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so bammy's gonna "spread the wealth" - all we need to do is "spread the vote" get the so-called silent majority active and out to vote................
Obama Ignores Credit Card Donation Fraud
Tuesday, October 21, 2008 10:01 PM
By: Kenneth R. Timmerman
What do Bart Simpson, Family Guy, Daffy Duck, King Kong, O.J. Simpson and Raela Odinga have in common?
All are celebrities; and with the exception of Odinga and O.J. Simpson, they also are fictional characters. And yet, all of them gave money earlier this month to the campaign of Barack Obama, without any apparent effort by the campaign to screen them out as suspect donors.
The Obama fundraising machine may owe its sensational success in part to a relaxation of standard online merchant security practices, which has allowed illegal donations from foreign donors and from unknown individuals using anonymous “gift” cards, industry analysts and a confidential informant tell Newsmax.
An ongoing Newsmax investigation into the Obama campaign’s finance reports has exposed multiple instances of campaign finance violations and has been cited in a formal complaint to the Federal Election Commission filed by the Republican National Committee on Oct. 6.
Though many of the known violations include donations in excess of the $2,300 per election limit on individual contributions and contributions from foreign nationals, the extent of the amount of fraud is hidden because of a loophole in federal election law.
Campaigns are not required to disclose contributors who donate less than $200 -- and Obama’s campaign refuses to release their names, addresses and donation amounts. Obama has collected a staggering $603.2 million. Most of the money -- $543.3 million -- has come from individual contributors, half of it from “small” donors Obama won’t disclose.
The Obama campaign has turned a blind eye to the possibility of donor fraud. During the heated primary battle with Hillary Clinton, the Obama campaign “turned off” many of the security features on its online donor page, allowing any person with a valid credit card number to donate using any name or address. Typically, card merchants require a cardholder’s name to match critical personal details, such as an address or, at the least, a ZIP code.
Though in recent months the Obama campaign has tightened up security and restored some of the security features used by merchants to weed out fraud, it still has left open easy ways for potential credit card fraud, including techniques similar to those employed by terrorists and drug traffickers to launder illicit funds.
For example, on Oct. 14, an individual using the name “O.J. Simpson” participated in Obama’s latest small-donor fundraising drive, making a $5 donation through the campaign’s Web site.
Giving a Los Angeles address, he listed his employer as the “State of Nevada” and his occupation as “convict.” The donor used a disposable “gift” credit card to make the donation.
The Obama campaign sent O.J. a thank-you note confirming his contribution, and gave him the name of another donor who had agreed to “match” his contribution.
Four minutes earlier, an individual using the name “Raela Odinga” also made a $5 contribution, using the same credit card.
The real Raela Odinga became prime minister of Kenya in April and has claimed to be a cousin of Obama’s through a maternal uncle.
Obama donor “Raela Odinga” listed his address as “2007 Stolen Election Passage” in “Nairobi, KY.” This credit card donation raised no alarm bells in the Obama campaign.
A few minutes earlier, “Daffy Duck” gave $5 to the Obama matching campaign, listing his address as “124 Wacky Way, Beverly Hills, Calif.”
But just as with Odinga’s address, the “Wacky Way” address failed to raise any alarm bells or security traps on the Obama Web site. Daffy Duck also used the same credit card.
Within the hour, three other new donors gave $5 to the Obama campaign. They were:
Bart Simpson, of 333 Heavens Gate, Beverly Hills, Calif.
Family Guy, of 128 KilltheJews Alley, Gaza, GA.
King Kong, of 549 Quinn Street, Capitol Heights, Md.
Newsmax learned of these contributions, which were all made on a single $25 Visa gift card (yes, the total was $30), from a source that requested anonymity.
Calling himself “Bart Simpson,” the tipster said he had been following the Newsmax investigation of Obama’s campaign finance irregularities “with great interest,” and believed that some of the small donations were coming from gift cards -- “you know, the type of disposable debit card you can pick up at Rite-Aid or just about any supermarket.”
[See: Obama Campaign Runs Afoul of Finance Rules]
“I tried it myself a few days ago,” he said. “I’m attaching for you proof of the contributions I made in the names of Daffy Duck, Bart Simpson, Raela Odinga and Family Guy.
“What this means is that the Obama campaign does no verification of the name of the contributor. With a normal credit card, this wouldn’t wor[k], but with these disposable debit cards, no problem!
“This needs to be exposed,” he said.
The tipster attached the confirmation pages from the Obama Web site showing the names of the donors, and in some cases, the names of other Obama donors who had agreed to “match” their contributions.
None of the matching donors’ names appears in the Obama campaign’s public disclosures to the FEC.
Other donors with clearly fictitious names revealed previously by Newsmax, The Los Angeles Times and blogger Pamela Geller (“Atlas Shrugs”) include “Dertey Poiiuy,” “Mong Kong,” “Fornari USA” and “jkbkj Hbkjb.”
Five major companies process the bulk of all credit card transactions made in the United States, industry insiders tell Newsmax. The Obama campaign paid one of them, Chase Paymentech, just over $2 million to process its online transactions.
“We never discuss our relationships with any of our merchants, or customers we work with,” James Wester, a spokesman for Chase Paymentech, told Newsmax.
Newsmax asked whether Chase Paymentech had any security feature that would allow it to identify individuals making contributions using gift cards, but Wester declined to comment.
But other industry analysts, who asked not to be identified by name because of the sensitive nature of the issue, told Newsmax that processors could track gift cards and debit cards “only by the numbers on the cards.”
“There are no names associated with these cards, so as a processor, you have no way of knowing who made the transaction,” one industry analyst said.
