Archive for the ‘Barack Obama’ Category
Despite Constant Anti-Military Statements, Democrats Won’t Guarantee Iraq Troop Withdraw if Elected
Posted by wdporter on September 27, 2007
Dems Can’t Make Guarantee on Iraq Troops
Email this StorySep 27, 6:26 AM (ET)By BETH FOUHY
HANOVER, N.H. (AP) – The leading Democratic White House hopefuls conceded Wednesday night they cannot guarantee to pull all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of the next presidential term in 2013.
“I think it’s hard to project four years from now,” said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the opening moments of a campaign debate in the nation’s first primary state.
“It is very difficult to know what we’re going to be inheriting,” added Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
“I cannot make that commitment,” said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.
Sensing an opening, Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson provided the assurances the others would not.
“I’ll get the job done,” said Dodd, while Richardson said he would make sure the troops were home by the end of his first year in office.
Foreign policy blended with domestic issues at the debate on a Dartmouth College stage, and several of the contenders endorsed payroll tax increases to assure a stable Social Security system.
Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, as well as Dodd, Obama and Edwards all said they would apply the tax to income now exempted.
Richardson said he wouldn’t and Clinton refused to say. “I’m not putting anything on the proverbial table” unilaterally, she said.
Current law levies a 6.2 percent payroll tax only on an individual’s first $97,500 in annual income.
Biden also said he was willing to consider gradually raising the retirement age, which is now 67.
Kucinich said that while he favors taxing additional income, he wants to return the retirement age to 65, where it stood until the law was changed in 1983.
Health care, and the drive for universal coverage, also figured in the debate.
“I intend to be the health care president,” said Clinton, adding she can now succeed at an undertaking that defeated her in 1993 when she was first lady.
But Biden said that unnamed special interests were no more willing to work with Clinton now than they were more than a decade ago.
“I’m not suggesting it’s Hillary’s fault…It’s reality,” he said, carefully avoiding a personal attack on the Democrat who leads in the polls.
Biden said a “lot of old stuff comes back” from past battles, adding, “when I say old stuff I mean policy. Policy.”
Across the stage, Clinton smiled at that.
The moment was not the only one in which attention turned to the former first lady, a campaign front-runner bidding to become the first woman president.
Asked whether presidential libraries and foundations should disclose their donors, she said she had sponsored legislation requiring it. Asked whether her husband’s foundation should voluntary disclose, absent a requirement, she said, “you’ll have to ask them.”
“I don’t talk about my private conversations with my husband,” she added.
She seemed to suggest differently at another point, after being asked whether she would ever approve torturing a suspected terrorist to prevent the detonation of a big bomb.
She said no, and Russert said former President Clinton, her husband, once suggested it might be appropriate.
“Well, he’s not standing here right now,” she said, an edge in her voice.
There is a disagreement, Russert rejoined.
“Well, I’ll talk to him later,” she said with a smile.
A question about lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 drew a cheer from the students listening in the Dartmouth auditorium.
And expressions of support only from former Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska and Kucinich.
The opening question of the two-hour debate instantly plunged the eight contenders into the issue that has dominated all others – the war in Iraq.
With the primary season approaching, all eight have vied with increasing intensity for the support of anti-war voters likely to provide money and organizing muscle as the campaign progresses.
Edwards said his position on Iraq was different from Obama and Clinton, adding he would “immediately drawn down 40,000 to 50,000 troops.” That’s roughly half the 100,000 that Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has indicated could be stationed there when President Bush’s term ends in January 2009.
Edwards sought to draw a distinction between his position and Clinton’s, saying she had said recently she wants to continue combat missions in Iraq.
“I do not want to continue combat missions in Iraq,” he said.
Clinton responded quickly, saying Edwards had misstated her position. She said she favors the continued deployment of counterterrorism troops, not forces to engage in the type of combat now under way.
Asked whether they were prepared to use force to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, several of the hopefuls sidestepped. Instead, they said, all diplomacy must be exhausted in the effort.
Moderator Tim Russert of NBC News asked about Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani’s pledge to set back Iran by eight to 10 years if it tries to gain nuclear standing.
Biden flashed anger at the mention of the former New York mayor. “Rudy Giuliani doesn’t know what the heck he’s talking about,” said Delaware senator, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“He’s the most uninformed person on foreign policy that’s now running for president.”
The debate unfolded in the state that has held the first presidential primary in every campaign for generations.
The contest is tentatively scheduled for Jan. 22, but that is expected to change as other states maneuver for early voting position in the campaign calendar.
The debate was broadcast on MSNBC, New Hampshire Public Radio and New England Cable News.
Email this StorySep 27, 6:26 AM (ET)By BETH FOUHY
HANOVER, N.H. (AP) – The leading Democratic White House hopefuls conceded Wednesday night they cannot guarantee to pull all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of the next presidential term in 2013.
“I think it’s hard to project four years from now,” said Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois in the opening moments of a campaign debate in the nation’s first primary state.
“It is very difficult to know what we’re going to be inheriting,” added Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
“I cannot make that commitment,” said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina.
Sensing an opening, Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson provided the assurances the others would not.
“I’ll get the job done,” said Dodd, while Richardson said he would make sure the troops were home by the end of his first year in office.
Foreign policy blended with domestic issues at the debate on a Dartmouth College stage, and several of the contenders endorsed payroll tax increases to assure a stable Social Security system.
Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware and Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, as well as Dodd, Obama and Edwards all said they would apply the tax to income now exempted.
Richardson said he wouldn’t and Clinton refused to say. “I’m not putting anything on the proverbial table” unilaterally, she said.
Current law levies a 6.2 percent payroll tax only on an individual’s first $97,500 in annual income.
Biden also said he was willing to consider gradually raising the retirement age, which is now 67.
