Mr. Hsu had pleaded no contest to one count of grand theft and was facing up to three years in prison.
The travails of Mr. Hsu have proved an embarrassment for the Clinton campaign, which has strived to project an image of rectitude in its fund-raising and to dispel any lingering shadows of past episodes of tainted contributions.
Already, Mrs. Clinton’s opponents were busy trying to rekindle remembrances of the 1996 Democratic fund-raising scandals, in which Asian moneymen were accused of funneling suspect donations into Democratic coffers as President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore were running for re-election.
Some Clinton donors said yesterday that they did not expect the Hsu matter to hurt Mrs. Clinton unless a pattern of problematic fund-raising or compromised donors emerged, which would raise questions about the campaign’s vetting of donors.
Eh! I still say that photograph hurts the most.
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unless a pattern of problematic fund-raising or compromised donors emerged
They're kidding right? A pattern of problematic fund-raising?
Surely, the Clintons are the very major model of problematic fund-raising?
Tell me this was poorly delivered sarcasm.
"Some Clinton donors said..."
Well now there is a useful source for quotes, guaranteed not to be even slightly critical.
Move along. Nothing to see here...
She doesn't need this money from a boy named Hsu. She could get more money that what he gave her by trading in cattle futures.
Norman Hsu
John Huang
John Chung
What do all of the above have in common??
How soon we forget.
What do all of the above have in common??
They are all Buddist monks at the Hsi Lai temple along with nun Maria Hsia.
As they say, move along, nothing to see here.
Thank goodness all the other candidates get money from sources that are Pure As The Driven Snow. Really helps make a choice easier.
Ann says: "But let's read the news"
I'm am trying to read news but all I see is a bunch of BS and spin put out by the Clinton campaign:
-has strived to project an image of rectitude
-Mrs. Clinton’s opponents were busy trying to rekindle
-Some Clinton donors said
Wurly,
When you have a donor who gives this much to your campaigns and then gives all these fundraisers, it behooves you to ensure that the source is legitimate. You give people the job to make sure that the donations cannot come back at you. Look at all the problems with the republicans in California and the India casino donations. Of course when the money goes to the democrats (**cough cough** Reid and Pelosi **cough cough**) you can ignore it but in the case of someone who was as bought and sold as Hillary and Bill were you better check it out.
I'm concerned about the voters who will tur a blind eye to these deals. Most of tem will just shrug their shoulders and say, "They [meaning the candidates] all do it."
NO, they don't. The Clintons' history is littered with shady deals and not so shady deals that they seem to get away with over and over again.
Wurly said...
Candidates don't have time to screen donors, and the cost of hiring enough staff to do so would only increase the expense of a campaign and the need to fundraise.
Wurly, there are 2 Hsu stories out there. You are focusing only on Hsu as the fugitive felon in plain sight, which is fascinating. I don't undertsand why California didn't put a fleeeing felon into the NCIC, and if they did, why the Secret Service isn't vetting folks that come into contact with Bill.
The second story was in the WSJ the other day
It is the impetus for discovering the fugitive felon story. Its Hsu connection is that there is a Postal employee (Chinese of course) in Daly City ( a working class area south of SF)
this Postal worker who earns 49k a year has in the last 2 years alkong with his non-working wife and 3 kids donated 4 times his annual salary to Democrats. and Hsu listed the shack (by SF standards) they live in as his address. sound like bundled donations by straw donors?
Yes candidates can't vet the criminal past of all donors, but we can insist that their big fund raisers (aka pioneers or rangers or whatever) get a brief on campaign finance and that they and Clinton obey the law.
Maybe the third Hsu won't drop this time and we discover that there is Chinese government funds mixed in like there was in the last Clinton Gore Chinese money scandal.
A non-story.
Won't make a bit of difference come 2008.
Hillary will be the next President.
And thank God...Bush will finally be gone.
Damn dem Clintons!!!
We needs us another good ol' boy...like little G.W.
Da kinda guy who grew up as a regular ol' draft dodging, booze abusin', cocaine snortin', reefer smokin', cheerleader, rich kid!!
Won't make a bit of difference come 2008.
Hillary will be the next President.
Will never happen. (Even if elected she wouldn't be sworn in until 2009.)
Da kinda guy who grew up as a regular ol' draft dodging, booze abusin', cocaine snortin', reefer smokin', cheerleader, rich kid!!
Change that to "poor" kid and you've just described Bill Clinton as well, though you'd need to add womanizer to the list.
I'm tired of dynasties and wish the Bushes, Clintons and Kennedys would all go away.
