It has taken the better part of a year, and specifically the last six months of this election season, for committed citizen journalists at NoQuarter and many other blogsites to do the research on Barack Obama that the media, the democratic national committee, and our Congress should have done.   Although our collective knowledge of Barack Obama and the concerns of his candidacy came too late to make a difference in this election,  for all our hard work, we were successful in shedding some light on the content of his character: his associations, his deeds, his family relations, his friends, his stewardship, his patriotism, his potential agenda, and the startling depth of his secrecy. 

Now that we have “un-muddied” the water…..we stand on the edge of a caldera* with no idea of the complexity, depth,  explosiveness, nor unpredictability of this phenomenon we have all witnessed in the rise of Barack Obama!   We as a country have never actually been here before, standing at the edge, except perhaps in the election of 1860. One realizes at once the perils of both diving into that hot pool of water or running away to avoid the explosion….

While there seems to be little evidence that we will ever fully know Obama, nor avoid the explosion change he will bring, there is a way we can learn from this experience such that our Country will never again be faced with someone who is truly unknown, inexperienced, untested, and feels (to me anyway) uncommitted to America.  We can use the  2008 experiences to also highlight and then design strategies to ensure that every political party is responsive to its constituents, and that our Constitution is really a living document.

The Constitution is by and for “we the people”; therefore “we the people” must make it work and not rely on any political party to sell America to the highest bidder.

FOUR QUESTIONS 

I bring forward four questions that get to the heart of our rights, as American citizens, to ensure that our government and its leaders are indeed qualified to lead our great country.  By extension, these questions can be used as windows to other potential areas where we the people do not yet have redress.

These questions are miraculously (given procedural errors and existing judgments)before the Supreme Court with the requirement that President-elect Obama respond to them by December 1, 2008.  

While I have not kept track of the Berg v. Obama case for many reasons, it truly is miraculous that Justice Souter granted the writ of certiorari.  Even if, as some have said, Souter’s action is not significant and procedural only, how Obama responds will reveal much about his view of the Constitution and will determine if the Supreme Court decides to hear the case.

In my opinion, the questions raised by Berg and the questions raised in the case should not have been thrown out entirely based on standing alone, or by the notion that the injury to a voter is “vague”.   The Supreme Court Rules permit the grant of a writ of certiorari only under specific circumstances.

The questions presented for review are:

1. Whether a citizen of the United States has standing to challenge the Constitutional qualifications of a Presidential nominee under the “natural born citizen clause” [Article II of the U.S. Constitution] when deprivation of the right to such a challenge would result in the infringement of a citizen’s Constitutional right to vote?
2. Isn’t it true that no one has the responsibility to ensure a United States Presidential candiate is eligible to serve as President of the United States?
3. Are there proper steps for a voter to ensure a Presidential Candidate is qualified and eligible to serve as President of the United States?
4. Isn’t it true that there are not any checks and balances to ensure the qualifications and eligibiity of a Presidential Candidate to serve as President of the United States?

 The “questions presented for review” in the the writ require Obama’ response. Notice that answering these questions does not require Obama to produce a birth certificate,  but to answer why he does not have to prove himself eligible.  

Although we cannot predict Obama’s answers, based on past legal motions submitted in the lower court case, Obama may indeed argue that (1)a citizen does not have standing, (2) that no one has responsibility to ensure eligibility, (3) that there are no proper steps for a citizen to ensure qualifications, and (4) that there are no checks and balances that exist today to ensure a candidate is qualified.  It is also possible Obama would argue that the 14th Amendment permits “naturalized citizens” and “dual citizens” to be known as “American citizens” and thereby satisfies the requirements of Article II.

I think these questions may have Obama boxed in. If he intends not release his COLB, citizenship records, etc, Obama would then practically argue a big “FU” to the U.S. Supreme Court and say in effect “I don’t have to respond to this because there is no law, no avenue for citizens, and no checks and balances that require me to do so.”  He will argue technicalities in how to disregard the Constitution. I wonder how the Supreme Court might respond to that? 

If Obama responds in any other way, he will be forced to disclose and or describe why, how, and what steps citizens can take to assure the POTUS’s  eligibility, and perhaps then he may be forced prove his eligibility to serve as POTUS under Article II. Alternatively he could be forced to concede that there are no procedures to ensure eligibility of a person for POTUS.  Would the Supreme Court order him then to produce his documentation according to the original suit filed by Berg?

One item of interest is how Obama responds to Question 4, on the existence of checks and balances to assure eligibility.  One would assume procedurally that “checks and balances” could mean legislative processes, acts, bills, or resolutions that would act as those “checks and balances”.  Here is where Obama could argue that the Senate Resolution passed by Leahy, Obama, and McCatskill on John McCain’s eligibility applies.  This resolution could be seen as an attempt by the three Senators to create a blanket provision for a naturalized citizen to be eligible to serve as POTUS.  In other words, Obama could argue that the checks and balances already exist and this resolution suffices (notice this is not a bill).

Justice Souter will then hear Berg’s response to Obama’s legal argument before deciding where the case goes next, including whether the full Supreme Court will take the issue up.  Remember that Souter’s clerks have all the lower court material and reviewed it before Souter granted the writ of certioriari.

How does the Supreme Court react?  Will it order the production of Obama’s documents? Will it order the FEC, electors, or Congress to verify his eligibility, or develop verification procedures?  Will they say that the 14th Amendment really did modify Article II criteria? Will they dismiss the case?

And how, in the meantime, are we to ever know about Barack Obama? Is the burden of proof really on America (Berg), or on Barack Obama?  Is it up to your empoyer to find out who you are, or is it up to you as an employee to provide your documentation?  Isn’t Obama supposed to be working for America?

Implications for the Future

The four questions presented to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2008 will have a lasting and enduring effect on the course of the American Constitution in the next decade or more, and will continue to feed the growing doubts about Obama’s intentions in the next four years.

