“I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain”—Obama

“Foreign policy is the area where I am probably most confident that I know more and understand the world better than Senator Clinton or Senator McCain”—Obama.

Yes! Obama claimed more foreign policy experience than either Clinton or McCain! Is this audacity, arrogance, or a hopeful statement in looking for a believing sucker?

Clinton offered a telling response:

“I’m somewhat shocked by that since I don’t see any evidence of it,” Clinton said, chuckling. “This is, you know, kind of hard to square with his failure ever to have a single policy hearing on the only responsibility he was given, chairing the European and NATO subcommittee on the Foreign Relations Committee.

“And as he admitted in the last debate, he was too busy running for president to pay attention to what we needed to do to improve our chances in Afghanistan and get NATO more involved. So, you know, I, I ,I don’t, I don’t know, I’m speechless. I mean, you know, making an assertion like that belies the facts and the record.”

Obama’s foreign policy experience: a newly disclosed three week trip to Pakistan in 1981 as a college student, travel and living in Indonesia, and visits to Kenya. Wow! I know I’m supposed to be impressed but having traveled to more than 46 countries myself–including Pakistan, Dubai, Yemen, Indonesia, China, Vietnam, and more—I’m left speechless by Obama’s hollow claim. While I might offer that I have visited these countries for business, pleasure, and, in some cases, while in the U.S. Navy, thus giving me some limited level of cultural awareness, and a definite level of comfort in these travels and in my contact and relationship with peoples from around the world, I would never venture to suggest that this gives me more foreign policy experience than either Senator Clinton or Senator McCain. That Obama would suggest his even more limited travel, his lack of military service, and his apparent lack of work overseas, is comparable and better is both laughable and offensive.

What has transpired since April?

• We’ve learned absolutely nothing further about Barack Obama’s three week visit to Pakistan.
• Barack Obama stated he’d sit down without pre-conditions with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea during his first year in office.
• As for Barack Obama’s lack of military service, he has recently offered that he considered enlisting but since there was no war underway, he didn’t see value in the effort.
• Obama communicated with the Canadian government to discount his campaign rhetoric regarding NAFTA wherein he told America he would unilaterally change NAFTA but then said to Canada that he would not.
• Barack Obama did undertake a celebrity world tour early in the summer.
• Barack Obama did engage in diplomatic discussions with Iraqi leaders wherein he asked them to hold off on signing any agreements with the U.S., thus to delay withdrawal of American troops.
• When Russia invaded Georgia, Obama dismissed concerns and simply asked Russia to show restraint.

The election is now underway and the choice is between Barack “I know more” Obama and John McCain. Senator McCain is everything that Barack Obama is not. Experienced.

In Obama’s World-Series-delaying infomercial last week, he stated the need to “rebuild the military.” Rebuild?

Senator Barack Obama originally attracted liberal Democrats to support his candidacy by endorsing the Caucus for Priorities. At the time he said:

First, I’ll stop spending $9 billion a month in Iraq. I’m the only major candidate who opposed this war from the beginning. And as president, I will end it. Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems, and I will institute an independent defense priorities board to ensure that the Quadrennial Defense Review is not used to justify unnecessary spending. Third, I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal, I will not develop new nuclear weapons. I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material, and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals.

Back in September, having secured the Democratic nomination, Obama appeared to begin shedding some of his long-held positions. Among changes, he now wanted to increase the size the military. As CNN reported, McCain quickly pointed out the flip-flop.

“Sen. Obama told the extreme left what they wanted to hear during the primary, now he’s trying to tell you what he thinks you want to hear,” McCain responded in Missouri. “My friends, you may not always agree with me but you will always know where I stand.”

But not so fast. Maybe Obama’s really talking more literally. He did say “rebuild the military”. Which military? Recall that a short while back on July 2nd, Obama announced:

“We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we’ve set,” he said Wednesday. “We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.”

First, is he saying that the military is failing? Why else would you not continue to rely upon it for our national security?

And secondly, create a parallel “civilian” military that is “as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded”?

He hasn’t established a need, nor has he been forthcoming on his plans. The comment has been scrubbed from his campaign Web site. As well, the media has covered this up—the video clip exists (above) but I cannot find a single mainstream newspaper that has reported on this.

What is Obama’s Civilian National Security Force? Is it Nazi Brown Shirts? An institutionalized version of ACORN, Public Allies, and some of his cult following? A state version of Saul Alinsky’s disciples?

But, more seriously, as he set out to cut the military, a consistent position until after his July 2nd announcement about creating a “civilian national security force”, does he mean to rebuild the military by creating this parallel Civilian National Security Force?

Charles Lemos writes in NoQuarterUSA on July 20, 2008:

Is he referencing the ATF, FBI, or DEA? Or something new and different say like the Defense of the Revolution Brigades that they have in Cuba and Venezuela where neighbors spy on neighbors? Surely he can’t mean the US Foreign Service and the Peace Corps et al be funded in the billions of dollars. Whatever he is referencing it sounds like a dramatic departure from current practice and current funding. And why did it take the press so long to catch the discrepancy between the speech as delivered and the prepared remarks? Why are the references in the transcript to this deleted or omitted? Should we be worried? He was rather emphatic about it so I doubt that he just got carried away and ad libbed it.

I admit that I do not hang on Obama’s every speech and go through them with the a fine tooth comb but perhaps I should, for the press is not doing its job. It is, apparently, in the business of unadulterated adoration. If he is proposing something new and different, shouldn’t we be asking questions especially since it sounds rather open-ended and, to be frank, worrisome for civil liberties.

Commentors to Lemos’ article asked if this was to be our version of a Republican Guard (Ownaa). Another, Fred C. Dobbs, asks, “Komsomols? Young Pioneers? Spetznatz? Winnie Mandela Football Club? Patrice Lumumba University Marching and Chowder Society? Legion Etrangere?”

Ani next wrote in NoQuarterUSA, Arrogant Thing, You Make Everything…Horrid, on July 22, 2008:

I now understand Senator Obama thinks our military isn’t enough and wants to employ a civilian national security force? Can you say Blackwater? Does this scare anyone else?

Then, RobWarrior shared an example of Obama’s civilian national security force, in NoQuarterUSA, The Case for David Freddoso, on September 20, 2008:

However, [David Freddoso] who wrote a well researched book, made a mistake. He dared to question the chosen one. So when he was scheduled to appear on a Chicago radio show on Monday night, Obama’s minions went to work. The Obama action alert went to the e-mails of his devoted followers and future brown shirt wearing members of his Civilian National Security Force.

Included in the e-mail was the following:

“David Freddoso has made a career off dishonest, extreme hate mongering,” the email claimed. “And WGN apparently thinks this card-carrying member of the right-wing smear machine needs a bigger platform for his lies and smears about Barack Obama — on the public airwaves.”

That’s not just lies, fabrications or embellishments, it’s libel.

Obama’s thugs were instructed to inundate WGN with phone calls, e-mails and anything else to disrupt the Freddoso appearance. Yes, they did the same thing a few weeks ago, when the same show booked Stanley Kurtz, who is one of the few people actually bothering to find out what really happened with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

The show went on and Freddoso made his case. And there wasn’t a hateful word spoken, despite the actions of Obama’s Chicago gangsters. There is not a hate mongering word in Freddoso’s book. Of course, they wouldn’t know that since they haven’t bothered to read it.

Eastan McNeal discussed at NoQuarterUSA in Obama’s Civilian National Security Force in National Horror 101 on September 30, 2008:

It may come to no surprise that a Civilian National Security Force (CNSF) like the one Obama suggests can be and have been proposed or implemented in places like Cuba, the Soviet Union, China, Venezuela, North Korea and East Germany. But we live in what is now considered a country that values individual freedom and freedom of choices.

To make this concept even more disturbing, Obama has also called for greater integration between his CNSF and public schools, so that young Americans are better prepared to be active citizens. He said he would make federal assistance conditional on school districts establishing service programs and setting the goal of 50 hours of service a year for middle and high school students.

“Just as we teach math and writing, arts and athletics, we need to teach young Americans to take citizenship seriously,” he said.

This sounds like coerced patriotism for the lower and middle class. Get out there and volunteer for something, kid, or we’ll have to shut down the library and charge you double for your books. Private schools, like the one Obama’s daughters attend will be inherently exempt, of course. His girls will never be forced to take target practice lessons and patrol the borders of Hyde Park, protecting the locals from moderate low information interlopers who may try to climb the gates for a better look onto how the other half lives. You know – like the One who…. today is running for the right to conscript your kids into his brown shirt urban army.

