Follow the Money …

The World Net Daily has just printed an article outlining the results of the Obama Campaign’s loosy goosy online fund-raising practices.  It appears that two Palestinian brothers in the Hamas movement donated nearly $30,000.

source:

http://wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=71431

Palestinian brothers inside the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip are listed in government election filings as having donated $29,521.54 to Sen. Barack Obama‘s campaign.

The donations would violate election laws, including prohibitions on receiving donations from foreigners and guidelines against accepting more than $2,300 from one individual during a single election, Bob Biersack, a spokesman for the Federal Election Commission, told WND in response to a query.

The contributions also raise numerous questions about the Obama campaign’s lax online donation form, which apparently allows for the possibility of foreign contributions.

Last week, the Atlas Shrugs blog outlined a series of donations in 2007 made to Obama’s campaign from two individuals, Monir Edwan and Hosam Edwan, totaling $29,521.54.

In an online form on Obama’s campaign site, the Edwans listed their street as “Tal Esaltan,” which they wrote was located in “Rafah, GA.”

Rafah is not a city in Georgia. The Atlas blog immediately raised concerns that the money may have been donated from the Gaza Strip town of Rafah.

The brothers swore they just bought tshirts to sell in the Gaza strip.  Considering those t-shirts are $20.08 a pop… that’s a heckuva a lotta t-shirts.  Also, the GDP per capita for the Gaza Strip (average income) is $1100 per year.  I can’t imagine buying a tshirt for that kind of money if I was trying to feed a family on $1100 a year.

Monir and Hasam Edwan denied their financial transactions online – listed as donations in U.S. government election filings – were actual donations to Obama’s campaign. Instead they claimed they purchased about $30,000 in Obama T-shirts from the presidential candidate’s online store – a contention that did not hold up during a WND interview, when they changed their story several times.

“My brother Hosam and I knew that Obama will be a big hit even before he became a candidate. We knew the guy would be a celebrity in Gaza so we decided to invest the amount of $29,000 to buy Obama T-shirts from his website and sell them in Gaza,” Monir Edwan told WND, speaking by cell phone from Gaza.

“I know on the back of this story Obama rivals will present our business as a donation and they will try to use this story to let Obama fall, but I’m telling you, we bought T-shirts,” Edwan maintained.

Edwan said any profit made from purportedly selling the Obama T-shirts was not returned to the Obama campaign.

“We have nothing to do with the Obama campaign. We just like Obama and believe he will be the best for the Palestinians and for the world.”

At first Monir Edwan claimed he sold the T-shirts in Gaza for around $9 and that a profit was made.

“Some young men even bought the T-shirts for 60 shekel ($17.29), which is a lot to spend in Gaza on a T-shirt, but that is how much Gazans like Obama,” Edwan claimed.

Further complicating the transaction are these small facts.

“Maybe we sold the shirts for a lot more. I can’t remember now,” said Edwan.

Asked why he would purchase T-shirts at such a high rate and pay the cost of shipping when he could pay a company to produce T-shirts for less, Edwan replied, “We wanted the shirts to come from the campaign.”

But Edwan could not explain how he managed to get shipments of T-shirts into the Gaza Strip during the months he claimed to have purchased the merchandise, since Israel imposed a tight closure of the Gaza Strip starting in June 2007 that lasted until June 2008, when the Israeli government agreed to a cease-fire with Hamas in Gaza.

“We don’t want to cause any damage to Obama’s campaign,” was Edwan’s reply.

There appears to be more in the works.  Larry Johnson at NQ listed reason number one for superdelegates to change their mind.

1. Barack Obama’s campaign has filed false, misleading financial reports with the FEC. We have the story but a mainstream journalist is working on it. We will break the story, probably next week, once it hits the press.

source:

http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2008/08/04/super-delegates-its-not-too-late/#more-3990

Grab some popcorn folks … time to get a front seat!  Just a few more weeks to the DNC.  Will he self-implode enough for the DNC to actually stop the Obamanation abomination or will we have to endure another looser DNC candidate for prez when this should be the year for progress?