| And now it begins | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: philville dejazzd.com (philville dejazzd.com)
|
|
| Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2008 04:40:52 -0700 (PDT) | |
In ref. to "Secret Foreign Money"
This is only my opinion. Nothing based on facts, if for no reason
other than facts seem to come and go as they please.
As I said on Oct. 3rd at10:58 pm.... "SWIFT BOATS, because you know
they are
coming soon!"........I do not know what is true and what is not, so
I will hve to go with my gut
I believe that John McC is a great man and gave a lot, but 2
things....
1) Having spent 6 to 7 years of his life in a prison camp is not a
great reason to have ones finger poised over the doomsday button.
2) He may be a great (and knowledgable) statesman but I do not feel
that he is the apprpriate communicator to get us back to being the
Unitd States of America that has presided over world affairs in the
past.
Phil
----- Original Message -----
From: Rich <Richf355 [at] comcast.net>
Date: Saturday, October 4, 2008 12:05 am
Subject: Re: [Ferrari] Latest Government Actions (NFC) OT
To: Phil Tegtmeier <philville [at] dejazzd.com>
Cc: The FerrariList <ferrari [at] ferrarilist.com>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Adam" <flatcrank [at] gmail.com>
> To: "Rich" <RichF355 [at] comcast.net>
> Cc: "The FerrariList" <ferrari [at] ferrarilist.com>
> Sent: Friday, October 03, 2008 8:39 PM
> Subject: Re: [Ferrari] Latest Government Actions (NFC) OT
>
>
> > This is depressing.
> >
> > I don't see any evidence of Obama raising half a billion (from
> whom?)> and why wouldn't the McCain campaign be all over it?
> >
> > Looking at the FEC site, it seems like Obama has a total of
> $400M and
> > with many donations above $2000, there's no obvious "foreign" -
> -
> > what's the process for identifying the sources?
> >
> >===================================
>
> This story seems to answer the questions you have.
>
> Secret, Foreign Money Floods Into Obama Campaign
> Monday, September 29, 2008 9:23 PM
>
> By: Kenneth R. Timmerman
>
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
> And questions have arisen about millions more in foreign
> donations the Obama
> campaign has received that apparently have not been vetted as
> legitimate.
>
> Obama has raised nearly twice that of John McCain's campaign,
> according to
> new campaign finance report.
>
> But because of Obama's high expenses during the hotly contested
> Democratic
> primary season and an early decision to forgo public campaign
> money and the
> spending limits it imposes, all that cash has not translated
> into a
> financial advantage - at least, not yet.
>
>
> 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.
>
>
> "Contributions that come under $200 aggregated per person are
> not listed,"
> said Bob Biersack, a spokesman for the FEC. "They don't appear
> anywhere, so
> there's no way of knowing who they are."
>
>
> The FEC breakdown of the Obama campaign has identified a
> staggering $222.7
> million as coming from contributions of $200 or less. Only $39.6
> million of
> that amount comes from donors the Obama campaign has identified.
>
>
> It is the largest pool of unidentified money that has ever
> flooded into the
> U.S. election system, before or after the McCain-Feingold
> campaign finance
> reforms of 2002.
>
>
> Biersack would not comment on whether the FEC was investigating
> the huge
> amount of cash that has come into Obama's coffers with no public
> reporting.
>
> But Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for CRP, a campaign-finance
> watchdog group,
> dismissed the scale of the unreported money.
>
>
> "We feel comfortable that it isn't the $20 donations that are
> corrupting a
> campaign," he told Newsmax.
>
>
> But those small donations have added up to more than $200
> million, all of it
> from unknown and unreported donors.
>
>
> Ritsch acknowledges that there is skepticism about all the
> unreported money,
> especially in the Obama campaign coffers.
>
>
> "We and seven other watchdog groups asked both campaigns for
> more
> information on small donors," he said. "The Obama campaign never
> responded,"
> whereas the McCain campaign "makes all its donor information,
> including the
> small donors, available online."
