Tag Archives: Politics

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Finance fraud:

It turns out that half of Obama’s haul in 2008 has come in contributions of $200 dollars or less. These small donations do not require public disclosure under FEC guidelines, and the Obama campaign refuses to make public its list of contributors.

It turns out that half of Obama’s haul in 2008 has come in contributions of $200 dollars or less. These small donations do not require public disclosure under FEC guidelines, and the Obama campaign refuses to make public its list of contributors.

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From PowerLine

I've read recent reports of the Obama campaign receiving donations from dubious names and foreign locales and it got me wondering: How is this possible?

I run a small Internet business and when I process credit cards I'm required to make sure the name on the card exactly matches the name of the customer making the purchase. Also, the purchaser's address must match that of the cardholders. If these don't match, then the payment isn't approved. Period. So how is it possible that the Obama campaign could receive donations from fictional people and places? Well, I decided to do a little experiment. I went to the Obama campaign website and entered the following:

Name: John Galt
Address: 1957 Ayn Rand Lane
City: Galts Gulch
State: CO
Zip: 99999

Then I checked the box next to $15 and entered my actual credit card number and expiration date (it didn't ask for the 3-didgit code on the back of the card) and it took me to the next page and... "Your donation has been processed. Thank you for your generous gift."

This simply should not, and could not, happen in any business or any campaign that is honestly trying to vet it's donors. Also, I don't see how this could possibly happen without the collusion of the credit card companies. They simply wouldn't allow any business to process, potentially, hundreds of millions in credit card transactions where the name on the card doesn't match the purchasers name.

In short, with the system set up as it is by the Obama camp, an individual could donate unlimited amounts of money by simply making up fake names and addresses. And Obama is doing his best to facilitate this fraud. This is truly scandalous.

Our reader was not yet done. He tried the experiment on the McCain site: "I tried the exact same thing at the McCain site and it didn't allow the transaction." He then repeated the experiment at the Obama site:

I went back to the Obama site and made three additional donations using the names Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and Bill Ayers, all with different addresses. All the transactions went through using the same credit card. I saved screenshots of the transactions.

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From the NextRight

I just contributed $5 to Barack Obama.

I didn't want to. Ideally, I could have contributed $0.01 and cost them money. But it was the only way to confirm the root cause of the fraudulent micro-donations to the Obama campaign ("Doodad Pro" for $17,300 and "Good Will" for $11,000).

The Obama campaign has turned its security settings for accepting online contributions down to the bare minimum -- possibly to juice the numbers, and turning a blind eye towards the potential for fraud not just against the FEC, but against unsuspecting victims of credit card fraud.

The issue centers around the Address Verification Service (or AVS) that credit card processors use to sniff out phony transactions. I was able to contribute money using an address other than the one on file with my bank account (I used an address I control, just not the one on my account), showing that the Obama campaign deliberately disabled AVS for its online donors.

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DISCLAIMER:  I'VE SEEN A NUMBER OF THESE "EXPERIMENTS" SO I'M HESITANT TO SAY THAT THEY'RE ALL AUTHENTIC.  AT THE SAME TIME I HAVE NO DESIRE TO DONATE TO OBAMA'S CAMPAIGN TO PROVE THEM RIGHT.

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Blogs on "voter registration fraud"

Sassafrassin:

So we have 644,197 people eligible to be registered in Marion County/Indianapolis, and 677,401 people registered. Congratulations go to Indianapolis for having 105% of its residents registered!

Just remember, the New York Times will continue to tell its readers that there’s no voter fraud across the country and that efforts to try and clear the rolls of bogus entries is somehow illegal or restricts the rights of those people to vote. The Times is wrong.

The New York Times and Washington Post forgets that every bogus vote cast or indicated means that your legitimate vote gets offset by someone who is voting illegally. Your right to vote is harmed by these illegal and bogus votes. That’s the crime committed here, not trying to clear the voter rolls of bogus names, preventing those who are barred from voting (illegal aliens or felons or dead people) from casting votes, and ensuring that the voter rolls are accurate.

Instapundit

MORE REPORTS OF MASSIVE VOTER FRAUD BY ACORN. "They turn in 5000 new voter registration forms in Indiana, election officials start checking them and give up after the first 2100 were found to be fraudulent." Where's the Department of Justice on this? CNN report below.

News articles on "voter registration fraud" (or voter fraud)

WREG (Memphis, TN)

"It's important we protect the integrity in our election process," said Gibbons.  "We're going to do everything we can to make sure we do have that."

New York Post

O'jahnae Smith is ready and registered to vote this November.

There's only one problem: She's 7 years old.

The Connecticut girl is 11 years too young - and nobody in her family knows how she ended up on a voter registration form submitted by ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Click2Houston.com

Investigative reporter Amy Davis shows you how hundreds of voters could sway this year's election -- voters who are not even alive.

"All-in-all, a great person, a great woman, just a wonderful person" is how Alexis Guidry described her mother to Local 2 Investigates.

