Hillary's Book Bombs - But It's A Great Undercover Campaign Contribution At Our Expense

Hillary Clinton's latest ghost written memoir, "Hard Choices" received a huge amount of attention in the press and sparked a well publicized book tour, but that apparently isn't translating into the sales Simon & Schuster were expecting based on the $14 million  dollar advance they gave her:

In an email this evening, a veteran publishing source calls the latest Hillary Clinton book, 'Hard Choices', a memoir of her State Department years, a "bomb." The source is referring to the early but underwhelming sales figures.

"Between us, they are nervous at S&S [Simon & Schuster]," says the source, who gave permission for his email to be published. "Sales were well below expectations and the media was a disaster."

According to this source, a Simon & Schuster insider, "They sold 60,000 hard covers first week and 24,000 ebooks." The publishing house was "hoping and praying for 150,000 print first week."

"The 60k represents a less than 10% sell thru based on what they shipped," says the source.

It's been reported that one million copies of Clinton's book were shipped weeks before the June 10 publication date. "They will be lucky to sell 150,000 total lifetime," the source writes in the email.

'Nervous at Simom & Schuster?' I doubt that.

Since I know a bit about how book publishing works, I can tell you that an old line, established publishing house like S & S doesn't make huge mistakes with advances like this. They research this stuff carefully and have a marketing analysis done by experienced hands before they get out the checkbook. For example, Mrs. Clinton's last ghost written memoir, 'Living History' which chronicled her White House years (for which, by the way, she never credited her ghost writer Barbara Feinman and even tried to renege on part of Ms. Feinman's $120,000 fee) only received an $8 million dollar advance and made a profit, but not an overwhelming one.And that sold double what 'Hard Choices' did in its first week.

Not only that, but S & S went to the trouble and expense of printing over one million copies and shipping them before all the retail orders or even the preorders online were even in.

Major publishers simply don't make mistakes like that, or they turn into former publishers.

So let's look at how this works in the real world, shall we? Let's say S & S makes a gross profit on the retail sales of this piece of self-serving package of horse manure of between $3 and $4 million. After they deduct the costs of the advance, advertising, shipping, printing and all the other associated costs, what they end up with is a loss for tax purposes of perhaps $12 million plus..that's fully tax deductible against their other profits.

Meanwhile Mrs. Clinton still has her $14 million advance thanks to Simon & Schuster's unprecedented 'miscalculation'....and a nice campaign contribution that skirts campaign finance laws completely, while S&S is almost completely reimbursed by the American taxpayer, that is, you and me.

That plus the $6 billion that mysteriously went missing and is unaccounted for from the State Department's budget while she was Secretary of State would make a nice start for a 2016 run.

 

What difference does it make, right?


Oh, and who owns Simon & Schuster? CBS, who are in turn owned by Viacom. Just a coincidence of course, but Viacom's Chairman of the Board is Sumner Redstone, a self-described 'liberal Democrat' and a major Democrat donor as are most of the members of Viacom's board....along with Phillipe Dauman, by far the biggest individual shareholder, with over 1,350,000 shares.

Just a coincidence. Of course.

A Good Idea On Where To Spend GOP Campaign Dollars Next Time Out

 

Courtesy of Professor Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit fame...

Obama Campaign Busted For Accepting Foreign Donation$

The New York Post has the story:

The Obama re-election campaign has accepted at least one foreign donation in violation of the law — and does nothing to check on the provenance of millions of dollars in other contributions, a watchdog group alleges.

Chris Walker, a British citizen who lives outside London, told The Post he was able to make two $5 donations to President Obama’s campaign this month through its Web site while a similar attempt to give Mitt Romney cash was rejected. It is illegal to knowingly solicit or accept money from foreign citizens.

Walker said he used his actual street address in England but entered Arkansas as his state with the Schenectady, NY, ZIP code of 12345.

“When I did Romney’s, the payment got rejected on the grounds that the address on the card did not match the address that I entered,” he said. “Romney’s Web site wanted the code from the back of card. Barack Obama’s didn’t.”

By the way, taking contributions from non-U.S. citizens is against federal law.

