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Arpaio’s millions

By on December 18, 2012 in Birther Politics, Follow the money, Orly Taitz

The birthers seem to think that Sheriff Joe Arpaio raised $7 million in support of his investigation of Barack Obama, a veritable mandate for him to prosecute a case against the President. Here are two examples:

Give us Liberty 1776 blog:

URGENT: Sheriff Joe and the Cold Case Posse have successfully raised more than $7 MILLION dollars to fuel their law enforcement investigation of Barack Obama’s eligibility to be President of the United States after being compelled to do so by constituents concerned about the integrity of our ballots. And the Posse professionals [?] found evidence of systemic fraud, forgery, corruption and cover-up! Now, we are demanding that Sheriff Joe and the Cold Case Posse put their money where their mouth is and FILE A CRIMINAL COMPLAINT!

Orly Taitz blog:

Since Arpaio did not file a criminal complaint against Obama and refused to comply with subpoena and testify at trial, demand that he refund the public 7 million that he collected!

In truth, that money was raised for Arpaio’s re-election campaign. According to his campaign finance reports, not a nickel of that money went to investigating Obama.  Arpaio raised a total of $8,476,526.18 for his 2012 campaign, and reports spending all but about $300,000. The money is gone. If you expected your donation to go to the Cold Case Posse, you’ve been ripped off. If you want a refund, forget it.

You can read Arpaio’s complete campaign finance reports at the Maricopa County Recorder’s web site.

Rush plays the idiot, tells lie

By on September 4, 2012 in 2012 Presidential Election, Birther Merchandising, Follow the money

We have campaign finance laws in the United States that prohibit political contributions from foreigners; if you make a political contribution, you’ll be asked to state that you aren’t one. This is also true when you buy merchandise from the Barack Obama store, including the insanely popular (just kidding) button pictured below.

ObamaBCButton

Rush Limbaugh thought it ironic saying:

You have to prove your citizenship to buy one of those, because it’s a campaign contribution. I kid you not, folks. [My call screener Bo] Snerdley is in there laughing. He’s got fluids coming out of every bodily orifice in there laughing so hard. It’s true. They’re the ones out there selling all the birth-certificate stuff, trying to make money.

Limbaugh is lying. You don’t have to prove your citizenship; you just have to say so. And anyhow, Obama has already proven his citizenship. So, has anybody seen Rush’s birth certificate?

Obama campaign jumps on Romney birther flirt

By on August 24, 2012 in 2012 Presidential Election, Follow the money

They say that all’s fair in love and war, to which I add political fundraising. The Obama Campaign is sending a mass fundraising email titled “A new low for Mitt Romney” to potential contributors saying:

Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee for president of the United States, just said this:

"No one has ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place that we were born and raised."

Take a moment or two to think about that, what he’s actually saying, and what it says about Mitt Romney.

Birther SEAL brings in the bucks

By on August 21, 2012 in 2012 Presidential Election, Follow the money

Former Navy SEAL Larry Bailey, founder of a group called Special Operations Speaks (SOS)  told Foreign Policy magazine that he’s a birther and doesn’t believe Barack Obama was born in the US. I’ve been over there yesterday and today commenting in response to the usual gang of birthers: Sewell, Farrar and Voeltz who are trolling the Internet these days looking for places to dump their discredited legal theories about Obama’s eligibility. Those guys bring out the worst in me.

This is the second allegedly unrelated Special Ops organization to go public within about a week. The other is Special Operations OPSEC Education Fund.

Bailey told US News and World Report that his SOS group experienced a “big”spike (800 new donors) in fundraising during the three days following his exit from the birther closet.

While the Special Ops PACs might raise money, they also are attracting sharp criticism from their compatriots. Army Special Forces Maj. Fernando Lujan called the video activism “an unprofessional, shameful action on the part of the operators that appear in the video, period” and “in violation of everything we’ve been taught, and the opposite of what we should be doing, which is being quiet professionals.” Read more at the Marine Corps Times.

Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analysis and author of a book on the tracking and killing of Bin Laden, weighs in with a devastating critique of the Special Ops video Dishonorable Disclosures.

Birther PAC

By on August 7, 2012 in Birther Politics, Follow the money

imageIt’s been the conventional wisdom that anything birther fizzles, case in point the Birther Summit, Phil Berg’s Washington DC affair, and Swensson’s march on the Georgia Capitol to name a few.