"As far back as I can remember, they've always voted in the election," Guidry said of her parents.The March 2008 Primary was no exception.

Voting records show Alexis' mom, Gloria Guidry, cast her ballot in person near her South Houston home."It was just very shocking, a little unsettling," said Alexis Guidry.

It's unsettling because Gloria Guidry died of cancer 10 months before the March Primary.

"She'd be very upset," Guidry said when asked what her mom would think.

KOAT - Albequerque

The New Mexico Republican Party said they believe 28 people voted fraudulently in an Albuquerque state House district in the June Democratic primary.

The Republican Party found the problems in a review of 92 newly registered voters in House District 13.State Rep. Justine Fox-Young, an Albuquerque Republican, said a number of the suspected fraudulent voters voted by absentee ballot.

Republicans released details for 10 of those votes. The registration cards that were filled out had no social security numbers, drivers license numbers or birthdates for the voters.

MLive.com

LANSING -- Michigan's attorney general is charging a former employee of a community organizing group with forgery after he says the man falsely submitted six voter registration forms.

Antonio Johnson is being held in Jackson County on a parole violation. The 23-year-old is accused of falsifying the registration forms between May 20 and June 6 in Jackson.

He worked for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN.

Jackson Clerk Lynn Fessel suspected a problem and asked police to investigate. Two residents said they didn't sign the forms and that some information used to complete the forms was incorrect.

(Ellen's not:  This means that the forger didn't sign up "Mickey Mouse"- he signed up real people again. )

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WASHINGTON -- Barack Obama wants to speak at the Brandenburg Gate. He figures it would be a nice backdrop. The supporting cast -- a cheering audience and a few fainting frauleins -- would be a picturesque way to bolster his foreign policy credentials.

What Obama does not seem to understand is that the Brandenburg Gate is something you earn. President Reagan earned the right to speak there because his relentless pressure had brought the Soviet empire to its knees and he was demanding its final "tear down this wall" liquidation. When President Kennedy visited the Brandenburg Gate on the day of his "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech, he was representing a country that was prepared to go to the brink of nuclear war to defend West Berlin.

Americans are beginning to notice Obama's elevated opinion of himself. There's nothing new about narcissism in politics. Every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. Nonetheless, has there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?

Indeed.

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This first one is important...we will begin to see religious freedoms eroded, shipped away at or litigated away.  This is not a "Christian" issue, but it is one that Christians should stand behind, for the sake of the freedom for all.

From Texas:

A small rural school district in Fort Bend County and a determined mother are tangled in a dispute over hair.

Michelle Betenbaugh says her 5-year-old son, Adriel Arocha, wears his hair long because of religious beliefs tied to his Native American heritage.

But the leaders of the Needville school district have strict rules about long hair on boys and don't see any reason to make an exception in his case.

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From Florida:

BRADENTON - A 94-year-old man whose arrest in a prostitution sting here caused an international buzz will not be prosecuted. A judge ruled Tuesday that Frank Milio was a victim of entrapment.

Milio, who has dementia, was unable to get into a care facility while his case was pending.

Okay...he's 94!  and demented...

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All is not well in Democrat-land...

or Republican-land...

Oh...it is going to be an interesting election cycle.

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Tom McMahon by Tom McMahon

Barack Obama's sitting at a bar when a man comes up to him and says: "Wanna hear a Barack Obama joke?" Obama: "Er, hold on there, buddy — I am Barack Obama."  "Oh. all right then, I'll tell it in Spanish."

More here.  (the page linked here is clean.  I take no responsibility for where it goes from here - and I didn't go past here)
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(AP) A federal judge has overturned a decision by the U.S. Forest Service to allow oil and gas drilling near a forest and a river in Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula.

U.S. District Judge David Lawson of Detroit ruled Thursday the agency had acted "arbitrarily and capriciously" in 2005 by giving Savoy Energy LP of Traverse City a permit to drill an exploratory well near the Au Sable River's south branch.

When I was a kid I fell in love with the idea of Kirtland's Warbler.  It was the "underdog"  and I had never seen one.  My family (grandparents) owned property in Grayling and I remember the time spent there very fondly.  I believe at that time the "specialists" were pretty sure the bird would be extinct soon and it would have been if they had not worked hard to protect it.

One of the rarest birds in the world, Kirtland's Warbler is a small songbird.  They spend winters in the Bahamas and during the summer all of these birds come to the Northern Lower Peninsula of Michigan.

They are in danger for two reasons:  1) habitat and 2) cowbirds.

In the article I linked to above, a judge has ruled that the drilling company cannot drill in the area for which they paid for a permit to drill (and said permit was granted).


Here are the two quotes that (for those who care to pay attention) make the Sierra Club and the judge (a collaborative effort) look like idiots.

quote #1:

But the judge ruled the Forest Service didn't consider how degrading the area could harm tourism, and said the agency did a "woefully inadequate" job of evaluating how the drilling might affect the Kirtland's warbler, an endangered songbird that nests in the area.

quote #2

"We've said from the beginning we didn't want to stop them from drilling," said Marvin Roberson, a forest policy specialist with the Sierra Club. "We want them to drill from a place that won't be harmful to the old-growth forest or the recreational experience."

