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A selection of letters concerning Mark's articles about fraudulent donations
to the Obama campaign: Holding all the cards and Charlie Gibson Hits Obama On His Donors
STRESS RELIEVER
re: "That's not a "hit", that's a Swedish massage by Princess Fluffy Bunny."
Thank you for that line, and for the rest of your excellent writing and
commentary. I've been reading you for years now (including America Alone, which I
purchased with a non-fraudulent credit card, I think through your website), but have
never written. During a very stressful election season it has been nice to have
your excellently formed opinions to strengthen my resolve, and your biting wit to
lift the spirits.
I'm a doctor thus also have a stressful job, and just yesterday a patient sent me a
message saying how happy he was that I'd cured him; it elevated my mood, and made me
think that you and your colleagues might also like to get some pure thank you
messages during a stressful time.
Brian Quaranta
PROCESS SCHMOCESS
OBAMA: Look, you know, 3.1 million donors would be a pretty hard thing for us to be
able to process...
Wait, I thought they already were processing all of those donors to weed out the
bogus ones?
Eric Weber
HERE IN PHONYVILLE
Mark--FYI, my $5 donation last week(from "Borat Oblama" in "Phonyville,
IL") hit my credit account 2 days ago.
Yes, they can!
Stefft
YOU ARE A COMPLETE MORON
I for one am a small Obama donor. My husband and I have donate about $180 all in
increments of $25 or $50 at a time -- usually everytime McCain does something stupid
like nominate Sarah Palin for VP.
Teresa Kopec
IT’S A DONE DEAL
Point well made re 18 USC Sec 1028A - but in reality, prosecutions here
are a nonstarter. All the “contributors” would have to do is use a
public access terminal (library), and/or route the transaction through
two or three proxy servers (trivial) to disguise the originating IP
address.
Could that tangle be unwound? Sure, with few hours effort on the part
of a moderately talented network geek. But multiply each of these
instances by that few hours, and a systematic crackdown becomes
prohibitive..
This may be de jure illegal, but de facto, it’s a done deal. The
Republicans have two choices: take the high road, and institutionalize a
permanent funding disadvantage, or follow the bums down this funding
spiral.
Depressing.
John Muraro
LET’S PLAY HUNT THE CONTRIBUTOR!
Thank you for your comments on the Corner. I very much appreciate your writings.
Regarding the donations made in the name of Mary Biskup, do you know is it possible
to search for the name of the card used to make those contributions?
You probably know about OpenSecrets.org. I just learned of this resource today.
Seems to me that if they can search donations by the donor's name, state, occupation
and recipient, they can also correlate that information to the card used to make the
donation. Even if this data is not made public, it is probably accessible by
subpoena.
In addition to the Identity Theft Act you cited, a person who has been damaged by
having their name attributed to political donations (or, from another perspective,
perhaps John McCain or the Republican Party, or others who have also been harmed)
could file suit against the donor (John Doe) and perhaps Barack Obama, too.
Possible claims include fraud and violations of RICO. This is not my area of
expertise, but there certainly appear to be options available to such injured
parties.
Would the press report such a lawsuit, assuming it could be filed before election day?
David T. Donahue
Saint Louis, Missouri
WHERE’S A PROSECUTOR WHEN YOU NEED ONE?
Don't you see the irony in a federal prosecutor warning us not to make
demonstrative fraudulent contributions while no federal prosecutor steps
forward to investigate Obama's fraudulent contributions?
Frank Davis
CASH CRUNCH
Remember a few months ago, when rumors were spreading that Obama was not
raking in the cash he needed? The campaign was unusually quiet about
its fundraising, but then at the last moment announced a fine haul.
Want to bet that is when the switch was turned off to facilitate the
illegal contributions necessary for him to win? I guess it helped a lot
to know his water carriers in the press would never make any deal about
it until after the Transfiguration.
Trey Gee
YEAH, RIGHT
I'm eagerly awaiting the Time cover that reads "Buying the Presidency", with Obama's
face. Do you think I should hold my breath?
If the positions were reversed, with McCain having broken his word and raising and
spending four times as much money as his opponent, would the MSM be reporting this
story?
Is water wet? Is the sky blue? Is the Pope Catholic? Can I think of any other
rhetorical questions?