The actual numbers are quite instructive. In September, the Obama campaign took in more than $2 million from donors who provided no ZIP code or incomplete ZIP codes, according to data posted on the Federal Election Commission Web site.

Romney's numbers? $2,450 from donors without ZIP codes and $2,500 from those with incomplete ZIP codes.

Walker also says he began receiving multiple e-mails asking him to donate an additional $188. That would have put him just under the $200 threshold above which FEC requires campaigns have to identify the donor.

Just for the record, I had exactly the same experience.

My $5 donation sent from 'Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza City, Gaza' went right through, was processed and was billed to my account.

I also receive e-mails asking me to donate another $190...again, just under the $200 reporting limit.These people know exactly what they're doing.

By the way Haniyeh is the leader of Hamas in Gaza, officially listed as a terrorist group by our State Department. No problem for President Obama!

The reason for the laxity regarding ZIP codes and 3 and 4 digit security codes (CVV) is a no brainer. A lot of foreign cards don't have them, so requiring them would limit foreign donations, if, let's say, you weren't too choosy about the law and wanted to accept them.

Not only that, but the address verification system used on VISA, MasterCard and American Express cards is the default position in the software involved. Someone would have to deliberately disable it in order for this type of fraud to go through.

The piece also reiterates the information about Obama.com, owned by a prominent Obama bundler named Robert Roche who lives in China, has extremely close connections with the Chinese government, and received a prominent seat at a state dinner in honor of the Chinese President.

Is the FEC going to do anything about this 1 days before a national election? Probably not. But one would hope they'd investigate this thoroughly and prosecute. The Obama Campaign did exactly the same thing in 2008 and got away with it, so apparently they figured it was just fine to pull it again.

Obama Campaign Using Illegal Foreign Donations...Just Like 2008

There's a story today in the Daily Beast, of all places regarding the Obama campaigns' possible use of illegal and fraudulent donations.

The idea, of course, is to evade campaign finance regulations on contribution limits, fake donors and illegal foreign contributions. And the Obama campaign did exactly the same thing in 2008.

Here's how it works.

VISA, MasterCard and most other credit cards have built-in default software that match credit card numbers to names and addresses (known as the Address Verification System or AVS) that are part of the vendor set up that allow credit cards to be accepted as payment.You use that same software at the gas pump or the supermarket.

However, if you have a savvy computer pro disable that software ( and it would need to be done deliberately, since it's inherent in the system) things open up quite nicely.

You can accept hundreds of robo-donations from one pre-paid card with the same account number but with different names and addresses, all under the $200 reporting limit. And they can be from anywhere. In other words, an organization like MoveOn or Think Progress could run multiple under the limit transactions with one card and any number of aliases and fake addresses owned by, say, George Soros or another well fixed donor.

As the Daily Beast Article relates, you can even fraudulently tap real accounts:

According to an October 2008 Washington Post article, Mary Biskup of Missouri appeared to give more than $170,000 in small donations to the 2008 Obama campaign. Yet Biskup said she never gave any money to the campaign. Some other contributor gave the donations using her name, without her knowledge. (The Obama campaign explained to the Post that it caught the donations and returned them.)

After the election, of course. But there were likely plenty of others that weren't caught.

Go to the Mitt Romney campaign site and try to donate $20 on your credit card with the wrong name and address and it spits it right back at you. Do the same thing at the Obama site and it will accept it. That's how it works.

Another thing the Daily Beast article noted was that the Obama Campaign is not making use of the 3 and 4 digit security codes on cards, known as the CVV or CVV2 ( card verification value system) found on the back of your cards:

This makes it all the more surprising that the Obama campaign does not use a standard security tool, the card verification value (CVV) system—the three- or four-digit number often imprinted on the back of a credit card, whose purpose is to verify that the person executing the purchase (or, in this case, donation) physically possesses the card. The Romney campaign, by contrast, does use the CVV—as has almost every other candidate who has run for president in recent years, from Hillary Clinton in 2008 to Ron Paul this year.

The Obama campaign's excuse for this is that the CVV can 'intimidate small donors', although they require it if you want to buy an Obama hoodie or the rest of their schlock merchandise.

