It appears that the Chinese are still enamored of the Clintons, this time showering their largesse on Hillary’s campaign. Busboys are giving thousands of dollars; the homeless, the illegal aliens and the un-indentified are maxing out all to support the candidate of their choice.
Yeah, right!
Dishwashers, waiters and others whose jobs and dilapidated home addresses seem to make them unpromising targets for political fundraisers are pouring $1,000 and $2,000 contributions into Clinton's campaign treasury. In April, a single fundraiser in an area long known for its gritty urban poverty yielded a whopping $380,000.
In a remarkable venue, the LA Times has reported that cash has been showered on the Clinton campaign from what they considered an “unlikely source.” That is only if your memory is conveniently blank about what happened during her husband’s administration which traded nuclear and missile technology for cash from the Chinese.
But of course you don’t even have to go back to those glory days of the 1990s. Norman Chu has been all over the news in recent months without answering the question of how and why he got the ability to give millions of dollars to the Democrats in general and the Clinton campaign in particular.
Clinton has enlisted the aid of Chinese neighborhood associations, especially those representing recent immigrants from Fujian province. The organizations, at least one of which is a descendant of Chinatown criminal enterprises that engaged in gambling and human trafficking, exert enormous influence over immigrants. The associations help them with everything from protection against crime to obtaining green cards.
At least one reported donor denies making a contribution. Another admitted to lacking the legal-resident status required for giving campaign money.
The Times examined the cases of more than 150 donors who provided checks to Clinton after fundraising events geared to the Chinese community. One-third of those donors could not be found using property, telephone or business records. Most have not registered to vote, according to public records.And several dozen were described in financial reports as holding jobs -- including dishwasher, server or chef -- that would normally make it difficult to donate amounts ranging from $500 to the legal maximum of $2,300 per election.Of 74 residents of New York's Chinatown, Flushing, the Bronx or Brooklyn that The Times called or visited, only 24 could be reached for comment.
The tenement at 44 Henry St. was listed in Clinton's campaign reports as the home of Shu Fang Li, who reportedly gave $1,000.In a recent visit, a man, apparently drunk, was asleep near the entrance to the neighboring beauty parlor, the Nice Hair Salon.A tenant living in the apartment listed as Li's address said through a translator that she had not heard of him, although she had lived there for the last 10 years.
A man named Liang Zheng was listed as having contributed $1,000. The address given was a large apartment building on East 194th Street in the Bronx, but no one by that name could be located there.Census figures for 2000 show the median family income for the area was less than $21,000. About 45% of the population was living below the poverty line, more than double the city average.
In the busy heart of East Broadway, beneath the Manhattan Bridge, is a building that is listed as the home of Sang Cheung Lee, also reported to have given $1,000. Trash was piled in the dimly lighted entrance hall. Neighbors said they knew of no one with Lee's name there; they knocked on one another's doors in a futile effort to find him.Salespeople at a store on Canal Street were similarly baffled when asked about Shih Kan Chang, listed as working there and having given $1,000. The store sells purses, jewelry and novelty Buddha statues. Employees said they had not heard of Chang.Another listed donor, Yi Min Liu, said he did not make the $1,000 contribution in April that was reported in his name. He said he attended a banquet for Clinton but did not give her money.Clinton "has done a lot for the Chinese community," he said.One New York man who said he enthusiastically donated $2,500 to Clinton doesn't appear to be eligible to do so under federal election law. He said he came to the United States from China about two years ago and didn't have a green card.
The Clinton campaign has raised a prodigious amount of money this year. It now appears that a lot of it is illegal. The question remains: do enough people care and what are we going to do about it? Is the LA Times going to be the lone member of the press to begin asking the question: is there a pattern here?
Is anyone going to try to connect the dots?
UPDATE: From Investor Business Daily:
Clinton's Black-Box Candidacy
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted Friday, October 19, 2007 4:20 PM PT
Election 2008: An ambitious presidential front-runner. A hot scramble for campaign cash. A corner-cutting past. And now red lights are flashing that she could be in hock to foreign interests. This is going downhill fast.
How else does one explain the cash rolling in to Hillary Clinton's campaign from residents of Manhattan's impoverished Chinatown?
The Los Angeles Times on Friday uncovered an amazingly generous spirit of giving from Fujianese immigrant dishwashers and trinket sellers, hundreds of whom "spontaneously" coughed up $1,000 or $2,000 apiece for Clinton's presidential campaign. The $380,000 from their giving dwarfed the $24,000 that John Kerry raised there for his run for the White House in 2004.
Worse yet, when the Times checked the donors, more than a third couldn't be found and most weren't registered to vote. Some didn't even have green cards. Immigrant associations were cited as the nexus of the giving, but in a high-cost city where local per capita income is $21,000, it doesn't add up. In fact, it raises the question that someone is buying influence.