It looks like a new organization, a political action committee (PAC) called the Conservative Majority Fund, registered less than a month ago, is actually doing something: airing TV ads across the country that raise conspiracy theory issues about Barack Obama including his social-security number and birth certificate, and making robocalls to voters. You’ve probably seen the video by now, with a narration reminiscent of a Nevada used car salesman.

Half a million dollars!

The fund’s treasurer (that’s the person whose name goes on the FEC application for a PAC) is Scott B. MacKenzie, a consultant who ran another conservative PAC in 2010. The fact that they’ve spent over half a million dollars less than a month after the PAC’s creation suggests to me that this is a front for some rich individual or organization rather than any kind of grass roots effort. I’m no election law wonk, but it looks like their first donor report won’t be due until October 15, so the election will be upon us before we know where the money is coming from.

According to FEC filings, the Conservative Majority Fund has spent half a million dollars as of August 1. $185,663 went to a company called Take 2 Direct LLC, 1182 S Bristol St, Santa Anna CA for "Media Production and Airtime" and the balance for "Voter Contact Calls" paid to a company called Infocision Management Corp,. 325 Springside Dr., Akron, OH. The calls seem to going to pretty much every state including ones not in contention.

The Fund says that they need 10,000 signatures from each state and they can remove Barack Obama from the ballot. Clearly they are targeting ignorant people because no such provision exists in any state or federal law.

A lively investigation of the people behind the PAC is developing at The Fogbow forum.

Here’s another really funny used car ad.

Birther politics: follow the money

By on July 20, 2012 in Follow the money, Joe Arpaio, Research Notes

My interest was piqued by something Jack Adams left as a comment on my article about a political advertisement for an opponent of Joe Arpaio. He said:

We can beat Joe and his $4 million raised from birthers across the country.

$4 million dollars is a hell of a lot of money for a county sheriff’s race. All along, I’ve thought that the Maricopa County Cold Case Posse faux investigation of Barack Obama’s documents was all about revenge for the US Justice Department’s investigation of him and I speculated about financial gain through WorldNetDaily. I thought the investigation was bad politics at home and I never considered what a fantastic fundraising opportunity it might be nationally.

So where is Arpaio’s money coming from? Thanks to finance campaign disclosure laws in Arizona, candidates must report contributions of $25 or more, and the details are available at the County Recorder’s website. The $6.8 million dollar figure is the total contributions to date to the Arpaio campaign as of May 31, 2012, more precisely $6,864,685.68; $4 million is what Arpaio has left to spend.

The bulk of the quarter million dollars spent on the campaign in January – May went to the Phoenix-based Summit Consulting Group for, of all things, fundraising! Well done, Summit, well done!

Unfortunately for a researcher, the two campaign finance  contributor reports total over 1,000 pages of scans of mixed computer-printed and hand-written documentation, not a data file. It is easy to see, however, that a large number of the contributions come from persons who describe their occupation as “retired” (the next largest category is “housewife”) and a large number come from out of state. $430 is the maximum amount an individual can contribute to a local election in Arizona. It’s hard to summarize numbers by scanning 1000 pages visually.

I quickly skimmed the most recent report (562) pages, but didn’t see any names I recognized; however, I didn’t see the vast majority of the names, and I don’t keep up with folks’ real names anyway.

Jewish billionaire funding the birther movement?

By on April 17, 2012 in Follow the money
I have said many times that birtherism has a number of strains and that it is not a simple expression of racism. Some part of the movement has a pro-Israel/anti-Arab motivation. The Huffington Post highlights such an idea in its article:

“Irving Moskowitz, Controversial Backer Of Israeli Settlements, Gives $1 Million To Anti-Obama Super PAC.” Moskowitz gave $1 million to America Crossroads, and according to HuffPo:

Now, at age 83, Moskowitz has turned his money on the American political realm in a more prominent fashion than ever before, funding "birther" groups that question the legitimacy of President Barack Obama’s U.S. citizenship and others that stoke fears about the president’s alleged ties to "radical Islam."

The HuffPo article is repeated on Jewish news web sites such as Jewish Telegraphic Agency and The Times of Israel.

What is not exactly clear is whether contributions to “birther” groups is necessarily supported in the story. The only “birther groups” mentioned by HuffPo is (singular) Joseph Farah’s Western Center for Journalism. While there is no question that Farah and his enterprises are a wellspring of birtherism, they also support anti-Muslim activities and right-wing politics in general. I don’t see the evidence that Moskowitz is himself a birther or has donated money specifically to advance birtherism.

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