Just my suspician, but I am beginning to get a more complete picture of why Obama has sealed all of his records, including college financial aid applications, papers, and coursework.  I believe his financial aid applications reveal his foreign status; and I now see that his Columbia and Harvard papers could reveal his examination of the “weaknesses” of the U.S. Constitution and ways to “remedy” them using “administrative procedures”.

As I look at the scope of research on the issue of eligibility during this election season, I note that nearly all have concluded that there are no checks and balances to assure the eligibility of a Presidential Candidate, that no one is responsible, and that indeed citizens and voters have very little recourse to ask these questions.  The Supreme Court has never been presented with this question before on Article II eligibility.  I doubt that they will duck their responsibilities to protect the constitution.

It appears that up until this time, it has been assumed that every candidate and POTUS has met Article II qualifications.  We assume that in fact no one would dare to run for and claim the Presidency if he/she didn’t meet the qualifications of the Constitution.  Looks like our age of innocence is over.

It appears that we will have to craft legislation to assure eligibility criteria are met for the POTUS, and to assign appropriate responsibilities to assure so.  If the country wants to amend the Constitution to allow naturalized or dual citizens to serve as POTUS, then we have that mechanism, wherein 75% of the states have to ratify.

The four questions to the Supreme Court also remind me of other areas in which we voters do not have redress when something goes wrong.  Although I am now an “unaffiliated” voter, having left the democratic party after November 4th, it also appears that democrats do not have an avenue of redress when the DNC and RBC violate party rules as they did in this case to deny Hillary Clinton the nomination. In addition, we now know that caucuses can be gamed, and do not serve the interests of democracy or provide a fair representation of the strength of our party’s candidates.  Because of the DNC, RBC and Obama’s gaming of the system with caucus fraud,  the blatant use of race and misogyny to silence critics, we are witnessing the democrats begin the disintegration of the “democratic brand”.  I am sure there are issues in the Republican party after GWB destroyed the “republican brand”.  We all need a detox from our respective koolaid brands in order to really see clearly.

What is next for our country?  Well, if we don’t want to dive into that hot pool, we’d better start creating an alternative vision.  A line in one of my favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption, sums it up for me:

“…get busy livin’, or get busy dyin’…”

*Photo Credits: (1)”Predictor”, EENR, Yellowstone National Park 2003. (2)British Columbia photo stock

Barack Obama’s campaign massive fund raising effort appears to have achieved success in part because they ignored the law on campaign fundraising and refused to follow procedures designed to verify the name, address, and employer of their contributors. My research indicates that at least 26 million dollars of the 800 million raised by Obama is questionable or illegal. Others report significantly higher numbers, possibly more than $84 million. In other words, as much as 10% of the money he received came from sources that appear to violate the laws governing Federal campaign dollars.

Obama’s on-line contribution tool has been designed to by-pass much of the verification requirements. This is no accident.

Obama’s fundraising disregards campaign finance laws—in spirit, if not in fact.
A few of the problems:

• Obama accepts contributions from anyone without any verification of their identity, that they have provided required information, and that their contribution is legal
• There are 694 contributors listed with more than the $4,600 allowed, resulting in $805,190.90 excess contributions
• Numerous suspect names like “LAST NAME, FIRST NAME” that has made over $14,250 in contributions; others like A, A and KHV, KHV are equally suspect. There are many other examples scattered throughout the list
• Listed cities are often suspect. For example: Null, just street addresses, or with names like X, CA, XXX, OHW, NC, USA in CA, LA, MI, IL, and NC, and TX, TX
• There are 58 incorrectly listed states used over and over again: 1, 60, 75, AB, AC, AU, BA, BC, BE, BR, CH, CN, DF, DJ, EN, EU, FI, FR, GE, HO, IR, IS, IT, JA, JP, JT, KT, LN, LO, ML, MX, N, N., N/, NA, NL, NS, NT, NU, OC, ON, PE, PO, QB, QC, QU, RM, SA, SK, SO, SP, ST, SW, U., UK, YT, ZU, ZZ
• There are many foreign addresses. For example: Almeria, Spain, PA; Athens, Greece, IL; Barcelona, Spain, NJ; Berlin, Germany, MD; Toronto, ON M4C 1N, GA or Toronto, Ontario, MN; Tokyo, Japan, NJ
• There are 12,480 individual contributions using invalid states for $3,679,089.65
• There are 4,333 individual contributions that list ZIP Code simply as zeros for $1,891,108.53.
• Even with the media attention to “Will Good” and “Doodad Pro”, there are still $3,225 and $305, respectively that has not been refunded. Nor, if the contributions are being kept, has their names and other required information been corrected
• Numerous null or suspect employers are listed. In fact, 47,050 who contributed $17,452,233.88 left the field blank. Others entered clearly bogus information. For example: “(Red)”, ASDFASDFASDFASDF, all X’s, REFUSED, and “EMPLOYED IN SOUTH AFRICA FOR OBAMA”.
• Occupations include such entries as “Parent’s LA County DA”, “MOTHER OF 2 BOYS, PARENT’S ASS”, SEX SLAVE, SEXOLOGIST, BEAN COUNTER, SLAVE, SLUMLORD, TROUBLE-MAKER, and WHIPPING BOY
• Over $107 million in contributions come from people listing either no employer and that they are unemployed
• There are 237 individual contributions transactions over $2,300 reportedly received after the Democratic National Convention for $957,613.
• There are 94 individual contribution transactions over $4,600 for $706,524.54
• There are 23 individual contribution transactions over $4,600 received after the Democratic National Convention for $171,200
• Among transfers from “authorized committees” there are seven individual contributors with more than $4,600 contributions and 322 with more than $2,300 contributions since the Democratic National Convention for a total of $35,251.27 and $1,271.652.30, respectively.
• Among transfers from “authorized committees” there are 557 individual contributors with invalid addresses (e.g., bad state designations) for $757,508.33
• Among transfers from “authorized committees” there are 111 individual contributors with invalid ZIP Codes (e.g., zeros) for $121,656.01
• Among transfers from “authorized committees” there are 1,406 individual contributors with null employer fields for $1,453,123.81

