Let the fraud begin ...ACORN! Obama boyz!

[RidgeDad]

To begin, what Bill Ayers did was wrong, to say the least. They were against war, though. Would that not fit Barack Obama? I know you guys are for war and love your guns and things of that nature, but some of us prefer not to kill people. I would think this intrigued a young Obama. The two had some interaction after that, but it was very little. They worked together on improving schools in Chicago. I don't see how this makes Barack in the wrong. If I make friends with someone that committed a crime 40 years ago, does that make me a bad person? I don't think so. Maybe you feel otherwise. Maybe you are perfect. How do you hold this against the guy? He had nothing to do with the bombings this man committed. It's called forgiving the man. He did not kill anyone, so why would Barack not be able to associate with him? We all know what the guy did was wrong. That doesn't mean you can't associate yourself with this person unless you're perfect, which I am guessing a lot of you guys have a spotless past.

Wow. Lots of things to address in this "all over the place" post.

1. If John McCain was associated with someone that bombed an abortion clinic, how would you respond to that?
2. Even though Ayers now says they didn't try to kill anyone, they are very fortunate they didn't. There are verifiable stories of people who narrowly escaped bomb blasts. Ask the lady and little girl (at the time) who just left a woman's restroom 20 seconds before a bomb went off. Ask the son of a late judge whose house was bombed, and the family was too afraid to exit the burning house for fear of being shot when they did. I thought you against killing people - maybe the attempt to do so is ok with you though.
3. No one here is saying they're perfect, but you can be dang sure that probably none of us have built or set off a bomb in a public place.
4. As recently as 9/11/2001 (remember that day?), Bill Ayers publicly stated that he wished he had committed more bombings. He is unrepentant, therefore he should not be forgiven. You can find his quotes in your favorite liberal newspaper - the NYT.
5. And yes, if you make friends with an unrepentant terrorist, even if his acts were 40 years ago, you are a bad person.

College has been very bad for you. The liberal profs have accomplished their brainwashing of another. Sad.

Obama is a bad person. Wake up.

[deliverance]

I don't have liberal professors. In fact, politics as far as the presidential race goes, are left untalked about. I am not a political science major, so that's how it should be. I am not saying Bill Ayers isn't a bad person because no one died. Bill Ayers obviously has major issues. I just don't think someone is guilty by association. He wasn't with him when it happened. Should Obama have stayed away from him? Yes. He didn't. That doesn't make him a bad person, in my opinion. We just have different opinions on everything, Ridge Dad. However, I like reading your posts because you don't attack me. You attack the issue at hand.

[once a runner]

To say Obama is friends with Bill Ayers is a big stretch at best if not an outright lie. Do you consider every person you have worked with to be a friend? They do not "pal around together" as Sarah Palin says. He hasn't even talked to the man in 3 years and that was just from bumping into him on the street corner. He criticized his actions and his only association with him was serving on an educational board. How many criminals has McCain served with in the U.S. Senate over his 30+ years? If being on a board with other criminals is a crime, then I imagine just about anyone over 30 would be in guilty.

By the way, is McCain a bad person for having been associated with Charles Keating? The man was convicted of fraud, racketeering and conspiracy and sentenced to 10 years. Perhaps it's alright to associate yourself with the non-violent criminals?

Let me ask you this...let's say you served on a board and one and at some point a guy who did something similar to Ayers also gets on the board. What do you? Do you quit? Do you try to force him off the board even if you have no power to do so? Perhaps you try to make the best of the situation and fulfill the obligation you made to the board?

[deliverance]

Great points, OAR. It's a shame I can't find more people like you on this board. You seem to know more about the issues than I do. Keep them coming.

[Former Wildcat]

This entire thread misses the point of the election. I would never base my vote on loose ties to Bill Ayers or Charles Keating. I would not bother with this ACORN thing.

A Republican attorney who prosecuted the largest ACORN case said it was not a scheme intended to permit illegal voting. What caused the scandal was the ACORN employees trying to get out of actually doing the work they were hired to do. The attorney described the plan as "unsophisticated". Conservatives jump on this because they are grasping for any issue even though it is a non-issue. When Obama has a clear lead in all polling, how could his winning the election be blamed on voter fraud? Again, conservative banter.

Don't get me wrong, the same thing happens with liberals (i.e. Bush went AWOL from the National Guard). In this election, the democrats don't need to grasp at straws because they have a clear advantage.