>
>
> The rise of the Internet as a campaign funding tool raises new
> questions
> about the adequacy of FEC requirements on disclosure. In pre-
> Internet
> fundraising, almost all political donations, even small ones,
> were made by
> bank check, leaving a paper trail and limiting the amount of fraud.
>
>
> But credit cards used to make donations on the Internet have
> allowed for far
> more abuse.
>
>
> "While FEC practice is to do a post-election review of all
> presidential
> campaigns, given their sluggish metabolism, results can take
> three or four
> years," said Ken Boehm, the chairman of the conservative
> National Legal and
> Policy Center.
>
>
> 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 campaign's finance committee requesting additional
> information, such as
> the complete address or employment status of the donor.
>
>
> Many of the FEC letters that Newsmax reviewed instructed the
> Obama campaign
> to "redesignate" contributions in excess of the finance limits.
>
>
> Under campaign finance laws, an individual can donate $2,300 to
> a candidate
> for federal office in both the primary and general election, for
> a total of
> $4,600. If a donor has topped the limit in the primary, the
> campaign can
> "redesignate" the contribution to the general election on its books.
>
>
> 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 Obama's Sept. 20 report specified that Good Will's
> 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,
> there's 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 didn't 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.
>
>
> Here again, LaBolt pledged that the contributions would be
> returned but gave
> no date.
>
>
> In February, after just 93 donations, Doodad Pro had already
> gone over the
> $2,300 limit for the primary. He was over the $4,600 limit for
> the general
> election one month later.
>
>
> In response to FEC complaints, the Obama campaign began
> refunding money to
> Doodad Pro even before he reached these limits. But his credit
> card was the
> gift that kept on giving. His most recent un-refunded
> contributions were on
> July 7, when he made 14 separate donations, apparently by credit
> card, of
> $25 each.
>
>
> 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 Doodad's
> 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," often
> an
> abbreviation for Iran. 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.
>
>
> Unlike McCain's or Sen. Hillary Clinton's online donation pages,
> the Obama
> site did not ask for proof of citizenship until just recently.
> Clinton's
> presidential campaign required U.S. citizens living abroad to
> actually fax a
> copy of their passport before a donation would be accepted.
>
>
> With such lax vetting of foreign contributions, the Obama
> campaign may have
> indirectly contributed to questionable fundraising by foreigners.
>
>
> In July and August, the head of the Nigeria's stock market held
> a series of
> pro-Obama fundraisers in Lagos, Nigeria's largest city. The
> events attracted
> local Nigerian business owners.
>
>
> At one event, a table for eight at one fundraising dinner went
> for $16,800.
> Nigerian press reports claimed sponsors raked in an estimated
> $900,000.
>
> The sponsors said the fundraisers were held to help Nigerians
> attend the
> Democratic convention in Denver. But the Nigerian press
> expressed skepticism
> of that claim, and the Nigerian public anti-fraud commission is
> now
> investigating the matter.
>
>
> Concerns about foreign fundraising have been raised by other
> anecdotal
> accounts of illegal activities.
>
>
> In June, Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi gave a public speech
> praising Obama,
> claiming foreign nationals were donating to his campaign.
>
>
> "All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa
> applauded this
> man," the Libyan leader said. "They welcomed him and prayed for
> him and for
> his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate
> contribution
> campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency..."
>
>
> Though Gadhafi asserted that fundraising from Arab and African
> nations were
> "legitimate," the fact is that U.S. federal law bans any
> foreigner from
> donating to a U.S. election campaign.
>
>
> The rise of the Internet and use of credit cards have made it
> easier for
> foreign nationals to donate to American campaigns, especially if
> they claim
> their donation is less than $200.
>
>
> Campaign spokesman LaBolt cited several measures that the
> campaign has
> adopted to "root out fraud," including a requirement that anyone
> attending
> an Obama fundraising event overseas present a valid U.S.
> passport, and a new
> requirement that overseas contributors must provide a passport
> number when
> donating online.