Summary of Campaign Finance Rules
The basic rules are rather straightforward:

• Only U.S. citizens and non-citizens with legal permanent residency (green card) may make a contribution or expenditure
• Individuals must provide name, address, employer, and occupation when their aggregate donation exceeds $200 per year. Anonymous donations are permitted for aggregate contributions under $50 per election
• Individuals may contribute to a candidate $2,300 for the primary election and $2,300 for the general election
• Individuals may contribute $28,500 to the national party committee per year
• Individuals may contribute $5,000 to PACs per year
• Individuals may contribute a combined total of $10,000 to state, district, and local party committees per year
• Thus, unless I’m mistaken, you may make anonymous contributions if your aggregate total is below $50. Otherwise you must include your name, address, employer, and occupation. When your aggregate contribution exceeds $200, the campaign is then required to report it
• For the purposes of my analysis, I have used August 28, 2008, when Senator Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech, as the last day of the primary election.

Source for campaign finance rules is Federal Election Commission.

 

Typical Complaints About Obama’s Fundraising
Talking strictly of online fundraising, the Obama campaign:

• Accepts contributions without verifying that the entered name matches the name on the credit card
• Accepts anonymous gift credit cards
• Does not verify that the entered city, state, and ZIP Code match
• Does not verify that the entered address is valid
• Does not require a valid U.S. location
• Appears to accept foreign credit cards
• Does not request and validate the AVS number on the credit card.

There are many articles throughout the Internet discussing this. For example, I wrote Campaign contribution Limits? No Problem, Just Contribute Online (also at NoQuarterUSA.net).

Obama’s Explanation
Writing in the Washington Post, Matthew Mosk says,

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

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

….

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

….

Lawyers for the Obama operation said yesterday that their “extensive back-end review” has carefully scrubbed contributions to prevent illegal money from entering the operation’s war chest. “I’m pretty sure if I took my error rate and matched it against any other campaign or comparable nonprofit, you’d find we’re doing very well,” said Robert Bauer, a lawyer for the campaign.

….

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

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

Additional discussion:

• Michael Luo and Griff Palmer, Fictitious Donors Found in Obama Finance Records, New York Times, October 9, 2008.
• Michael Luo, Democrats and Republicans Feud Over Donor Data, New York Times, October 25, 2008.

Analyzing Obama’s Reported Fundraising
I have accessed the latest fundraising contribution database released this week that covers contributions through October 15, 2008. As noted above, if the aggregate total contribution per election is above $50 you must include your name, address, employer, and occupation and when your aggregate contribution exceeds $200, then the campaign is required to report it. The latest fundraising report lists this information, plus refunds or reassignment of contributions when they’ve occurred.

Getting past this bland introduction, the data itself is stunning and substantiates Senator John McCain’s statement that this is a scandal in the making (See my article referenced above).

Here are some big picture numbers:

Individual Contributor’s Name (By State and City)

The only meaningful way to analyze individual contributors by name is to also consider their state and city. Otherwise, the same named person in two different places is treated as the same person. A downside to this is that if the person moved or is using two or more addresses, they are then treated as different people.

City
City is an inexact field insofar as it is not validated against a city-state-ZIP Code list. In its present state, it is great for anecdotal examples of examples of suspect individual contributions.

State

As if Obama’s not knowing the correct number of states in the United States isn’t bad enough—recall him once giving the count of 57 and insinuating there were more—within the contribution report his campaign offers up 123 states.

ZIP Code
ZIP Code by itself is not illustrative except unless used to do further demographic analysis. It is, when matched with city and state, an excellent component to identify suspect transactions by using comparing lists of valid city, state, and ZIP codes.

 
City-State-ZIP Code
City-State-ZIP Code is not yet tested for lack of time. There are numerous city, state, and ZIP Code databases that can be used to validate that the reported city, state, and ZIP Code are valid combinations. As a test, this will highlight those transactions that should be further scrutinized. I may address this in a future article, especially if interest is expressed.

Employer
Employer is very inexact as people list the same apparent company with many spellings, misspellings, and variations of the company name.

Date of Contribution
Contributions are reported from January 16, 2007 through October 15, 2008 with the highest count and amount on September 30, 2008, with 47,083 contributions totaling $7,330,579.23 for an average amount of $155.69.

Amount
The most obvious problem in amounts are those individual contributions that in a single instance are over $4,600. These represent contributions that the campaign have accepted that by no interpretation of the $4,600 limit should have been accepted, much less reported.

An additional problem is transactions made using gift cards, possibly with the full amount of the card—such as $25 cards. How many of these transactions come from untraceable gift cards?

Contributions from Authorized Committees

There are 101,696 transactions totaling $54,523,770.55 from “authorized committees”. These transactions are listed with six variations of Obama Victory Fund. Each involves an individual contribution transaction, just as the individual contributions discussed above. These contain the same type of problems found above.

Conclusion
Senator Barack Obama’s contribution list is poorly reviewed by his campaign staff or not reviewed at all. It contains an incredible number of errors and instances of apparent violation of common laws regarding political contributions to federal office candidates. The cynical side of me says that this has occurred is either blissful ignorance or by specific design.

Key points:

• Obama’s online fundraising discards reasonable and customary security measures to verify the identity and confirm appropriateness of individual contributions
• The campaign’s lawyers, yes, Obama’s lawyers, say this is intentional and that they do “rigorous comprehensive analysis of online contributions on the back end of the transaction to determine whether a contribution is legitimate”
• The limited review reported in this article makes abundantly clear that a “rigorous comprehensive analysis” is not performed. Records include phony names, employers, occupations, and addresses. Further, many clearly involve money in excess of campaign finance limits.