Kucinich said that while he favors taxing additional income, he wants to return the retirement age to 65, where it stood until the law was changed in 1983.
Health care, and the drive for universal coverage, also figured in the debate.
“I intend to be the health care president,” said Clinton, adding she can now succeed at an undertaking that defeated her in 1993 when she was first lady.
But Biden said that unnamed special interests were no more willing to work with Clinton now than they were more than a decade ago.
“I’m not suggesting it’s Hillary’s fault…It’s reality,” he said, carefully avoiding a personal attack on the Democrat who leads in the polls.
Biden said a “lot of old stuff comes back” from past battles, adding, “when I say old stuff I mean policy. Policy.”
Across the stage, Clinton smiled at that.
The moment was not the only one in which attention turned to the former first lady, a campaign front-runner bidding to become the first woman president.
Asked whether presidential libraries and foundations should disclose their donors, she said she had sponsored legislation requiring it. Asked whether her husband’s foundation should voluntary disclose, absent a requirement, she said, “you’ll have to ask them.”
“I don’t talk about my private conversations with my husband,” she added.
She seemed to suggest differently at another point, after being asked whether she would ever approve torturing a suspected terrorist to prevent the detonation of a big bomb.
She said no, and Russert said former President Clinton, her husband, once suggested it might be appropriate.
“Well, he’s not standing here right now,” she said, an edge in her voice.
There is a disagreement, Russert rejoined.
“Well, I’ll talk to him later,” she said with a smile.
A question about lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18 drew a cheer from the students listening in the Dartmouth auditorium.
And expressions of support only from former Sen. Mike Gravel of Alaska and Kucinich.
The opening question of the two-hour debate instantly plunged the eight contenders into the issue that has dominated all others – the war in Iraq.
With the primary season approaching, all eight have vied with increasing intensity for the support of anti-war voters likely to provide money and organizing muscle as the campaign progresses.
Edwards said his position on Iraq was different from Obama and Clinton, adding he would “immediately drawn down 40,000 to 50,000 troops.” That’s roughly half the 100,000 that Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, has indicated could be stationed there when President Bush’s term ends in January 2009.
Edwards sought to draw a distinction between his position and Clinton’s, saying she had said recently she wants to continue combat missions in Iraq.
“I do not want to continue combat missions in Iraq,” he said.
Clinton responded quickly, saying Edwards had misstated her position. She said she favors the continued deployment of counterterrorism troops, not forces to engage in the type of combat now under way.
Asked whether they were prepared to use force to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power, several of the hopefuls sidestepped. Instead, they said, all diplomacy must be exhausted in the effort.
Moderator Tim Russert of NBC News asked about Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani’s pledge to set back Iran by eight to 10 years if it tries to gain nuclear standing.
Biden flashed anger at the mention of the former New York mayor. “Rudy Giuliani doesn’t know what the heck he’s talking about,” said Delaware senator, who is chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“He’s the most uninformed person on foreign policy that’s now running for president.”
The debate unfolded in the state that has held the first presidential primary in every campaign for generations.
The contest is tentatively scheduled for Jan. 22, but that is expected to change as other states maneuver for early voting position in the campaign calendar.
The debate was broadcast on MSNBC, New Hampshire Public Radio and New England Cable News.
Posted in Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Democrat / Liberal / Communists, Hillary Rodham Rodham, Iraq, John Edwards and his hair, Presidential Race, US Military | Leave a Comment »
Democrat Jesse Jackson says ‘Obama acting like he’s white’
Posted by wdporter on September 19, 2007
Jackson criticizes Obama
Presidential candidate’s response to Jena, La., case called too weakBy RODDIE A. BURRISrburris@thestate.com
The Rev. Jesse Jackson called Tuesday on Democrats seeking the 2008 nomination for president to give S.C. voters “something to vote for” when they go to the polls in January.
On a statewide tour to register new voters, Jackson said South Carolina will determine “who has momentum” in the primary when it votes Jan. 29.
Jackson sharply criticized presidential hopeful and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for “acting like he’s white” in what Jackson said has been a tepid response to six black juveniles’ arrest on attempted-murder charges in Jena, La. Jackson, who also lives in Illinois, endorsed Obama in March, according to The Associated Press.
“If I were a candidate, I’d be all over Jena,” Jackson said after an hour-long speech at Columbia’s historically black Benedict College.
“Jena is a defining moment, just like Selma was a defining moment,” said the iconic civil rights figure, who worked with Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1965 Selma civil rights movement and was with King at his 1968 assassination.
Later, Jackson said he did not recall making the “acting like he’s white” comment about Obama, stressing he only wanted to point out the candidates had not seized on an opportunity to highlight the disproportionate criminal punishments black youths too often face.
Jackson also said Obama, who consistently has placed second in state and national polls behind New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, must be “bolder” in his political positions if he is to erase Clinton’s lead.
Jackson is the only African-American ever to carry South Carolina in a presidential primary election.
Obama’s South Carolina campaign pointed to a statement it released last week in which Obama called on the local Louisiana district attorney to drop the excessive charges brought in the case.
“When nooses are being hung in high schools in the 21st century, it’s a tragedy,” the Obama statement said. “It shows that we still have a lot of work to do as a nation to heal our racial tensions.”
Thousands from across the country, including some from Columbia, are expected to converge on the small town of Jena today to protest the “Jena 6” arrests.
Jackson told the 500 to 600 students in his audience at Benedict that “criminal injustice,” instead of a rope, is the pressing civil rights issue of their day, but that voting remained their strongest ally.
“Your fight is not about ropes, it’s about hope,” Jackson said, blasting the flood of guns and violence he said permeates many black communities.
Civil rights, he said, has become the counterculture of the day rather than the prevailing culture. “You can’t call on the Justice Department anymore; it’s not there.”
