Michelle Malkin » www.change.gov smells like a fund-raising front

www.change.gov smells like a fund-raising front

By Michelle Malkin • November 7, 2008 05:02 AM

Government domain names (”.gov”) for websites are supposed to be restricted to eligible government organizations and programs.

Does Barack Obama’s transition website, www.change.gov — which is basically a souped-up version of his campaign site — qualify? As Ed Morrissey pointed out yesterday, “The incoming administration technically has no status as a government organization or program until January 20, 2009. The “Office of the President-Elect” doesn’t exist within the government.”

The primary goal of the transition site seems to be to collect e-mail addresses and personal information — for future fund-raising and political organizing projects. More on that in a moment.

Did the GSA, which administers the rules governing .gov websites, vet this site? One industry exec doesn’t think so, and has sent a complaint:

To whom it may concern,

Recently a new .gov domain name was registered. The name of this domain was http://www.change.gov. This appears to be a violation of the Domain Naming Conventions Summary located at https://www.dotgov.gov/dnc.aspx. The domain does not appear to meet the criteria outlined on that page. It is my belief that the name was granted without the proper review, due to the current political climate and may in fact have been a political favor which is a clear violation of federal law.

What is the process to file a complaint regarding improper use of the .gov TLD?

Thank you for your time and cooperation.

Charles Wyble
Chief Technology Officer
Known Element Enterprises – Corporate

Let’s look at who’s operating Obama’s .gov site. It’s being run by Blue State Digital, the left-wing Internet fund-raising company that presided over the credit card fraud-friendly Obama campaign site. A tipster traced the IP address:

CustName: Blue State Digital
Address: 1000 Vermont Avenue, NW
Address: Suite 1000
City: Washington
StateProv: DC
PostalCode: 20005
Country: US
RegDate: 2007-11-21
Updated: 2007-11-21

NetRange: 69.25.74.128 – 69.25.74.191
CIDR: 69.25.74.128/26
NetName: INAP-BSN-BLUESTATE-17797
NetHandle: NET-69-25-74-128-1
Parent: NET-69-25-0-0-1
NetType: Reassigned
Comment:
RegDate: 2007-11-21
Updated: 2007-11-21

RTechHandle: INO3-ARIN
RTechName: InterNap Network Operations Center
RTechPhone: +1-877-843-4662
RTechEmail:

Blue State Digital (BSD) is a leader in online fundraising, advocacy, social networking, and constituency development programs for nonprofit organizations, political candidates and causes, and corporations. Since our founding in 2004, we’ve delivered successfully on the promise of the Internet to over 200 satisfied clients, including Obama for America, Wal-Mart Watch, the Alliance for Climate Protection, and the Communications Workers of America, raising over $200 million in contributions to date and generating tens of millions of online signups and actions.

Walks, talks, and smells like a fund-raising front to me.

Meantime, readers have been sifting through the site. Here are screenshots of two creepy items to keep an eye on. America Serves…or else!

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.

“NEED CONTENT.”

Unofficial motto of Obama-Biden ‘08.

Posted in: Barack Obama, Web 2.0

Regular View

comments (194)

trackbacks (48)

See what others have said

Note from Michelle: This section is for comments from michellemalkin.com's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that I agree with or endorse any particular comment just because I let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with my terms of use may lose his or her posting privilege.

Trackbacks

Trackback URL

Comments

« Older Comments

#536575

On November 7th, 2008 at 5:00 pm, uhangtight said:

On November 7th, 2008 at 2:23 pm, huggybear said:

huggy bear, he isn’t just takin’ my toys, but yours, too. come back in 2 years and we’ll see what you feel about your O-Savior.

when you are paying your clinton tax rate (cause he’s gonna take away the bush tax cut and go back to clinton’s rates). i do not make a lot of money, but i was looking at those tax brackets and i am going to have an extra 200-300 a paycheck gone to the IRS. you go back to the tax books from 1999 and check your AGI for last year then check and see how much you owe the IRS in the tax bracket that relates to that AGI. It ain’t pretty! You are gonna be shocked. As for me, I have lived through Jimmy Carter; and, so I can make it through Obama no problem. But, we’ll see where you are in two years when you ‘dont’ see those dollars after taxes on your paycheck anymore!
#536603

On November 7th, 2008 at 5:12 pm, Bill Stout said:

I really don’t understand why nobody has labeled Obama as a fascist. Sure, he has been careful not to speak specifically about a “third” way, but it appears that he has modeled himself upon Mussolini. Look at most of his photos and he is striking a pose that is reminiscent of Il Duce with his chin in the air. He has the beginnings of his own Obama youth corps albeit he did not recruit them, but neither has he corrected those who did, he speaks about the need for change and service to the nation, but never tells us what specifically he is speaking about and now we have the proposed mandatory service requirements for our children and the militarization of volunteer service with all of his proposed “corps.”