Clinton's campaign is so full of questionable transactions that even the Nation, a left-wing magazine, has dug up a mysterious influence peddler named Alan Quasha who hires Clinton operatives and has links to top Clinton's top fundraisers.
Meanwhile, the online magazine Salon is wondering why the Clintons are not disclosing the identities of donors to the William J. Clinton Foundation as it increases its cash intake just as Hillary becomes the presidential front-runner. Bill Clinton refuses to release their names because he says they gave anonymously. Could they too be foreign and looking to buy influence?
For the mainstream media, and especially those on the left side of the spectrum, to rouse themselves to such reporting is unusual. It points to something very dramatic, like a threat to democracy.
Sen. Clinton knows that enforcing election laws is difficult. When she gets called out, she returns the cash, pleads ignorance, claims a vetting glitch and returns to normal.
Unfortunately, the odds of getting caught are low, the political costs are slight and the sanctions are so light they invite lawbreaking. Most candidates won't go over the line, but a bounder like Hillary may cynically calculate that voters are easily distracted.
But things aren't the same as they were in the days of Whitewater. That Clinton scandal may have been hard for the public to grasp, but the current shenanigans are not. News outlets are picking them up with ease and can describe them in a couple of sentences.
Also, the advent of FEC databases and political cash Web sites such as campaignmoney.com and opensecrets.com are providing transparency and easy access to financing information. They show who is buying whom in the electoral races, and bloggers and pundits are on it. If Hillary thinks this will dissipate like Whitewater, she is mistaken.
Voters must pay attention to this because for the first time in our history, we could be electing a Manchurian candidate — someone who is loyal to foreign and unseen donors rather than voters.
What do these hidden interests want in exchange for marshaling the dishwashers of Chinatown to contribute to Clinton's campaign coffers? What has she promised them in exchange?
Knowing that the Chinese seek greater access to U.S. technology, how will this serve their national interests over our own? Will voters find themselves in the situation of watching a President Hillary Clinton sit on her hands after an American aircraft is shot down because of what someone in Beijing knows about cash she accepted?
For now, Sen. Clinton needs to start answering questions about the mysterious patterns in her campaign donations. Better yet, the electoral system needs to be strengthened with far tougher laws and penalties so that this doesn't endanger our democracy.
When the Leftist NATION begins to pay attention, the stench must be getting unbearable:
"...throughout their political careers, Bill and Hillary Clinton have repeatedly associated with people whose objectives seemed a million miles from "a place called Hope." Among these Alan Quasha and his menagerie--including Saudi frontmen, a foreign dictator, figures with intelligence ties and a maze of companies and offshore funds--stand out.
"That Hillary Clinton's campaign is involved with this particular cast of characters should give people pause," says John Moscow, a former Manhattan prosecutor.
Michelle Malkin predicts
Predictions: Hillary will come out swinging at the Times, her Asian-American acolytes will accuse the paper of racism and ethnic bigotry, and those “ephemeral” donors will never be found.
***
Hey, I just remembered something. Remember the story I blogged this summer about Chinese-language ballots in Boston? One Chinese translation of Hillary Clinton’s name:
“Upset Stomach.”
Most fitting today, I imagine.
***
Allah dubs it “Hsu II.”
And once again, the question looms:
Where is the money coming from?
Don Surber opines:
Busboys ‘give’ $380,000 to Hillary
Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown
The LA Times is not letting this Hsu thing drop. Reporters Peter Nicholas and Tom Hamburger are digging through Hillary’s dumpster of campaign finance disclosures and finding she’s raking in a lot of money from a lot of poor people. Well, at least from the addresses of poor people. Reported the LA Times today:Dishwashers, waiters and others whose jobs and dilapidated home addresses seem to make them unpromising targets for political fundraisers are pouring $1,000 and $2,000 contributions into Clinton’s campaign treasury. In April, a single fundraiser in an area long known for its gritty urban poverty yielded a whopping $380,000. When Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) ran for president in 2004, he received $24,000 from Chinatown.
Maybe they are giving the money to get help on immigration issues, which is the official line.
Or maybe someone is running a Chinese money laundering operation.
But don’t expect the Bush administration to give this more than a cursory glance. The Nation magazine did its own digging and found some of Bush’s money men are now Hillary’s money men.
Remember BCCI? Its officials are back.
UPDATE: Captain's Quarters
Knock-off watches. Pirated goods. Phony addresses. Straw donors.
What does that say about the Hillary Clinton campaign? Once could have been a mistake. Twice looks like a pattern. Taking into account 1996 and the same kinds of criminal activity in her husband's re-election effort, three times is a bad habit and not a mistake at all.
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