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Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: puborectalis who wrote (38947)	8/12/2008 8:04:44 AM
From: lorne	Respond to of 224749

Obama camp still can't verify return of Arab cash More questions than answers in illegal Middle East donor affair August 11, 2008 By Aaron Klein © 2008 WorldNetDaily worldnetdaily.com JERUSALEM – One week after WND reported Palestinian brothers inside the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip illegally contributed to Barack Obama's campaign, the Democratic presidential candidate's team has not responded to repeated WND requests for a clarification regarding how purported refunds were returned. The brothers told WND their money was not refunded. Last week it was exposed Palestinian Gazans Monir, Hosam and Osama Edwan made a series of donations online at Obama's official campaign website totaling more than $30,000. The donations violate election laws, including prohibitions against receiving contributions from foreigners and accepting more than $2,300 from one individual during a single election. The Wall Street Journal reported it spoke to Obama officials who said the nearly $33,500 in donations were received between Sept. 20 and Dec. 6 of last year and that most of the money was returned by Dec. 6. The campaign claimed, however, the refunds were not reported to the Federal Election Commission due to a technical error. The Obama camp insisted the remaining $2,500 was refunded Aug. 4 and that all the refunds will be reflected soon in an amended report. The campaign said new controls are in place to prevent any similar attempts in the future. But WND spoke to the brothers, who denied the Obama campaign refunded their money. "No, we did not receive any money back from the Obama campaign at any time," said Monir Edwan. The Edwans continue to maintain their financial transactions made on Obama's campaign website were not actual donations but purchases of "Obama for President" T-shirts. The transactions, however, were listed as donations in U.S. government election filings. Obama's campaign also told the Wall Street Journal last week the funds from the Edwans were for the purchase of T-shirts. The Obama team has not explained why T-shirt revenue was reported to the FEC as contributions. The Atlas Shrugs blog, which first highlighted the unusual Edwan contributions, meanwhile, has posted copies of FEC letters from as early as last April requesting additional information for 36 contributors, including the Edwans. The FEC letters, which document the contributions in question, state the donations may be "excessive" – exceeding the allotted amount for each individual. The question arises: Why didn't the Obama campaign immediately report back to the FEC in April that the illegal Edwan money had been returned four months prior, as the campaign now claims. The FEC, in fact, had to send an additional letter just last month requesting an explanation. In addition, the explanation – both from the Obama camp and from the Edwans – that the brothers purchased T-shirts from the Gaza Strip doesn't appear to stand up to close scrutiny. The Edwans claimed to WND the T-shirts were received in Gaza last December. When the Edwans made their contributions online, they listed their street as "Tal Esaltan," which they wrote was located in "Rafah, GA." The same address was listed in all relevant FEC filings. Rafah is not a city in Georgia. A WND investigation last week tracked down the Edwans living in the Tal Esaltan neighborhood of Rafah, a large refugee camp in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. The brothers could not explain how the purportedly purchased T-shirts arrived in Gaza if the campaign had a mistaken address in Georgia. The T-shirts would have been shipped to the purported "Rafah, GA" address. That the Edwans were able to contribute any money to Obama's campaign from Gaza also raises questions into the methods used by the presidential candidate's website to accept online donations. The website donation form asks each donor to affirm he or she is a U.S. citizen and is above the age of 16 but doesn't require donors to prove their citizenship status, such as providing a social security number. The form further requires the donor to affirm the contribution is not coming from a corporation, political action committee or lobby group.

To: puborectalis who wrote (38947)	8/12/2008 10:58:52 AM
From: Geoff Altman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 224749

Keep worshiping Obama..... If he gets elected I want you to remember this article, although IMO it contains too much common sense for you and your ilk to understand: Idiot Economics David Strom Monday, August 11, 2008 It has become popular for politicians to advocate going after oil companies for their seemingly outsized profits. Otherwise rational people turn red-faced with anger when they think about the tens of billions of dollars flowing into the coffers of “big oil.” The most often talked about “solution” to—really punishment of—big oil’s big profits is the imposition of a “windfall profits” tax. Such a tax would set an arbitrary limit to what oil companies can make and then slap an extra tax on profits if they exceed that limit. Now set aside the question of whether it makes sense for politicians to determine what profits companies should earn; a belief that politicians should be the arbiters of economic rewards seems to be a continually recurring idiocy that we will have to fight indefinitely. Also set aside the fact that oil company profits are actually much more modest than the profits in other industries, including agriculture which has seen its profits recently skyrocket faster than oil companies have. Nobody is calling for confiscating farmers’ profits, which are bolstered substantially by agriculture subsidies and mandates that would make oil company executives blush if they we offered similar treatment. Instead, let’s just examine the immediate and discernable results from the imposition of such a tax. What, exactly, would happen in the oil markets if Washington decided to impose a windfall profits tax on oil companies? Where is the big money in the oil business? The profit margin on refining oil into gasoline and other oil products has actually narrowed by almost 50%--because the high price of oil and a decline in gasoline consumption has made refining less profitable. Ditto for gas stations, which have seen their profit margins decline as the price of gas went up. The fact is that the spike in oil companies’ profits comes from selling the oil that they own and pump out of the ground. And increasing taxes on pumping oil will do one thing and one thing only: make it less attractive to pump that oil. A windfall profits tax would reduce the oil production of American companies(as it did last time we imposed a windfall profits tax on oil)--and guess who would pick up the slack? Only a small fraction of the oil on the market is actually owned by “big oil.” Most of the rest—about 90%--is actually in the hands of governments such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela. And if you haven’t thought of it, none of those governments or non-American oil producers would have to pay that “windfall profits” tax. So a windfall profits tax would guarantee one thing: Americans would be put in the unenviable position of sending even more of their hard-earned dollars overseas to mostly unfriendly governments to buy oil that could have been produced by American companies. Driving American production down would also mean that the price of oil would go up. A windfall profits tax, in other words, would make for a nice windfall profit for all those unfriendly governments that currently own most of the market for oil anyway. As you can see, even if you think that a “windfall profits” tax would somehow be fair or is economically justifiable, imposing it would still be profoundly stupid. All we would be doing is handing over more money and more power to foreigners who don’t like us very much. townhall.com