Anyone can go into a supermarket or a Rite-Aid and buy a batch of these cards with cash, so there is no trace of the transaction, he added.
“It’s like walk-around money. They could be handing these things out as perks” to newly registered voters or others, “and there’s no way of tracing who is using them.”
Ken Boehm, a lawyer with 30 years of experience in campaign finance law, said that such contributions were clearly illegal.
“Making a contribution in the name of another person is the only part of federal election law that actually carries a criminal penalty,” he told Newsmax. Boehm is the CEO of the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative think tank in Washington, D.C.
The Obama campaign has paid Synetech Group Inc. of Charlottesville, Va., close to $2 million to compile all of the campaign contribution data from online contributors, bundlers, telemarketers, campaign events and direct-mail campaigns, and process it for submission to the FEC.
The sheer scope of the Obama fundraising juggernaut was “never contemplated by the FEC,” a company official told Newsmax, asking not to be quoted by name.
“It’s a lot of data. You’re talking 7 million contributions,” he said.
The campaign itself is responsible for screening out fraudulent donors, not Synetech, he said. “I’ve been doing this for 30 years, and this is as well-managed as any [campaign]. It’s just huge. When it’s this big, any little thing becomes something more than it is.”
One of the biggest problems the campaign faces is fraud, he said. “It’s a colossal problem. They’re paying the campaign with other people’s money.”
Individuals such as “Doodad Pro” and “Good Will” who made hundreds of contributions to the campaign in excess of the legal limits were not working for the campaign, but for themselves, he insisted.
“It’s all fraud. They do it for kicks. Or they’re testing the cards. The campaign doesn’t want this. Why on earth do they want to have all these messy little transactions? It’s a colossal pain.”
However, the campaign itself has solicited these “messy little transactions” in numerous e-mails to supporters.
For instance, just days before the Democratic National Convention in Denver, campaign manager David Plouffe sent an e-mail to supporters, asking them to “make a donation of $5 or more before midnight this Thursday, July 31st, and you could go backstage with Barack.”
Since them, the campaign has run several small donation drives, claiming to “match” donations of $5, $10 or $25 with an equal amount for a previous donor.
Newsmax put a series of questions to the Obama campaign more than a week ago in preparation for this article, such as whether its Internet contribution system automatically matches a donor’s name and address to their credit card number, as is common industry practice with online stores.
Newsmax also asked if the campaign uses a similar security screen to match a donor’s name and address to the card number when the donor uses a debit card or a gift card.
Despite multiple requests from Newsmax, the Obama campaign declined to comment for this story.
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/obama_illegal_donations/2008/10/21/142761.html
by the way - plumbers don't participate in "polls" so let's GO VOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We will win.
probably be too busy "dealin" again
trust me folks - "jeramiah is gonna come bouncing back like a bullfrog" real soon.........in all his "glory"
if I were in the campaign i'd start inundating the airwaves, youtube, anything I could with old jeramiah and pictures of billy bomber ayers buildings blowing up, along with calypso louie's declaration that bammy is the "Messaiah" It's time to play democrat politics and get down and dirty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
now cbs says bammy's trip to see his ailing grandmother shows his true character - HARR! isn't she the same one he "threw under the bus?" -
but remember - schwartzkoff was the theater commander, powell was the chairman of the joint chiefs and therefore called the shots or had the final say in operations
Why can't we all email this article to ALL the so-call main stream outlets and insist they report it????
I'll even dig up the email links and post them here.
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form.sound.off.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Site/page?id=3271346&cat=World%20News%20with%20Charles%20Gibson
http://www.cbsnews.com/ (go to bottom of page and click "contact us"
"I've had enough of your constant griping - you're outta here" - lol
i find it hard to believe that even 2.3% would vote for bammy - however, i'm sure cp had a big influence on "some" of the military vote..............
gotta hit the road for the week - lemme have 6 9 24 48 for Atlanta. Thanks
'Smears' About Obama Largely True
Monday, October 20, 2008 9:32 PM
By: Lowell Ponte
The Obama campaign says its candidate is a victim of “smears” -- and has even created a Web site to fight such attacks.
But a Newsmax investigation finds many of the so-called smears are largely based in truth -- and the Obama campaign uses half-truths, clever language and ad hominem attacks to spin the facts.
Obama’s www.FightTheSmears.com focuses mainly on anti-Obama messages being repeated on the Internet and talk radio, the only media where Obama ideological allies are not dominant.
These “smears” and the Obama rebuttals are often framed in lawyerly language that leaves much wiggle room in the candidate’s answers.
FightTheSmears.com also makes no attempt at objectivity, describing Obama’s critics as “pushing misleading research and distorted claims” because they are “ideologues” busy “spreading a ‘pack of lies’ about Barack.”
In a section of the site titled “Who’s Behind the Smears,” visitors can see a chart naming seven groups and six individuals with lines that suggest multiple, sinister connections between them.
The people and groups named are real, but members of Washington’s small but conservative sphere of power and influence. The Obama conspiracy chart links all of these conservative individuals and groups back to the critics who dogged the “Clinton 1992 Campaign.” This may come as something as a surprise to Hillary Clinton, as many of the “smears” against Obama first surfaced during her heated primary contest with him.
Newsmax reviewed 10 random claims and related rebuttals posted on Obama’s ever-changing FightTheSmears.com to gauge their factuality. Here’s what we found:
Claim No. 1. Obama's campaign is funded by the rich, big corporations and foreigners.
“Barack Obama was the only major presidential candidate this year to completely reject contributions from the Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs that have dominated our politics for years,” the Obama site says of the persistent online criticisms of its fundraising. “Instead, this campaign has been owned by the more than 3.1 million everyday Americans who have donated in small amounts.”