>
>
> One new measure that might not appear obvious at first could be
> frustrating
> to foreigners wanting to buy campaign paraphernalia such as T-
> shirts or
> bumper stickers through the online store.
>
>
> In response to an investigation conducted by blogger Pamela
> Geller, who runs
> the blog Atlas Shrugs, the Obama campaign has locked down the store.
>
>
> Geller first revealed on July 31 that donors from the Gaza strip
> had
> contributed $33,000 to the Obama campaign through bulk purchases
> of T-shirts
> they had shipped to Gaza.
>
> The online campaign store allows buyers to complete their
> purchases by
> making an additional donation to the Obama campaign.
>
>
> A pair of Palestinian brothers named Hosam and Monir Edwan
> contributed more
> than $31,300 to the Obama campaign in October and November 2007,
> FEC records
> show.
>
>
> Their largesse attracted the attention of the FEC almost
> immediately. In an
> April 15, 2008, report that examined the Obama campaign's year-
> end figures
> for 2007, the FEC asked that some of these contributions be
> reassigned.
>
> The Obama camp complied sluggishly, prompting a more detailed
> admonishment
> form the FEC on July 30.
>
>
> The Edwan brothers listed their address as "GA," as in Georgia,
> although
> they entered "Gaza" or "Rafah Refugee camp" as their city of
> residence on
> most of the online contribution forms.
>
>
> According to the Obama campaign, they wrongly identified
> themselves as U.S.
> citizens, via a voluntary check-off box at the time the
> donations were made.
>
>
> Many of the Edwan brothers' contributions have been purged from
> the FEC
> database, but they still can be found in archived versions
> available for CRP
> and other watchdog groups.
>
>
> The latest Obama campaign filing shows that $891.11 still has
> not been
> refunded to the Edwan brothers, despite repeated FEC warnings
> and campaign
> claims that all the money was refunded in December.
>
>
> A Newsmax review of the Obama campaign finance filings found
> that the FEC
> had asked for the redesignation or refund of 53,828 donations,
> totaling just
> under $30 million.
>
>
> But none involves the donors who never appear in the Obama
> campaign reports,
> which the CRP estimates at nearly half the $426.8 million the
> Obama campaign
> has raised to date.
>
>
> Many of the small donors participated in online "matching"
> programs, which
> allows them to hook up with other Obama supporters and
> eventually share
> e-mail addresses and blogs.
>
>
> The Obama Web site described the matching contribution program
> as similar to
> a public radio fundraising drive.
>
>
> "Our goal is to bring 50,000 new donors into our movement by
> Friday at
> midnight," campaign manager David Plouffe e-mailed supporters on
> Sept. 15.
> "And if you make your first online donation today, your gift
> will go twice
> as far. A previous donor has promised to match every dollar you
> donate."
>
> FEC spokesman Biersack said he was unfamiliar with the matching
> donation
> drive. But he said that if donations from another donor were
> going to be
> reassigned to a new donor, as the campaign suggested, "the two
> people must
> agree" to do so.
>
>
> This type of matching drive probably would be legal as long as
> the matching
> donor had not exceeded the $2,300 per-election limit, he said.
>
>
> Obama campaign spokesman LaBolt said, "We have more than 2.5
> million donors
> overall, hundreds of thousands of which have participated in
> this program."
>
>
> Until now, the names of those donors and where they live have
> remained
> anonymous - and the federal watchdog agency in charge of
> ensuring that the
> presidential campaigns play by the same rules has no tools to
> find out.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> © 2008 Newsmax. All rights reserved.
>
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And, go to: ... www.PhilvilleUSA.com
-
And now it begins philville dejazzd.com, October 4 2008
-
Re: And now it begins jimshadow, October 4 2008
-
Re: And now it begins Tom Reynolds, October 4 2008
- Re: And now it begins, etc. Rick Lindsay, October 4 2008
- Re: And now it begins, etc. Tom Reynolds, October 4 2008
-
Re: And now it begins Tom Reynolds, October 4 2008
-
Re: And now it begins jimshadow, October 4 2008
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