Soldier4Hillary had a comment about THAT, as did others:

Soldier4Hillary | 2008-09-30 09:20:10 |

I read No Quarter every morning before I leave for my appointments for the day and out of all of the times I have done so this article has affected me the most.

“We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded.

I am done with the Democratic party. Done. That one quote gives the impression that were incompetent. That quote gives the impression that we are all part of the “failed administration of the last 8 years and should be replaced”.

We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives we’ve set

Is he attempting to state that we have failed to keep out country safe? That we have failed in on our mission? What “national security objectives that have been set where we dropped the ball? This is like a slap in the face. So what happens to us when he gains office now that the Democratic party has basically stated we are no longer needed? We have law enforcement agencies already so what exactly is this “civilian force” that needs to be stronger than our current military and just as strongly funded? No one is going to fight on behalf of us if the Dems win if they are already plotting how to replace us.

I honestly do not know what the future will holds. It used to be worrying about medical treatment and my current medical board I am going through but the more these people talk it seems I may have more to think about.

This plan for a civilian military goes against EVERYTHING I believe in. They need to go and stroll through the halls of Walter Reed and tell them that they see that they haven’t achieved there “national security objectives”. Go to Landstuhl and visit those there and tell them we haven’t achieved our goal. I am disgusted and pissed off. People have sacrificed so many things and not once, not once can Obama open his mouth and say one good goddamn thing we have done. I am tired of reading this type of shit. We volunteer for this. The same way people make the choice to become police officers, firefighters etc etc. I am tired of people looking the other way and letting this shit fly.

Comment by Agust304 | 2008-09-30 23:48:21:

Soldier

You are so right on.

My brother-in-law is an Air Force vet like me. He is republican. My wife is old democrat. My kids are mostly independent in their voting, as am I.

I do not see my choice to reject Obama as anything other than me exercising my right to be a citizen who has an opinion and feelings.

One feeling I have is don’t mess with my kids. One opinion I have is I am not ashamed of my opinion.

Thanks for piping in. I always like your stuff.

Comment by TeakWoodKite | 2008-10-01 00:39:56

What “national security objectives that have been set where we dropped the ball?

That must sting like a slap in the face to all that serve.

What a DumbAss he is, Sargent…

While I normally do not read or quote WorldNetDaily, Joseph Farah has also asked about Obama’s Civilian National Security Force. Writing on July 15th he asks:

What does it mean?

If we’re going to create some kind of national force as big, powerful and well-funded as our combined U.S. military forces, isn’t this rather a big deal?

I thought Democrats generally believed the U.S. spent too much on the military. How is it possible their candidate is seeking to create some kind of massive but secret national police force that will be even bigger than the Army, Navy, and Air Force put together?

Now, maybe he was misquoted by the Congressional Quarterly and the Chicago Tribune. I guess it’s possible. If so, you would think he would want to set the record straight. Maybe he misspoke. That has certainly happened before. Again, why wouldn’t the rest of my colleagues show some curiosity about such a major and, frankly, bone-chilling proposition?

Are we talking about creating a police state here?

The U.S. Army alone has nearly 500,000 troops. That doesn’t count reserves or National Guard. In 2007, the U.S. Defense budget was $439 billion.

Is Obama serious about creating some kind of domestic security force bigger and more expensive than that?

If not, why did he say it? What did he mean?

So far, despite our attempts to find out, the Obama campaign is not talking.

….

Who will Obama appoint to administer this new “civilian national security force”? Where will the money come from? Where in the Constitution does he see justification for the federal government creating such a domestic army?

The questions are endless.

Yes, the questions are really endless.

As Obama has not been forthcoming in what he means by his “civilian national security force” and by his call to “rebuild the military” one has to look at several of the people he has hired. WordNetDaily writes in Camp Obama in Who is Jamillah Muhammad:

The list of people that Obama has worked with over the years and now has involved in his campaign does help answer some questions. It also reflects the dark side of Obama’s intent:

Sen. Barack Obama hired Jamillah Muhammad, an early community organizer friend in Chicago, to help train young volunteers in the “ruthless” agitation tactics of the late socialist organizer Saul Alinsky. The training sessions have been held at something called “Camp Obama” inside the campaign’s Chicago headquarters.

As WoldNetDaily explains, Jamillah Muhammad “led anti-military counseling in Chicago during the Gulf war” and her Chicago Coalition of African-American Religious Women sponsored “peace clubs”. Her agenda “dovetails with Obama’s plan to slash military spending and shift national resources to nonmilitary service, creating an army of young community organizers, such as those who work for the radical nonprofit ACORN.

Jamillah Muhammad served “as director of resource and program development for Jesse Jackson’s PUSH for Excellence in Chicago.” She previously “worked with Obama as a community organizer in the housing projects on Chicago’s South Side.”

“We have to support our troops from a different perspective than white people, because our soldiers are going to return home to the same lousy situation they left,” she said. “Patriotism means something all together different for us.”

….

Obama hired his old friend and colleague as a senior trainer at his Camp Obama, which has trained more than 2,000 young campaign volunteers in the techniques of community organization originally popularized by radical Saul Alinsky in order to organize voters and help win the election. Alinsky was a street agitator who sought to “rub raw the sores of discontent” and provoke a socialist revolution in America.

Camp Obama’s director is Jocelyn Woodards, another former Obama colleague who worked with him early last decade at an ACORN subsidiary to help get out the vote during Carol Moseley-Braun’s Senate campaign.

Woodards has taught campers to “be absolutely ruthless” in turning out the vote for Obama.

Obama recently told supporters in Nevada, a hotly contested state, to sharpen their elbows in the final days of the campaign. Confront Republicans, he said, and “get in their faces.”

American Thinker has a useful take on Obama’s civilian national security force. Lee Cary wrote back in July that Obama’s intent is “about turning America into one, giant, community organizer’s sandbox at enormous cost to taxpayers.”

The immediate context for that amazing statement was a preview of parts of his plan to vastly expand community service opportunities for Americans of nearly all ages. He said,

“People of all ages, stations, and skills will be asked to serve.”

Obama Youth? Not if our vote means anything!

Turns out that Ayers was not just a guy in the neighborhood. Nor is Minister Louis Farrakhan. Obama has direct and indirect ties to Minister Farrakhan that date back over the past 20 years.

It is no surprise that Minister Farrakhan has spoken so highly of his friend Barack Obama:

First, the circle of friends and associates that Obama joined in Chicago since the early 1980s includes Minister Farrakhan. The staff on their organizations often overlap, their goals are often the same, and their techniques are as well. And, yes, they are neighbors.

Obama spent three weeks in Pakistan in the early 1980s around the same time that Minister Farrakhan and Reverend Wright were making their own trek to visit Moammar Gadhafi in Libya.

Obama likely first met Minister Farrakhan in the mid-1980s after to Chicago. It’d be hard to imagine that he didn’t, considering their shared community interests, Obama’s past with communist and black nationalist Frank Marshall Davis, and his new friend Reverend Wright. Obama doesn’t say much except that he worked with all the local religious leaders because that was the focus of his community organizing. Reverend Jesse Jackson, PUSH, and Rainbow Coalition also fit into the picture. Reverend Jackson and Minister Farrakhan, themselves, made a trip to Syria together in 1986.

Barack Obama would go on to call Reverend Wright his spiritual advisor, mentor, and friend. He married Barack and Michelle Obama in late 1992 then baptized their children. Obama sat in the pews of Reverend Wright’s church, Trinity United Church of Christ, for nearly 20 years.

In scattered comments throughout the current presidential campaign and in past years, it is clear that Barack Obama also sought out Father Michael Pfleger and Reverend James Meeks as spiritual advisors, mentors, and colleagues on numerous projects. While little is mentioned of Minister Farrakhan, former Farrakhan deputy, Dr. Vibert White, Jr., once known as Brother Vibert L.X., and later as Minister V.L. Muhammad, says they “run deep, and that for many years the two men have had ‘an open line between them’ to discuss policy and strategy, either directly or through intermediaries.” (Obama-Farrakhan Ties Are Close, Ex-Farrakhan Aide Says).

“Remember that for years, if you were a politician in Chicago, you had to have some type of relationship with Louis Farrakhan. You had to. If you didn’t, you would be ostracized out of black Chicago,” said Dr. Vibert White Jr., who spent most of his adult life as a member and ultimately top officer of the Nation of Islam.