I am not a democrat, but I am voting Obama for the simple reason that I don't like what Bush has done and I don't see McCain making many changes. I don't know that Obama will be great, but I want to give the other side a shot. Goodness knows, the Republicans have not been steller and I don't think our country is better off than 8 years ago to quote a Reagan line (and yes I know Reagan said "4 years" because Carter had only been in for one term).

[southpaw]

This entire thread misses the point of the election. I would never base my vote on loose ties to Bill Ayers or Charles Keating. I would not bother with this ACORN thing.

A Republican attorney who prosecuted the largest ACORN case said it was not a scheme intended to permit illegal voting. What caused the scandal was the ACORN employees trying to get out of actually doing the work they were hired to do. The attorney described the plan as "unsophisticated". Conservatives jump on this because they are grasping for any issue even though it is a non-issue. When Obama has a clear lead in all polling, how could his winning the election be blamed on voter fraud? Again, conservative banter.

Don't get me wrong, the same thing happens with liberals (i.e. Bush went AWOL from the National Guard). In this election, the democrats don't need to grasp at straws because they have a clear advantage.

I am not a democrat, but I am voting Obama for the simple reason that I don't like what Bush has done and I don't see McCain making many changes. I don't know that Obama will be great, but I want to give the other side a shot. Goodness knows, the Republicans have not been steller and I don't think our country is better off than 8 years ago to quote a Reagan line (and yes I know Reagan said "4 years" because Carter had only been in for one term).

5-10 % of the democrat vote is fraudulently cast every election. The way polls are done is skewed this year as the Obamastapo has been threatening pollsters to make polls favor Obama to discourage McCain voters. ACORN is the scum of society and corruption and Obama is up to his neck in it. He knows exactly what ACORN is doing and is funding it. $800,000 admitted to and who knows how much not public knowledge. How come Sinless won't disclose his donor list? How come he didn't take public financing?

We are about to get a second Jimmy Carter term. I hope its just another Jimmy Term not something worse.

[Former Wildcat]

This is the kind of garbage that only the extreme left and right believe. Saying that 5%-10% of the democratic vote is fraudulent in every election and the polls are bogus is ridiculous. So what you are saying is that somehow democrats manage to cast roughly 5 million fraudulent votes every election and they can back this up by manipulating virtually every polling service in the US. This is as ridiculous as the democrats who blamed the Gore loss on "voting irregularities" in Florida. I am all for political discussion, but insane, ridiculous accusations do not contribute to such discussion. Frankly, these kinds of things are the reason why I am independent and do not commit to a party. People who commit to parties, even intelligent people, end up saying and thinking ridiculous things and back them up with questionable facts.

[southpaw]

Obama’s Secret Campaign Cash: Has $63 Million Flowed from Foreign Sources?

Sunday, October 19, 2008 6:28 PM

By: Kenneth R. Timmerman Article Font Size


As Barack Obama reaped a stunning $150 million in campaign donations in September, bringing his total to more than $600 million, new questions have arisen about the source of his amazing funding.

By Obama’s own admission, more than half of his contributions have come from small donors giving $200 or less. But unlike John McCain’s campaign, Obama won’t release the names of these donors.

A Newsmax canvass of disclosed Obama campaign donors shows worrisome anomalies, including outright violations of federal election laws.

For example, Obama has numerous donors who have contributed well over the $4,600 federal election limit.

Many of these donors have never been contacted by the Obama campaign to refund the excess amounts to them.

And more than 37,000 Obama donations appear to be conversions of foreign currency.

According to a Newsmax analysis of the Obama campaign data before the latest figures were released, potential foreign currency donations could range anywhere from $12.8 million to a stunning $63 million in all. With the addition of $150 million raised in September, this amount could be much more.

When asked by Newsmax about excess contributions, Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt said that contributions already identified as excess had been returned and that those the campaign was just learning about -- either through news accounts or from the Federal Election Commission -- “will be returned.”

“Every campaign faces the challenge of screening and reviewing its contributions,” LaBolt said. “And we have been aggressive about taking every available step to make sure our contributions are appropriate, updating our systems when necessary.”

But many of the donors Newsmax canvassed said they had “never” been contacted by the Obama campaign or seen any refunds, even though their contributions went over the limit months ago.

In all, Newsmax found more than 2,000 donors who had contributed in excess of the $4,600 limit for individuals per election cycle.