As Senator John McCain notes, this is a scandal. It is, though, a simple scandal to resolve, even if after the election. Obama’s attorneys already indicate and the records confirm that refunds are already made when necessary. Thus, each contribution is linked to a credit card. Credit card records include or can include name and billing address. To reestablish the integrity of the campaign’s financing, Obama needs to match the credit card information with the reported name and address to root out illegal contributions. If Obama won’t do this, I am hopeful that a prosecutor eventually will.

Finally, my analysis of the 2,069,069 transactions in Senator Barack Obama’s campaign contribution report is cursory. Some basic database queries retrieve good counts on the number of bad state identification, number of null employers, and zeroed ZIP Codes. Identifying suspect names and other reported information requires a record-by-record review. While I have skimmed small portions of the two million records, it is incomplete and requires an in-depth investigation. The Obama campaign has not done the required due diligence to ensure that they are only accepting and reporting authorized, correctly documented, and accurate individual contributions. That they have configured their contribution form on the campaign Web site to accept any user input, that they process this without scrutiny, and report the results without correction or regards to the laws makes abundantly clear this is by specific design.

The big humph bah last night and this morning was the undercover work of Dr. Rusty Shackleford, who pointed out that all of the professionally produced YouTube anti-Palin videos were produced by some of the same folks that produce Obama ads. The focus of the story is that there may be some election laws that ware violated.

Here is his story on the Jawa Report. Here is what the FEC disclosure statements probably say.

I wish there were real examples to demonstrate this mushroom-growing garden pile. But no, there are no violations.

Before anyone starts arguing with me, let me ask an FEC attorney. OK. I’m back.

The answer is no. If I pay a friend to make an entertaining video to post on the Internets the FEC has no right to know how much I paid my friend to make the video. Even if I am Barack “Call the shit in” Obama and I call you and tell you that my friends will buy 100,000 copies of your boring book if you drop into your next stand-up act some “funny” comments about rape, or you discuss my opponent’s daughter’s hairy pu–y on your HBO show, I do not have to report how much I paid you to do me this personal favor.

Nor do you have to disclose that I asked you to say it. Although I did slip a note into a crack in the wall that said please forgive my funny token jews. Be sure to put Bill M. and Sandra B. on the right side of town when we split this place up.

If we put in writing an agreement that states I am paying you to produce an Ad for my campaign, then disclosure is required. Otherwise, you are just expressing yourself, and I am just expressing to you how much I really love your “work. “

Darn it Barry. If you are going to do it - Do it Right! _ What a piece of work.

But. Now get ready for this. This could even make Bernhard’s mother blush. If I, Barack “Half Gang Banger from Chicago” Obama used campaign funds to hire a plumber to bring some liquid wrench to separate Joe from my butt because we both got stoned on the campaign bus and, after he passed out for six hours on my back, his cu- glued his d–k in my a–, then that is reportable. I really should have had Tony pay for that so I could just call it bone-headed judgment. Paying a plumber with a campaign check, that is. This paragraph has no purpose. It is just payback. And nobody paid me to put it there, either.

In many states, the law declares that if you spend any money supporting or opposing a candidate or an issue you have to report it, as an individual. But if you post it for free and you have no traceable payment for producing it, then the video can go up without reporting. That’s what I call “freedom of talking out your behind,” buddy. My goodness RRRA and JGDAW, you are influencing me.. in a good way.

I will admit that I had a guy who worked for me that believed that any reporting of personal expenses is an invasion of privacy. He believed that he should be able to give as much as he wanted without anyone knowing his name. He once gave money to a candidate for mayor and the existing mayor, who was his next-door neighbor, stopped talking to him after the disclosure reports were published.

So there are people who disagree with us on this matter. But we could remind them of the pre-Watergate era when gazillionaires could simply buy laws and lawmakers in the shadows. Today they have to buy them in plain sight, so instead of wondering we can actually see what is making our skin crawl.

Can you see it yet?

We have entered the nakedly uncontrolled arena of the new electronic era. The Wasilli Season of modern politics.

If Obama is elected all dissenting voices will be put in prison. So say your shit now.   Dr. Shackleford, keep paying attention and keep writing. Maybe we who are listening will have a champion, advocating – from his political prison cell - for full open reporting. Maybe we can pass notes and tap out messages on Sunday Mornings.

Old man Daley and Son at the 1968 convention. “Shut up and go to jail!”
Much of this vile and hatred we see coming from the Obama world, perhaps, started with young Rich mistaking the gusto and firm hand his dad demonstrated for: “leading by creating an atmosphere of fear of retribution and inspiring the masses by elevating anger.” Obama learned from the beast of the Chicago Midway.

What a country!

OK. Treat time.

You’ve seen the new McCain ad on Chicago Politics.

Now revisit our old friend Flineo.

Chicago Politics!

The story begins with a very expensive fund raiser dinner by most standards. This dinner cost $21,000 for an eight seat table. Fortunately the money never reached the USA. The money was raised to influence relatives of native Nigerians to vote for Obama by running advertisements.

The money was seized by some very astute Nigerians.

Nigerian anti-graft investigators have seized money raised by the head of the Nigerian Stock Exchange to support US presidential candidate Barack Obama.

The money will be returned to the individuals in Nigeria that attended the soiree according to The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. They also had this to say:

The EFCC said it had seized 74m naira ($630,000, £314,000), but said no Nigerian laws had been broken.

According to the BBC, the Obama campaign distanced itself from the group. Unfortunately the Nigerians left their footprints on Obama’s website. More on that:

Stock exchange chairwoman Ndi Okereke-Onyuike is also the head of Africans for Obama, a Nigeria-based support group.

She was interviewed by the EFCC after media reports that the Obama campaign had disassociated itself from the group.