Jackson, who became only the second major black candidate to run for president, won five primaries in his 1984 bid for the office, then 11 primaries and nearly 7 million votes in his 1988 run.
He said the 2008 presidential candidates must speak most directly to the pressing S.C. issues of housing, high tuition costs, health care and a plan to end the war in Iraq.
“The candidates have got to speak to South Carolina,” said Jackson, who was traveling also to S.C. State University in Orangeburg and to Charleston Tuesday evening before wrapping up his registration drive tonight in Aiken.
A Greenville native, Jackson said he hoped to register thousands of new voters during the statewide swing, which began Saturday in Rock Hill.
“Their votes must equal change,” he said, referring to residents in a state where only 1 in 4 eligible voters go to the polls. “I want to make sure the right agenda is being voted on in 2008.”
His approach worked for senior mass-communications major Darius Dior Porcher, 21, who graduated from famed Scotts Branch High School in Clarendon County, which produced the Briggs v. Elliott school desegregation case of 1954.
“The main thing when you speak to students is to get them to move,” Porcher said. “He moved students today. He got them to come down to the floor and register to vote.”
Presidential candidate’s response to Jena, La., case called too weakBy RODDIE A. BURRISrburris@thestate.com
The Rev. Jesse Jackson called Tuesday on Democrats seeking the 2008 nomination for president to give S.C. voters “something to vote for” when they go to the polls in January.
On a statewide tour to register new voters, Jackson said South Carolina will determine “who has momentum” in the primary when it votes Jan. 29.
Jackson sharply criticized presidential hopeful and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for “acting like he’s white” in what Jackson said has been a tepid response to six black juveniles’ arrest on attempted-murder charges in Jena, La. Jackson, who also lives in Illinois, endorsed Obama in March, according to The Associated Press.
“If I were a candidate, I’d be all over Jena,” Jackson said after an hour-long speech at Columbia’s historically black Benedict College.
“Jena is a defining moment, just like Selma was a defining moment,” said the iconic civil rights figure, who worked with Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1965 Selma civil rights movement and was with King at his 1968 assassination.
Later, Jackson said he did not recall making the “acting like he’s white” comment about Obama, stressing he only wanted to point out the candidates had not seized on an opportunity to highlight the disproportionate criminal punishments black youths too often face.
Jackson also said Obama, who consistently has placed second in state and national polls behind New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, must be “bolder” in his political positions if he is to erase Clinton’s lead.
Jackson is the only African-American ever to carry South Carolina in a presidential primary election.
Obama’s South Carolina campaign pointed to a statement it released last week in which Obama called on the local Louisiana district attorney to drop the excessive charges brought in the case.
“When nooses are being hung in high schools in the 21st century, it’s a tragedy,” the Obama statement said. “It shows that we still have a lot of work to do as a nation to heal our racial tensions.”
Thousands from across the country, including some from Columbia, are expected to converge on the small town of Jena today to protest the “Jena 6” arrests.
Jackson told the 500 to 600 students in his audience at Benedict that “criminal injustice,” instead of a rope, is the pressing civil rights issue of their day, but that voting remained their strongest ally.
“Your fight is not about ropes, it’s about hope,” Jackson said, blasting the flood of guns and violence he said permeates many black communities.
Civil rights, he said, has become the counterculture of the day rather than the prevailing culture. “You can’t call on the Justice Department anymore; it’s not there.”
Jackson, who became only the second major black candidate to run for president, won five primaries in his 1984 bid for the office, then 11 primaries and nearly 7 million votes in his 1988 run.
He said the 2008 presidential candidates must speak most directly to the pressing S.C. issues of housing, high tuition costs, health care and a plan to end the war in Iraq.
“The candidates have got to speak to South Carolina,” said Jackson, who was traveling also to S.C. State University in Orangeburg and to Charleston Tuesday evening before wrapping up his registration drive tonight in Aiken.
A Greenville native, Jackson said he hoped to register thousands of new voters during the statewide swing, which began Saturday in Rock Hill.
“Their votes must equal change,” he said, referring to residents in a state where only 1 in 4 eligible voters go to the polls. “I want to make sure the right agenda is being voted on in 2008.”
His approach worked for senior mass-communications major Darius Dior Porcher, 21, who graduated from famed Scotts Branch High School in Clarendon County, which produced the Briggs v. Elliott school desegregation case of 1954.
“The main thing when you speak to students is to get them to move,” Porcher said. “He moved students today. He got them to come down to the floor and register to vote.”
Posted in Barack Obama, Democrat / Liberal / Communists, Jesse Jackson (Black Racist), Louisiana, Race Baiter, Race in America | Leave a Comment »
Convicted Democrat Norman Hsu Cast Wide Net For Democrat Hillary Clinton Donors
Posted by wdporter on September 17, 2007
Hsu Cast Wide Net For Clinton Donors
List Included Strangers, His Own Investors
By John Solomon and Matthew MoskWashington Post Staff WritersSunday, September 16, 2007; A01
To raise $850,000 for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign in just eight months, Norman Hsu tapped an eclectic group of donors that included wealthy investors in his apparel ventures, hotel shopkeepers, a 96-year-old in a Florida retirement home and an auto-body worker who mistakenly thought he would get a tax break for his political generosity.
The Clinton campaign has not yet released any information about the 260 donors whose contributions it is now refunding because they were credited to the prodigious fundraising of the former fugitive, but a detailed analysis of donors Hsu brought to Clinton shows that he tapped many Asian American donors in California and New York, including complete strangers as well as his relatives. He also raised political funds from people who had already invested large sums in his private business ventures.
Some donors among the nearly 100 identified this week said they never met Hsu and did not know that their donations had been credited to his fundraising. Others had trouble explaining why they gave the funds to Clinton or could not recall the circumstances in which they met Hsu.