In 1995, Reverend Wright and Barack Obama helped their mutual friend, Minister Farrakhan, organize the Nation of Islam’s Million Man March that they all then attended together. In later talking about his black nationalism, Barack explained in a Chicago Reader interview:

“These are mean, cruel times, exemplified by a ‘lock ’em up, take no prisoners’ mentality that dominates the Republican-led Congress. Historically, African-Americans have turned inward and towards black nationalism whenever they have a sense, as we do now, that the mainstream has rebuffed us, and that white Americans couldn’t care less about the profound problems African-Americans are facing.”

Kenneth Timmerman writes, as have others, that Obama’s involvement with the black nationalism of Minister Farrakhan and Reverend Wright, among others, is a connection to Khalid al-Mansour, who helped pay for Barack’s tuition at Harvard Law School:

“Black nationalism” is a current of thought and political action in the African-American community that has been championed by the likes of Farrakhan, Wright, Malcolm X, the Black Panthers and Khalid al-Mansour. Obama discussed his attraction to black nationalism at length in his 1995 memoir “Dreams of My Father.”

In interviews, Khalid al-Mansour, lawyer and friend of the Saudi ruling family, has refused to discuss his relationship with Obama and Obama’s law school funding. As he explains to Kenneth Timmerman:

“In respect to Mr. Obama, I have told him, because so many people are running after him, and when stories get printed they usually get distorted and then he has to spend a lot of time trying to unravel them – and then after the experience of Rev. (Jeremiah) Wright whom I’ve never met, but I’ve followed the media coverage – I was determined that I was never going to be in that situation. I never discuss Barack Obama,” al-Mansour said.

The media frenzy surrounding Barack Obama is quite justified in many respects and in others is a bit intrusive.

Dr. Vibert White, Jr., observes and explains in a recent interview that Barack has learned well from Minister Farrakhan:

“If you listen to the rhetoric and you take away Obama’s political jargon, you hear a religious tenor to it that is very much Nation of Islam-like. I don’t know if anyone has ever touched on it, but Obama’s speaking style is very Malcolm-like, very Farrakhan-like.”

….

“I don’t know who was training Obama. But that style is not a ministerial style like in the Christian church. It’s a Nation of Islam style.”

….

“If the Nation of Islam can’t do anything else, it can train people how to speak. And nobody can outspeak a Muslim minister,” he said.

Even Michelle Obama plays a role in this, and very likely an even bigger one than is currently publicly known. Back in June, Larry Johnson at NoQuarterUSA, noted the “role that Louis Farrakhan and his wife, Mother Khadijah Farrakhan, have played in the POLITICAL RISE of Barack and Michelle Obama.”

One happy family: Minister Louis Farrakhan, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Reverend Jesse Jackson, Father Michael Pleger, Reverend James Meeks, and, yes, Barack Obama.

Barack Obama’s aunt is in the United States despite a judges deportation order back in 1995. More importantly, we now know that Barack Obama has conspired with the Governor of Massachusetts to illegally hide her in his state, to illegally house her in public housing, and to even illegally employ her by the state. Each of these involve likely violations of federal law.

It is a felony to conspire, aid, and abet a person under deportation order to remain in the U.S. (See section 8 U.S.C.A. 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii) ["conceal, harbor, shield from detection"] and (v) [conspiracy, aid, abet]).

The details of this provide for at least five years’ incarceration. In the past we’ve seen presidential cabinet nominees withdraw their nominations because they hired illegal maids, babysitters, and contractors. This goes way beyond that. If, as American Spectator alleges, that Obama, his campaign staff, David Axelrod, his company, and the Governor of Massachusetts did conspire, aid, and abet to hide, house, and employ Obama’s aunt, this tops anything previously facing a prominent presidential appointee, much less, as in Obama’s case, a presidential candidate.

What’s Going On?

As I wrote in I Did Not Know, I Did Not Hear, I Did Not See—Barack Obama:

[Obama would like everyone to believe] he did not know that his aunt’s asylum claim was denied and that she was ordered deported, did not know that she was in the country for the past four years illegally in defiance of that deportation order, did not know that she was living illegally in Boston public housing, and did not know that she had contributed several hundred dollars to his campaign. Further, it has been recently noted that he also did not know that his Kenya-residing grandmother, Sarah Hussein Obama, was living in squalor. On top of this incredulous set of circumstances, Obama’s nutroots gangs are pushing the talking point that this is all a smear, based on data that no one should know about.

Yeah, right. If there is no other defining character trait fitting for Barack Obama it is that he is a pathological liar always ready with an “I did not know, I did not hear, and I did not see.” In almost every case that Obama has used this defense it has eventually been proven a lie.

And proven the lie is exactly right.

The American Spectator wrote Monday:

Senior aides to Sen. Barack Obama and Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick were aware that Obama’s aunt, Zeituni Onyango, was living in the United States illegally and in a South Boston public-housing project, and were monitoring her at the request of senior Obama campaign officials, according to a current employee for Obama’s key political consulting firm, AKP&D Message and Media.

If he squeezes out a win tomorrow, would this be grounds to impeach him come January?

Impeachment is a political decision, criminal action is likely far simpler. As J.G. Anderson writes in his blog, Centrist Net (and his full article is a must read for its detailed discussion on the topic):

[A]ccording to the two sources quoted by American Spectator, the Obama campaign was well aware of Auntie Z’s immigration status and presence in America in early 2007. Furthermore, if true, the Obama’s campaign used Axelrod’s client and Obama’s ally, Patrick, to keep watch over Auntie Z until after the election. The allegations of the two sources is confirmed in part by Auntie Z’s quoted response to the British press before they broke the story:

“I can’t talk about it, I just pray for him, that’s all,” she said, adding: “After the 4th, I can talk to anyone.”

It is well within the realm of possibility that Auntie Z would have only known to refuse comment if she was told to say that, likely by the Obama campaign. The two sources, Obama’s political consultant’s employee and the Obama campaign media aide, bolster this likely occurrence. The importance to tomorrow’s election becomes whether or not such agreement between the Obama campaign and Patrick to “monitor” Auntie Z until the election is a violation of federal immigration laws, namely 8 U.S.C.A. 1324(a)(1)(a)(iii) and (v), which prohibit as a felony:

(a) Criminal Penalties
(1)(a) Any person who…
(iii) knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation;…
(v)(I) engages in any conspiracy to commit any of the preceding acts, or

(II) aids or abets the commission of any of the preceding acts,

If the Obama campaign had knowledge of Auntie Z’s immigration status in early 2007, and then Axelrod worked with Patrick to suppress any uncovering of such status since then, there is an arguable violation of the statute above as such actions would each constitute an individual act which “conceals, harbors, or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien”, as spelled out in (iii) in the statute above. Any Obama campaign employees or Patrick staffers could be liable for conspiracy to commit violations of the Section 1324 and aiding and abetting violations of Section 1324 under subsection (v).

A review of case law regarding this matter tends to support the position that the Obama campaign’s activities, in conjunction with Mass. Governor Patrick, could have violated Section 1324. Indeed, the entire purpose of Axelrod’s alleged contacts with Patrick regarding Auntie Z was to suppress the public disclosure of Auntie Z’s illegal alien status and the lawful, immediate deportation under the 2004 Order. If true, the statements quoted in the American Spectator make out a prima facia case for a criminal indictment under Section 1324.

Senator Barack Obama, Governor Devel Patrick, and David Axelrod’s apparent conspiratorial actions to hide, house, and employ Obama’s aunt Zeituni Onyango and by their reported action to aid and abet her defiance of a deportation order is outrageous and scandalous. If facts are as it appears, what explanation can they offer for their disrespect of our nation’s laws?

For Obama—presidential candidate, sitting U.S. president, and until recently a practicing attorney—is this the actions of a person worthy of our vote? I think not. Instead, this simply confirms Obama’s arrogance to say and do anything.

The common theme from Obama’s adoring media in these last hours before the polls open is that he did not know that his aunt’s asylum claim was denied and that she was ordered deported, did not know that she was in the country for the past four years illegally in defiance of that deportation order, did not know that she was living illegally in Boston public housing, and did not know that she had contributed close to three hundred dollars to his campaign.

Further, it has been recently noted that he also did not know that his Kenya-residing grandmother, Sarah Hussein Obama, was living in squalor. On top of this incredulous set of circumstances, Obama’s nutroots gangs are pushing the talking point that this is all a smear, based on data that no one should know about.