The Drill SGT said...
this Postal worker who earns 49k a year has in the last 2 years alkong with his non-working wife and 3 kids donated 4 times his annual salary to Democrats.
Sure his wife doesn't work but apparently their 4 grown children who live with them do. (I think there is a 5th child who has made some contributions and may be included in the total.) Where did the family get the money to make such contributions? They refinanced their house recently, that could be one source. Maybe the fact that (at least) 6 adults claim to live in the small house(5 of whom work outside the home) has allowed them to build a pile.
I am suspicious any time there is bundling of contributions. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Paw's violated many povisions of campaign finance law.
That said, there is something classist about the WSJ reporting. If the Paw family ran a hedge fund rather than a gift shop, and the kids made the contributions from trust funds and the family had a Manhattan address the WSJ would show no interest in the family.
Joe,
Clinton grew up in a dirt-floor home, with no father, a black nanny and a mother who worked full time, and became a Rhodes Scholar and two-term President.
He has never been accused of doing cocaine (other than nutcase right wing videos), being a drunk and certainly was never a fucking college cheerleader.
He did smoke some dope, fucked all kinds of women (unlike the Republicans who evidently prefer guys), dodged the draft and still became one our best Presidents. (which history will bear out.)
As for Georgie, he's going to be remembered as an inept, loser and probably the worst President ever.
*There's nothing like listening to wingnuts whine about the Clintons.
It's like the gift that just keeps on giving.
So...as your inept little buddy would say: "bring it on!!"
HEY, Sgt...when you say: "I am suspicious any time there is bundling of contributions. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Paw's violated many povisions of campaign finance law."
Maybe you should run it by Rove. He was pretty good at this kind of thing, in addition to telling people McCain had a black baby and spreading bullshit rumors about any candidate he was helping run against.
Your kind of guy...
Luckyoldson said...
HEY, Sgt...when you say: "I am suspicious any time there is bundling of contributions. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the Paw's violated many povisions of campaign finance law."
My apolgies if the italics didn't come through, but I said that not Sgt.
Yawn. How was Hillary supposed to know this guy was a fugitive?
DTL - Obviously, Hillary's campaign can't vet all its donors. But this guy was one of her biggest, and at that level, there probably should be some vetting.
The situation is that some donors manage to provide huge amounts of contributions by bundling a bunch of contributions from others. But that lends itself to abuse, as was seen during the Clinton/Gore years when the small "donors" turn out to be fronts or straw donors for the big donors, like Hsu.
And that is why their activity has to be looked at a lot more closely - because there is a much higher likelyhood that there is something illicit going on (not always, of course, just a lot more likely).
Hillary's problem is worse than anyone else's here because of her last name and marriage to the 42nd president. The Clinton/Gore campaigns became notorious for questionable donations, esp. from Asian sources, with a lot of the contributors seeming to disappear back to their home countries instead of face investigation here.
It is that it appears to be a continuation of the Clinton/Gore campaign irregularities. Maybe it isn't, but it is easy for her opponents to keep bringing up those issues. And for someone with her negatives, it could prove disasterous.
Remember, part of the reason that she is the front runner is that she has access to a lot of money, through the Clinton campaign machine, and part of that appeared to many to involves a lot of questionable sources of donations.
So, while I think that Hillary is going to have to be more careful than anyone else about the source of her campaign contributions, she will likely have to be even more careful about large bundled contributions from Asian sources.
It may not be fair, but politics is never fair - after all, why else is she the front runner? Obviously, not the best possible candidate, just the one with the best name recognition and access to money.
Another problem she has is that she has very high negatives, and some of that is distrust from her and her husband's time in the White House. She is seen by many as being fairly corrupt. The last thing she needs right now is for her husband's campaign issues to be brought up again in this context, reinforcing many people's belief in her venality and corruption. (And note I am not claiming that she is corrupt, but rather speaking of perceptions).
the title of this thread should be
"What really hurts America is I'm so afraid of Hillary I'll say and do anything, make any connection, anything anything anything...to keep another Clinton from the White House"
It is not that we are afraid of Hillary. It is that we have seen her MO and it is so unethical and so lacking in any standards that we will be sure to point out the lack of ethics of her and her campaign. Lord knows there is more than enough of her lack of ethics to go around.
Unless Hillary does something truely shocking like becoming pro-life or attacking affirmative action, she's a shoe-in.
No amount unethical behavior, corruption, arrogance, ruthlessness, or stupidity on her part will prevent a majority of Dems from nominating their beloved Hill and Bill.
They've always loved Fat Ted even after his infamous swim in 1969; and they feel same way about the Protestant Nun.
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