Barack Obama has turned a blind eye to the use and abuse of prepaid credit cards. It's just one way he hides who his contributors are and just how much they're giving.When Steve and Rachel Larman of North Kansas City, Mo., opened their credit-card bill recently, a strange charge appeared on their statement -- a $2,300 donation to Barack Obama's presidential campaign. This was odd, they thought, since they had not only not made the donation, they were planning to vote for John McCain.
It was one more piece of evidence that the unprecedented flow of cash to and through the Obama campaign is not entirely legit. In any campaign, bogus or unwanted contributions can slip through the cracks. But team Obama has deliberately created a chasm of credibility.
In addition to noncontributors being charged for contributions, at least $218 million has been received by the Obama campaign from donors of under $200 whose names it is keeping secret, according to FEC spokesman Robert Biersack.
Fact is, team Obama has deliberately encouraged credit-card fraud by deliberately turning off the online safeguards normally used by sites receiving contributions or payments. There is no checking of names, addresses or card numbers done on the front end.
According to the Washington Post, "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."
Campaigns can accept donations of under $200 without disclosing contributors' names. McCain, who accepted public financing while Obama did not, has made his full donor database available on the Internet. Of the $150 million Obama claims to have raised in September, some $42 million was raised from secret contributors and listed under a single line, "Donors, Unitemized."
Obama's deliberate lack of finance vetting allows the use of largely untraceable prepaid credit cards. These can be purchased at a local drugstore and used under any name, allowing anonymous donors to exceed limits on contributions and even foreign donors to funnel money to Obama's campaign.
A Newsmax report noted a separate FEC database, of more than 11,500 foreign contributors to the Obama campaign, totaling $33.8 million. It was the largest influx of foreign money into a campaign since the Clinton-Gore campaign took millions of dollars of unregulated soft money from donors with ties to Chinese military intelligence.
Typical is Viktor A. of Lagos, Nigeria, who gave $500 to Obama in May. State abbreviations accepted by the Obama campaign include IT (Italy), FR (France), GR (Greece), NZ (New Zealand), JP (Japan) and GA (Gaza). According to Newsmax, 2,372 donors gave their state of residence as "ZZ" with addresses from Beirut to Kiev to Shanghai.
Considering the Obama campaign's $800,000 donation to ACORN to "get out the vote," this may be the first political campaign in which vote fraud is financed by credit-card fraud. Not only can Mickey Mouse register to vote, he can contribute to the Obama campaign.