THE FILE ON ALLEGED DONATION FRAUD
AT THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN
JUST GETS THICKER [UPDATED too]


We thought it was just a couple hundred million bucks in illegal foreign donations, but apparently it's even easier than that: looks like all the online safeguards have been disabled, and this kind of stuff can happen [from an email to Jonah Goldberg at NRO:

So I went to the Obama website this afternoon and clicked on the "Donate" button. I used my real MasterCard number (but was not asked for the 3 digit security code).

Used the following information and it was accepted...

First name: Fake
Last Name: Donor
Address: 1 Dollar To Prove A Point
City: Fraudulent
State: AL
Zip / Post: 33333
Email Address: allmyinfoismadeup@mediabias.com
Phone Number: 2125551212
Employer: Mainstream Media
Occupation: Being in the Tank

And incredibly, my $5 donation was ACCEPTED!!!

I then went to the McCain site and used the exact same information (and WAS asked for the 3 digit security code for my MasterCard). There, my contribution was rejected with the following message: "Your transaction was not approved for the following reason(s): Invalid data", and then: "We have found errors in the information that you have submitted. Please review the information below and try again."

I have screen shots and printouts of all of this as well.

Please tell me what I can do with this information? Is this a violation of FEC law by the Obama Campaign? How do we publicize this???

Thanks for all you do.

Then there's this, via Powerline:

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.

So even if he wins, we have to wonder if he really won? And this time, Al Gore, we won't be making it up out of dangling chads.


--I TOOK A POLL, AND DECIDED TO PUT UP
THESE ARTICLES ABOUT POLLS

(1) Michael Barone
[hat-tip/RealClearPolitics]

(2) DJ Drummond


--UNEXPECTED PROPS FOR THE PREZ,
FROM AN UNEXPECTED SOURCE:
SIR BOB 'BOOMTOWN RAT' GELDOF

Good on ya, Sir Bob.


--THE EGGHEADS' LAMENT: SEND IN THE CLOWNS
(All the way from Alaska, or maybe Kentucky)

City Journal's Michael Knox Beran at National Review


--CLASSIC MOVIES, RIGHT HERE:



And then there was this:




Apparently Professor Obama failed to read this.


--Department of Separation of Church and State:
THE OBAMESSIAH TELLS THE CROWD HE
FEELS "A RIGHTEOUS WIND" BEHIND HIM

Good thing no Republican was caught saying that, because it would be a clear sign of the coming theocratic tyranny. Phew.





--Department of QUELLE SURPRISE:
Pouting Pillsbury Doughboy SCOTT MCCLELLAN
WILL VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA

That'll show 'em, Scotty -- BOY will you show them! They won't have Scott McClellan to kick around any more! They'll be sorry they didn't let me come up into their treehouse and be a member of the secret club!! No more West Wing Wedgies for me, by golly!!!!


CNN makes the report, and closes off the posting with "File Under: Barack Obama". That pretty much says it.

This is only slightly less earth-shaking than the Colin Powell announcement. Which was considerably less earthshaking than the David Brooks Palin-slam, and less entertaining than the Christopher Buckley announcement.

SO I'M WATCHING FOX NEWS AND SEAN HANNITY IS YIP-YIP-YIPPING ABOUT BARACK.....

Barack Obama and Bill Ayers, and ACORN, and Tony Rezko, and the Daley machine, and Fannie/Freddie money, and oh, there was probably something in there about his broken pledge to take public money, or his Veep's promise of a "generated international crisis" in Obambi's honor.....

And nobody even managed to get around to Barack Obama and Islamist machete-man Raila Odinga or Obama and Rashid Khalidi [a story so deeply buried that the PUMA's at the Hillary Clinton Forum had to link to Hugh Hewitt to find it].

SO I FLIP OVER TO CNN, AND WHAT'S THE BIG STORY BEING ANALYZED BY DAVID RODHAM GERGEN?

SARAH PALIN'S AIRFARE and WARDROBE BILL

"With all of the important issues facing the country right now, it's remarkable that we're spending time talking about pantsuits and blouses," said McCain spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt, who has been traveling with Palin. "It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign."

No kidding.

The Associated Press report also references the controversy about John Edwards' $400 haircut, without mentioning that the story there was about unmanly vanity rather than straight dollars and cents. As a multimillionaire, presumably Edwards came with a closet full of high-priced suits and shoes in addition to his champagne-taste grooming habits. Sarah, on the other hand, came to the stage with (I suspect) off-the-rack duds from J.C. Penney's or the like, so she needed a quick style update -- and a very successful one, I must say, which could not have been achieved if she didn't have a confident sense of her own personal style. If there are objections to, or even a modicum of interest in, this expenditure, it should originate with the RNC donors, and remain their problem. And if they never found out about it, the sun would happily rise again on a world uncorrupted by Sarah's cute little jackets.

As to her travel budget, the First Family of Alaska understandably tries to move together on government business and the campaign trail when they can, and airfare for the Governor's minor children is a matter of no public interest outside of Alaska. How grateful we all must be that his Gergen-ness pronounced the "scandal" to be a tempest in a teapot. Phew.

If only the MSM were as interested in the Marxist, terrorist, Hamas-loving, vote-stealing, mortgage-puffing, school-screwing, radical-chic fellow-travellers of Barack Obama, as they are in the raven-haired, bright-eyed half-pint Palin daughters fellow-travelling with their mom and dad.

Please.

How can a candidate who has hauled in $600 million in donations (a third of which may be illegal?) give a rat's rump about a $20,000 travel bill -- even having the nerve to see something ironic in after Palin got rid of the governor's private jet. Are we supposed to believe that these limousine liberals don't know how small a dent $20k would make in a private jet's annual fuel bill? What does "Air Force O" cost per junket? How about hangin' with the Hollywood Gulfstream set?

Please.