Obama manages to escape everything with any appearance of illegality. He either disassociates himself from people or he is allowed to plead “mea culpa” as in the case of the Gaza Strip brothers and fraudulent reports to the FEC concerning Citizens Services Inc. a front company for ACORN. Mrs Okereke-Onyiuke said,

“We never said we were going to donate money for the campaign,”

“We paid for the hall and the entertainers and the surplus, we said it would be spent on advertisements aimed at persuading Nigerians to tell their relatives in America to register to vote.

“There is not one Nigerian who doesn’t have a relative or friend in America. Our aim was to encourage those people to tell their family who have the right to vote in America to vote for Obama.”

A statement from the EFCC said they had ordered Mrs Okereke-Onyuike to “steer clear of such activities in future”.

Mrs Okereke-Onyiuke said the press was trying to attack her because they were jealous of her success.

“I am a woman of the highest integrity,” she told the BBC News website.

By all appearances Obama’s activity with this lady and her group looks like his activity may not have been on the up and up. I will leave that conclusion to you!

“I’m going to cast my ballot for her, and then the moment I cast my vote, I’m going to continue to enthusiastically support Sen. Obama. It’s going to be a good release for all of us.”

He said this in his interview with the PolitikerPA:

Gov. Ed Rendell, in an interview with PolitickerPA.com today, lauded the resolution reached last week that will allow Clinton’s name to be placed in nomination, before U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) ultimately accepts the party’s presidential nomination.

“I think Sen. Obama was extremely generous, and I think it’s good not because it will display any disunity, but because it honors the hard work of so many people who supported Sen. Clinton,” said Rendell, who was one of Clinton’s most visible and vociferous campaigners during the run-up to the state’s April primary. “Many of the Pennsylvania delegates worked their heart out for Sen. Clinton, and they’re excited to cast a vote for her. From my vantage point, that will be closure for them.

Rendell thinks it will be closure for Hillary’s supporters. The only way it will be closure for Hillary supporters is if she is the nominee. Hillary is still the best choice for the Democratic Party.

It is a little too late for Obama to try to woo us over. We are reminded each day that Donna Brazile said there is a new Democratic base and most of us aren’t welcome. Then Obama tells Hillary supporters to just “get over it”.

Thanks Governor Rendell but your promise to vote for Hillary in the Roll Call just isn’t enough.

Governor Rendell, remind the Super Delegates Obama has some real issues, issues that could result in defeat for the Democratic Party in November. Here is the worrisome list of issues (by no means inclusive) that elected delegates and SDs should consider before voting for Obama, False FEC filings, Votes in the IL Senate on the live birth measure, Illegal contributions received from the three brothers in the Gaza Strip, then there is the issue of his birth certificate (a petition drive is underway) to demand the FEC insist that Obama release a certified copy of his birth certificate, continued association with ACORN, a company with a history of voter fraud and misuse of taxpayer money and finally there are his poll numbers, tied with McCain for the third time in two weeks.

See you in Denver!

Irrefutable evidence indicates that Obama’s campaign has been doing business with CSI, which appears to have been operating fraudulently in the State of Maryland and Ohio, and ACORN, which has been associated with a laundry list of fraudulent business practices. The full nature of the relationship between ACORN and Citizens Services Inc is not known but this much is clear: both share the same address in
New Orleans and officials with CSI refer folks to ACORN for questions about “political consulting” and “Get-Out-The-Vote” activities. These are questions that mainstream media should examine.

According to Wikipedia, ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, was founded in 1970 as “a community organization of low- and moderate-income families that addresses housing, schools, neighborhood safety, health care, job conditions, and other social issues that affect its members.” Voter registration has been a major activity for the organization and ACORN has been working actively to register voters on behalf of the Obama campaign. According to the Milwaukee Journal Online,

The ACORN effort is part of a massive voter registration drive aimed at the fall presidential election, which is expected to pit Democratic Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois against Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

Although voter registration and Get Out the Vote drives seem like noble activities, in fact, not all of ACORNs dealings have been legal, and once again ACORN is facing investigation for illegal voter registration:

Criminal investigations could be launched against at least six voter registration workers who tried to add dead, imprisoned or imaginary people to the voter rolls, according to the Milwaukee Election Commission and the organization that employed them.

This is not the first time that ACORN has been under criminal investigation. I have already looked at Obama’s connections to ACORN and put into context ACORN’s fraudulent activities during the primary election season here, and here. In fact, the same Wiki entry list five earlier indictments:

False registrations by employees

In some locations, ACORN employees have submitted false registration forms rather than obtaining registrations from actual eligible voters.

• In Ohio in 2004, four ACORN employees were indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms.
• In January 2005 two Colorado ACORN workers were sentenced to community service for submitting false voter registrations. ACORN’s regional director said, “we find it abhorrent and do everything we can to prevent it from happening.”
• On November 1, 2006, four part time ACORN employees were indicted in Kansas City, Missouri for voter registration fraud, after being caught, fired, and turned in by ACORN. Prosecutors said the
  indictments are part of a national investigation.ACORN said in a press release that it is in large part responsible in these individuals being caught, and has cooperated and publicly supported efforts to look into the validity of the allegations.
• ACORN was investigated in 2006 for submitting false voter registrations in St. Louis, Missouri. 1,492 fraudulent voter registrations were identified.
• In 2007, five Washington state ACORN workers were sentenced to jail time. ACORN agreed to pay King County $25 000 for its investigative costs and acknowledged that the national organization could be subject to criminal prosecution if fraud occurs again. According to King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg, the misconduct was done “as an easy way to get paid [by ACORN], not as an attempt to influence the outcome of elections.”

Indeed Obama has a long history of working with ACORN in his community organizing days in Chicago. A subsidiary of ACORN, Citizens Services Inc (CSI), is part of what John Fund of the Wall Street Journal calls “Obama’s Liberal Shock Troops”.