“He called me and asked me if I’d give $1,000. . . . I don’t know how you’d say we struck up a relationship. I just knew him,” said Henry Rosenberg, a New York City lawyer. Asked if he wanted Clinton, New York’s junior senator, to be the next president, Rosenberg said: “I don’t know. He just asked me to do it, and I did.”
Nay Oo, another Clinton donor for whom Hsu claimed credit, was listed in the candidate’s fundraising reports with an address in Daly City, Calif. The home’s owner, Ellen Yee, said Oo used to rent a room in the house but hadn’t lived there for years. A man who returned a call to Oo’s phone and identified himself as Oo said he works in an auto-body shop and does not know Hsu. He said he donated $250 to Clinton at the request of a landlord. “I thought it was going to be a tax write-off,” he said.
The case of the mysterious bundler has become a major embarrassment for Clinton and an echo of the campaign finance scandals that surrounded her husband’s presidency in the 1990s. The campaign’s decision to return the money associated with Hsu followed his recent arrest on charges of trying to outrun a 15-year-old warrant, but many questions remain about Hsu’s fundraising tactics, the origin of the funds and whether they were all given legally.
The names of Clinton donors for whom Hsu claimed credit were confirmed through a computer analysis of donations as well interviews with several people familiar with Hsu’s fundraising. None of the donors connected to him has been accused of doing anything wrong.
Robert H. Emmers, a Los Angeles publicist hired by Hsu’s attorney, said Hsu — who now sits in a Colorado jail cell — is not responding to any of the allegations leveled against him. “There’s a lot of speculation out there,” Emmers said. “Mr. Hsu is not in a position to defend himself right now, so that needs to be taken into account.”
In just four years before being taken into custody, Hsu became a top political fundraiser. Not only was he among the top 15 “bundlers” nationwide for the Clinton presidential campaign, but he also helped fund the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, various congressional and Senate candidates, and the leadership committees for other presidential candidates such as Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.).
His intensive fundraising brought him close to their campaigns, which showered him with dinner invitations and opportunities to get his picture snapped with the politicians — contacts that some businessmen said lent credibility to Hsu’s efforts to sell investors on his clothing ventures.
But his pursuit of political and business funds at the same time — from many of the same people — leaves unclear which was the end and which was the means. Was Hsu hoping to leverage his political affiliations to boost the credibility of his business? Or did he intend the more than $2 million he bundled in political donations in four years to curry favor for some as-yet-undetermined goal?
“Never once, that I ever came across, did he seem to have a particular policy or issue agenda,” said Hassan Nemazee, one of Clinton’s top New York fundraisers. “The only thing he ever seemed to want was to get his photo taken.”
Hsu, an immigrant from Hong Kong who by several accounts is a charming and easygoing man with an imperfect command of English, was convicted in California in 1991 for corporate theft, according to court records. Both the donors and the Clinton campaign have said they did not know about his past troubles during the period that he was channeling funds to the candidate. Several who mingled with Hsu at Clinton’s lavish fundraising parties, strategy briefings and intimate dinners said he shared little about himself, beyond his work in what they called “the rag trade.”
Hsu’s encounters with law enforcement authorities include a 1990 incident in which he was kidnapped by a Chinese organized-crime figure, Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, who said Hsu owed him money, according to Foster City, Calif., police. Officers said they interrupted the crime during a 3 a.m. traffic stop, rescuing Hsu from the back of a Toyota.
Hsu was taken into custody Sept. 6 in Colorado after failing to appear at a bail hearing related to the California theft case, threatening suicide and then falling ill on a train.
Before his controversial past surfaced in late August, Hsu had built a reputation as an effective bundler of donations by others. “We sought him,” said Marc Dunkelman, vice president for strategic communications at the Democratic Leadership Council, an advocacy group for centrist Democrats that was once chaired by Bill Clinton. Hsu donated $25,000 to the DLC this year, and the group is refunding the money, Dunkelman said.
Hsu’s name was referred to the Clinton campaign by professional fundraisers who were aware of his donations to other campaigns and groups, according to a former Clinton aide. Hsu’s donors to the Clinton presidential campaign included four others with the last name Hsu, including his grown son, Oliver. They gave a total of $16,100.
Hsu also claimed credit for donations by two other people, Danny Lee and Yu-Fen Huang, who have given $154,000 to Democratic causes since Hsu began his fundraising in late 2003. Fundraising and property records list them as joint owners of a nearly $1 million home in the New York neighborhood of Forest Hills.
The donations from Lee and Huang include $38,000 to Clinton’s Senate campaign, political action committee and presidential committee. The two gave a total of $9,200 — the maximum allowed — to Clinton’s presidential bid in the first quarter of this year, donations for which Hsu claimed credit. They also gave $8,400 in January to Clinton’s 2012 Senate campaign, even though her reelection bid is six years off.
The two listed their place of employment as Newspring Packaging in Mount Carmel, Pa. Lee is listed as a vice president of Newspring, which makes plastic containers for food, and Huang is listed as a manager.
A third employee of Newspring, Soe Win Lee, also donated the maximum allowed amount to Clinton’s campaign and made other recent Democratic donations. None of the three Newspring employees returned calls to their company seeking comment. Newspring’s parent company, Pactiv Corp. of Illinois, said it does not comment on the private activities of its employees. It is not clear what connection, if any, Hsu had to the firm.
A few donors for whom Hsu claimed credit said that they didn’t know him and that others must have passed their checks to him to give to Clinton’s campaign.
Karen Tan, an employee at Super One Vision in San Francisco, said a friend who worked for California Assembly Majority Whip Fiona Ma asked her to contribute to Clinton. Donations that Ma collected, including Tan’s, were credited to both Ma and Hsu because together they threw an August fundraiser for Clinton. Hsu contributed $8,300 to Ma’s 2006 campaign.
