What MoDo wants you to know

[Tylergal]

I would bet $200 that there will never be an investigation into this.

 
 

OBAMA'S TROUBLING INTERNET FUND RAISING
Maureen Dowd
New York Times

 

Certainly the most interesting and potentially devastating phone call I have received during this election cycle came this week from one of the Obama's campaign internet geeks.  These are the staffers who devised Obama's internet fund raising campaign which raised in the neighborhood of $200 million so far.  That is more then twice the total funds raised by any candidate in history – and this was all from  the internet campaign.

 

What I learned from this insider was shocking but I guess we shouldn't be surprised that when it comes to fund raising there simply are no rules that can't be broken and no ethics that prevail.

 

Obama's internet campaign started out innocently enough with basic e-mail networking , lists saved from previous party campaigns and from supporters who visited any of the Obama campaign web sites.

Small contributions came in from these sources and the internet campaign staff  were more than pleased by the results.

 

Then, about two months into the campaign the daily contribution intake multiplied.  Where was it coming from?  One of the web site security monitors began to notice the bulk of the contributions were clearly coming in from overseas internet service providers and at the rate and frequency of transmission it was clear these donations were "programmed" by a very sophisticated user.

 

While the security people were not able to track most of the sources due to firewalls and other blocking devices put on these contributions they were able to collate the number of contributions that were coming in seemingly from individuals but the funds were from only a few credit card accounts and bank electronic funds transfers.  The internet service providers (ISP) they were able to trace were from Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other Middle Eastern countries. One of the banks used for fund transfers was also located in Saudi Arabia. 

 

Another concentrated group of donations was traced to a Chinese ISP with a similar pattern of limited credit card charges.

 

It became clear that these donations were very likely coming from sources other than American voters.  This was discussed at length within the campaign and the decision was made that none of these donations violated campaign financing laws. 

 

It was also decided that it was not the responsibility of the campaign to audit these millions of contributions as to the actual source (specific credit card number or bank transfer account numbers) to insure that none of these internet contributors exceeded the legal maximum donation on a cumulative basis of many small donations.  They also found the record keeping was not complete enough to do it anyway.

 

This is a shocking revelation.

 

We have been concerned about the legality of "bundling" contributions after the recent exposure of illegal bundlers but now it appears we may have an even greater problem.

 

I guess we should have been somewhat suspicious when the numbers started to come out.  We were told (no proof offered) that the Obama internet contributions were from $10.00 to $25.00 or so.

 

If the $200,000,000 is right, and the average contribution was $15.00, that would mean over 13 million individuals made contributions?  That would also be 13 million contributions would need to be processed.  How did all that happen?

 

I believe the Obama campaign's internet fund raising needs a serious, in depth investigation and audit.  It also appears the whole question of internet fund raising needs investigation by the legislature and perhaps new laws to insure it complies not only with the letter of these laws but the spirit as well.

[nomad]

Wow!  Really?      

I found this at Snopes....link: http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/donations.asp

Claim: The bulk of donations to the Obama campaign came from a handful of wealthy financiers.

Status: false

This was not written by Maureen Dowd.  Please click on the above link to read, and the content is false !

[WhiskeyGirl]

Obama may be known for the most interesting 'smears' in history -

Did Obama Plant Bogus Dowd Column to Victimize Himself?

Peter J. Wirs
Thursday, July 17, 2008

Did presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama’s campaign plant a fake story accusing itself of campaign finance irregularities, in order to portray itself as victims of right-wing allegations about the campaign’s successful Internet fund-raising?

In a July 8 2008-article "Bogus Dowd Column spreads quickly" PolitiFact, a project of the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly, reported that blogs and chain e-mails were spreading a Maureen Dowd New York Times column that claims the Obama campaign got suspicious contributions from Iran, Saudi Arabia and China. "But the column is a fake," reports PolitiFact. The New York Times also disowned the Dowd column as a fake.

According to PolitiFact, "It's not clear who wrote the column. One of the early appearances of the column was when it was posted June 29 on a blog on AZCentral, the Arizona Republic newspaper site, by someone identified as Thomas Moore." The post appeared Sunday, June 29, 2008 at 07:38 P.M.. The blog biography depicts Moore as "a retired journalist/technical writer/illustrator" and an avowed Barry Goldwater fan.