This is where a person has to have a little bit of knowledge to know that these two things are mutally exclusive.

  • Old-growth forest
  • Kirtland's Warbler...

Folks...Kirtland's Warblers...DON'T NEST IN OLD GROWTH FORESTS!!!There are not many areas of old-growth forest in Grayling - the only significant acrage that is listed anywhere I could find is inside the boundries of Hartwick Pines State Park (we camped there a couple of weeks ago).  This is not where the drilling would be taking place.  Sierra Clubs appeal to "old growth" is a misleading at best.

Kirtland's Warblers nest in Jack Pine Forests - one of the first tree to grow after a forest fire.  A Jack Pine Forest is  NEW GROWTH FOREST.

Not only does this darling little bird not nest in "old growth forests", they don't even next in older Jack Pine forests!  Kirtland's Warblers nest under (not in)  Jack Pine trees that are young - between 8 and 20 years old.

The DNR in Michigan is giving Kirtland's Warblers new and safe habitat in which to live.

How do they do this?

BY CUTTING DOWN TREES AND BURNING AREAS FORESTED WITH MATURE TREES!

Local anglers can make a good case for prohibiting drilling withing a reasonable distance of the AuSable River.  The Mason Tract (where the drilling would be angling under) was given to the state with the intent that it be maintained as wilderness.  I think that it should be maintained as wilderness.

So I am NOT saying that drilling should happen (there are good reasons that it should not), but that the people who want it stopped should at least get their act together and not let the Sierra Club undermine their credibility by appealing to the Kirtland's Warblers nesting area in the Old Growth Forest.

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It's going to get interesting.  It is my opinion that we will see gay activists targeting Christian businesses with lawsuits in order to change the face of American Christianity.  It is also my opinion that they will mostly succeed - except for that "remnant".

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New Mexico
...a New Mexico court decides against a Christian photographer who opted not to photograph a lesbian wedding.

After Huguenin told them she only photographed traditional marriages, the couple filed a complaint for discrimination against their sexual orientation.

The case was taken before the New Mexico Human Rights Commission, which heard the case in January.

This will end up affecting many Christian small business owners that rub shoulders with the marriage "industry".  Flowers, photographers, seamstresses, caterers, cake bakers.

Gay activists are not above deliberately targeting Christians in order to sue and set precedents in the court system.

In another story, "Legally Speaking: Through a Lens, Darkly" the point is made that there are civil rights at stake:  the rights of the photographer.

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California

...A lesbian couple sues a fertility clinic

This is disputed by Kenneth Pedroza, the attorney for the two doctors. He said they clearly informed Benítez that their religious beliefs applied to unmarried women and treated her no differently than any other single woman seeking treatment at the clinic.

"Freedom of religion absolutely protects all of their conduct in this case," he said. "There are two areas in medical care where freedom of religion is invoked most clearly: in the creation of life and the termination of life." And just as patients have rights, he said, so too do doctors.

Jennifer C. Pizer, a lawyer with the gay rights group Lambda Legal who is representing Benítez, said that while the law protects doctors who refuse certain treatments on religious grounds, it does not allow them to do so on a discriminatory or selective basis. In other words, when doctors refuse a treatment, their refusal must apply to all patients -- not to a group, such as unmarried women or lesbians.

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San Diego

Employees who refuse to perform gay wedding ceremonies at the San Diego County Clerk's Office are facing reassignment. At least 14 employees who raised religious objections to performing same-sex weddings have been told they cannot pick and choose between marriage applicants. California began gay marriages this week. Clerk Greg Smith had told workers earlier that those who object on religious grounds wouldn't have to perform the ceremonies, but 14 employees balked and that was more than his office could accommodate.

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Maggie Gallagher asks:

But hey, if the word "marriage" can be redefined as a civil rights imperative, why balk at lesser ideas like "monogamy" or "fidelity"?

She notes in her article:

For example, redefining "infidelity." Back in the '90s, when Andrew Sullivan first suggested gay couples had a thing or two to teach opposite-sex couples about our rigid insistence on sexual fidelity, public reaction was so negative that he recanted (and to this day he gets mad if you even mention he said it!).

But from the new-won confidence of his legally recognized gay marriage in Massachusetts, Eric Erbelding is quite comfortable explaining to The New York Times: "Our rule is you can play around because, you know, you have to be practical." Eric says most married gay couples he knows are "for the most part monogamous, but for maybe a casual three-way."

For the most part ... except for the casual three-way?

"faithful" does NOT mean the same thing to gay people as it does to heterosexuals.

What about the next step: "Could churches in time risk their tax-exempt status by refusing to marry gays?"

Here's what the gay newspaper of record thinks: "That remains to be seen and will likely result in a steady stream of court battles."

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Gay trumps Christian.And we will see more.