A review of fundraising records found much overlap between Hsu’s business investors and the political donations for which he claimed credit — something that is common among political bundlers, who often solicit contributions from their business contacts.
For example, Hsu received fundraising credit with the Clinton campaign for $19,200 in contributions from executives at Source Financing Investors, a New York City investment fund run by 1960s Woodstock concert organizer Joel Rosenman, on March 28. The next day, Rosenman’s 96-year-old father, Bernard, sent $4,600 to Clinton from his Boynton Beach, Fla., retirement home, for which Hsu also claimed credit.
The investment group put $40 million into 37 separate investment proposals by Hsu to import clothing from China, according to Seth L. Rosenberg, a New York lawyer for the group. But Rosenberg said he believes that the money may be gone. The New York City district attorney has launched an investigation of the allegations.
Rosenberg said he has asked politicians to hold on to any checks they collected from Hsu. “We want to be sure that any candidates who received money from Mr. Hsu act responsibly with those contributions so they may be returned to the victims of Mr. Hsu if indeed they are the source of those funds,” he said.
Three members of the Paw family in Daly City, Calif., both donated to Clinton and invested in Hsu’s apparel business, a circumstance first reported last month by the Wall Street Journal. The Paws operated a gift shop in a hotel where they befriended Hsu in the 1990s.
Frank Ubhouse, the Paws’ attorney, said Friday that although the family initially made some money, its members are concerned about the fate of their remaining investments with Hsu. “Given what is now known, I think there’s got to be a lot of concern. The big question is, when the music stops, will everyone have a chair?”
In Irvine, Calif., businessman Jack Cassidy alerted the FBI and Clinton’s campaign this summer to his concerns that Hsu was soliciting people he knew for investments in what appeared to be an illegal Ponzi scheme, in which early investors are rewarded with funds obtained from subsequent investors. The FBI recently interviewed Cassidy and collected documents as part of an initial inquiry.
Cassidy said he was concerned that Hsu had invoked his role as a Clinton fundraiser to gain the confidence of people he was meeting. “If you are opening a hamburger stand, you want to put a set of golden arches outside,” Cassidy said, referring to the McDonald’s symbol. “Hsu was using Hillary Clinton as his golden arches.”
Another California resident, Chi Kou Fan, alleged that he was bilked years ago in the investment that resulted in Hsu’s 1991 conviction on grand theft. He recalled that “Norman would make friends with one guy, and then move around to meet all this guy’s friends, and soon they would all be his investors.”
Fan, a retired San Francisco area real estate developer who lost $240,000 in the Hsu investment, was one of 16 investors in a deal to sell latex gloves imported from China to an Illinois company, Service Master, according to court records. In early 1989, as the deal took shape, Hsu promised investors a 5 or 6 percent return on their money. But after a year, investors had still not seen their money. When state investigators called Service Master’s accountants, they found no record of any deal for latex gloves.
By John Solomon and Matthew MoskWashington Post Staff WritersSunday, September 16, 2007; A01
To raise $850,000 for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign in just eight months, Norman Hsu tapped an eclectic group of donors that included wealthy investors in his apparel ventures, hotel shopkeepers, a 96-year-old in a Florida retirement home and an auto-body worker who mistakenly thought he would get a tax break for his political generosity.
The Clinton campaign has not yet released any information about the 260 donors whose contributions it is now refunding because they were credited to the prodigious fundraising of the former fugitive, but a detailed analysis of donors Hsu brought to Clinton shows that he tapped many Asian American donors in California and New York, including complete strangers as well as his relatives. He also raised political funds from people who had already invested large sums in his private business ventures.
Some donors among the nearly 100 identified this week said they never met Hsu and did not know that their donations had been credited to his fundraising. Others had trouble explaining why they gave the funds to Clinton or could not recall the circumstances in which they met Hsu.
“He called me and asked me if I’d give $1,000. . . . I don’t know how you’d say we struck up a relationship. I just knew him,” said Henry Rosenberg, a New York City lawyer. Asked if he wanted Clinton, New York’s junior senator, to be the next president, Rosenberg said: “I don’t know. He just asked me to do it, and I did.”
Nay Oo, another Clinton donor for whom Hsu claimed credit, was listed in the candidate’s fundraising reports with an address in Daly City, Calif. The home’s owner, Ellen Yee, said Oo used to rent a room in the house but hadn’t lived there for years. A man who returned a call to Oo’s phone and identified himself as Oo said he works in an auto-body shop and does not know Hsu. He said he donated $250 to Clinton at the request of a landlord. “I thought it was going to be a tax write-off,” he said.
The case of the mysterious bundler has become a major embarrassment for Clinton and an echo of the campaign finance scandals that surrounded her husband’s presidency in the 1990s. The campaign’s decision to return the money associated with Hsu followed his recent arrest on charges of trying to outrun a 15-year-old warrant, but many questions remain about Hsu’s fundraising tactics, the origin of the funds and whether they were all given legally.
The names of Clinton donors for whom Hsu claimed credit were confirmed through a computer analysis of donations as well interviews with several people familiar with Hsu’s fundraising. None of the donors connected to him has been accused of doing anything wrong.
Robert H. Emmers, a Los Angeles publicist hired by Hsu’s attorney, said Hsu — who now sits in a Colorado jail cell — is not responding to any of the allegations leveled against him. “There’s a lot of speculation out there,” Emmers said. “Mr. Hsu is not in a position to defend himself right now, so that needs to be taken into account.”
In just four years before being taken into custody, Hsu became a top political fundraiser. Not only was he among the top 15 “bundlers” nationwide for the Clinton presidential campaign, but he also helped fund the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, various congressional and Senate candidates, and the leadership committees for other presidential candidates such as Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.).
