Tip of the iceberg – French National openly ILLEGALLY solicits contributions for le Senateur OBAMA – on le Obama Campaign web site!
Morgen on October 26, 2008 at 9:30 am
You’ve probably heard by now about the Obama campaign accepting credit card contributions via it’s web site without any name or address verification. As we all know, unless you are scoring some V I @ G R A from buku5%z.com, a matching address is required for every purchase or contribution made over the internet with a credit card. If the name entered does not match the name associated with the card number, the transaction shouldn’t go through. Most online retailers even ask for the confirmation code on the back of the card. But not so with the “Hope and Change” campaign. How is this even possible?
In fact, it’s clear that premeditated action would have to have been taken in order to disable the standard security features built into the credit card processing system. For more coverage of this issue, including several documented examples of successful transactions using fraudulent names and addresses, see the latest at AoS and HotAir.
So what kind of shenanigans might be enabled by this basic lapse of fiduciary responsibility on the part of the Obama campaign? How about the possibility that the campaign has received illegal contributions from untold thousands of citizens from all over the world? In fact it’s more than just a possibility, as the campaign has already had to return foreign source contributions brought to light earlier this year.
However, I suspect the problem runs far, far deeper than this. I spent only a few minutes searching international versions of Google and Yahoo and what did I find? For starters, numerous foreign web sites soliciting contributions for the Obama campaign in their native language with a direct link to the campaign web site (e.g. http://www.repubblicadirovigliano.org).
And if this isn’t bad enough, how about a campaign blog site on behalf of “Le France and Le Europe” – hosted directly on the Obama campaign web site itself! (Click here for an English translation of this site.)
Note that not only is someone of French nationality advocating on behalf of Obama, but that according to the Activity Tracker section on the right-hand side of the page, they have raised a total of $38,768.11 (as of 10/25) through all of the members affiliated with this group. Might some of these donors be part of the French-speaking or John Kerry-loving contingent here in the U.S.? Sure…but considering who the intended audience is for membership in this group, it’s a sure bet that some if not most of the contributors are citizens of France or elsewhere in Europe.
Need more convincing? I found the above link via a Google “Groupe” web site hosted in France. Now there is a line in French on the linking page that says “no funds can come French citizens”. Ha-ha. Given what we now know about the credit card verification, do we really think anyone is paying attention to this? The Obama campaign sure isn’t. Isn’t it more likely Obama is trying to capitalize on his popularity with Europeans? Did I mention that it’s illegal to accept campaign contributions from non-citizens?
Like I said, I spent no more than 5-10 minutes looking for these, and so I fully expect this is just the tip of the iceberg. Wanna help? Here’s a list of several easily accessed Google international search sites:
www.google.fr (France)
www.google.it (Italy)
www.google.de (Germany)
www.google.cn (China)
Of course there are a bunch more…and Yahoo has international sites as well. Search for “donate barack obama” or even “https://donate.barackobama.com”. Use the Google language translator if you need help deciphering a site. Post what you find in the Comments…and spread the word. Maybe someone in the mainstream media will finally wake up and realize that this is a story that needs to be covered.
Update: Here’s another post in French on Obama’s site encouraging donations (See the translation here). This links to the page Morgen noted above.
And another one…This is actually a blog created by French Obama supproters. No direct request for donations, but note the graphic showing items available for sale (in dollars) on Obama’s website with a graphic which reads “Donate” in English and French. Why is this significant? Because it has already been noted that purchasing Obama merchandise is a way to skirt the law preventing non-citizens from contributing to the campaign. Obama had to returns tens of thousands of dollars for T-shirts purchased by a pair of Palestinian brothers in the Gaza strip.
And one more…Another French site soliciting donations for Obama and directing people to Obama’s website. Note the author says “You can, if you are eligible, contribute to this wonderful adventure with some euros per month, week or day to support the effort of the candidate’s campaign.” Of course, with all the automatic security features turned off, anyone is effectively eligible to donate.
Category: News |
I sent this along to Drudge (in case nobody else did)–good job!
October 27, 2008 @ 12:23 pmThe merchandise sale is just as scandalous as the rest. Hillary knew it and raised it too.
October 27, 2008 @ 12:26 pmI’ve tried to take a look at some of this stuff. My interest is in discovering the breakdown of visitors by geographic location to donate.barackobama.com. This is a subdomain of barackobama.com and the starting point of the online donation process. An inquiry on the web stats service Alexa.com shows that 2% of all visitors view the donate.barackobama.com subdomain. However, the Alexa stats do not break down the geographic locations of visitors to that subdomain (as it does with the main domain). I suspect that Alexa would/does provide that information to paid subscribers. Keep in mind that 2% represents millions of unique visitors as BarackObama.com is in the top 800 websites in the world. My guess is that the number of “foreign” visitors to donate.barackobama.com would dwarf the number of visits potential from expats – the Obama campaigns only plausible defense. Admittedly, such evidence would not be proof of foreign donations, but why else would someone visit donate.barackobama.com if not to donate? I’m sure that there are more tech-savvy folks that might expound on this method of investigation.