Not so, according to campaign finance records. Nearly half of the $600 million raised by Obama to date has come from wealthy donors and special interests. Obama allies months ago dropped their ad linking Republican rival “Exxon John” McCain to Big Oil after it came to light that Obama had taken far more money from Exxon-Mobil than McCain.
“The Obama campaign has complied fully with federal election law,” claims the Obama site, “including donor eligibility and contribution disclosure requirements.”
However, one giant loophole the politicians wrote into the law allows contributions in amounts of $200 or less with no donor identification. Obama claims that $300 million in campaign funds was given by these small donors, and he won’t release their names and addresses.
McCain has released his whole donor database, including those who have contributed less than $200.
Critics argue that the other half of Obama’s campaign haul -- the part not raised from big corporate donors and special interests -- came in the form of a flood of small, anonymous donations that might be foreign or corrupt, or both.
Claim No. 2. Obama has had a close, ongoing relationship with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.
The Obama site acknowledges that its candidate and Ayers ”served on the board of an education-reform organization in the mid-1990s,” but maintains most stories about the links between Obama and Ayers are phony or exaggerated.
It does not mention that Obama and Ayers worked together on the board distributing millions of dollars with the aim of radicalizing Chicago schoolchildren.
Nor does the site acknowledge that Obama kicked off his first political campaign in the living room of the former Weather Underground leader. [Obama is currently lawyerly saying it was not the first event. Perhaps there was another meeting first at Dunkin Donuts. There is no dispute that one of Obama’s first political events in his first run for public office was held in the Ayers’ home.]
There is also no dispute the Weather Underground bombed the Pentagon and Capitol, the home of a New York Supreme Court justice and a police station, among other targets. FBI agent Larry Grothwohl, who infiltrated the group, has recounted Ayers teaching him how to make bombs and saying, “In the revolution, some innocent people need to die.”
“Smear groups and now a desperate McCain campaign are trying to connect Barack to William Ayers using age-old guilt by association techniques…” says the Obama Web site.
Actually, McCain and Obama critics are questioning why Obama would continue to associate with a man who as recently as 2001 said he did not do enough and wished he had bombed more.
Conservatives also note that if Ayers had bombed abortion clinics, the liberal media would brand him a pariah forever. What does it tell us about the liberal media’s and Obama’s judgment and values that they see nothing wrong with embracing unrepentant terrorist Ayers today?
3. Obama takes advice from executives of troubled mortgage backer Fannie Mae.
“John McCain started smearing Obama about non-existent ties to Fannie Mae in some of his deceptive attack ads,” says FightTheSmears.com. The site downplays connections between Obama and two former heads of the giant mortgage-backing institution -- James A. Johnson and Franklin D. Raines -- whose corruption played key role in the current financial crisis.
But an editorial in the Aug. 27, 2008, Washington Post described Johnson and Raines, as “members of Mr. Obama’s political circle.”
Raines advised the Obama campaign on housing matters. Obama chose Johnson to select his vice presidential running mate. But because neither are advising Obama today, this Web site’s present-tense claim that he “doesn’t [not didn’t] take advice from Fannie Mae execs” is technically, if deceptively, true.
Johnson also reportedly helped raise as much as $500,000 for Obama’s campaign.
And despite Obama’s lack of seniority in the U.S. Senate, he pocketed more than $105,000 in political contributions, the third-highest amount given to any lawmaker, directly from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Obama’s Web site leaves all this unmentioned.
Claim No. 4. Obama has close ties with ACORN, a group suspected of massive voter registration fraud.
Obama’s site says the candidate never an ACORN employee and that ACORN “was not part of Project Vote, the successful voter registration drive [Obama] ran in 1992.”
In defending Obama, the site resorts to smearing former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell -- calling him a “discredited Republican voter-suppression guru” -- for daring to fight the vote fraud so often associated with operatives of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, among the largest radical groups in the United States.
As Newsmax has documented [Clever Obama Tries To Bury ACORN Past], Obama’s Web site is attempting to deceive when it says Obama was never “hired” to work as a trainer for ACORN’s leaders. In fact, he did the work for free from at least 1993 until 2003.
ACORN spokesman Lewis Goldberg acknowledges in the Oct. 11, 2008, New York Times that Obama trained ACORN leaders. And Obama worked as a lawyer for ACORN.
As to heading up Project Vote in Illinois, Obama said during a speech to ACORN leaders last November: When “I ran the Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack-dab in the middle of it.”
Veteran journalist Karen Tumulty described Project Vote in the Oct. 18, 2004, issue of Time magazine as “a nonpartisan arm of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now” after interviewing its national director.
The co-founder of ACORN, former Students for a Democratic Society official Wade Rathke, described Project Vote as one of ACORN’s “family of organizations.”
Over the years ACORN and its front groups, like the one Obama ran in Illinois, have registered more than 4 million voters. When authorities in Virginia checked ACORN registrations, it found that 83 percent were fraudulent or had problems. This in theory could mean ACORN may have created the opportunity for stealing more than 3.3 million votes in this November’s election, a margin far wider than that by which Obama is likely to win.
Claim No. 5. Obama has shown only wavering support for individual gun-ownership rights.
“During Barack’s career in the Illinois and United States Senates, he proudly stood to defend the rights of hunters and sportsmen,” says Obama’s Web site, “while doing everything he could to protect children -- including his own two daughters -- from illegal gun violence.”
But the National Rifle Association, it continues, “is distributing a dishonest and cowardly flyer that makes confrontational accusations and runs away from verifying them.”