His intensive fundraising brought him close to their campaigns, which showered him with dinner invitations and opportunities to get his picture snapped with the politicians — contacts that some businessmen said lent credibility to Hsu’s efforts to sell investors on his clothing ventures.
But his pursuit of political and business funds at the same time — from many of the same people — leaves unclear which was the end and which was the means. Was Hsu hoping to leverage his political affiliations to boost the credibility of his business? Or did he intend the more than $2 million he bundled in political donations in four years to curry favor for some as-yet-undetermined goal?
“Never once, that I ever came across, did he seem to have a particular policy or issue agenda,” said Hassan Nemazee, one of Clinton’s top New York fundraisers. “The only thing he ever seemed to want was to get his photo taken.”
Hsu, an immigrant from Hong Kong who by several accounts is a charming and easygoing man with an imperfect command of English, was convicted in California in 1991 for corporate theft, according to court records. Both the donors and the Clinton campaign have said they did not know about his past troubles during the period that he was channeling funds to the candidate. Several who mingled with Hsu at Clinton’s lavish fundraising parties, strategy briefings and intimate dinners said he shared little about himself, beyond his work in what they called “the rag trade.”
Hsu’s encounters with law enforcement authorities include a 1990 incident in which he was kidnapped by a Chinese organized-crime figure, Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow, who said Hsu owed him money, according to Foster City, Calif., police. Officers said they interrupted the crime during a 3 a.m. traffic stop, rescuing Hsu from the back of a Toyota.
Hsu was taken into custody Sept. 6 in Colorado after failing to appear at a bail hearing related to the California theft case, threatening suicide and then falling ill on a train.
Before his controversial past surfaced in late August, Hsu had built a reputation as an effective bundler of donations by others. “We sought him,” said Marc Dunkelman, vice president for strategic communications at the Democratic Leadership Council, an advocacy group for centrist Democrats that was once chaired by Bill Clinton. Hsu donated $25,000 to the DLC this year, and the group is refunding the money, Dunkelman said.
Hsu’s name was referred to the Clinton campaign by professional fundraisers who were aware of his donations to other campaigns and groups, according to a former Clinton aide. Hsu’s donors to the Clinton presidential campaign included four others with the last name Hsu, including his grown son, Oliver. They gave a total of $16,100.
Hsu also claimed credit for donations by two other people, Danny Lee and Yu-Fen Huang, who have given $154,000 to Democratic causes since Hsu began his fundraising in late 2003. Fundraising and property records list them as joint owners of a nearly $1 million home in the New York neighborhood of Forest Hills.
The donations from Lee and Huang include $38,000 to Clinton’s Senate campaign, political action committee and presidential committee. The two gave a total of $9,200 — the maximum allowed — to Clinton’s presidential bid in the first quarter of this year, donations for which Hsu claimed credit. They also gave $8,400 in January to Clinton’s 2012 Senate campaign, even though her reelection bid is six years off.
The two listed their place of employment as Newspring Packaging in Mount Carmel, Pa. Lee is listed as a vice president of Newspring, which makes plastic containers for food, and Huang is listed as a manager.
A third employee of Newspring, Soe Win Lee, also donated the maximum allowed amount to Clinton’s campaign and made other recent Democratic donations. None of the three Newspring employees returned calls to their company seeking comment. Newspring’s parent company, Pactiv Corp. of Illinois, said it does not comment on the private activities of its employees. It is not clear what connection, if any, Hsu had to the firm.
A few donors for whom Hsu claimed credit said that they didn’t know him and that others must have passed their checks to him to give to Clinton’s campaign.
Karen Tan, an employee at Super One Vision in San Francisco, said a friend who worked for California Assembly Majority Whip Fiona Ma asked her to contribute to Clinton. Donations that Ma collected, including Tan’s, were credited to both Ma and Hsu because together they threw an August fundraiser for Clinton. Hsu contributed $8,300 to Ma’s 2006 campaign.
A review of fundraising records found much overlap between Hsu’s business investors and the political donations for which he claimed credit — something that is common among political bundlers, who often solicit contributions from their business contacts.
For example, Hsu received fundraising credit with the Clinton campaign for $19,200 in contributions from executives at Source Financing Investors, a New York City investment fund run by 1960s Woodstock concert organizer Joel Rosenman, on March 28. The next day, Rosenman’s 96-year-old father, Bernard, sent $4,600 to Clinton from his Boynton Beach, Fla., retirement home, for which Hsu also claimed credit.
The investment group put $40 million into 37 separate investment proposals by Hsu to import clothing from China, according to Seth L. Rosenberg, a New York lawyer for the group. But Rosenberg said he believes that the money may be gone. The New York City district attorney has launched an investigation of the allegations.
Rosenberg said he has asked politicians to hold on to any checks they collected from Hsu. “We want to be sure that any candidates who received money from Mr. Hsu act responsibly with those contributions so they may be returned to the victims of Mr. Hsu if indeed they are the source of those funds,” he said.
Three members of the Paw family in Daly City, Calif., both donated to Clinton and invested in Hsu’s apparel business, a circumstance first reported last month by the Wall Street Journal. The Paws operated a gift shop in a hotel where they befriended Hsu in the 1990s.
Frank Ubhouse, the Paws’ attorney, said Friday that although the family initially made some money, its members are concerned about the fate of their remaining investments with Hsu. “Given what is now known, I think there’s got to be a lot of concern. The big question is, when the music stops, will everyone have a chair?”
In Irvine, Calif., businessman Jack Cassidy alerted the FBI and Clinton’s campaign this summer to his concerns that Hsu was soliciting people he knew for investments in what appeared to be an illegal Ponzi scheme, in which early investors are rewarded with funds obtained from subsequent investors. The FBI recently interviewed Cassidy and collected documents as part of an initial inquiry.