For example, a search for ACORN at the 1024 Elysian Fields Avenue address in New Orleans uncovers at least 70 different organizations operating out of that front. One of these, Citizens Services Inc, has received almost $1 million dollars from Barack Obama’s campaign in the last five months.

Citizens Services Inc seems to run under the radar and they do not advertise their services. In response to one of their board members, someone named Sunday Alibi, we were told that this work is done by ACORN, not Citizens Services. Citizens Services has worked on the Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) efforts for campaigns in at least two states, Maryland and Ohio.

First, they were involved in the Maryland Congressional race of 2006, which brought about an FCC complaint this year involving Representatives Al Wynn and challenger Donna Edwards, Wynn vs. Edwards. At the center of the complaint is Citizens’ Services Inc and several other ACORN entities. According to the Louisiana Secretary of State all three of these businesses work out of 1024 Elysian Fields Avenue, New Orleans, ACORN’s business address.

According Lori Sherwood, Wynn’s campaign manager, Edwards made three payments of $76,866.80 to Citizens Services Inc, for a door-to-door get-out-the-vote effort. It seems CSI listed as their business address, 11 Chase Street, Baltimore. When Ms. Sherwood checked the address she found no CSI/ACORN. Upon further examination by Ms. Sherwood, CSI was listed as a foreign company, which was false. Finally Ms. Wynn discovered that the company had forfeited their license to do business in Maryland two months after the 2006 primary race.

Secondly, I looked for CSI/ACORN “campaign consulting” fees in Ohio. I called the Secretary of State of Ohio to find out if they were listed as an active business and they were not. I did find the following businesses operating in Ohio, ACORN LLC, ZACORN (active fictitious name) and acorn.net. As there was no permit for CSI to do business in Ohio, clearly any GOTV activities were operating illegally in that state as well.After placing my call to the Secretary of State in Ohio, I found the following advertisement seeking workers for the Obama campaign, dated February 21, 2008. These are positions paid for by the Obama for America campaign. The full body of the help wanted ad can be found here: Obama Seeks Canvassers

GOTV for Obama! Ohio ACORN is doing a Get Out The Vote project with the OBAMA Campaign. Ohio ACORN is hiring canvassers to go door to door encouraging voters to vote for Barak Obama.

ACORN is hiring in Cleveland (216)431-3905 , Columbus (614)425-9491, Cincinnati (513)221-1737, for Dayton (call Cincinnati), and for Toledo call Cleveland. Or email polnatoh@acorn.org and your inquiry will be routed to the appropriate person in each of these cities. Intake and training will be held daily at local ACORN offices.

Canvass begins on Wednesday Feb. 27th and will work through election day. Please, only persons wishing to work all or most of these days (Saturday and Sunday included) should inquire.Please do not contact the Obama campaign directly regarding this post as they are not the organization doing the hiring and it will only distract their staff and volunteers from the other important work they are doing on behalf of Senator Obama. Good luck.

According to Ohio Citizen Action, payments of $590,526.10 were made to Citizens Services Inc (ACORN) for “campaign consulting”. I reviewed all the FEC filings from February until June for Obama for America (Obama’s campaign
title) and found payments to CSI/ACORN. In all Obama for America made payments
totaling, $832,598.29 .

The FEC filings can be found here: Federal Election Commission.

Look for more breaking news in the coming weeks!

Yesterday we read about the $28,500 in contributions to the Obama Campaign by two Palestinian members of a large Hamas-supporting refugee compound who claimed to live in the nonexistant town of Rafah, Georgia. The total later was calculated to be $33,500.

Today the Obama campaign stated that they actually retured that money but “forgot” to report it to the FEC due to a “technical error”.

According to the upstanding and honest Obama Campaign:

The donations came in between Sept. 20 and Dec. 6 and virtually all of the money, about $33,500, was returned by December 6. But the refunds weren’t reported to the Federal Election Commission due to a technical error, campaign officials said.

The remaining $2,500 was refunded Monday. The refunds will all be reflected shortly in an amended report. New controls to prevent such attempts are now in place, the campaign said.

Well that settles that, more or less, right?

Nope.

Unfortunately for the Obama campaign, the two USA-hating Hamas lovers Palestinians flat out deny that any of the money was returned to them.

The Obama camp insisted the remaining $2,500 was refunded Monday and all of the refunds will be reflected soon in an amended report. The campaign said new controls are in place to prevent any similar attempts in the future.

But WND asked two of the brothers – Monir and Hasam Edwan – to respond to the campaign’s claims.

“No, we did not receive any money back from the Obama campaign at any time,” said Monir Edwan.

It’s hard to tell which side is lying isn’t it? It takes a liar to know a liar. Let em fight it out.

But that’s not all folks! Since we are on the subject, however indirectly, of Obama’s ties to the types of middle easterners who love to blow people up, shoot women or set them on fire for a diversion–yet another Obama adivisor has resigned.

Chicago lawyer (where else??) Massen Asbahi, Barack Obama’s Arab American and Muslim American outreach coordinator, has resigned as a result of questions about his connections to various dubious Islamist interests in the Middle East (Translation: Funding for terrorists who love to blow Americans and Israelis up).

The Muslim-outreach coordinator to the presidential campaign of Barack Obama has resigned amid questions about his involvement in an Islamic investment fund and various Islamic groups.

Asbahi “briefly served on the board of Allied Assets Advisors Fund, a Delaware-registered trust [and a subsidiary of the American Islamic Trust]. Its other board members at the time included Jamal Said AKA Sheik Jamal, the imam at the fundamentalist- controlled Bridgeview Mosque in Bridgeview, Ill., outside Chicago],” Simpson and Chozick wrote

Here is his introductory page at mybarackobama. Get it while it’s hot. I am sure it will be scrubbed soon. Not that there aren’t screen shots. No matter though. This is just one more in a long line of Middle Eastern “coincidences” associated with the Obama campaign.