Such donations, if not returned within 60 days, are a clear violation of federal campaign finance laws.

Lisa Handley, a stay-at-home mom from Portland, Ore., recalled giving $4,600 to the Obama campaign by credit card, contributions she made because “I love Obama,” she said.

According to FEC records, however, she gave an additional $2,300 to the campaign, putting her over the limit.

The Obama campaign reported that it had “redesignated” the excess money, which could mean that it had contributed it to a separate party committee or a joint fundraising committee, which have higher limits.

But if that happened, it’s news to Handley. “No one ever contacted me to return any of the money or told me they were redesignating some of the money,” she said.

Ronald J. Sharpe Jr., a retired teacher from Rockledge, Fla., appears in the Obama campaign reports as having given a whopping $13,800.

The campaign reported that it returned $4,600 to him, making his net contribution of $9,200 still way over the legal limit.

But there’s one problem with the Obama data: Sharpe doesn’t remember giving that much money to the Obama campaign in the first place, nor does he recall anyone from the campaign ever contacting him to return money.

“At the end, I was making monthly payments,” he told Newsmax. The Obama campaign records do not show any such payments.

Many donors refused to answer questions about the political campaign contributions appearing in their name when they learned that the caller was from a news organization.

John Atkinson, an insurance agent in Burr Ridge, Ill., refused to discuss his contributions, which totaled $8,724.26, before numerous refunds.

Atkinson and others gave in odd amounts: $188.67, $1,542.06, $876.09, $388.67, $282.20, $195.66, $118.15, and one rounded contribution of $2,300.

Sandra Daneshinia, a self-employed caregiver from Los Angeles, made 36 separate contributions, totaling $7,051.12, according to FEC records. Thirteen of them were eventually refunded.

In a bizarre coincidence, those 13 refunded contributions -- for varying amounts such as $223.88 and $201.44 -- added up exactly to $2,300, the amount an individual may give per federal election.

Also giving in odd amounts was Robert Porter, an accountant for the town of Oviedo, Fla. Porter gave a surprising $4,786.02 to the Obama campaign.

In all, Newsmax found an astonishing 37,265 unique donors to the Obama campaign whose contributions were not rounded up to dollar amounts. That amounts to more than 10 percent of the total number of unique donors whose names have been disclosed by the Obama campaign to the public.

Of those, 44,410 contributions came in unrounded amounts of less than $100. FEC regulations only require that campaigns disclose the names of donors who have given a total of $200 or more, so that means that all these contributors were repeat donors.

Another 15,269 contributions gave in unrounded amounts between $101 and $999, while 704 of the unrounded contributions were in amounts of more than $1,000.

Campaign finance experts find the frequent appearance of unrounded contributions suspicious, since contributors almost invariably give in whole dollar amounts.

One expert in campaign finance irregularities offers a possible explanation.

“Of course this is odd. They are obviously converting from local currency to U.S. dollars,” said Ken Boehm, the chairman of the National Legal and Policy Center.

“The overwhelming number of large dollar contributors -- and even small donors -- are in even dollar amounts,” he told Newsmax. “Anyone who doubts that can go to FEC.gov and look through the campaign contribution data bases. You will not find many uneven numbers.”

Boehm said he had rarely seen unrounded contributions in his 30 years as a lawyer doing campaign finance work.

“There’s always the odd cat who wants to round up his checkbook, but they are very rare,” he said.

Richard E. Hug, a veteran Republican fundraiser in Maryland who who raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, and spearheaded the successful 2002 gubernatorial race for Bob Ehrlich that brought in a record $10 million, told Newsmax that unrounded contributions were extremely unusual.

“I’ve never seen this in all my years of raising money for political candidates,” he said. “The first thing it suggests is foreign currency transactions -- contributions from foreign donors, which is clearly illegal.”

Top Republican fundraiser Steve Gordon, who has raised $65 million for GOP candidates over the past 30 years, told Newsmax that such contributions in uneven amounts would be “pretty unusual.”

“You might have a rounding process if there was some kind of joint event, but since all appears to be on the Internet, it’s pretty unusual. At the very least, it would need to be explored.”

LaBolt attributed the uneven amounts to the online “Obama store,” which sells T-shirts and other campaign items.

“Contributions made to the Obama store often produce totals that are not exact dollar amounts,” he said.

But the campaign has never produced any accounting for proceeds from its online store, which virtually shut down several weeks ago after Newsmax and news organizations revealed that Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and other foreigners had made large purchases there.

