“More than half of the whopping $426.9 million Barack Obama has raised has come from small donors whose names the Obama campaign won’t disclose.” So reads the lead-in to an article published last week by Newsmax.

One fact in particular brought out by the Newsmax report highlights a worrying trend in the Obama campaign’s funding process—the extremely high level of donations from foreign sources, among which are nations not the least bit friendly to the United States.

While the McCain campaign’s funding process is an open book by virtue of the complete donor database being made available online, it appears that the true nature of Obama’s election funding process is being hidden by smoke and mirrors. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that the Obama campaign “has not identified donors for nearly half the amount he has raised” (Newsmax.com, September 29). This ought to be of deep concern to true American patriots.

While U.S. federal law requires election campaigns to report the total donations for any given donor whose contributions exceed $200, it allows for any donor who gives less than $200 during a given election cycle to remain anonymous. Newsmax reports that, “Surprisingly, the great majority of Obama donors never break the $200 threshold.” To take a leaf out of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, there would appear to be something rotten in the state of Obamaland. Newsmax notes that due to the huge extent of questionable, small donations from undisclosed donors, “Obama easily could outpace McCain by $50 million to $100 million or more in new donations before Election Day, thanks to a legion of small contributors whose names and addresses have been kept secret.”

In these days of Internet transactions, it is more difficult to establish and follow a paper trail where questionable campaign donations are suspected. This (combined with the federal law permitting less-than-$200 donors to remain secret) allows for the prospect of wide abuse of the campaign funding process. In particular, suspicions are raised when campaign watchdogs request full disclosure of details involving an unusually high level of small donations and the request is stonewalled. A spokesman of one of these groups stated, “We and seven other watchdog groups asked both campaigns for more information on small donors. The Obama campaign never responded” (ibid.).

With these small donations to the Obama campaign now reported to total more than $200 million from secret sources, this ought to really raise the alarm.

Aside from this, the Federal Election Commission (fec) has indicated a degree of concern over the unusual manner and the extent of donations made to the Obama campaign from foreign sources.

The fec reports that these foreign donations total 11,500 contributions adding up to $33.8 million. The real worry is the source of a good many of these foreign donations. Newsmax reports that 63 of the donors listed their “state” as “UK,” the United Kingdom” (emphasis mine). London is the city of choice for many an extremist Islamic organization in respect of both parking and laundering funds through the UK’s banking system. According to Newsmax, other countries identified by the fec as the source of Obama campaign donations are “Abu Dhabi, Addis Ababa, Beijing, Fallujah, Italy, and a wide selection of towns and cities in France.” France is a hotbed of disgruntled Islamist extremists, with whole suburban areas identified as no-go areas by local police.

Newsmax notes that the Obama website, until recently, had allowed a contributor to select a country of residence from the entire membership of the United Nations, noting, with a touch of sarcasm, that the list included “such friendly places as North Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Now, perhaps this would all be no big deal except for the fact that, on the one hand, U.S. federal law bans contributions from foreigners to the country’s election campaigns, and on the other, our Islamic friends, in particular, are so anxious to see Obama elected!

The first is a matter of law. The second is born out by numerous comments from the Islamic community.

Human Events reported, “Egyptian journalist Yasser Khalil declared recently that ‘Barack Obama represents a phenomenon that has drawn global attention and captivated the minds of Muslims around the world.’ Writing from Cairo, he said that ‘in spite of the campaign’s heated debate and some controversial rhetoric regarding Islam, large segments of the Muslim population here remain fascinated with the election and have become big fans of Senator Obama’” (September 10).

Apart from the pro-Obama stance of Islamist terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah, there’s the donations received from Palestinians resident in Gaza, and there’s Libya’s Colonel Qadhafi. Referencing Obama, he has publicly declared that “All the people in the Arab and Islamic world and in Africa applauded this man. They welcomed him and prayed for him and for his success, and they may have even been involved in legitimate contribution campaigns to enable him to win the American presidency” (memri,June 16).

The fec is hampered by rules that applied in the pre-Worldwide Web era. With no real paper trail to follow to trace the massive amount of questionable donations to the Obama campaign, and with a campaign management extremely reluctant to divulge the facts, the massive injection of funding from secret sources it seems is destined to remain just that, a secret kept from those who most need to know, the American public.

The evidence may, technically, be circumstantial. However, any rational mind can simply add up the facts and draw a valid conclusion. Either way you slice the cake on the Obama campaign funding, to revert to Hamlet once again, this appears to be “an unweeded garden” of “things rank and gross in nature.”

This will be the first American presidential election since the U.S. was toppled from its superpower status by a series of negative events commencing with 9/11 and consummating with the twin phenomena of Russia’s challenge to the West via its August 8 invasion of Georgia, and the recent collapse of the U.S. finance and credit system. If, added to that, we see an incumbent in the Oval Office who feels bound to go, appeasing cap in hand, before the declared enemies of this nation and seek “peace” for a bowl of pottage in return, then we can take it for granted that the U.S. will fall to the state of a third-rate nation overnight.

Thank God that things are set to change!

Believe it or not, there does exist a real hope of a far, far better world than this! That is not just empty talk. We have no one to impress for political or any other type of gain. What we have to give we give freely, for no monetary cost (Matthew 10:8). But we do have the only message of true and very real hope that is open to man in these incredibly troubling times. That is why we remain tremendously upbeat for the future.

Though a great time of suffering is about to descend on this world, that terrible suffering is but a portent of a future of manifold blessings! We cannot downplay the horrors that await a rebellious mankind entering the death throes of a terribly corrupt civilization. At the same time, however, we cannot overstress the magnificence of the future that awaits all mankind once this world has suffered the heavy correction that is its due for its rank rebellion against its Creator!

Read our booklet The Epistles of Peter—A Living Hope and begin to open your mind to just where all of the current world turmoil is leading. It’s a message that you will never hear from any politician, regardless of their party loyalty. It is a message that is as far apart from the smoke and mirrors of murky political campaigns as the east is from the west. Get your copy of this booklet now and begin to study it immediately. It will show you the only true course to a future of real and sure hope, secure in the wonder of just how to reach, and fulfill, your own, God-given, incredible human potential!

[Editor’s note: This article originally made reference to the Obama campaign receiving contributions from Iran, an assertion that has been challenged. In absence of further proof, the reference has been removed.]