UPDATE: It seems that Winston, directly out of Orwell’s 1984, works for Barack Obama. The mybarackobama page has been scrubbed. For those of you who missed what was written there:

All -

Assalamu-Aleikum. My name is Mazen Asbahi and I’ve been blessed and privileged to be serving the Obama for America Campaign as the National Coordinator for Muslim American Affairs. I’m also coordinating Arab American matters. I’m treating the two roles separately as these are two separate constituencies, though of course there is some overlap.

In order to get Senator Obama elected, the Campaign needs all of you to continue your support and if possible to take it to another level. It’s a race for every vote in the key battleground states, such as Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio. We need Muslim Americans to get excited about the Campaign, and there’s a lot to get excited about!

Sure, there have been mis-steps. And of course there are added sensitivities with our faith given the “smear” campaign trying to paint the Senator as too exotic and too un-American to be President.

If you have not plugged into the Campaign, please do. The Campaign makes it very easy to do. Visit your local Obama offices and register voters, raise money, get the word out, and pull in your friends and family to also participate.

Please feel free to contact me with ideas, critiques and suggestions for improvements on our outreach strategies. (Please keep in mind that I’ve just signed on :)).

Peace,

Mazen Asbahi

For some months now there has been speculation that Obama’s campaign has been taking illegal donations. Last night, the Federal Election Commission filings for Obama for America were released at Right Side News.

I know these illegal contributions are against the law of the FEC.

Not too long ago the Wall Street Journal Market Watch released an interview with the brothers, Mosir and Hosam Edwan, who live in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip originally published in the World News Daily. Their stories are conflicting. They said they bought t-shirts for $9 from the campaign and resold them for a profit, that doesn’t hold water since Obama t-shirts are $20.08. They did admit to giving money to the campaign finally.

Since I am a policy/law wonk (much the same as Hillary) I did some digging and got an education on filing a complaint with the FEC. I have furnished that information for you.

Introduction

The Federal Election Commission frequently receives questions about how to file a complaint concerning possible violations of federal election campaign laws.1 This brochure explains how to file a complaint with the Commission and describes how complaints are processed.

I. Filing a Complaint

Any person may file a complaint if he or she believes a violation of the Federal Election Campaign Laws or Commission regulations has occurred or is about to occur. The complaint must be made in writing and sent to the Office of General Counsel, Federal Election Commission, 999 E Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20463. The original must be submitted along with three copies, if possible. Facsimile or e-mail transmissions are not acceptable. A complaint must comply with certain requirements. It must:

Provide the full name and address of the person filing the complaint (called the complainant); and

Be signed, sworn to and notarized. This means that the notary public’s certificate must say “…signed and sworn to before me…,” or words that connote the complaint was affirmed by the complainant, (such as “under penalty of perjury”).

Furthermore, in order for a complaint to be considered complete and proper, it should:

Clearly recite the facts that show specific violations under the Commission’s jurisdiction (citations to the law and regulations are not necessary);

Clearly identify each person, committee or group that is alleged to have committed a violation (called the respondent);

Include any documentation supporting the allegations, if available; and
Differentiate between statements based on the complainant’s (the person who files the complaint) personal knowledge and those based on information and belief. Statements not based on personal knowledge should identify the source of the information.

For self-reported complaints (called “sua sponte” submissions), the submission should include an admission of the violation(s), a complete recitation of the facts along with all relevant documentation that explains how the violation was discovered, the internal actions that were taken in response to the violation and what other agencies, if any, are investigating the violation (or facts surrounding the violation).

The Commission seeks to increase the number of self-reported submissions in order to expedite enforcement of the law. To encourage self-reporting, the Commission will generally negotiate penalties between 25 and 75 percent lower than those for matters arising by other means, such as through complaints or the Commission’s own review of reports. In certain circumstances, the Commission may allow committees who voluntarily report their violations and make a complete report of their internal investigation to proceed directly into conciliation before the Commission makes a finding as to whether there is reason to believe the committee violated campaign finance laws or Commission regulations.

I am the complainant and of course Obama for America will be the respondent. While this educated me on filing the complaint there is no sample complaint form. They have the requirements listed for the complaint but no letter.

As I was unsure of how to proceed with “my complaint”, I called the FEC Information Office. I spoke with a young man in that office, very nice by the way, and read him my complaint. He said that my complaint had just the correct information in the body of it. Here is my complaint in its entirety, minus personal information:

Federal Election Commission
999 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20463

FEC Complaint:
Obama for America Campaign

According to FEC filings from the Obama for America campaign they have
accepted ionations totafing nearly $29,000 from someone living inGaza’ None of
the money has been returned as far as we can tell. According to laws no donations
may be taken from non-US citizens’

I believe that the obama campaign took these donations with full knowledge that
they come from someone living inGaza.It appears on the filings that they tried to
hide the fact it was from Gaza by abbreviating it GA. There is no Rafah GA.

That is about all the information you have to put in your complaint. And remember to put any supporting evidence, which I have, in the envelope before mailing it. The FEC information office was helpful and asked if I had their address.

There is one other piece of advice that I received via counsel, submit duplicate copies of the complaint and supporting documents to the Department of Justice. I did write a letter addressed to the Attorney General of the United States, the envelope did contain the copy of the complaint and supporting documents. I know it sounds redundant, but this is an outright violation of federal laws and should not go unpunished.

The Obama campaign is not above the law!

Now, Barky, let’s talk, mmmmmmkay??? Did you already know that taking money from Palestinian citizens is illegal? Just asking. I was wondering, though, since so many have complained about your lax online contribution form, why have you continued to leave your form open to this type of illegal donation. I mean, it wasn’t that long ago that you had to donate the $2300 online contribution from your Chicago neighbor, Iraqi prison escapee and Rezko-bribe-loving former Minister of Electricity, Aiham Alsammarae.