Want to know the real reason the Obama Campaign likely doesn't require the CVV for donations?

It's because many foreign credit cards do not have CVV codes. Requiring them would limit foreign donations, if, let's say, you weren't too choosy about the law and wanted to accept them.

In September the Obama campaign brought in its biggest fundraising haul—$181 million. Nearly all of that amount (98 percent) came from small donations, through 1.8 million transactions. The average size of the transaction? $53.

Even worse is that the reporting requirements are tailor made for this kind of fraud:

Candidates need only publicly report campaign contributions over $200. For donations between $50 and $200 (the average donation in Obama’s huge September haul was $53), candidates are simply required to make an effort to obtain accurate identifying information—information they aren’t required to report. And for donations under $50, regulations don’t even require campaigns to keep a record of identifying information.

According to the article, the Obama campaign claims that it stringently vets all donations. Yet they have deliberately disabled the major electronic tools used to prevent fraud.

In another interesting factoid, Breitbart reveals that the Obama.com website is not owned by the president’s campaign but rather by Obama bundler Robert Roche, a U.S. citizen living in Shanghai, China. His company, Acorn International, has ties to state-controlled banks that allow it to gain revenue through credit card transactions with Chinese banks. And there's more:

The unusual Obama.com website redirects traffic directly to a donation page on the Obama campaign’s official website, my.barackobama.com, which does not require donors to enter their credit card security code (known as the CVV code), thereby increasing the likelihood of foreign or fraudulent donations. The website is managed by a small web development firm, Wicked Global, in Maine. One of Wicked Global’s employees, Greg Dorr, lists on his LinkedIn page his additional employment with Peace Action Maine and Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights. According to the GAI report, 68 percent of all Internet traffic to Obama.com comes from foreign visitors. 

In 2011, Mr. Roche obtained one of the most sought-after pieces of real estate in Washington, DC: a seat at the head table for President Obama’s State Dinner for Chinese President Hu Jintao. How Roche—a man whose infomercial company hawks fitness equipment, cell phones, and breast enhancement products—landed a seat alongside Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former President Bill Clinton, Sen. John Kerry, former President Jimmy Carter, and Chinese President Hu Jintao remains unclear.  

Since 2009, White House Visitor Logs list the name Robert Roche at least 19 times, despite the fact Mr. Roche’s primary residence is in China. 

Mr. Roche, who is originally from Chicago, is a co-chair of the Technology Initiative for the Obama campaign.

Hmmm...a wealthy businessman with direct ties to the Chinese government and President Obama who owns the president's campaign finance website that has no electronic safeguards against fraud.

Sounds like a 21st century variation on the Riyadi Brothers and presidential candidate Bill Clinton, doesn't it?

The President As Huckster

Aside from selling questionable designer fashion ware, the Obama campaign is now involved in yet another sleazy endeavor.

If a couple you know is getting married, they encourage people to donate the price of the gifts they would have given to the Obama campaign. I kid you not.

Just imagine how overjoyed a young couple is going to be after footing the bill for a wedding and then having Auntie or your best man say 'Hey, I donated $50 to Obama's campaign instead of cutting you a check. What, you're not happy?'

They're even encouraging couples on the campaign site to register, so that their friends and relatives will be steered towards being obligated to donate to Obama whether they support the president or not rather than putting in a little something in cash or gifts to help the new couple get started. Because you see, the president is...well, entitled to it. All of it. Just because he can.

This is how con men and cult leaders operate, because they feel they're owed everything you have regardless of what it is. It's also how another well known class of people operate, but I'll let you fill in that particular blank yourself.

Obama's senior adviser and factotum Valerie Jarret's daughter just got married, and I'm sure the gifts were plentiful, given the number of people who want to curry favor with someone like the president of the United States. I guarantee you those guests weren't encouraged to cut checks to Obama instead of gifts.

He simply has no shame, and no limits.

AFL-CIO Pulling Funds From Obama Campaign??

Now this is a major bit of hope and change!

The AFL-CIO, the largest private union group in the country has signalled that it will be 'redeploying' funds away from political candidates, including President Obama.