Brian, Big Fan of Your Work
Minneapolis, Minnesota
FEDERAL CRIMES
Read your post on the prepaid stored value cards that Obama's folks have
been using to evade campaign finance restrictions. Two
cases from the Clinton era that demonstrate that it is a federal crime
to conspire to violate the Federal Election laws. In this instance,
there's also another issue. Federal anti-money laundering laws (Bank
Secrecy Act). A description of the legal issues can be found here. The Bush
Administration has ample authority, and indeed a
duty, to initiate a criminal money laundering and campaign finance law
conspiracy inquiry now, and to use the payment companies as a vehicle to
trace the flow of funds. They should also instruct the Obama campaign
to preserve all records regarding fundraising. This instruction could
be made under seal so as not to impact the election in the week ahead,
but is essential to prevent the destruction of potentially important
evidence.
Name withheld
ELIMINATE ERRORS UPSTREAM
RE the whole idea of reviewing contributions after they are accepted..... if you
ran that idea past any business person, the response would be "Are you out of
your f***** mind?"
1. The Obama campaign must have a fantastic amount of labor available to comb
through millions of contributions to look for and investigate donations from
contributors like Loving You and Drop Dead. A basic business principle is to
automate your process wherever possible.
2. A manual review after acceptance is going to be nowhere near as efficient or
exhaustive as the automated check that the credit card company would have performed.
Are you sure that they will catch Jack Sprat of Eaton, Nofat LA or his wife?
3. "Eliminate errors" upstream is a another basic business principle. Having
accepted payments from Loving You and Drop Dead, they are now in the mailing list,
which also needs to be purged. That's more work needed. Meanwhile, you can't sell
your mailing lists to other candidates or groups.
4. Credit card companies charge a percentage of each transaction accepted. They also
charge for returns. I don't believe that they charge for a declined attempted
charge; but a minimum the Obama campaign has just volunteered for an
entirely-avoidable double set of credit card fees. Clearly, the Obama folk have
never heard of that cutting edge business practice "minimize costs".
In short, the Obama campaign either has absolutely no understanding of the business
world and how it works, or they have been lying through their teeth about their
reasons for tolerating their fraud-enabling credit card operations. Either way, I
don't want them making decisions on how businesses can operate.
Don Eyres
Minnetonka, Minnesota
WHO ARE THEY KIDDING?
I sell network security insurance. It is the only type of insurance I
have sold for the past decade. Therefore, it is in my interest to stay on
top of on-line payment issues and Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards.
Credit card authorization does more than what the Obama campaign claims
for anomaly detection. Who are they kidding (aside from the Washington
Post)?
David
SAY WHAT YOU LIKE ABOUT TIM RUSSERT….
I agree with your post at the Corner 100% Say what you will about Tim
Russert, but this election cycle has missed him. I know he wouldn't have
asked the questions quite as tough as you, but in reality you don't have to
be that tough for Obama to crumble. Gibson let him get away without even
answering the question, not to mention asking the real questions.
Daniel Young
THE CHARLIE GIBSON SWEDISH MASSAGE
You surprise me. You missed a good (perhaps only) opportunity to reference Cole
Porter's weirdest lyric line ... "a rubdown with velvet glove …". The MSM aren't
sick they're just in love.
Robert Brooks
NEGATIVE DONATING
Credit card processing usually costs a fixed amount plus a percentage of the
transaction (e.g. 5 cents plus 2.5% of the amount).
I do not know what the deal the Obama campaign has with its processing
company, but their website does allow for "Other Amount" donations.
Given this, I do not understand why the S. Husseins of the right-o-sphere who
test Obama's compliace with the law continue to donate in the $5, 10, 25
range.
Donate $0.01. If it is accepted, you have proven your point just as
effectively as with donating $25, and you have probably created a net
negative donation to the Obama campaign.
Heck, I'm thinking of donating 500 cents to his campaign for the privlege of
costing him (maybe) $25. It is probably my only chance to tax that asshole
back.
Tim
UNATHORIZED PURCHASES
To begin with, you've been on a roll since your hiatus. "Making the
drains run on time" was simply perfect.
Anyways, I think it would be interesting to compare the credit card
verification standards of the Obama donation site to the credit card
verification standards on the campaigns own ecommerce site where they
sell buttons, bumper stickers and other paraphernalia.
If you're actually selling things, credit card fraud means
merchandise theft. If you're just taking donations, not shipping
actual goods, there's no significant downside to credit card fraud.
Certainly Doodad Pro isn't going to complain to his credit card bank
about unauthorized purchases.