October 27, 2008 @ 12:42 pm[...] Tip of the iceberg – French supporter openly solicits contributions for le Senateur OBAMA – on le Obama Campaign web site! [...]
October 27, 2008 @ 12:58 pm[...] Posted by mcnorman under Uncategorized | Tags: donations, france, illegal, Obama | And you thought you could only donate if you spoke English. Not so. Hey and they do it on Obama’s site. …numerous foreign [...]
October 27, 2008 @ 1:26 pmTAKE SCREENSHOTS AND PRINTOUTS
STAT!!!
October 27, 2008 @ 4:11 pm[...] Originally Posted by Breitling Poppa, what’s your source for that? I thought it was illegal for candidates to take money from foreign governments or foreign nationals. If Obama is getting money from middle-eastern countries, why the **** isn’t McCain making an issue of that? it is illegal. Obama’s campaign website did not ask for country or a valid US passport number, unlike McCain’s or Hillary’s. Further, his donation system actually deactivates the address verification for a credit card donation (used to prevent fraud) so you can make up any name and address, and donate from any country. Pretty amazing the press doesn’t call him on it. DUBIOUS DONATIONS – New York Post Tip of the iceberg – French National openly ILLEGALLY solicits contributions for le Senateur OBAMA -…. [...]
October 28, 2008 @ 7:15 pm[...] Originally Posted by Breitling Poppa, what’s your source for that? I thought it was illegal for candidates to take money from foreign governments or foreign nationals. If Obama is getting money from middle-eastern countries, why the fuck isn’t McCain making an issue of that? it is illegal. Obama’s campaign website did not ask for country or a valid US passport number, unlike McCain’s or Hillary’s. Further, his donation system actually deactivates the address verification for a credit card donation (used to prevent fraud) so you can make up any name and address, and donate from any country. Pretty amazing the press doesn’t call him on it. DUBIOUS DONATIONS – New York Post Tip of the iceberg – French National openly ILLEGALLY solicits contributions for le Senateur OBAMA -…. [...]
October 29, 2008 @ 3:27 am[...] Morgen at Verum Serum has some interesting findings related to foreign web support for [...]
October 30, 2008 @ 2:16 amSomeone also should google ‘free PCI scan’ and have the donate.barackobama.com servers scanned for PCI security – bet they don’t comply. I was going to do this myself, but I can’t bet my company and this crowd may soon control the DOJ.
October 30, 2008 @ 2:03 pm[...] campaign solicited and hid countless foreign contributions. Where is the [...]
October 30, 2008 @ 3:06 pmRemember that after John Kerry(D) lost all the Soros-funded fraud was “investigated” and fined thousands… for spending hundreds of millions illegally. Lesson learned. This time the Soros-funded fraud is on the winning side so the losers will be “investigated”.
November 11, 2008 @ 7:26 pmNo French citizen would be dumb enough to sent money to a site that does not speak or write French correctly. Le France and le Europe are fabrications of illiterate morons who are merely trying to scare uneducated people by making them believe in a world conspiracy. You can be sure that if the world media did not pick it up, it is because there is no believable evidence. Do something useful with your time, help build up a better world instead of tearing down someone who trying to make this world a better place what the hec did you learn in school?
November 11, 2008 @ 7:50 pmObama is going to get away with massive fraud unless you fight back. Start by filing a written complaint at the federal election commission. There are instructions for doing so at the FEC website. Nothing will happen unless you fight back.
November 11, 2008 @ 9:40 pmI think you should investigate if Obama received fradulant campaign donations. We need to know is he collected from foreign
November 12, 2008 @ 5:37 amenties who should not be allowed to give. This has been going on for several elections. It is time to stop this sort of thing.
[...] Obama best used these advances to win the election (though if he used them legally is a completely different story) Well I have news for those liberals: Now you are “the man” and it is our turn to use the [...]
November 13, 2008 @ 5:14 amI was under the impression that this was another one of those “urban legends”, and that small donations that can’t be specifically traced are in no way indicative of illegal activity, and on the international front this was all phooey anyhow.
The story around the blogosphere and the “info clearing houses” is that Obama by and large ran a campaign largely free from illegal donations from any source, as did John McCain.
There’s a lot of sugar floating around out there.
There’s this whole bruha of the government “taking over” 401ks (its only a notion at this point, based on ONE testimony from ONE economics “expert’).
Then there are the fanciful stories about Obama’s welfare handouts that leave out vast swaths of context. While partially true, they omit, per factcheck.org, for example, that John McCain’s own policies would be roughly the same in effect. Or for that matter Palin’s beloved Alaska took corporate money from the hides of Big Oil and “spread the wealth” around.
Context, people.
CONTEXT. Key word of the day. Learn it. Live it. Breathe it in.
November 13, 2008 @ 9:08 am