Actually, the NRA does a meticulous job of laying out documentation, as Newsmax reported in September [NRA to Fight Obama Over Gun Rights Flip-Flops], to show that Obama has supported handgun confiscation; the handgun ban in Washington, D.C.; a virtual ban on high-powered rifle ammunition; and many other draconian restrictions on Second Amendment rights. If elected, wrote the NRA, Obama “would be the most anti-gun president in American history.”
Claim No. 6. A fervent supporter of abortion rights, Obama supports late-term and partial-birth abortions.
The Obama Web site dismisses such criticism as the work of “radical anti-abortion ideologues running ads against Barack.”
But as an Illinois state senator, Obama voted repeatedly against legislation to protect infants who, during a late-term abortion, were “born alive.” Such protection, he has argued, already exists in Illinois; it does, but is subject to the abortionist’s decision whether such an infant has a good likelihood of survival.
Nurses have reported instances in which surviving aborted babies were left by abortionists to die without water, food or warmth.
Obama’s Web site notes that even the Republican author of one of these bills, former state Sen. Rick Winkel, has written that “None of those who voted against [his bill] favored infanticide.”
True, but Obama’s site does not quote the rest of Winkel’s statement: “[T]heir zeal for pro-choice dogma was clearly the overriding force behind their negative votes rather than concern that my bill would protect babies who are born alive.”
Obama has a 100 percent pro-choice voting record according to NARAL Pro-Choice America; his rating from the National Right to Life Committee is zero.
How extreme is Obama on this issue? In the U.S. Senate he has voted against bills that would prohibit minors from crossing state lines for abortion without parental notification.
"Look, I got two daughters -- 9 years old and 6 years old,” Obama has said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."
Claim No. 7. Obama showed little interest or support for American combat troops during his overseas visits.
Doubts about Obama’s true support for the military cropped up during a campaign trip to Iraq, Afghanistan and Europe.
A widely circulated e-mail, penned by Army Capt. Jeffrey S. Porter, described Obama visit to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan: “As the Soldiers lined up to shake his hand, he blew them off. … He again shunned the opportunity to talk to Soldiers to than them for their service. … I swear we got more thanks from the NBA basketball players or the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders than from [Sen. Obama].”
Porter later recanted, sending a follow-up e-mail that said, in part: “After checking my sources, information that was put out in my e-mail was wrong.” He did not specify which information was wrong, leading Obama skeptics to suspect that this officer has been disciplined by his superiors.
Heading home, Obama touched down in Germany, where he “was scheduled to visit the American hospitals at Ramstein and Landstuhl.” But as The Washington Post reported, Obama “canceled the trips after being told by Pentagon officials that he could only visit in his official capacity as a senator, not as a candidate” and could not have his visits with hospitalized soldiers videotaped by the media.
Prominent liberal mainstream media reporters such as NBC’s Andrea Mitchell rushed to defend Obama, saying that the press had never planned to cover his visits to military sickbeds. But Obama canceled both visits and used his free time instead to shoot hoops, with the media recording his best shots.
Claim No. 8. Barack Obama is not a Muslim.
FightTheSmears.com states bluntly that Obama is a Christian, not a follower of Islam.
In fact, Barack Hussein Obama’s Kenyan father was raised Muslim, though he reportedly was not religious.
His mother divorced and remarried another man, a Muslim from Indonesia. As a youngster in Indonesia, Barack Obama attended two schools and was registered at both as a Muslim. He received religious instruction in both schools as a Muslim, including studying the Koran. According to a childhood friend, attended services at a local mosque occasionally.
Obama’s Muslim upbringing has been detailed in a 2007 Los Angeles Times report (reprinted in the Baltimore Sun) headlined Islam an Unknown Factor in Obama Bid. Middle expert Daniel Pipes has studied the question of Obama’s Muslim faith and says he is “lying” when he says he was never a Muslim.
It’s important to note that Obama’s Web site does not say was never a Muslim. But in the past Obama’s site and FightTheSmears.com did make the claim Obama was never a Muslim. Since that claim is obviously false, it is no longer used.
Obama says he became a Christian in his late 20s. He now describes himself as Christian. Until recently, he spent two decades as a member of a Chicago United Church of Christ congregation that embraces Black Liberation theology. Somewhat like the Roman Catholic liberation theology of Latin America, the Chicago UCC church preaches elements of neo-Marxist class warfare. It combines these radical socialist elements with black racialism.
Claim No. 9. As president, Obama would raise taxes dramatically for most Americans.
Millions of Americans recognize that Obama is likely to raise taxes. But like a good conjurer, who tricks you into watching his right hand while doing things with his left, the Obama Web site assures readers with a red herring.
The Illinois senator will not tax your water, as claimed in some fringe e-mails, FightTheSmears.com maintains.
What Obama will do, however, is tax businesses and capital gains more heavily, even though America already has the world’s second-highest business taxes.
“Now our opponents tell you not to worry about their tax increases” said former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson at the 2008 Republican National Convention. “They tell you they are not going to tax your family. No, they’re just going to tax businesses! So unless you buy something from a business, like groceries or clothes or gasoline … or unless you get a paycheck from a big or a small business, don’t worry. It’s not going to affect you.”
During his campaign Obama has promised to various taxes that will fall on most economic classes, including the dividend tax, the FICA tax cap, the capital gains tax, the estate, and new taxes on gasoline. He also called for the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010, which will automatically raises taxes on most Americans. By backing wishing the Bush cuts to expire, Obama would produce a $2 trillion tax increase that some economists predict will rumble through the already weakened economy like an earthquake.
Claim No. 10. Obama was born outside the United States and is ineligible for the presidency.
The Obama Web site dismisses the claim that the candidate was born anywhere but in the United Stats and “completely false” and “groundless.”