(snip)

That the Dowd column is a fake is without dispute. But who created this fake column attacking the Obama campaign? We suspect that the Obama itself is responsible for the fake column, planting it to appear as a post of a far-right blogger, in order to discredit the underlying allegations as nothing more than a GOP, right-wing conspiracy.

(snip)

But planting false stories in the midst of campaigns? First, such campaign tactics are not new. Thomas Jefferson planted scores of scandalous stories about John Adams.

However, the fake Maureen Dowd column has certain attributes which only persons intimately familiar with the Obama campaign would normally have privy to. The allegations in the fake Maureen Dowd story required the expertise of persons familiar with Internet technology. There are hundreds, indeed thousands of people who would have such IT expertise. But the allegations also require expertise of persons familiar with obscure provisions of Federal campaign finance regulations. Find me one person among the general public who would have intimate knowledge of Section 103.3(b) of Title 11 of the Code of Federal Regulations. It was this fake column’s inferences to a specific Federal Election Commission promulgated regulation that raised my suspicions.

Moreover, the appearance of the fake Maureen Dowd story rapidly materialized on the Obama website long before "it had feet" appearing on multiple web sites and blogs throughout the nation. How did an Obama campaign worker criticize the Moore posting and thereafter the Obama campaign post a response on its "Fight the Smears" website long before the spoof was circulated throughout the blogosphere?

(snip)

I know that at least two daily newspapers have investigative reporters working on this story. Whether someone inside the Obama campaign will have the honesty and integrity of becoming a Deep Throat to expose the Democrat’s campaign trickery remains an open question. But apparently, the age of dirty trickers and "plumbers" has materialized in a new form for a new medium, the Internet. Personally, I sense David Axelrod’s fingerprints all over this fake Maureen Dowd column. If this is what Obama means by "hope" and "change" then I’m terrified about the future of this campaign.

read the rest of this article here -
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/PeterJWirs/2008/07/17/did_obama_plant_bogus_dowd_column_to_victimize_himself

[caesu]

thanks for another made up bogus article Tyler!

[crazybabyborg]

thanks for another made up bogus article Tyler!

OK, stop it. We can all disagree, dispute, and challenge any issue, article, or point of view brought into this thread with other sources including our own philosophies. But it stops there; it stops short of personally naming other posters or making other individuals the object of those challenges.

There's been a problem throughout this thread with personal attacks and it stops here for everyone.What's been posted stands, and we'll leave history there. It's a new day, and these are the rules. Follow them and continue a lively discussion, break them and find another forum to post on.

[caesu]

thanks for another made up bogus article Tyler!

OK, stop it. We can all disagree, dispute, and challenge any issue, article, or point of view brought into this thread with other sources including our own philosophies. But it stops there; it stops short of personally naming other posters or making other individuals the object of those challenges.

There's been a problem throughout this thread with personal attacks and it stops here for everyone.What's been posted stands, and we'll leave history there. It's a new day, and these are the rules. Follow them and continue a lively discussion, break them and find another forum to post on.

it's a made up bogus article right?

is it allowed to post such unsourced articles, but not allowed to point to the fact that the article is made up?

[crazybabyborg]

thanks for another made up bogus article Tyler!

OK, stop it. We can all disagree, dispute, and challenge any issue, article, or point of view brought into this thread with other sources including our own philosophies. But it stops there; it stops short of personally naming other posters or making other individuals the object of those challenges.

There's been a problem throughout this thread with personal attacks and it stops here for everyone.What's been posted stands, and we'll leave history there. It's a new day, and these are the rules. Follow them and continue a lively discussion, break them and find another forum to post on.

it's a made up bogus article right?

is it allowed to post such unsourced articles, but not allowed to point to the fact that the article is made up?

Point it out, back it up, and leave it there. No problem with that dispute at all. The problem is your personal comment toward Tyler and anyone else's comments toward you or other posters. Address the issue, in this case the letter, not the poster! Move on.