And then there are the overseas donations at least, the ones that we know about. The FEC has compiled a separate database of potentially questionable overseas donations that contains more than 11,500 contributions totaling $33.8 million. More than 520 listed their state as IR, which the FEC often uses as an abbreviation for "information requested." Another 63 listed it as UK, the United Kingdom. More than 1,400 of the overseas entries clearly were U.S. diplomats or military personnel, who gave an APO address overseas. Their total contributions came to just $201,680. But others came from places as far afield as Abu Dhabi, Addis Ababa, Beijing, Fallujah, Florence, Italy, and a wide selection of towns and cities in France. Until recently, the Obama Web site allowed a contributor to select the country where he resided from the entire membership of the United Nations, including such friendly places as North Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/8npeYfKI_ns&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/8npeYfKI_ns&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
The title of this thread is extremely misleading. Anyways, the article points out two shady donors to whom the Obama campaign delayed refunding donations. Are these isolated cases, or indicative of a larger pattern? These two cases, alone, amounts to not even 1/100th of a percent of the total donations from small donors his campaign has received. It's hard to say just how serious this problem could be.
Frankly, why wouldn't they. It's certainly in their interest and it's a low cost/high return strategy. An Obama honeymoon could foster a period of international cooperation and tolerance after 8 years of unilateralism and confrontation. The key would be what Iran would do with the opportunity. Would they become an acceptable member of the world community or would they try to advance a radical agenda. At present the US accepts a lot of shady characters; and, the youth of Iran certainly have a chance to change the tact of their aging regime. It could be that easing off the vilification would give them the latitude to become more active against the ruling theocracy. You never really know the effects of unintended consequences until you look back at them. But historically, democratic presidents are fairly bullish on national defense though typically more covertly. I don't think a president Obama would want to run a second campaign where he was an easy target as weak against any international power.
I am beginning to think you would only seek to make light of my views... an object of your glee, if you will. I hope not. See my new thread. 9 out 10 conspiracy theorists love it!
I wouldn't seek to make light of your views. I would seek to put you in a room with reasonable people so that, whether we agreed or not, you might leave that room never again thinking it possible that Obama was a Muslim terrorist and never again thinking that Muslim terrorists would be pleased by an Obama presidency. We can disagree reasonably on reasonable issues. This is not one of them. Your view, as expressed in this thread, is utter madness. Sorry. It just is.
It's not about whether Obama is a Muslim. Or how much "might" be coming from Iran to his campaign. I don't think any of that makes much difference. The US government is a gnat-to-be-ignored if it doesn't comply with the world's globalization plan. Count on it. Whether we support Israel or not, in the long run they'll be fine. And Iran, or whoever attacks them, will not. These are of course, opinions. Madness? Perhaps the "common" views of the majority have defined that word already. Welcome to the mad, mad world, my friend. You're late to the show.
What a completely phony and misleading thread. You should be ashamed, OMR. <embed FlashVars='videoId=117466' src='http://www.thedailyshow.com/sitewide/video_player/view/default/swf.jhtml' quality='high' bgcolor='#cccccc' width='332' height='316' name='comedy_central_player' align='middle' allowScriptAccess='always' allownetworking='external' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' pluginspage='http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer'></embed>
Obama is the candidate that railed on the Bush Administration's 'secrecy' and lack of open government? Sure does look hypocritical now... The problem is that Obama (former citizen of Kenya) continues to block access to information. That raises alarm bells, particularly when you consider the very radical associates from his past and their ties to nefarious movements across the world. Most people aren't even aware that his Constitutional eligibility to run for President is being challenged in Philadelphia and he is refusing to provide information, instead choosing to delay discovery and use legal tricks to postpone the process and run out the clock. HO HO HO
Did ya'll watch the video attached here in this thread? Pathetic. Just pathetic. I especially enjoy the "evil" Arabic-ish music in the background. But I'm sure it's being disseminated to every usually-Democrat older Jew so that they can freak the f*** out and not vote for Obama. Not to mention every other overly-impressionable need-an-excuse-not-to-vote-for-a-black-guy fool in this country. I'm sure you'd have a Persian or two putting money into Obama's coffer, but to a small extent. Why don't we get some propaganda about who's trying to get McCain elected? Oh, yeah---because no one in his own party even gives a crap about him. But I'm sure we could find one or two Arab, given the fact that this current administration has been very good to the Saudis, and that at first blush, McCain would be more likely to keep them happy than Obama....cha-ching!
Great post, though I don't think the Obama-Iran campaign ties have much of any truth. Just another attempt by McInsane crew to divert attention to the issues of the election.
the hilarious thing is omr tried to come off as one of the more reasonable republicans just last week.
