Update: Obama the Crook (NOT hyberbole)

Over at PowerlineBlog they're exposing what ought to be the biggest story of the 2012 election.

The Obama campaign contribution website is deliberately set up to facilitate illegal campaign contributions.

Here's a donation I just made. First the initial donation form, as I filled it out, minus my credit card info:

I then filled in my actual credit card number and the transaction was successfully processed -- without providing ANY correct name, address or CVV information. Below are the success screen and a clip of my credit card activity page showing the pending transaction:

This is in violation of every principle of e-commerce out there. Any shopping cart and transaction processing software readily available will prevent this sort of transaction from ever being submitted. You can't buy anything online without going through that sort of verification. This could have been someone stealing my card. It could have been an illegal foreign donor. It could be someone racking up donations beyond their maximum by creating fake identities. It is literally impossible that this is accidental. The Obama campaign just allowed an illegal campaign contribution because it wants to!

Why are Congress and the Attorney General's Office not investigating this? Why hasn't a special prosecutor been named? I don't care if you support Obama or not, you can't, as an American with any sort of regard for our electoral system, stand by and allow this to continue. This represents election fraud of the highest level!

I'll update when/if the transaction moves from "pending" to "sale."

Update: Right on schedule:

The Obama campaign just accepted a donation with entirely fictitious identifying information. They make no attempt at all to ensure that I am a legal contributor or that the card is being used by its legitimate owner. Try finding any halfway reputable place on the internet that lets you do that. This makes me sick.

Update: On 5/1/2012, the Obama campaign finally refunded the transaction. Clearly they went back and manually refunded shady-looking donations after they were getting heat about it. That's the only explanation for why they would use such an inefficient "security" method.

More here.