The Republican National Committee has filed a complaint against the Obama campaign for “accepting prohibited contributions from foreign nationals and excessive contributions from individuals,” which incorporated reporting from Newsmax and other news organizations.

“Their responses to FEC inquiries have often been inadequate and late,” RNC general counsel Sean Cairncross told Newsmax.

The Obama camp claims to have 2.5 million donors in all. But until now, they have kept secret the names of the overwhelming majority of these money-givers. According to a Newsmax analysis, the Obama campaign finance records contain just 370,448 unique names.

Even accounting for common names such as Robert Taylor or Michael Brown, which can signify multiple donors, Obama’s publicly known donor base is less than 20 percent of the total number of donors the campaign claims to have attracted. But the identity of the other 2 million donors is being kept secret.

As of the end of August, those secret donors have given an incredible $222.7 million to Obama, according to the FEC -- money whose origin remains unknown to anyone other than Obama’s finance team, who won’t take calls from the press.

While no exact figures are available, if the same percentage of potential foreign contributions found in the itemized contribution data is applied to the total $426.9 million the Obama camp says it has taken in from individuals, this could mean that Obama is financing his presidential campaign with anywhere from $13 million to a whopping $63 million from overseas credit cards or foreign currency purchases.

The sum of all unrounded contributions in the itemized FEC filings for the Obama campaigns comes to $6,437,066.07. That is the actual amount of money that appears to have been charged to foreign credit cards that the Obama campaign has disclosed.

If the same ratio applies to the unitemized contributions, which are again as large, then the Obama campaign may have taken as much as $13 million from foreign donors.

However, the donors who made those unrounded contributions gave a total of $31,484,584.27, meaning that as much as $63 million may have come from questionable sources.

Both presidential campaigns are required to submit detailed fundraising reports for September on Monday.

[southpaw]

By JEANE MacINTOSH in Cleveland and MAGGIE HABERMAN in New York
Click to enlarge
Click to enlarge

Last updated: 10:11 am
October 14, 2008
Posted: 3:44 am
October 14, 2008

Investigators probing ACORN have learned that an Ohio man registered to vote several times and cast a bogus ballot with a fake address, officials said yesterday, as they revealed that nearly 4,000 registration applications supplied by the left-leaning activist group were suspect.

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The vote of Darnell Nash, one of four people subpoenaed in a Cuyahoga County probe of ACORN's voter-registration activities, was canceled and his case was turned over to local prosecutors and law enforcement, Board of Elections officials said yesterday.

Nash had registered to vote repeatedly from an address that belonged to a legitimately registered voter, officials said during a hearing at which the subpoenaed voters were to testify.

Board officials had contacted Nash this summer, questioned his address and told him to stop repeat registering.

But still, he breezed into Ohio election offices - the state allows early voting for president - reregistered with a fake address and cast a paper ballot, officials said.

"He came in on 9/30 and Mr. Nash again registered to vote at [someone else's] address, and he cast a ballot," said board official Jane Platten.

Nash did not turn up for the hearing.

The Post reported last week on the Cleveland-area probe and the subpoenas, which were sent out to four people - including two voters who said they were hounded by ACORN workers to register over and over, even when they warned they'd already done so.

It's the latest issue in the probe of ACORN's registering voters in Ohio, one of at least nine states where officials are investigating similar reports of phony sign-ups by the group.

At the same time, officials said, some 5 percent, or 3,650, of the 73,000 total registration cards turned in by ACORN in the Cleveland area from its Project Vote initiative to sign up low-income voters were "questionable," Platten said.

There were "egregious acts of registering multiple times," said Platten. "The extent of it is beyond the resources of this board."

Nash's case and three others were turned over to authorities yesterday, said Ryan Miday, a spokesman for prosecutor Bill Masson.

"We will consider presenting it to a grand jury," Miday said.

A member of the board said if necessary, the FBI or federal prosecutors could be brought in for assistance.

Still, members of the bipartisan board downplayed any voter fraud.

And Platten insisted officials with ACORN have offered "any and all" help in probing the questionable activities. Katy Gall, the Ohio state director for ACORN, said her group is cooperating fully with the investigation.

She added that her group has fired anyone who was found soliciting duplicate registrations.

ACORN, whose political arm has endorsed Democratic nominee Barack Obama, has signed up more than 1.3 million voters for this cycle.