Yeah, right. If there is no other defining character trait fitting for Barack Obama, it is that he is a pathological liar always ready with an “I did not know, I did not hear, and I did not see.” In almost every case that Obama has used this defense it has eventually been proven a lie.

On November 1, Truthteller had an excellent piece on this very point, “A Dolt and a Thug, Obama Claims He Knows Nothing,” in which Truthteller wrote:

One would think Obama would know the immigration status of his aunt after he rendered her into a textual spectacle in his 1996 memoir entitled Dreams of My Father. One would also think a relative would have contacted him in 2004 in order to inform the aspiring US Senator and Illinois political official that auntie needed assistance with her asylum petition. After all, auntie attended Obama’s swearing-in to the US Senate the same year her asylum petition was unfavorably adjudicated. Moreover, one would think that Obama would have been informed by someone related to his aunt that she donated tainted money to his campaign. And furthermore, the Obama campaign must have asked Obama a question or two after an article on Obama’s aunt surfaced a few days ago in the London Times. Surely they would have asked about the aunt’s immigration status after it was revealed she fraudulently donated $260 to the campaign from her public housing address in South Boston.

Also on Nov. 1, Truthteller had another excellent piece, “Obama Relegates Aunt Who Resides Illegally in US to the Shadows While Taking Her Campaign Contributions, ” which I commend to you, as well as American Girl in Italy’s exceptional piece on Obama’s aunt on Oct. 30, “If You Are Not Caring For Your Own Family…“.

As you read this, keep in mind Barack Obama’s recent statement:

“Most people understand that if you are not caring for your family, then you are probably not the kind of person who is going to be caring for other people.”—Barack Obama, October 23, 2008

We now know that Obama had contact with his aunt as recently as 2006, two years after her deportation order, which implies that he knew she was here illegally. What is more, it seems that Obama and Governor Patrick colluded to help his aunt

• Has he financially helped her? If not, why not?
• As a newly minted U.S. Senator, why didn’t he help his aunt with her asylum claim in 2004?
• How does he justify his recent comment that, “this is a country of laws and that his aunt should be deported (!)” with the evidence that he knew she was still here?

Then there is the matter of financial assistance for is family. Why is his dear grandmother in Kenya living in squalor? Obama has been a penny pincher with regards to charities (2000-4: 0.88% of his AGI, 2005-6: 5.22%) but has spoke often of families and the support and care they should share with each other. He has visited Kenya on several occasions and cannot credibly say that he did not know where his grandmother lived and in what conditions. Why did he not help her? Additionally, why did he not sponsor her to join in him in the U.S.? Why is his brother still living in squalor? What happened to being his brother’s keeper? Or his grandmother’s? Or his aunt’s?

Well, one thing is for sure, Obama was not constrained by finances. Here is his adjusted gross income for the past seven years:

• 2000: $240,505
• 2001: $272,769
• 2002: $259,394
• 2003: $238,327
• 2004: $207,657
• 2005: $1,655,106
• 2006: $983,826
• 2007: $4,139,965

Right. Obama does not suffer from a lack of funds with which to help his family.

Back to the “I didn’t know, didn’t hear, and didn’t see” mantra that exemplifies Obama’s campaign season. It is simply unbelievable. Like I said, we’ve heard it all before from him on a number of issues. There are two major examples that highlight his dupicity: Reverend Wright and domestic terrorist William Ayers:

Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

• Barack Obama described Reverend Wright as his spiritual guide, mentor, and friend.
• Barack sat in Reverend Wright’s church pews for over 20 years.
• Reverend Wright married Barack and Michelle Obama. He also baptized their two daughters.
• Together Barack Obama and Reverend Wright helped their mutual friend, Minister Louis Farrakhan, organize his 1995 Million Man March.
• Obama directed tens of thousands of dollars to his church from organizations he directed.
• When details of Trinity United Church of Christ and Reverend Wright came out, Obama lied and claimed he had not heard anything controversial from his pastor friend or from his church.
• Obama said he did not know his church and pastor promoted Marxist-oriented Black Liberation Theology.
• Obama said he did not know his church and reverend promoted the view that the United States was a white racist nation and that the white church was the Antichrist.
• Obama said he did not know that his church and pastor repeatedly praised their mutual friend, Minister Farrakhan.
• Obama said he did not know his pastor and church blamed the U.S. as the source of the AIDS epidemic, nor that they claimed its goal is to wipe out minorities.
• Obama said he did not know his pastor and church blamed the U.S. for 9/11.
• Obama said he did not know that his friend and pastor damned America from the pulpit of Obama’s church.
• After all of these claims, after 20 years of sitting in the pew, Obama abandoned his friend and church for the political expediency of his presidential campaign. He’s since admitted he may have heard some controversial things but refuses to discuss it further.

William Ayers.

• Barack Obama dismissed William Ayers back in April as ‘just some guy in his neighborhood’ and claimed he knew nothing of Ayers’ terrorist past, even dismissing Ayer’s terrorism as something that occurred when he was only eight years old. While Ayers’ founded the Weather Underground in the 1960s, he led it on a bombing spree that lasted to 1981 in a quest to overthrow the U.S. He even called for youth to kill their parents. After escaping prosecution because of technicalities, Ayers was quoted by David Horowitz in 1981 as bragging “Guilty as hell. Free as a bird. America is a great country.”
• Ayers remains unrepentant to this day.
• “This guy” in the neighborhood shared common cause in the 1980s working through companion organizations funded by William Ayers’ father, Tom Ayers, to protest the local education system in Chicago.
• “This guy” in the neighborhood hired Obama to chair his Chicago Annenberg Challenge in 1995. Together, from 1995 to 2001, they spent $160 million in failed education projects, some that benefited their friends, including Reverend Wright.
• “This guy” in the neighborhood helped Obama begin his political career in 1995, hosting a get-together at his and domestic terrorist-wife Bernadine Dohrn’s home and by contributing to his campaign.
• “This guy” in the neighborhood received money from organizations that Obama headed. They also directed funds to Ayers’ fellow terrorists, his wife Bernadine Dohrn and Michael Klonsky, who would become an advisor to Obama
• Obama wrote a short review for one of Ayers books in 1998.
• Obama joined Ayers in at least one joint panel organized by Michelle Obama in 1997.
• Michelle Obama and Bernadine Dohrn worked together at the law firm Sidley Austin. Among Sidley Austin’s clients were Commonwealth Edison led by Tom Ayers, William’s father. Barack worked with them during a summer internship while in law school.
• Michelle Obama and terrorist Bernadine Dohrn worked together with several local Chicago groups.
• Obama and Ayers traveled to New York City in 2003 and toasted their mutual friend, Rashid Khalidi, the former spokesman for the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). While a video of the event has not been released, there was a LA Times article that contained a number of comments made during this dinner, which included an anti-Israel poem read by a young man. The next year, Khalidi and his wife Mona, also a former member of the PLO, hosted fundraisers for Obama’s U.S. Senate campaign.
• And Ayers, is not a “former” terrorist, as Obama would like us to believe. Ayers is unrepentant. In an interview published on September 11, 2001, he boasted “I don’t regret settings bombs. I feel we didn’t do enough.”
• In 2002 Barack, Ayers, and Dohrn participated together in a conference and panel entitled “Intellectuals: Who needs Them?”
• In promoting his autobiography, Ayers had himself photographed stomping on the U.S. flag.
• Later, he says he condemned Ayer’s actions. He even defended himself saying that he was only 8 years old when Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, and Michael Klonsky, were active terrorists.

The bottom line is that Obama is a pathological liar whose defining character trait is the lies, misstatements, and omissions of I did not know, I did not hear, and I did not see. In my opinion, that is not a qualification for president. I urge everyone to set party affiliations aside and vote for Senator John McCain and Governor Palin.

Cross-posted at my blog, The Independent View.

Barack Obama’s campaign massive fund raising effort appears to have achieved success in part because they ignored the law on campaign fundraising and refused to follow procedures designed to verify the name, address, and employer of their contributors. My research indicates that at least 26 million dollars of the 800 million raised by Obama is questionable or illegal. Others report significantly higher numbers, possibly more than $84 million. In other words, as much as 10% of the money he received came from sources that appear to violate the laws governing Federal campaign dollars.

Obama’s on-line contribution tool has been designed to by-pass much of the verification requirements. This is no accident.