Remember? I do.

You sure do have a lot of friends in interesting places, Mr. Obama.

The Real Barack Obama tells us that Monir Edwan and Hosam Edwan from “Rafah GA” donated $29,500 to Barack Obama’s campaign. They just happen to be members of a large Hamas-Supporting clan.

Speaking to WND, the two brothers praised Obama and admitted giving the money online to his campaign. They said they are not U.S. citizens but are citizens of “Palestine.”

But wait! Before you judge these innocent men from the nonexistent ”Rafah GA,” they said it’s all about Obama T-shirts. After all, Barack Obama is indeed very popular among Israel-bombing folks. So, the enterprising brothers bought a boatload of them and claimed to be Americans living in Georgia. Cool. No problem there, right? Nothing sneaky or anything, right?

The donations would violate election laws, including prohibitions on receiving donations from foreigners and guidelines against accepting more than $2,300 from one individual during a single election, Bob Biersack, a spokesman for the Federal Election Commission, told WND in response to a query.

I can’t help but imagine that all of Obama’s little helpers who love his “Manifesto” over in Gaza might have worn these T-Shirts while they made cold calls to American voters during the primaries–urging voters to vote for Obama. I know that all Americans can’t help but think that a call from Gaza City the day of a Primary is a good thing. Truly, Mr. Obama is a Global candidate when it comes to the Middle East. Minus Israel of course. No sense of hanging out with the only pesky democracy over there, right?

You can read more about the two T-Shirt Totin’ Hamas-lovers from “Rafah GA” here.

Fischer was interviewed by the media extensively prior to the Iowa caucuses. He is most recently famous, however, for his untoward remarks about President Bill Clinton of a few months ago. After Clinton has the audacity to use the words, “McCain, patriotism and Obama” in the same sentence, Fischer wrote at the political web site he maintains (www.iowatrueblue.com) that the former president had left a stain on his own reputation “bigger than the one he deposited on Monica Lewinsky’s dress.” As an Obama supporter, Fischer is now calling–of course–for Democratic Party unity. He offered a lame apology in the interim but it’s not hard to see the way this guy thinks.

At the time Fischer was the Iowa Democratic Party chairman, one of my oldest daughter’s best friends from high school was a full-time staffer within the organization. She arranged for Fischer and me to have lunch last June in Des Moines (he bought) and I pitched him on supporting Hillary Clinton for president. Fischer remained uncommitted at the time.

In August Fischer wrote the Des Moines Register to advise them of a renewed launch of his political web site. He vowed to keep his comments “100 percent positive” at all times and to focus especially on campaign finance reform.

In early October Fischer announced with much fanfare at the Obama campaign that he would be supporting Illinois’ junior senator for the presidency. In a joint conference call from Obama headquarters in Des Moines coincident with this announcement, Fischer questioned Hillary’s progressive credentials and the favorability ratings that he considered unacceptably negative for her at the time.

I sent Fischer an e-mail reminding him of his pledge to keep things “one hundred percent positive” and questioning his motivations for backing Obama. Fischer immediately called Hillary’s state campaign director, Teresa Vilmain, to complain about me as one of Hillary’s volunteers.

About a month later I was visiting Fischer’s web site in vain attempts to find something…anything… positive he had to say about Hillary Clinton. I noticed a tab at the web site entitled “contributions.” I wrote Fischer to ask him how he could be soliciting contributions for his web site under current campaign finance laws when this venue was so obviously now an extension of the Obama campaign.

Although Fischer did not write me back, the next time I went to his site later that day the “donation” tab had been removed. I wrote Fischer again and noted this fact. I also told him that I was considering the filing of a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) against him.

Later that night (on a Sunday) I received an e-mail from Teresa Vilmain demanding that I meet with her to talk about Fischer. Obviously, he had been in touch with her once again to complain about my private correspondence with him. I refused to meet with Vilmain on the matter which I felt was between Fischer, the FEC and me.

The next day on his web site Fischer posted an item entitled “Iowa True Blue Makes No Cents” in which he ridiculed the “rants” that I had sent to him the previous day. He went on to belittle my open, honest and—until that time—private communications with him.

On the following day Fischer posted yet another item about me at his web site. This one was entitled “Honest.” He maintained in this piece that I was interpreting his actions as threatening to me and a form of intimidation. Yet Fischer has never attempted to explain the purpose of his calls to Vilmain or posts at his web site about me, let alone the intent behind them. I did write Fischer to ask if he, as a practicing attorney, routinely argues legal matters on blogs via the Internet.

A few days later I filed my FEC complaints against Fischer. I suggested that he had broken campaign finance laws and had compounded his problems by trying to keep me from filing my claims against him. As a practicing attorney and former head of the Iowa Democratic Party, I maintained in my complaint that Fischer should be held to the highest possible standards with respect to Federal Election Commission laws.

Within a couple of weeks, I received an acknowledgement of my complaint from Jeff S Jordan, a Supervisory Attorney at the FEC. It is now referred to as matter “MUR 5949.” Unfortunately, I have heard nothing since about this situation since November 6, 2007.

On October 29, 2007, Mark Daley of Hillary Clinton’s Iowa campaign staff asked me not to make appearances any longer at their offices in Des Moines. Daley was handling press relations at the time in Iowa for Senator Clinton. Formerly, he did similar work for the organization Gordon Fischer has headed, the Iowa Democratic Party. Although Daley did not explain his request to me, it obviously stems—in very large part, at least—from the many phone calls Gordon Fischer made to Hillary’s campaign about me.

I have never been more disillusioned about politics than I am today. On the other hand, disillusionment (e.g., to be disabused of our illusions) is mostly a very good thing.

Am I bitter? Yes, I am. Am I clinging more closely to my bible and guns? Again, I would have to answer in the affirmative, but I’ve grown quite a bit closer to the latter than the former based on this experience.