Cassidy said he was concerned that Hsu had invoked his role as a Clinton fundraiser to gain the confidence of people he was meeting. “If you are opening a hamburger stand, you want to put a set of golden arches outside,” Cassidy said, referring to the McDonald’s symbol. “Hsu was using Hillary Clinton as his golden arches.”
Another California resident, Chi Kou Fan, alleged that he was bilked years ago in the investment that resulted in Hsu’s 1991 conviction on grand theft. He recalled that “Norman would make friends with one guy, and then move around to meet all this guy’s friends, and soon they would all be his investors.”
Fan, a retired San Francisco area real estate developer who lost $240,000 in the Hsu investment, was one of 16 investors in a deal to sell latex gloves imported from China to an Illinois company, Service Master, according to court records. In early 1989, as the deal took shape, Hsu promised investors a 5 or 6 percent return on their money. But after a year, investors had still not seen their money. When state investigators called Service Master’s accountants, they found no record of any deal for latex gloves.
Posted in Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Democrat / Liberal / Communists, Elliot Spitzer, Hillary Rodham Rodham, Norman Hsu, Political Corruption | Leave a Comment »
More Trouble Looms For Democrat Fugitive Financier Norman Hsu; Bail Set At $5 Million Dollars
Posted by wdporter on September 14, 2007
More Trouble Looms For Fugitive Financier Norman Hsu
Bail Set At $5 Million Dollars
By Vic Lee
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. Sep. 13, 2007 (KGO) – New revelations against fugitive financier Norman Hsu, and allegations that put him in the middle of a possible multi million dollar fraud case in Southern California.
Hsu has agreed to return to the Bay Area without a fight from Colorado, where he was arrested after skipping out on a bail hearing in San Mateo County last week.
Norman Hsu was in court at Mesa County in Colorado on Thursday. Throughout the hearing, he blinked and twitched frequently.
Last Wednesday, Hsu skipped his bail and boarded an Amtrak train to Grand Junction, Colorado. The day after, his friends received what one calls a suicide letter apologizing for putting them through what he called “inconvenience or trouble.”
Mesa County District Attorney Pete Hautzinger told the judge he wanted a $50 million dollar cash bail because Hsu was not only a flight risk but should not be left alone.
“I have seen a copy of the letter and it certainly indicated the defendant considered harming himself,” said Hautzinger.
Hautzinger also told the court, Hsu may have no trouble paying a lower bail.
“Our sheriffs office tells me, the defendant had a checkbook in his possession when he was arrested that reflected a $6 million dollar balance in that checkbook at least,” said Hautzinger.
The New York District Attorney is now investigating Hsu for defrauding a New York investment fund out of $40 million dollars and today in court the prosecutor said he heard Hsu was also the target of an investigation of a possible scam in Southern California.
“Orange County authorities are on the verge of filing charges on a very similar alleged scam involving $33 million dollars with 50 different investors,” said Hautzinger.
“I think $50 million is ridiculous frankly,” said Defense attorney Eric Elliff.
Defense attorney Eric Elliff argued Hsu would not fight extradition to San Mateo to face grand theft charges that would send him to prison for three years.
“We are willing to waive extradition. Mr. Hsu is very anxious to go back to California,” Elliff. The judge finally set bail at $5 million dollars.
“$2 million wasn’t enough so lets see if $5 million is,” said the Mesa County Court Judge.
Hsu will be back in court next Wednesday, where he’s expected to formally waive extradition which will clear the way for San Mateo county sheriff’s deputies to bring him back.
A source close to Hsu told ABC7, his attorneys at this time have no plans to post the $5 million dollar bail.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=local&id=5657188
By Vic Lee
GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. Sep. 13, 2007 (KGO) – New revelations against fugitive financier Norman Hsu, and allegations that put him in the middle of a possible multi million dollar fraud case in Southern California.
Hsu has agreed to return to the Bay Area without a fight from Colorado, where he was arrested after skipping out on a bail hearing in San Mateo County last week.
Norman Hsu was in court at Mesa County in Colorado on Thursday. Throughout the hearing, he blinked and twitched frequently.
Last Wednesday, Hsu skipped his bail and boarded an Amtrak train to Grand Junction, Colorado. The day after, his friends received what one calls a suicide letter apologizing for putting them through what he called “inconvenience or trouble.”
Mesa County District Attorney Pete Hautzinger told the judge he wanted a $50 million dollar cash bail because Hsu was not only a flight risk but should not be left alone.
“I have seen a copy of the letter and it certainly indicated the defendant considered harming himself,” said Hautzinger.
Hautzinger also told the court, Hsu may have no trouble paying a lower bail.
“Our sheriffs office tells me, the defendant had a checkbook in his possession when he was arrested that reflected a $6 million dollar balance in that checkbook at least,” said Hautzinger.
The New York District Attorney is now investigating Hsu for defrauding a New York investment fund out of $40 million dollars and today in court the prosecutor said he heard Hsu was also the target of an investigation of a possible scam in Southern California.
“Orange County authorities are on the verge of filing charges on a very similar alleged scam involving $33 million dollars with 50 different investors,” said Hautzinger.
“I think $50 million is ridiculous frankly,” said Defense attorney Eric Elliff.
Defense attorney Eric Elliff argued Hsu would not fight extradition to San Mateo to face grand theft charges that would send him to prison for three years.
“We are willing to waive extradition. Mr. Hsu is very anxious to go back to California,” Elliff. The judge finally set bail at $5 million dollars.
“$2 million wasn’t enough so lets see if $5 million is,” said the Mesa County Court Judge.