Obama’s fundraising disregards campaign finance laws—in spirit, if not in fact.
A few of the problems:

• Obama accepts contributions from anyone without any verification of their identity, that they have provided required information, and that their contribution is legal
• There are 694 contributors listed with more than the $4,600 allowed, resulting in $805,190.90 excess contributions
• Numerous suspect names like “LAST NAME, FIRST NAME” that has made over $14,250 in contributions; others like A, A and KHV, KHV are equally suspect. There are many other examples scattered throughout the list
• Listed cities are often suspect. For example: Null, just street addresses, or with names like X, CA, XXX, OHW, NC, USA in CA, LA, MI, IL, and NC, and TX, TX
• There are 58 incorrectly listed states used over and over again: 1, 60, 75, AB, AC, AU, BA, BC, BE, BR, CH, CN, DF, DJ, EN, EU, FI, FR, GE, HO, IR, IS, IT, JA, JP, JT, KT, LN, LO, ML, MX, N, N., N/, NA, NL, NS, NT, NU, OC, ON, PE, PO, QB, QC, QU, RM, SA, SK, SO, SP, ST, SW, U., UK, YT, ZU, ZZ
• There are many foreign addresses. For example: Almeria, Spain, PA; Athens, Greece, IL; Barcelona, Spain, NJ; Berlin, Germany, MD; Toronto, ON M4C 1N, GA or Toronto, Ontario, MN; Tokyo, Japan, NJ
• There are 12,480 individual contributions using invalid states for $3,679,089.65
• There are 4,333 individual contributions that list ZIP Code simply as zeros for $1,891,108.53.
• Even with the media attention to “Will Good” and “Doodad Pro”, there are still $3,225 and $305, respectively that has not been refunded. Nor, if the contributions are being kept, has their names and other required information been corrected
• Numerous null or suspect employers are listed. In fact, 47,050 who contributed $17,452,233.88 left the field blank. Others entered clearly bogus information. For example: “(Red)”, ASDFASDFASDFASDF, all X’s, REFUSED, and “EMPLOYED IN SOUTH AFRICA FOR OBAMA”.
• Occupations include such entries as “Parent’s LA County DA”, “MOTHER OF 2 BOYS, PARENT’S ASS”, SEX SLAVE, SEXOLOGIST, BEAN COUNTER, SLAVE, SLUMLORD, TROUBLE-MAKER, and WHIPPING BOY
• Over $107 million in contributions come from people listing either no employer and that they are unemployed
• There are 237 individual contributions transactions over $2,300 reportedly received after the Democratic National Convention for $957,613.
• There are 94 individual contribution transactions over $4,600 for $706,524.54
• There are 23 individual contribution transactions over $4,600 received after the Democratic National Convention for $171,200
• Among transfers from “authorized committees” there are seven individual contributors with more than $4,600 contributions and 322 with more than $2,300 contributions since the Democratic National Convention for a total of $35,251.27 and $1,271.652.30, respectively.
• Among transfers from “authorized committees” there are 557 individual contributors with invalid addresses (e.g., bad state designations) for $757,508.33
• Among transfers from “authorized committees” there are 111 individual contributors with invalid ZIP Codes (e.g., zeros) for $121,656.01
• Among transfers from “authorized committees” there are 1,406 individual contributors with null employer fields for $1,453,123.81

Summary of Campaign Finance Rules
The basic rules are rather straightforward:

• Only U.S. citizens and non-citizens with legal permanent residency (green card) may make a contribution or expenditure
• Individuals must provide name, address, employer, and occupation when their aggregate donation exceeds $200 per year. Anonymous donations are permitted for aggregate contributions under $50 per election
• Individuals may contribute to a candidate $2,300 for the primary election and $2,300 for the general election
• Individuals may contribute $28,500 to the national party committee per year
• Individuals may contribute $5,000 to PACs per year
• Individuals may contribute a combined total of $10,000 to state, district, and local party committees per year
• Thus, unless I’m mistaken, you may make anonymous contributions if your aggregate total is below $50. Otherwise you must include your name, address, employer, and occupation. When your aggregate contribution exceeds $200, the campaign is then required to report it
• For the purposes of my analysis, I have used August 28, 2008, when Senator Barack Obama gave his acceptance speech, as the last day of the primary election.

Source for campaign finance rules is Federal Election Commission.

 

Typical Complaints About Obama’s Fundraising
Talking strictly of online fundraising, the Obama campaign:

• Accepts contributions without verifying that the entered name matches the name on the credit card
• Accepts anonymous gift credit cards
• Does not verify that the entered city, state, and ZIP Code match
• Does not verify that the entered address is valid
• Does not require a valid U.S. location
• Appears to accept foreign credit cards
• Does not request and validate the AVS number on the credit card.

There are many articles throughout the Internet discussing this. For example, I wrote Campaign contribution Limits? No Problem, Just Contribute Online (also at NoQuarterUSA.net).

Obama’s Explanation
Writing in the Washington Post, Matthew Mosk says,

Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign is allowing donors to use largely untraceable prepaid credit cards that could potentially be used to evade limits on how much an individual is legally allowed to give or to mask a contributor’s identity, campaign officials confirmed.

Faced with a huge influx of donations over the Internet, the campaign has also chosen not to use basic security measures to prevent potentially illegal or anonymous contributions from flowing into its accounts, aides acknowledged. Instead, the campaign is scrutinizing its books for improper donations after the money has been deposited.

….

The Obama organization said its extensive review has ensured that the campaign has refunded any improper contributions, and noted that Federal Election Commission rules do not require front-end screening of donations.

….

Lawyers for the Obama operation said yesterday that their “extensive back-end review” has carefully scrubbed contributions to prevent illegal money from entering the operation’s war chest. “I’m pretty sure if I took my error rate and matched it against any other campaign or comparable nonprofit, you’d find we’re doing very well,” said Robert Bauer, a lawyer for the campaign.

….

When asked whether the campaign takes steps to verify whether a donor’s name matches the name on the credit card used to make a payment, Obama’s campaign replied in an e-mail: “Name-matching is not a standard check conducted or made available in the credit card processing industry. We believe Visa and MasterCard do not even have the ability to do this.

“Instead, the campaign does a rigorous comprehensive analysis of online contributions on the back end of the transaction to determine whether a contribution is legitimate.”

Additional discussion:

• Michael Luo and Griff Palmer, Fictitious Donors Found in Obama Finance Records, New York Times, October 9, 2008.
• Michael Luo, Democrats and Republicans Feud Over Donor Data, New York Times, October 25, 2008.

Analyzing Obama’s Reported Fundraising
I have accessed the latest fundraising contribution database released this week that covers contributions through October 15, 2008. As noted above, if the aggregate total contribution per election is above $50 you must include your name, address, employer, and occupation and when your aggregate contribution exceeds $200, then the campaign is required to report it. The latest fundraising report lists this information, plus refunds or reassignment of contributions when they’ve occurred.

Getting past this bland introduction, the data itself is stunning and substantiates Senator John McCain’s statement that this is a scandal in the making (See my article referenced above).

Here are some big picture numbers:

Individual Contributor’s Name (By State and City)

The only meaningful way to analyze individual contributors by name is to also consider their state and city. Otherwise, the same named person in two different places is treated as the same person. A downside to this is that if the person moved or is using two or more addresses, they are then treated as different people.

City
City is an inexact field insofar as it is not validated against a city-state-ZIP Code list. In its present state, it is great for anecdotal examples of examples of suspect individual contributions.

State

As if Obama’s not knowing the correct number of states in the United States isn’t bad enough—recall him once giving the count of 57 and insinuating there were more—within the contribution report his campaign offers up 123 states.

ZIP Code
ZIP Code by itself is not illustrative except unless used to do further demographic analysis. It is, when matched with city and state, an excellent component to identify suspect transactions by using comparing lists of valid city, state, and ZIP codes.

 
City-State-ZIP Code
City-State-ZIP Code is not yet tested for lack of time. There are numerous city, state, and ZIP Code databases that can be used to validate that the reported city, state, and ZIP Code are valid combinations. As a test, this will highlight those transactions that should be further scrutinized. I may address this in a future article, especially if interest is expressed.

Employer
Employer is very inexact as people list the same apparent company with many spellings, misspellings, and variations of the company name.

Date of Contribution
Contributions are reported from January 16, 2007 through October 15, 2008 with the highest count and amount on September 30, 2008, with 47,083 contributions totaling $7,330,579.23 for an average amount of $155.69.