As proof, the Obama’s campaign has produced a “certificate of live birth” from the State of Hawaii indicating that Barack Hussein Obama II was born Aug. 4, 1961. Critics, however say the document could have easily been forged and is not a substitute for certified birth certificate.
No reporter has been allowed to see the original certificate of live birth or its certificate number, which blacked out on copies on the Obama site.
Skeptics note that Obama’s “Father’s Race” is identified on this document as “African,” a geographic and modern politically correct term rather than a 1961 racial designation. The standard term used on American birth certificates until the U.S. Census changed it in 1980 would have been “Negro.”
Former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania Philip J. Berg, a Democrat with mixed credibility (he has supported conspiracy theories involving 9/11), has filed a lawsuit to force Obama to produce a certified copy of his birth certificate. According to Berg, Obama’s paternal grandmother has said she was present at his birth in Kenya, after which his mother promptly returned with her baby to the United States. If that is true, Obama could be constitutionally ineligible to be president.
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/obama_smears_fact_check/2008/10/20/142379.html
'Smears' About Obama Largely True
Monday, October 20, 2008 9:32 PM
By: Lowell Ponte
The Obama campaign says its candidate is a victim of “smears” -- and has even created a Web site to fight such attacks.
But a Newsmax investigation finds many of the so-called smears are largely based in truth -- and the Obama campaign uses half-truths, clever language and ad hominem attacks to spin the facts.
Obama’s www.FightTheSmears.com focuses mainly on anti-Obama messages being repeated on the Internet and talk radio, the only media where Obama ideological allies are not dominant.
These “smears” and the Obama rebuttals are often framed in lawyerly language that leaves much wiggle room in the candidate’s answers.
FightTheSmears.com also makes no attempt at objectivity, describing Obama’s critics as “pushing misleading research and distorted claims” because they are “ideologues” busy “spreading a ‘pack of lies’ about Barack.”
In a section of the site titled “Who’s Behind the Smears,” visitors can see a chart naming seven groups and six individuals with lines that suggest multiple, sinister connections between them.
The people and groups named are real, but members of Washington’s small but conservative sphere of power and influence. The Obama conspiracy chart links all of these conservative individuals and groups back to the critics who dogged the “Clinton 1992 Campaign.” This may come as something as a surprise to Hillary Clinton, as many of the “smears” against Obama first surfaced during her heated primary contest with him.
Newsmax reviewed 10 random claims and related rebuttals posted on Obama’s ever-changing FightTheSmears.com to gauge their factuality. Here’s what we found:
Claim No. 1. Obama's campaign is funded by the rich, big corporations and foreigners.
“Barack Obama was the only major presidential candidate this year to completely reject contributions from the Washington lobbyists and special interest PACs that have dominated our politics for years,” the Obama site says of the persistent online criticisms of its fundraising. “Instead, this campaign has been owned by the more than 3.1 million everyday Americans who have donated in small amounts.”
Not so, according to campaign finance records. Nearly half of the $600 million raised by Obama to date has come from wealthy donors and special interests. Obama allies months ago dropped their ad linking Republican rival “Exxon John” McCain to Big Oil after it came to light that Obama had taken far more money from Exxon-Mobil than McCain.
“The Obama campaign has complied fully with federal election law,” claims the Obama site, “including donor eligibility and contribution disclosure requirements.”
However, one giant loophole the politicians wrote into the law allows contributions in amounts of $200 or less with no donor identification. Obama claims that $300 million in campaign funds was given by these small donors, and he won’t release their names and addresses.
McCain has released his whole donor database, including those who have contributed less than $200.
Critics argue that the other half of Obama’s campaign haul -- the part not raised from big corporate donors and special interests -- came in the form of a flood of small, anonymous donations that might be foreign or corrupt, or both.
Claim No. 2. Obama has had a close, ongoing relationship with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.
The Obama site acknowledges that its candidate and Ayers ”served on the board of an education-reform organization in the mid-1990s,” but maintains most stories about the links between Obama and Ayers are phony or exaggerated.
It does not mention that Obama and Ayers worked together on the board distributing millions of dollars with the aim of radicalizing Chicago schoolchildren.
Nor does the site acknowledge that Obama kicked off his first political campaign in the living room of the former Weather Underground leader. [Obama is currently lawyerly saying it was not the first event. Perhaps there was another meeting first at Dunkin Donuts. There is no dispute that one of Obama’s first political events in his first run for public office was held in the Ayers’ home.]
There is also no dispute the Weather Underground bombed the Pentagon and Capitol, the home of a New York Supreme Court justice and a police station, among other targets. FBI agent Larry Grothwohl, who infiltrated the group, has recounted Ayers teaching him how to make bombs and saying, “In the revolution, some innocent people need to die.”
“Smear groups and now a desperate McCain campaign are trying to connect Barack to William Ayers using age-old guilt by association techniques…” says the Obama Web site.
Actually, McCain and Obama critics are questioning why Obama would continue to associate with a man who as recently as 2001 said he did not do enough and wished he had bombed more.
Conservatives also note that if Ayers had bombed abortion clinics, the liberal media would brand him a pariah forever. What does it tell us about the liberal media’s and Obama’s judgment and values that they see nothing wrong with embracing unrepentant terrorist Ayers today?
3. Obama takes advice from executives of troubled mortgage backer Fannie Mae.
“John McCain started smearing Obama about non-existent ties to Fannie Mae in some of his deceptive attack ads,” says FightTheSmears.com. The site downplays connections between Obama and two former heads of the giant mortgage-backing institution -- James A. Johnson and Franklin D. Raines -- whose corruption played key role in the current financial crisis.