Ronnie Schreiber
A SERIOUS BUSINESS
I work at a financial institution and we're required to check the names of parties
to wire transfers against a list compiled by the Office of Foreign Assets Control
(OFAC). This is serious business when it comes to the OFAC lists. Has anyone asked
the Obama campaign if they are screening their contributors against the OFAC lists?
Dave Lambert
SMALL AMOUNTS
I realize your post at the corner wasn't serious, (or, at least, shouldn't
be taken seriously) but in the off chance you were:
I'm a "small amounts donor" - I make $28,000/year and couldn't be any other
kind. I have donated $25 to Barack Obama, but I've done it once a month for
five months. Thus, $125, or ten times the number you used for your clever
little post.
Matt
NECK-AND-NECK?
How come nobody has noticed that despite Obama raising almost twice
what McCain has the election is still virtually neck-and-neck?
Chris
SPREAD THE CAMPAIGN WEALTH AROUND
Do you realise that Obama has raised in his campaign ($600 million) just about the
same amount as the bailout plan by congress ($700 mill). These are obscene figures. I
mean truly obscene if you think about the people whom he says he represents.
Being the candidate of change and spreading the wealth around couldn't he have just
saved the economy himself, or him and his donors. Makes you wonder what all the
fuss about how expensive the bailout plan was if Obama can raise that running for
president.
Konrad Thompson
FINE AND DANDY
All too true, Mark. Bill Clinton's campaign paid some whopping fines for illegal
contributions ("We had to stop that Republican juggernaut.") which was a pittance
to what the campaign raised. The Democrats didn't care then and they don't care now.
Deborah
QUESTIONS, BUT NO ANSWERS
I keep hearing the Obama spokespeople tout their "back-end" investigation
into "potentially" illegal donations, with the final verdict always sounding
something like, "If we discover it's illegal, we immediately refund it."
But, if the donations are being placed under phony names, and are being
placed using untraceable prepaid credit cards, to whom does the Obama
campaign "refund" the illegal donation? There is no actual donor, with a
real address to which a "refund" could be sent. And, in the case of prepaid
credit cards, is it even possible to return the funds to the card? I was
always under the impression that once the card is used, it's done. No
refunds. Isn't that part of what makes them "untraceable?"
I've yet to hear anyone ask these questions (let alone hear any answers.)
Ryan A. Mahoney
Oak Brook, Illinois
PRICELESS
The Obamacard
Michael Asher
HOW DID THEY KNOW?
With all the discussion of the numerous fraudulent donations to Obama,
a question just occurred to me. How did these people know that they
could do this? Anyone who has ever made an internet transaction has to
know that there are safeguards in place, or else why would they trust
their credit card info to the retailer? So, how did they know that it
would be so easy to donate illegally? Sure, a few people might have
tried to game the system, but we're talking about many, many donors
over an extended period of time, and those are just the ones that have
come to light. So again, what was it that gave these people confidence
that they could get away with this in such large numbers? Wouldn't it
be interesting to talk to whoever set the system up. Wouldn't it be
interesting to know as much about these fraudulent donors, and their
connections with the campaign, as we know about Joe the Plumber.
Love your column, love listening to you on Hugh Hewitt--
Nancy Reardon
Pasadena, California
MONEY BACK, PLEASE
Why beat the system when you can work within it?
Mary Biskup should simply follow prescribed law and let the campaign
know that it was all a mistake, she didn't mean to contribute that $$ to
the Obama campaign, and that they owe her $750K, or whatever the number
is. If they don't pay, they'll have to explain why it wasn't hers to
begin with.
Geoff Swanhart
PALESTINIANS FOR OBAMA
Thought this was interesting -- Palestinians calling U.S. voters from Gaza,
encouraging them to vote for Obama (btw, the reporter is my old roommate from grad
school who lives and works in Jerusalem).