Amount
The most obvious problem in amounts are those individual contributions that in a single instance are over $4,600. These represent contributions that the campaign have accepted that by no interpretation of the $4,600 limit should have been accepted, much less reported.

An additional problem is transactions made using gift cards, possibly with the full amount of the card—such as $25 cards. How many of these transactions come from untraceable gift cards?

Contributions from Authorized Committees

There are 101,696 transactions totaling $54,523,770.55 from “authorized committees”. These transactions are listed with six variations of Obama Victory Fund. Each involves an individual contribution transaction, just as the individual contributions discussed above. These contain the same type of problems found above.

Conclusion
Senator Barack Obama’s contribution list is poorly reviewed by his campaign staff or not reviewed at all. It contains an incredible number of errors and instances of apparent violation of common laws regarding political contributions to federal office candidates. The cynical side of me says that this has occurred is either blissful ignorance or by specific design.

Key points:

• Obama’s online fundraising discards reasonable and customary security measures to verify the identity and confirm appropriateness of individual contributions
• The campaign’s lawyers, yes, Obama’s lawyers, say this is intentional and that they do “rigorous comprehensive analysis of online contributions on the back end of the transaction to determine whether a contribution is legitimate”
• The limited review reported in this article makes abundantly clear that a “rigorous comprehensive analysis” is not performed. Records include phony names, employers, occupations, and addresses. Further, many clearly involve money in excess of campaign finance limits.

As Senator John McCain notes, this is a scandal. It is, though, a simple scandal to resolve, even if after the election. Obama’s attorneys already indicate and the records confirm that refunds are already made when necessary. Thus, each contribution is linked to a credit card. Credit card records include or can include name and billing address. To reestablish the integrity of the campaign’s financing, Obama needs to match the credit card information with the reported name and address to root out illegal contributions. If Obama won’t do this, I am hopeful that a prosecutor eventually will.

Finally, my analysis of the 2,069,069 transactions in Senator Barack Obama’s campaign contribution report is cursory. Some basic database queries retrieve good counts on the number of bad state identification, number of null employers, and zeroed ZIP Codes. Identifying suspect names and other reported information requires a record-by-record review. While I have skimmed small portions of the two million records, it is incomplete and requires an in-depth investigation. The Obama campaign has not done the required due diligence to ensure that they are only accepting and reporting authorized, correctly documented, and accurate individual contributions. That they have configured their contribution form on the campaign Web site to accept any user input, that they process this without scrutiny, and report the results without correction or regards to the laws makes abundantly clear this is by specific design.

Senator Barack Obama returns to his boorish behavior by flipping off Senator John McCain while obstensibly praising him at an event. As in past instances where he’s done this to Senator Hillary Clinton, the crowd gets it, even if the media chooses to ignore it.

Obama is a repeat offender.

Here he does the same to Senator Hillary Clinton on April 17, 2008:

Here he uses a derogatory gesture by brushing off Clinton in the manner of Jay-z:

Larry Johnson, among others at NoQuarter, has written at length on this. See his article, “When Obama Does It Repeatedly It Is a Strategy [Updated],” from September 11, 2008.

Here, Barack Obama talks about Senator Clinton “periodically” feeling down (sexist bastard):

And here’s another presidential moment for Senator Barack Obama. Further, note carefully that this is the music and content that Obama feels is appropriate for his own three-year-old daughter.

For more on this, see Larry Johnson’s article, “Obama, You Are Ludicrous,” from August 2, 2008.

On August 1, 2008, Uppity Woman, wrote “Doesn’t This New Obama Rap Crap Make You Feel So Proud?,” About Obama’s ties to his “genius friend” Ludacris:

:::::::::::::::

BELOW, IN FULL, THE BEST STORY WE EVER PUBLISHED on the reprehensible Jay-Z incident:

A whole lot of fuss has been made about Obama’s possible flipping of the middle finger to Hillary in response to his treatment during Wednesday’s debate as something less than Baby Jesus. If he in fact intended to flip her off, his gesture marks a new low in a campaign that was supposedly predicated on high-mindedness.

Obama’s invocation of Jay-Z’s defiant “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” battle anthem during the same speech adds evidence to the claim that he gave Hillary the finger.

To see Obama brush his shoulders off, go to 2:25 of this video clip.

Obama’s gesture prompted a mash-up video that made the Jay-Z/Obama connection explicit. Ari Melber, the other Obamabot named Ari at The Nation, posted the video on The Nation’s website, noting, “Obama really is a Jay-Z fan, too. When asked which hip hop artists he likes in a recent interview, he said, ‘lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Jay-Z — this new American Gangster album.’”

Spencer Ackerman, another young white male media Obamaton, called Obama’s gesture “perhaps the coolest subliminal cultural reference in the history of American politics.”

So what is the hype about? What did Jay-Z actually say that captivated Barack Obama?

Here is the hook and first verse to the new theme song of Obama ’08:

[Chorus: Jay-Z]
If you feelin’ like a pimp nigga, go and brush your shoulders off
Ladies is pimps too, go and brush your shoulders off
Niggaz is crazy baby, don’t forget that boy told you
Get, that, dirt off your shoulder

[Verse One]
I probably owe it to y’all, probably to be locked by the force
Tryin to hustle some things, that go with the Porsche
Feelin no remorse, feelin like my hand was forced
Middle finger to the law, nigga grippin ma balls
Stab the ladies they love me, from the bleachers they screamin
All the ballers is bouncin, they like the way I be leanin
All the rappers be hatin, off the track that I’m makin
But all the hustlers they love it just to see one of us make it
Came from the bottom the bottom, to the Top of the Pops
Nigga London, Japan and I’m straight off the block
Like a running back, get it man, I’m straight off the block
I can run it back nigga cause I’m straight with the Roc
=

Obama hasn’t flipped a “middle finga to the law” but to Hillary instead (his godfather Tony Rezko and possible financial angel Nadmi Auchi were the ones flicking off the law). He got his clock cleaned in a debate about his closest associates, his domestic policy proposals and national security credentials, but after a quick, not-so-subliminal reference to Jay-Hova, Obama’s back to “feelin’ like a pimp.”

But don’t blame Obama if you don’t like his reaction. He’s never responsible. George Stephanopoulos and ABC forced him to behave like a wannabe American gangster.

This YouTube video doesn’t need any further explanation.

This video was cross-posted at my blog, The Independent View.

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need–Karl Marx, 1875.

When asked on Good Morning America (October 24, around 2 minutes), Barack Obama said he did not regret his ‘spread the wealth’ comment. Why should he? His socialist and Marxist past and ideology is coming into sharp focus and out-of-the-closet so-to-speak (See, for example, my article, Obama is Hiding a Radical Past). Past complaints about Obama not having any discernable ideology can now be firmly laid to rest.

In a 2001 public radio interview (see below the fold), Obama clearly faulted the Supreme Court for not reinterpreting the U.S. Constitution to force redistribution of wealth and faulted the civil rights movement for not doing more “political and community organizing and activities on the ground….to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive change.”

Obama aligned himself with a socialist party in 1996 and has longstanding ties to Marxists (e.g., Bill Ayers, Mike Klonsky) who have a record of attacking the United States.

In about one week the American public will have a choice of voting for Barack Obama, a man with personal and professional ties to people espousing Marxist and socialist ideologies, or John McCain, an American patriot who has fought Marxism.

Here are some points to consider:

• Obama’s childhood friend and mentor was avowed communist Frank Marshall Davis, a Soviet agent and member of the Communist Party USA
   
• Obama is a self-proclaimed Marxist
   
• Obama has indisputable ties to groups associated with, supporting, or supported by socialist and communist organizations
   
• Obama is a trained agitator, a disciple of Saul Alinsky. He in turned taught tactics to ACORN.
   
• Obama has close personal, professional, and political ties to terrorists (yes, plural)
   
• Obama has personal, professional, and business ties with a convicted and jailed felon, Antoine Rezko, and his financial patron, Auchi, a close associate of the late Saddam Hussein.
   
• Obama has a 20-year personal and private relationship with anti-American, hate-filled and racists preachers.
   
• Obama entered politics with the endorsement, funding, and support of terrorists, socialists, and others bent on undermining or overthrowing our country.
   