The union's story is that they were planning this anyway and had nothing to do with President Obama's no show in Wisconsin last week."We wanted to start investing our funds in our own infrastructure and advocacy," AFL-CIO spokesman Josh Goldstein told Whispers. "There will be less contributions to candidates," including President Obama.

"Some candidates will get more, some less, some the same -- but overall we'll be focused more on spending resources to build our own structure [that] works for working people instead of others' own structures."

This echoes a speech back in May at the National Press Club by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka threatening to reduce support for the Democratic party and launch "an independent labor movement" if they didn't receive more support from Democrats for their agenda.

Actually, the AFL-CIO's financial contribution to Democrats is dwarfed by those of the Public employee unions and the UAW, but the AFL-CIO provides vital contributions in kind via phone banks and get out the vote efforts.

How to parse this? Part of it is anger at President Obama for being a no show in Wisconsin..you don't get your friend's back only when you're sure he's going to win, after all. Part of it is the huge financial and PR hit the unions took in trying to unseat Governor Walker, members oif Wisconsin's State Supreme Court and the Republican state senate.

And part of it may be labor returning gradually to a very old bit of wisdom by labor pioneer Samuel Gompers,who always advised unions to be careful about getting into bed too far with any one political party because they 'could get kicked in the breadbasket'.

It's obvious to me that at least when it comes to private unions, their real home is with conservative candidates who can provide security at home and abroad, grow the economy and provide the jobs and prosperity labor depends on. And it's just as obvious to me that if we're going to bring manufacturing back in America as a part of that prosperity ( and we had better), a big part of it is going to involve a responsible private labor movement and good paying blue collar jobs.

This is by no means as far fetched as it sounds.

Sherm Adelson Gives $10 Million To Pro-Romney Super PAC

Sherm Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul has reportedly given $10 million to the super-PAC Restore Our Future, which is supporting Mitt Romney.

Adelson was previously one of Newt Gingrich's major backers.

The link between the two? Support for our ally Israel, a cause dear to Mr. Adelson's heart.

He comes from an older generation that was closer to the Holocaust and understands how important a strong and secure Israel is to Jews worldwide, as well as what an asset it is for America.

Mitt Romney understands what an asset Israel is to America as well.

Adelson also obviously sees that Barack Obama is the most anti-Israel president in our history, and unlike some of the usual suspects, realizes how important it is that he be defeated, not just for Israel, not even just for America, but for the west in general.

That realization appears to be slowly growing with America's Jews.

Adelson,who's worth an estimated $20 billion is also apparently planning tocontriblute heavily to getting a conservative congress elected, so it's all good.

Shocker! The Business Sector Of America Overwhelmingly Supports Romney

The Politico has a story out today in which they express their amazement that Wall Street and much of the business sector in general support Mitt Romney, an dare backing it up with their wallets:

..thanks to campaign finance filings, it’s possible to put a price tag on just how much: Mitt Romney's presidential campaign and the super PAC supporting it are outraising Obama among financial-sector donors $37.1 million to $4.8 million.

Near the front of the pack are 19 Obama donors from 2008 who are giving big to Romney.

The 19 have already given $4.8 million to Romney’s presidential campaign and the super PAC supporting it through the end of April, according to a POLITICO analysis of Federal Election Commission filings. Four years ago, they gave Obama $213,700.

None of them has given a penny to the president’s reelection campaign or the super PAC supporting it.

The Politico is apparently trying to frame this to fit into the Obama campaign's Romney/rich white guy/uncaring billionaire plutocrat theme. They're quite welcome to try, but the reality is that Wall Street has switched sides because they see first hand the mismanagement of the American economy and the president's war on private enterprise..except when it comes to wealthy, well connected Obama donors with green energy scams to sell.

What's more, Middle America increasingly sees this as well, which is exactly why President Obama is flailing around and doing so poorly as of late.

As I wrote some time ago, this election is going to be very much about competence. As a living example of the Peter Principle in action, President Obama fails that test.

Let's just say that Wall Street, like a lot of us, doesn't find the passage on the SS Obama nearly as happy as they did in 2008..and they're voting with their feet, and their wallets.