But an editorial in the Aug. 27, 2008, Washington Post described Johnson and Raines, as “members of Mr. Obama’s political circle.”
Raines advised the Obama campaign on housing matters. Obama chose Johnson to select his vice presidential running mate. But because neither are advising Obama today, this Web site’s present-tense claim that he “doesn’t [not didn’t] take advice from Fannie Mae execs” is technically, if deceptively, true.
Johnson also reportedly helped raise as much as $500,000 for Obama’s campaign.
And despite Obama’s lack of seniority in the U.S. Senate, he pocketed more than $105,000 in political contributions, the third-highest amount given to any lawmaker, directly from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Obama’s Web site leaves all this unmentioned.
Claim No. 4. Obama has close ties with ACORN, a group suspected of massive voter registration fraud.
Obama’s site says the candidate never an ACORN employee and that ACORN “was not part of Project Vote, the successful voter registration drive [Obama] ran in 1992.”
In defending Obama, the site resorts to smearing former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell -- calling him a “discredited Republican voter-suppression guru” -- for daring to fight the vote fraud so often associated with operatives of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, among the largest radical groups in the United States.
As Newsmax has documented [Clever Obama Tries To Bury ACORN Past], Obama’s Web site is attempting to deceive when it says Obama was never “hired” to work as a trainer for ACORN’s leaders. In fact, he did the work for free from at least 1993 until 2003.
ACORN spokesman Lewis Goldberg acknowledges in the Oct. 11, 2008, New York Times that Obama trained ACORN leaders. And Obama worked as a lawyer for ACORN.
As to heading up Project Vote in Illinois, Obama said during a speech to ACORN leaders last November: When “I ran the Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack-dab in the middle of it.”
Veteran journalist Karen Tumulty described Project Vote in the Oct. 18, 2004, issue of Time magazine as “a nonpartisan arm of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now” after interviewing its national director.
The co-founder of ACORN, former Students for a Democratic Society official Wade Rathke, described Project Vote as one of ACORN’s “family of organizations.”
Over the years ACORN and its front groups, like the one Obama ran in Illinois, have registered more than 4 million voters. When authorities in Virginia checked ACORN registrations, it found that 83 percent were fraudulent or had problems. This in theory could mean ACORN may have created the opportunity for stealing more than 3.3 million votes in this November’s election, a margin far wider than that by which Obama is likely to win.
Claim No. 5. Obama has shown only wavering support for individual gun-ownership rights.
“During Barack’s career in the Illinois and United States Senates, he proudly stood to defend the rights of hunters and sportsmen,” says Obama’s Web site, “while doing everything he could to protect children -- including his own two daughters -- from illegal gun violence.”
But the National Rifle Association, it continues, “is distributing a dishonest and cowardly flyer that makes confrontational accusations and runs away from verifying them.”
Actually, the NRA does a meticulous job of laying out documentation, as Newsmax reported in September [NRA to Fight Obama Over Gun Rights Flip-Flops], to show that Obama has supported handgun confiscation; the handgun ban in Washington, D.C.; a virtual ban on high-powered rifle ammunition; and many other draconian restrictions on Second Amendment rights. If elected, wrote the NRA, Obama “would be the most anti-gun president in American history.”
Claim No. 6. A fervent supporter of abortion rights, Obama supports late-term and partial-birth abortions.
The Obama Web site dismisses such criticism as the work of “radical anti-abortion ideologues running ads against Barack.”
But as an Illinois state senator, Obama voted repeatedly against legislation to protect infants who, during a late-term abortion, were “born alive.” Such protection, he has argued, already exists in Illinois; it does, but is subject to the abortionist’s decision whether such an infant has a good likelihood of survival.
Nurses have reported instances in which surviving aborted babies were left by abortionists to die without water, food or warmth.
Obama’s Web site notes that even the Republican author of one of these bills, former state Sen. Rick Winkel, has written that “None of those who voted against [his bill] favored infanticide.”
True, but Obama’s site does not quote the rest of Winkel’s statement: “[T]heir zeal for pro-choice dogma was clearly the overriding force behind their negative votes rather than concern that my bill would protect babies who are born alive.”
Obama has a 100 percent pro-choice voting record according to NARAL Pro-Choice America; his rating from the National Right to Life Committee is zero.
How extreme is Obama on this issue? In the U.S. Senate he has voted against bills that would prohibit minors from crossing state lines for abortion without parental notification.
"Look, I got two daughters -- 9 years old and 6 years old,” Obama has said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."
Claim No. 7. Obama showed little interest or support for American combat troops during his overseas visits.
Doubts about Obama’s true support for the military cropped up during a campaign trip to Iraq, Afghanistan and Europe.
A widely circulated e-mail, penned by Army Capt. Jeffrey S. Porter, described Obama visit to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan: “As the Soldiers lined up to shake his hand, he blew them off. … He again shunned the opportunity to talk to Soldiers to than them for their service. … I swear we got more thanks from the NBA basketball players or the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders than from [Sen. Obama].”
Porter later recanted, sending a follow-up e-mail that said, in part: “After checking my sources, information that was put out in my e-mail was wrong.” He did not specify which information was wrong, leading Obama skeptics to suspect that this officer has been disciplined by his superiors.
Heading home, Obama touched down in Germany, where he “was scheduled to visit the American hospitals at Ramstein and Landstuhl.” But as The Washington Post reported, Obama “canceled the trips after being told by Pentagon officials that he could only visit in his official capacity as a senator, not as a candidate” and could not have his visits with hospitalized soldiers videotaped by the media.
Prominent liberal mainstream media reporters such as NBC’s Andrea Mitchell rushed to defend Obama, saying that the press had never planned to cover his visits to military sickbeds. But Obama canceled both visits and used his free time instead to shoot hoops, with the media recording his best shots.