The details on each that substantiate Barack Obama’s long-held views and associations…

• Obama’s childhood friend and mentor was Frank Marshall Davis, a black revolutionary who was a well known card-carrying member of the Communist Party USA and a “key high-level operative in a Soviet-sponsored network in Hawaii” (See AIM). Davis even gets mention in one of Obama’s books. In refuting Jerome Corsi’s book, The Obama Nation, Barack Obama published Unfit for Publication that simply claims Davis was a poet and civil rights activist. (Note that Obama equates ‘civil rights activist’ with being a black revolutionary, a communist, and a Soviet agent. Nice.)
   
• In the 1980s after graduating from Columbia University and working in New York City for up to two years, Obama moved to Chicago to work as a “community organizer” for the Developing Communities Project (DCP). DCP employed Saul Alinsky’s approach wherein Obama was a community agitator. Mike Kruglik, an Alinsky desciple and Obama mentor said of Obama, “He was a natural, the undisputed master of agitation.”
   

At the heart of the Alinsky method is the concept of “agitation”–making someone angry enough about the rotten state of his life that he agrees to take action to change it; or, as Alinsky himself described the job, to “rub raw the sores of discontent.”—Kruglik in The New Republic.

• In a 1990 interview by Associated Press in the Daily Herald, a suburban Chicago paper, Obama discusses building organizations, as opposed to movements that dissipate. He described the 1960s as failures for raising issues but not offering a viable alternative. In discussing racism and sexism, he called for reshaping America to be, in apparent reference to economic redistribution and reparations, “less mean-spirited and more generous.”
   
• Obama is a self-proclaimed Marxist. Spreading the wealth is Marxism, pure and simple. It is not a casual statement on Obama’s part. Consider his 2001 Chicago Public Radio interview (including complete transcript) where he bemoans that the Supreme Court did not reinterpret the Constitution to force redistribution of wealth in America.
   

As this interview becomes widely viewed on the Internet, the McCain campaign already has out a response:

“The American people continue to learn more about Barack Obama. Now we know that the slogans ‘change you can believe in’ and ‘change we need’ are code words for Barack Obama’s ultimate goal: ‘redistributive change.’ In a previously uncovered interview from September 6, 2001, Barack Obama expressed his regret that the Supreme Court hadn’t been more ‘radical’ and described as a ‘tragedy’ the Court’s refusal to take up ‘the issues of redistribution of wealth.’ No wonder he wants to appoint judges that legislate from the bench – as insurance in case a unified Democratic government under his control fails to meet his basic goal: taking money away from people who work for it and giving it to people who Barack Obama believes deserve it. Europeans call it socialism, Americans call it welfare, and Barack Obama calls it change,” McCain senior policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said in a statement.—From Foon Rhee, Boston Globe.

• Obama has indisputable ties to groups associated with, supporting, or supported by socialist and communist organizations. As I wrote in Obama is Hiding a Radical Past, Obama was involved with the Illinois New Party, which was an umbrella group that included participation by the Chicago DSA, the lcoal affiliate of the Democratic Socialists of America, the communist Committees of Correspondence, ACORN, and SEIU. Further, as noted in the DSA’s publication, New Ground, “When Obama participated in a 1996 UofC YDS Townhall Meeting on Economic Insecurity, much of what he had to say was well within the mainstream of European social democracy.”
   
• Obama is a trained agitator, a disciple of Saul Alinksy. He in turned taught tactics to Public Allies and to ACORN. In fact, contrary to Obama’s claims that he had no connection with ACORN, Ms. Foulkes, ACORN’s leader in Chicago and member of ACORN’s National Association Board, says, in the Winter 2003 issue of Social Policy (as quoted by Lynn Sweet), that “every year since 1992 until at least the winter of 2003, Mr. Obama taught a “session on power” for ACORN.”
   
• Barack and Michelle Obama have close personal, professional, and political ties to terrorists (yes, plural). William Ayers, along with his wife Bernadine Dohrn, and associates that include Michael Klonsky, a one-time Obama adviser, are domestic terrorists who bombed U.S. Capital, the Pentagon, and other locations. They backed up their calls for insurrection with violence against the United States. The Obamas individual or together worked for, worked with, collaborated with, sponsored, or helped each other. Barack helped Bill dispense $160 million on failed projects in Chicago. The New Yorker played on Obama’s ties much the same as many Obama supporters have adopted Hussein as part of the online names to neutralize the impact. Anyway, only Obama seems concerned about his middle name but everyone should be very concerned about what his association with terrorists suggest about his judgement.
   
• Obama has personal, professional, and business ties with a convicted felon, Antoine Rezko, through whom Obama has long financial dealings, including a self-proclaimed ‘boneheaded’ deal to buy a mansion in Chicago. More importantly Rezko involved Obama with his financial patron, Nadhmi Auchi, a close associate of the late Saddam Hussein.
   
• Obama also has a 20-year personal and private relationship with anti-American, hate-filled and racists preachers like Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Reverend James Meeks, and Father Michael Plfeger. His ties to Minister Farrakhan are unclear though Minister Farrakhan has mirrored his religious brethren in proclaiming Obama The One, The Messiah.
   

• Obama entered politics with the endorsement, funding, and support of terrorists, socialists, and others bent on undermining or overthrowing our country. The evidence is still coming out and is documented in numerous posts. This is no longer speculative or exceptions, it reflects the core of who Obama is and who he has chosen to surround himself with as he sought political office and sought higher office, inclduing now the U.S. presidency.
   

To go so far as to vote for a socialist and Marxist as president of the United States is, in my opinion, national suicide. The United States is a successful market-driven capitalist society. We fought and won the Cold War, fought in Korea, and fought in Vietnam to protect our values against socialism, Marxism, and communism. That we’d now consider voting for a candidate who actually supports the views of our enemies is unconsciousable and disrespecting everything we stand for as a nation. This touches on the very foundations of our country and truly transcends party labels.

Senator Biden today, regarding in particular questions he got last week (See Obama, the Marxist):

Karl Marx and says in a sense, isn’t Barack Obama Karl Marx? You know, I mean, folks, this stuff you’re hearing — this stuff you’re hearing in this campaign, some of it is pretty ugly and some of the innuendo is pretty ugly.”

With all due respect, Senator Biden, it is ugly. It is also in Obama’s own words–both to Joe the Plumber and in a 2001 interview. Not only ugly, but this does not represent what America is all about.

There can be no more patriotic choice for all Americans than to reject Barack Obama and vote instead for John McCain. He knows what America stands for, he has fought for America, and he believes in America.

Cross-posted at my blog, The Independent View.

In the January 18, 2001, Chicago Public Radio conversation hosted by Gretchen Helfrich entitled The Court and Civil Rights, Obama was joined by Dennis Hutchinson and Susan Bandes. The apparent focus of the discussion was the balance between the how far the Supreme Court would intervene and the content of the court’s decisions.

The conversation started out with The Court before the 14th Amendment and worked forward. Picking up with World War II…

Obama:

One of the things that should be pointed out is that first the NAACP mounts systematic thoughtful strategy to lay bare the contradictions that are embodied in the doctrines and ideological structures that the court is working with.

The second thing is that just to take a realistic perspective is that there is a lot of change going on outside of the court that you know the judges, you know have to take judicial notice of.

I mean you have got WWII you have got the doctrines of Nazism that we are fighting against that start to look uncomfortably similar to what is going on back here at home. You have got African-Americans that are returning home from the war with certain expectations—why is it that I am not in uniform and yet am denied more freedom here that I was in France or Italy?

And so you have a whole host of social conditions that are, you know, the court inevitably is influenced by and I think it is important for us to realize that although Brown may be one of those rare circumstances where the court is willing to get slightly beyond conventional opinion and sort of stake a place beyond the sort of political mainstream.

Helfrich asked about conventional social opinion.

Obama:

Social opinion. But that’s very rare and even in the case of Brown I think that there were a lot of social changes attitudinal changes of the sort that Dennis [Hutchinson] was talking about in terms of the difference between social equality and political equality. A lot of that baggage has to be eliminated before you see the Supreme Court, before you see the Supreme Court venture out the way it did.

The context doesn’t mitigate the offensive comparison that Obama made. It is even more difficult to reconcile as Obama has made such a deal during the campaign of conversations he had with his grandfather who served in World War II and was among the concentration camp liberators. Again, to contemporaneously compare the history of African-Americans in the U.S. to the Nazi Germany is so outrageous as to be offensive.