ACORN adviser Scott Levenson said, "If one of the 13,000 [people] we hired is potentially a bad apple in the bunch, we encourage the authorities to prosecute, as appropriate, anyone that did the wrong thing. We discipline [and] we fire workers who [abuse their position] . . . We encourage prosecutors to follow suit."

He also denied suggestions that the group pays canvassers by the number of names they sign up, and that they have quotas.

Also yesterday:

* Two of the four subpoenaed voters, Freddie Johnson and Christopher Barkley, met privately with sheriff's deputies and described what they'd told The Post about being hounded by ACORN workers. Barkley testified at the hearing that some of the registration cards listing his name weren't filled out by him.

* In an e-mail to supporters, John McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, slammed "the left-wing activist group ACORN" and suggested, "We can't allow leftist groups like ACORN to steal this election."

[southpaw]

It is not yet April 22nd, the date (for the Democrats at least) of the all important Pennsylvania Presidential Primary. Yet, true to its history, voter fraud has already begun in earnest!

No one disputes Philadelphia's well established reputation for voting fraud. As the Chief Judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit wrote in Ortiz v. Philadelphia: "Voter fraud, including the practice of voting dead or non-resident citizens, is no stranger to Pennsylvania, especially to the City of Philadelphia." A Federal district court judge wrote in 1972: "Of course, voting fraud was not a new problem [in Philadelphia]." The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has pronounced, in 1907, that voter fraud in Philadelphia was "bold, determined, and persistent assault upon the rights of the legal voters." W.E.B. Du Bois wrote in The Philadelphia ****: A Social Study in 1899, that Philadelphia "is unparalleled in the history of republican government for brazen dishonesty and bare-faced defiance of public opinion." A 1910 Civic Handbook for new citizens to Philadelphia spends a whole chapter explaining how to detect voter fraud, such as ghost voting and repeaters.

In fact there’s even standing jokes about the pervasiveness of Philadelphia’s voter fraud, in that Philadelphians are so religious they celebrate the Resurrection three times a year — Easter Sunday, Primary Day and Election Day. On the morning of Election Day, you can see the vote repeaters (those who go from poll to poll to cast ballots) gather in front of the local Democratic Headquarters and again in the evening (to collect their pay). Democratic ward leaders openly admit in newspaper interviews they are paying more street money than the law allows. [For those of you who believe that politics is voluntary, "street money" which is what the ward leaders actually pay their committee people and poll watchers to man the polls. No street money, no election workers].

In theory, our elections are to suppose to insulated from such corruption. In Pennsylvania, the local election board consists of a Judge of Elections and two Inspectors of Elections, each representing their respective Democratic or Republican Party. The Inspector representing the Minority Party, which in Philadelphia, is the GOP, is buttressed by the state Election Code with the exclusive authority of appointing the clerk for the Election Board (the Judge of Elections appoints the voting machine operators). Guaranteeing that the Inspectors of Elections are from two competing parties is the checks and balances that is suppose to be in place inside each election district.

But in Philadelphia, this is more the exception than the rule. While the City fails to identify how Minority Inspector positions are vacant in its 1,681 election precincts, we do know that 1,034 or 61.5% of election precincts have no Republican committee person. In fact, there is no GOP presence whatsoever in 13% of the City’s 66 Wards (which usually comprises from 25 to 50 precincts).

Yet, when the GOP attempts to be diligent, the Democrats simply throw us out. As the 59th Republican Ward Chairman, I sent my candidates to the City’s "Election School" that is held throughout the city to train, as required by the state Election Code, judges and inspectors of elections. I had two new Minority Inspector candidates. The first was thrown out of the Election School before class even began. As soon the intake personnel at the front desk saw my candidate’s Republican registration, he was told "we have enough help already, you not needed, go home." Now this Minority Inspector candidate is a high school student, who just turned 18 years old. Like most young people, he’s excited and wants to get involved. What type of message does this send him about our government and our politics?

The second minority inspector candidate and his wife, the designated clerk, did get past the front desk and succeeded in taking the mandatory class. But after class, they were instructed that they had to report to the City Councilwoman (also the Democratic ward leader) and obtain her permission to serve on the Election Board as a Republican Inspector of Elections. This will obviously come as news to the President Judge of our Court of Common Pleas, as under Pennsylvania law, it is the courts who make the appointment to fill vacancies.

If it is this bad now, image what will happen by Primary Night.