Claim No. 8. Barack Obama is not a Muslim.
FightTheSmears.com states bluntly that Obama is a Christian, not a follower of Islam.
In fact, Barack Hussein Obama’s Kenyan father was raised Muslim, though he reportedly was not religious.
His mother divorced and remarried another man, a Muslim from Indonesia. As a youngster in Indonesia, Barack Obama attended two schools and was registered at both as a Muslim. He received religious instruction in both schools as a Muslim, including studying the Koran. According to a childhood friend, attended services at a local mosque occasionally.
Obama’s Muslim upbringing has been detailed in a 2007 Los Angeles Times report (reprinted in the Baltimore Sun) headlined Islam an Unknown Factor in Obama Bid. Middle expert Daniel Pipes has studied the question of Obama’s Muslim faith and says he is “lying” when he says he was never a Muslim.
It’s important to note that Obama’s Web site does not say was never a Muslim. But in the past Obama’s site and FightTheSmears.com did make the claim Obama was never a Muslim. Since that claim is obviously false, it is no longer used.
Obama says he became a Christian in his late 20s. He now describes himself as Christian. Until recently, he spent two decades as a member of a Chicago United Church of Christ congregation that embraces Black Liberation theology. Somewhat like the Roman Catholic liberation theology of Latin America, the Chicago UCC church preaches elements of neo-Marxist class warfare. It combines these radical socialist elements with black racialism.
Claim No. 9. As president, Obama would raise taxes dramatically for most Americans.
Millions of Americans recognize that Obama is likely to raise taxes. But like a good conjurer, who tricks you into watching his right hand while doing things with his left, the Obama Web site assures readers with a red herring.
The Illinois senator will not tax your water, as claimed in some fringe e-mails, FightTheSmears.com maintains.
What Obama will do, however, is tax businesses and capital gains more heavily, even though America already has the world’s second-highest business taxes.
“Now our opponents tell you not to worry about their tax increases” said former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson at the 2008 Republican National Convention. “They tell you they are not going to tax your family. No, they’re just going to tax businesses! So unless you buy something from a business, like groceries or clothes or gasoline … or unless you get a paycheck from a big or a small business, don’t worry. It’s not going to affect you.”
During his campaign Obama has promised to various taxes that will fall on most economic classes, including the dividend tax, the FICA tax cap, the capital gains tax, the estate, and new taxes on gasoline. He also called for the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010, which will automatically raises taxes on most Americans. By backing wishing the Bush cuts to expire, Obama would produce a $2 trillion tax increase that some economists predict will rumble through the already weakened economy like an earthquake.
Claim No. 10. Obama was born outside the United States and is ineligible for the presidency.
The Obama Web site dismisses the claim that the candidate was born anywhere but in the United Stats and “completely false” and “groundless.”
As proof, the Obama’s campaign has produced a “certificate of live birth” from the State of Hawaii indicating that Barack Hussein Obama II was born Aug. 4, 1961. Critics, however say the document could have easily been forged and is not a substitute for certified birth certificate.
No reporter has been allowed to see the original certificate of live birth or its certificate number, which blacked out on copies on the Obama site.
Skeptics note that Obama’s “Father’s Race” is identified on this document as “African,” a geographic and modern politically correct term rather than a 1961 racial designation. The standard term used on American birth certificates until the U.S. Census changed it in 1980 would have been “Negro.”
Former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania Philip J. Berg, a Democrat with mixed credibility (he has supported conspiracy theories involving 9/11), has filed a lawsuit to force Obama to produce a certified copy of his birth certificate. According to Berg, Obama’s paternal grandmother has said she was present at his birth in Kenya, after which his mother promptly returned with her baby to the United States. If that is true, Obama could be constitutionally ineligible to be president.
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/obama_smears_fact_check/2008/10/20/142379.html
this should be mandatory for biden and kerry to wear over their mouth
actually, I'm glad they are speaking out - it just helps us more and more...........the gifts that keep on giving.......
"this from a man who never saw an enemy he didn't like" - how degrading for this elitist snob to even open his caviar infested mouth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kerry’s answer to the ‘boxers or briefs’ question: He goes commando and McCain would say ‘Depends’By Jeremy P. Jacobs
CAMBRIDGE - U.S. Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, had some choice words for the political press corps and, in particular, cable news Monday.
U.S. Sen. John Kerry (D-Boston): Politicker PhotoKerry, addressing a business summit on energy issues, kicked off his remarks with some light-hearted banter.
"These are the exciting last two week moments of the presidential campaign," the Boston Democrat said. "So it's a very special time. I can't wait for it to be over. I am so tired of the press' silly questions that they ask along the way. And cable television which reduces everything to stupidity - the lowest common denominator of conflict."
Kerry tried to relay to the audience what it is like to face the press corps' inquiries.
"I don't know if any of you know what it's like. I do, obviously," he said. "I've been asked all of those brilliant questions that were repeated this year."
"Barack got asked the famous boxers or briefs question," Kerry went on. "I was tempted to say commando."
The senator said Obama successfully parried that question but that John McCain, the GOP nominee, had some problems.
"Then they asked McCain and McCain said, ‘Depends,'" Kerry said to lots of laughter from the crowd.
http://www.politickerma.com/jeremyjacobs/1577/kerry-s-answer-boxers-briefs-question-he-goes-commando-and-mccain-would-say-depend
'bammy in his own mind
I'm sure barry will say he was unaware of cp's involvement in the war, and that cp did this when barry was much younger, and has since been rehabilitated - lol (cp was never a republican, and, if memory serves me correctly, wass the one who stopped Schwartzkof from taking down sadam in the first gulf war)
cp is just another verification of the "selective" affirmative action program gone awry. i use the term "selective" because it only applies to their chosen areas, not areas like habitat for humanity, pro sports, college scholarships, etc......