Also, look carefully at your credit card statements: the RNC has posted quite an
impressive list of articles documenting all the campaign fundraising fraud --
including credit card fraud:
Reports Uncovered Recent Examples Of Credit Card Fraud:
"At Least Four Credit Card Holders In Missouri Have Recently Opened Their Statements
And Found Unauthorized Transactions, Which Charged $2,300 To The Presidential
Campaign Of Sen. Barack Obama." (Alex Fees, "Couple Finds Unauthorized Charge On
Credit Card From Obama Campaign," KSDK-St. Louis, www.ksdk.com, 10/18/08)
"It Happened To Tom Brown And His Wife A Couple Weeks Ago. They Became Aware Of It
After Discover Sent Them An E-Mail About An Unusually Large Purchase. 'My Wife Said,
'Oh My God!' Right Away, She Called Discover To Cancel The Card,' Brown Said. 'I
Talked To Discover About It, And They Said It Looks Like It Was Keyed In From
Chicago.' Specifically, The E-Mail Indicated The Charge Came From Obama For America
Chicago Illinois." (Alex Fees, "Couple Finds Unauthorized Charge On Credit Card From
Obama Campaign," KSDK-St. Louis, www.ksdk.com, 10/18/08)
Also, when as much as $3.3 million could have come from anonymous overseas donors,
the conspiracy theorist in me wonders which donors from which countries are
contributing piles of money to throw our election. And whether they were in touch
with Obama when he was making his decision to go back on his original pledge to use
public financing only:
An Analysis Conducted By The Associated Press Indicates Obama Could Have Raised As
Much As $3.3. Million In Foreign Contributions:
"Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama Has Raised About $3.3 Million From
Contributors Who Did Not List A Home State Or Who Designated Their State With An
Abbreviation That Did Not Match One Of The 50 States Or U.S. Territories, According
To Records Provided By The Federal Election Commission." ("Obama Money From Abroad
Could Total $3.3 Million," The Associated Press, 10/7/08)
Thanks for your detective work, Mark -- I'm praying that this all comes to light in
a way that has some real headline results...
Linda
SUSPICIOUS
My wife just shared with me some interesting information.
I recently donated $25 to the RNC.
Our bank called and asked to verify a $250 contribution that they found suspicious.
They would not identify the organization, other than it showed up as "CONTRIBUTION".
The bank (Commerce/TDS Bank) said that they have seen a lot of this going on and
they can't figure out where it is coming from.
I don't know what organization this $250 contribution was targeted towards, but if
it were for the RNC I'm thinking that the bank would not have found it as
suspicious.
We also know that the Obama campaign had to collude with the credit card companies
to disable the AVS.
One can't help but wonder if there is some tracking of the routing numbers for these
transactions and it is being intentionally exploited.
Yes, it's a wild theory but there are many unanswered questions here, which
conveniently can not be answered within the course of a week.
Hey, have you seen Sarah Palin's shoes?
Kevin Kelling
I DON’T CARE WHAT THE WEATHER MAN SAYS
Eye Caramba indeed.
Obama has so much money he is even advertising on the Weather Channel!! Can
I not even watch my five day forecast without seeing one of his ads???? The
Weather Channel!!???
Marilee Christian
TRADE BALANCE
At least Obama's illegal foreign contributions have reduced our trade deficit by a
few hundred million.
William Slate
JUST A COINCIDENCE?
Now I hate to sound like a paranoid idiot, and I really don't think
anything is going on here, but less than a week after I made my fake
donation to Obama I received notice from the IRS that I owe an
additional $110,000 in taxes for the year 2006. Now I have the
simplest taxes in the world (just a W2), and so it's tough to make a
mistake. Also, $110,000 plus what I already paid would mean I had no
take home pay that year. The numbers on the stuff I received from IRS
came out of nowhere, and in fact didn't even come close to adding up
(how could a computer make a mistake like this?).
Anyway, I'm not really worried by this, but I'm just sending this
along in case you hear of the same thing happening to others. I'm
sure you won't, but I guess you never really know. Tit for tat?
Doug
BUYERS’ REMORSE
Don't these credit card companies offer buyers’ remorse? If the donor's are not happy
on November 5th, I think they can call the credit card company and complain they are
not happy with the product, and the charges will be reversed. I think that is how it is
supposed to work?
Crash Landen
COMING SOON…
With redistribution, can reparations for slavery be next?
L McClure
WORSE THAN WATERGATE
As far as the original offense and the impact on the election, this credit card
fraud is worse than Watergate. It is yet to be seen if it is fraught with the same
cover up problems and investigation that happened there. But this is clearly worse
than Nixon.
Andrew C. Welch
BIG ISSUES
Great post concerning the misuse of credit cards by the Obama campaign.
Clearly, though, Obama raising 100 million suspicious dollars is not as
important as where Sarah Palin shops.
Bryson F. Datt, Jr.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
MOVE RIGHT ALONG
So why are we surprised. This bird learned to fly in Chicago. QED
Move right along folks, nothing to see here.
Excelsior.
Terry
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