What’s next, the Black Panthers as Obama’s Fascisti? They were present at some of the voting precincts during the election and they had armed themselves with nightsticks. Why did they feel the need to be present at all and why were the nightsticks necessary? Questions without answers and now he is inventing government offices and establishing URLs with a .gov domain. Obama and his people need to be watched very carefully lest we tread the same road as the Italians and Germans once did.
#536718

On November 7th, 2008 at 6:01 pm, rfjjulie said:

#169 Bite me. Not all women are feminists. Some of us actually are patriotic and can think for ourselves. I can now proudly call myself a PUMA. Presidental Unity My A$$.
#536985

On November 7th, 2008 at 8:23 pm, flaming_o said:

MM and everyone, this thought came to me rather late today and I’ve either hit on something or I’m totally off.

I went to the census bureau website to gauge how many college students we have right now. The best I could find is a table for 2007 describing Educational Attainment for ages and educational levels.

In ages 18 to 24, both sexes, some college, no degree, I found 9,876,000 students. This seems to be the category closest to what I was looking for. It seems to cover students who are in college now but have not yet achieved a degree. I may be “close but no cigar” but it gave me a number to work with and this is what I did . . .

I rounded the number of students to 10,000,000 to simplify things. I assumed 2000 to be an estimated number of annual hours worked per person (8 hours per day times 5 days per week times 50 weeks per year — ok, I work in an office).

10 MILLION STUDENTS working 100 HOURS EACH is 1 BILLION HOURS TOTAL. 1 billion hours divided by 2000 hours in a work-year is 500 THOUSAND WORK-YEARS. All this in 1 (and presumably each) calendar year where this program is in effect.

Did I miss something? Even if my assumptions are off, these are big numbers. That’s a lot of effort with no compensation. From Obama’s point of view, it would be manna from heaven. If he believed in heaven.
#536988

On November 7th, 2008 at 8:25 pm, flaming_o said:

I apologize if somebody else thought of this first and ran the numbers better than I did. What can I say? It just hit me.
#537070

On November 7th, 2008 at 9:26 pm, RabbidSquirrel said:

No worries. Does anyone have any idea what “community service” is for criminal activity? From the people I spoken to over my years, it is mostly a sham.

Getting a kid to do homework or detention is hard enough, but having them do compulsory service that their parents dont even have approve for… hmmmm gotta see that in action.
#537179

On November 7th, 2008 at 11:31 pm, Connect the Dots said:

One point I think everyone is missing here: Hopey-Changey can do whatever he wants. We can flail our arms, fax and email and write our representatives when he starts his power grab.

He has the military behind him. He has the guns.

I fear those of us who are smart enough to arm now will be the only ones who will have the ability to fight.

Don’t count out those current and past military servicemen who vow to protect the country and the constitution from all enemies, foreign and ‘domestic.’

It may sound paranoid, but I would not put anything past The Commander in Thief.
#538510

On November 10th, 2008 at 9:54 am, tiredofit08 said:

well he’s change the site a bit…too much pressure their dear leader…

America Serves

“When you choose to serve — whether it’s your nation, your community or simply your neighborhood — you are connected to that fundamental American ideal that we want life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness not just for ourselves, but for all Americans. That’s why it’s called the American dream.”

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.
#538812

On November 10th, 2008 at 1:01 pm, Danceswithdachshunds said:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.
#541660

On November 12th, 2008 at 10:48 am, Wildcatter1980 said:

This is just so creepy in so many ways.

What is The One doing? He’s (has been?) acting “presidential”.

Don’t cults work by “forcing” their members to work long hours and by depriving them of sleep?

By collecting email addresses, etc., is an army of followers being assembled to “blast” out warning messages to “uncooperative” senators and representatives when they “drag their feet” on supporting more controversial issues of the Obamessiah’s Administration? (Think the Free Choice (Abortion) Act and “card check” to name but a few.)
–
Ignorance, our most costly commodity – paraphrased from Rush Limbaugh.