2011 conversation between grandpa and 8 year old: "we once had a thing called freedom in this country. however, far too many people felt free to stay home on November 4, 2008, and lost this right."
PLEASE (excuse the shouting) DON'T LET AMERICA DOWN! VOTE!
"I've had enough of your constant griping - you're outta here" - lol
wow 498! twenty more weeks like this and i might move up two spots - lol
...hate to say this....but......if you think afirmative action created a pandora's box, you ain't seen nothing yet!.........
If we sit this one out, we deserve it! If we unite and show up at the polls, we will stop it from happening to our Great Nation!
let's show the "million man march" folks that "SIXTY million can speak louder with their vote.
sorry - forgot - "they" had a product - lol. you know - all those "underinflated" mortgages - kinda like a "last mile" solution I guess....."last chance at stealing a home from taxpayers"
??? you mean companies OTHER than RIM have troubles??
Ain't it great?!!!!!!!! Wish I had a bumper sticker like that to put in my back window behind my gun rack.
"cheaper than a bumper sticker, and it shows that we're all plumbers now"
"Retired General Colin L. Powell, one of the country's most respected Republicans, stunned both parties on Sunday by strongly endorsing Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for president on NBC's "Meet the Press" and laying out a blistering, detailed critique of the modern GOP.
Powell said the election of Obama would "electrify the world."
......sure it would......wonder who ever declared him a Republican?????
I know. I'm so glad I cashed in and put my money in Lehman. You know, one of those solid companies.
wow - it's hard to believe that even at .0001 RIM still occupies so much of the naysayers time - lol
...be afraid.....be very afraid...........we better get out the vote big time this time..........i will offer anyone a ride if they need it.......
"But should Obama win, he will not be short of big names to choose for his administration.
A host of well-known figures, including some Republicans, have indicated they would be willing to serve in some capacity as Obama begins to acquire a winner’s glow. From Senator John Kerry, the 2004 presidential candidate with hopes of becoming secretary of state (we know who he will be "negotiating with"), to Larry Summers (there goes our money to the non-working,) a former US Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton, and Chuck Hagel ("surrender America, you don't deserve victory. You deserve to be a third world country, and I'll help you all I can",) the Republican senator who has been tipped as defence secretary, there are plenty who have signalled their availability.
"
"sign of the week?" - lol. what a great yard sign:
"sign of the week?" - lol. what a great yard sign:
Phil - lemme have 1 6 24 48 this week. Thanks.
looks like the "spread the wealth" comment may undo his campaign.......especially coupled with Michele's ordering of lobster grilled, iranian caviar, etc at the Waldorf yesterday................
he would also be disqualified because of his lack of proof of citizenship
Good words - lol
Here's our morning starter:
Sarah, Plain and Standing Tall!!!!
http://www.breitbart.tv/html/197693.html
If Obama is an Indonesian citizen, by virtue of his adoption by his mother's second husband, is he legally able to be elected President of the U.S.? CLICK HERE. That would be the father who registered him for school as a Muslim and an Indonesian citizen. And he is NOT Barack's stepfather if he was ADOPTED, that would make him his FATHER! CLICK HERE.
This registration document, made available on Jan. 24, 2007, by the Fransiskus Assisi school in Jakarta, Indonesia, shows the registration of Barack Obama under the name Barry Soetoro into the Catholic school made by his step-father, Lolo Soetoro. The document lists Barry Soetoro as a Indonesian citizen, born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, and shows his Muslim step-father listed the boy's religion as Islam.(AP Photo/ Tatan Syuflana)
http://www.gillreport.com/dn_archive.php
If Obama is an Indonesian citizen, by virtue of his adoption by his mother's second husband, is he legally able to be elected President of the U.S.? CLICK HERE. That would be the father who registered him for school as a Muslim and an Indonesian citizen. And he is NOT Barack's stepfather if he was ADOPTED, that would make him his FATHER! CLICK HERE.
This registration document, made available on Jan. 24, 2007, by the Fransiskus Assisi school in Jakarta, Indonesia, shows the registration of Barack Obama under the name Barry Soetoro into the Catholic school made by his step-father, Lolo Soetoro. The document lists Barry Soetoro as a Indonesian citizen, born on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, and shows his Muslim step-father listed the boy's religion as Islam.(AP Photo/ Tatan Syuflana)
http://www.gillreport.com/dn_archive.php
"No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty five years, and been fourteen Years a resident within the United States."
but....his is a "world" campaign.......after all, the world wants him as our President.....the Syrian government, Iranian government, Hez-boo-la, Hamas, all the islamic fanatics.............what does that tell you about this "non-citizen" that is about to be elected?
Everyone needs to take a look at this website http://www.gillreport.com/ and click on Steve's Daily Notes - there you will find there is no proof of citizenship for obammy and there is a lawsuit filed in PA by a democrat to require proof be shown but 'bammy's lawyers are filing briefs to block it.
We should all email our justice department and ask that they verify his birth and citizenship......he was ADOPTED by the Indonesian parent and thus became a citizen of Indonesia which, to our knowledge, has never been relinquished.
We are witnessing a total fraud perputrated on America by some outside powers to destroy our constitutional form of government.
We better wake up and wake our neighbors up before it's too late.
Just today, two democrats in congress called for abolishing all 401k's and rolling them into a government retirement system - can anyone say "socialism?"
"I've had enough of your constant griping - you're outta here" - lol