But, consider that January 2001 was just five years after Minister Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March that Barack Obama and Reverend Wright helped organize (See Biography Channel, Gateway Pundit, Diggers Realm). Just the previous year, Nation of Islam leader Minister Farrakhan was reported in the New York Times saying “that although the Holocaust was wrong, blacks had suffered “100 times worse” than the Jews.” For Minister Farrakhan, this was the American Holocaust of African Enslavement. In this context, it is not surprising that Barack Obama who worked with Minister Farrakhan and shared mutual friends, himself chose to make the comparison of Nazi Germany to the United States.

My point here is not to debate whether Jim Crow and segregation is comparable with the Nazi’s and the Holocaust. Both were evil and should be remembered as such. But slavery was not about exterminating the tribes of Africa. It was a system of economic exploitation. The Holocaust, by contrast, involved elements of slavery (e.g., forced labor) but included the systematic extermination of Jews. More than 6,000,000 Jews were murdered by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945.

Special thanks to reader Geoff who provided the tip to the audio clip.

Cross-posted at my blog, The Independent View.

Within 48 hours of Joe the Plumber merely asking Senator Barack Obama a question in his Ohio neighborhood, Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher’s government-held records were accessed by three different agencies: The Office of Ohio Attorney General, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency, and the Toledo Police Department.

McCain spokesman Paul Lindsay points out that “It’s outrageous to see how quickly Barack Obama’s allies would abuse government power in an attempt to smear a private citizen who dared to ask a legitimate question.”

Obama’s campaign is quoted as saying the charge is simply a sign of desperation by the McCain campaign.

State officials deny the attorney general’s office itself was involved but do acknowledge that an investigation into the three potentially “criminal” invasions of privacy was underway. No suspects were yet identified.

Source: Randy Ludlow, “Government computers used to find information on Joe the Plumber”, The Columbus Dispatch, October 24, 2008.

Picture: Jim Young, Reuters

Cross-posted on my blog, TheIndependentView.com.

Obama claims that much of the record-breaking donations come from small donors, often via his Web site. The symbolism of both the size and number of those donations has taken on mythical proportions. However, it is very worrisome that Obama doesn’t share the details of how those Web donations are procured.

In fact, if the details are as suspected, Obama has found an “inventive” way to fund his campaign and to subvert campaign finance laws. (This week, regular NoQuarter reader Craig initiated a myth-breaking investigation, and his findings are being published widely, at least around the blogosphere. Links to the blog posts are listed at the end of my story.)

John McCain noted yesterday in an exclusive interview with Joseph Curl of the Washington Times:

Mr. McCain said Mr. Obama’s giant fundraising total — he announced this weekend that he raised more than $150 million in September — is going to produce “a scandal.”

His campaign and the Republican National Committee have released the names of all his donors, including those who have contributed less than $200. That’s not required by federal election rules, and Mr. Obama has declined to release his small-dollar donors, leading to speculation that some donors are trying to circumvent fundraising laws.

Some of Obama’s donors are trying?! It’s more that his donors are indeed circumventing fundraising laws. Consider how this works …

You can contribute to Obama’s campaign via his Web site in amounts from $5 to $2,300, in each instance. There appear to be no sensible checks in the submission form, and there’s only a simple note at the bottom of the page that states that an individual can only contribute up to $2,300 per election and that the contribution made on the Web site page “is designated for the general election.”

But, this reminder is virtually meaningless since no wording on the Web site page that states that donors must use their real names. Nor does the Obama donation page require that you confirm that you are using your real name.

In other words, in Barack Obama’s world, your decision to obey FEC (Federal Election Commission) laws is entirely voluntary.

Most alarming is that there appears to be NO mechanism on Obama’s donation page to ensure that the name of the donor matches the name on the credit card.

1. Go to the Obama Web site to make a contribution.



2. Fill in the form, even with bogus information—nothing asks for true or correct information.
3. Enter a contribution from $5 to $2,300.
4. Enter a credit card type, number, and expiration.
5. Check the confirmation that you are legally eligible to make a contribution (i.e., that you are a U.S. citizen or legal resident, at least 16 years old, etc.). Again, nothing is required that you verify that you are using your real name.
6. Submit the contribution.
7. You will receive a thank you note. The note is quite simple: “Your donation has been processed. Thank you for your generous gift.”

This is campaign money laundering made easy. There is no validation that the name and address entered match the credit card’s information. Nor was the security code on the card requested.

Ignore the campaign aspect of this for a moment.

The Obama Web site is obviously set up to bypass common security checks: There is no Address Verification Check (the 3-4 digit number on your card). And there is no requirement to match your billing address, no City-State-ZIP code match.

Since none of these is verified by the Web site’s programming system, it is very likely that the site is a dream for anyone whose donation comes from another country. Foreign donors, merely by using their credit cards, can donate just as easily as U.S. donors. These are settings that the Obama campaign had to intentionally set up, and it is at odds with the well-established security precautions implemented by nearly all online merchants and many brick-and-mortar businesses.

If you consider that any time you make a purchase, you are asked for or are tested for these common security precautions and verifications, why are these simple requirements not in place on Obama’s campaign Web site?

As others have noted, McCain’s Web site does perform those security and identity checks. Further, McCain is transparent on all donations. Obama is not. Why? He simply wants the money regardless of source, regardless of amount, and without respect for any applicable laws.

What does this mean?

• If the Obama campaign relies on the form information, rather than the credit card billing information, then they are blissfully ignorant of who is contributing, under what name(s), and how much they are contributing through multiple instances.
• The Obama campaign does not appear to validate your card entry, leaving the onus to catch fraudulent use to credit card companies or card holders.
• The lack of requirements to use one’s real name and offer validation appears to allow contributors to send as much as they want in multiple, small amounts under multiple names.
• Further, since you can buy anonymous gift cards, you can truly donate as much as you want without respect to campaign limits.

This is an incredible way to subvert campaign finance laws and to launder unlimited amounts of money into the Obama campaign. It is therefore no wonder that Obama opted to renege on public financing!

Yes, as Senator McCain notes, this is a scandal in the making. Not just $150 million, but over $600 million!

So, Senator Obama, I have a few questions for you:

• Do you match donor names with names on their credit cards before processing transactions? If so, what percentage of those names match up? If not, why not? When and how are discrepancies caught?
• Do you check donor IP addresses for U.S. locations? If not, why not?
• Have you received more than $2,300 from any given credit card? How many and how much?
• How much have you received from gift credit cards?
• Do you match donor and/or credit card names and contact information to state and local voter registration lists? If so, how many match or don’t match? If not, why not?
• How many donor email or physical addresses are not valid when you send ot that automated thank you note or a follow-up request?
• For the sake of transparency, will you release all donor names, matching credit card names, contact information, IP addresses, and amounts contributed?

• “WHO IS JOHN GALT?,” Powerline blog, October 23, 2008
• “WHAT DID DELLA WARE?,” Powerline blog, October 24, 2008
• “The Obama scammer,” National Review Online (Mark Steyn), October 23, 2008
• “We Get Results,”
  National Review Online (Mark Steyn), October 23, 2008
• “Not a Bombshell: Barack Obama’s Campaign Website Encourages Fraudulent Donations,” Ace of Spades, October 22, 2008

Cross-posted on my blog, The Independent View.

• My haircut costs me only $8-15 but even the simplest trim for my wife is around $50; and the rest of the costs can total in the hundreds. My old attitude is simply let the hair hang natural, looks better, but go figure, women spend a lot…
• Next, the cost for this consultant includes travel and per diem expenses as they are along with the campaign. That is not cheap. Even if she donated all of her time, this would still add up and it is simply unrealistic that they find someone at each location, else depend on local media outlet’s makeup folks.

• And same with the clothes. I can wear the same shirt and pants day-after-day; even buying several of the same to rotate with laundry and absolutely no one notices. BUT, if a woman were to show up twice in a row wearing the same outfit, it’d be scandalous. Different standards.
• I really think this is all much ado about nothing. Those complaining haven’t thought it through, simply looking for a quick headline.
• And talking about headlines, what about the extra costs for those Greek columns in Denver? Or, the nearly million dollars for ACORN voter fraud?

SusanUnPC comments a bit sarcastically that “All she needs is a bit of eye shadow and mascara, a bit of contouring (for the cameras), and some fucking lipstick and rouge! Jesus! She could do that herself! She’s gorgeous without makeup, I bet. Maybe she should appear for the next two days with NO makeup!”

Yeah, Susan, I’ll try that one with my wife next time we’re heading out for the evening. I bet that’d be received well.

Cross-posted on my blog, The Independent View.