Hsu will be back in court next Wednesday, where he’s expected to formally waive extradition which will clear the way for San Mateo county sheriff’s deputies to bring him back.
A source close to Hsu told ABC7, his attorneys at this time have no plans to post the $5 million dollar bail.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=local&id=5657188
Posted in Barack Obama, Democrat / Liberal / Communists, Elliot Spitzer, Hillary Rodham Rodham, Norman Hsu, Political Corruption | Leave a Comment »
Barak Obama’s Wife Holds Fundraiser in England
Posted by wdporter on August 31, 2007
Mrs. Obama Crosses Pond for Cash
August 31, 2007 10:03 AMEd OKeefe–>
ABC News’ Jonathan Greenberger Reports: John Kennedy said he was the man who accompanied his wife, Jacqueline, to Paris, but it seems in this campaign potential first ladies are going it alone.Michelle Obama, aspiring first lady and wife of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., will travel to London in mid-October to attend two fundraisers in support of her husband’s presidential bid.While it’s not entirely unusual for candidates to seek support from Americans abroad (Diana Kerry, the younger sister of Sen. John Kerry, served as Chair of Americans Overseas for Kerry in 2004), it’s not all that often that candidates or their spouses actually travel across the pond to enrich their campaign coffers.There is no prohibition against it, however, as long as the people giving money certify they are “not a foreign national who lacks permanent resident status in the United States.”Obama spokesman Bill Burton says the scheduled fundraisers are simply a reflection of the support Obama receives from around the world.”Given the enthusiasm from Americans abroad, this is an opportunity for those folks to be a part of this effort,” says Burton.The fundraisers are scheduled for the 5-star Landmark Hotel in central London on Monday, Oct. 15.According to the invitation, the main reception is at 7:00 pm, but bundlers who raise $23,000 from friends and family will receive an additional invitation to a VIP Pre-Reception.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/08/mrs-obama-cross.html
August 31, 2007 10:03 AMEd OKeefe–>
ABC News’ Jonathan Greenberger Reports: John Kennedy said he was the man who accompanied his wife, Jacqueline, to Paris, but it seems in this campaign potential first ladies are going it alone.Michelle Obama, aspiring first lady and wife of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., will travel to London in mid-October to attend two fundraisers in support of her husband’s presidential bid.While it’s not entirely unusual for candidates to seek support from Americans abroad (Diana Kerry, the younger sister of Sen. John Kerry, served as Chair of Americans Overseas for Kerry in 2004), it’s not all that often that candidates or their spouses actually travel across the pond to enrich their campaign coffers.There is no prohibition against it, however, as long as the people giving money certify they are “not a foreign national who lacks permanent resident status in the United States.”Obama spokesman Bill Burton says the scheduled fundraisers are simply a reflection of the support Obama receives from around the world.”Given the enthusiasm from Americans abroad, this is an opportunity for those folks to be a part of this effort,” says Burton.The fundraisers are scheduled for the 5-star Landmark Hotel in central London on Monday, Oct. 15.According to the invitation, the main reception is at 7:00 pm, but bundlers who raise $23,000 from friends and family will receive an additional invitation to a VIP Pre-Reception.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2007/08/mrs-obama-cross.html
Posted in Barack Obama, Presidential Race | Leave a Comment »
Is Communist China Funneling Money to Hillary, Obama, Spitzer and other Democrats?
Posted by wdporter on August 31, 2007
Democrats Turn From Big Donor Who’s Fugitive
By MIKE McINTIRE and LESLIE WAYNE
From $62,000 for Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York, to $10,000 for the Tennessee Democratic Party, the full extent of fund-raising by Norman Hsu came into focus yesterday, as campaigns across the country began returning his money in light of revelations that he is a fugitive in a fraud case.
Beyond the hundreds of thousands of dollars he raised from others for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Mr. Hsu personally contributed more than $600,000 to federal, state and municipal candidates in the last three years, a review of campaign finance records shows. It was a startling amount of money for someone whose sources of income remained far from obvious yesterday, as visits to addresses he has provided for his businesses found no trace of Mr. Hsu.
In interviews with Democrats, a picture emerged of Mr. Hsu as a valued and reliable rainmaker, someone who was frequently tapped at all levels of politics to make a contribution, bundle checks or hold an event. In addition, Mr. Hsu donated about $100,000 to the New School, where he is a board member and where a scholarship is offered in his name, according to Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator from Nebraska who is president of the university.
John Liu, a New York City councilman who said he last spoke to Mr. Hsu a few months ago at a gathering of Asian-American Clinton supporters in Washington, said Mr. Hsu “certainly had a strong reputation” for being able to raise lots of money.
“He actually told me he doesn’t get involved in municipal elections the first time I met him, but then he went ahead and gave to my campaign, and others,” Mr. Liu said, adding that he refunded Mr. Hsu’s $4,950 donation yesterday.
The Clinton campaign has said it will give to charity $23,000 that Mr. Hsu contributed, and yesterday representatives of Mr. Spitzer and Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, who received $50,000 from Mr. Hsu, said they would do the same. A spokesman for Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat who is a rival of Mrs. Clinton for the party’s presidential nomination, said Mr. Obama intended to give away $7,000 that Mr. Hsu contributed to his committees.
Mrs. Clinton appeared with Mr. Spitzer yesterday at an event in Manhattan, where she made her first public comments on the matter, saying revelations of Mr. Hsu’s past criminal problems were “a big surprise to everybody.”
“When you have as many contributors as I’m fortunate enough to have,” she said, “we do the very best job we can based on the information available to us to make appropriate vetting decisions.”
Mr. Hsu’s rapid fall was precipitated this week when the California attorney general’s office said there was an outstanding bench warrant for his arrest dating from 1992. Mr. Hsu was facing up to three years in prison after pleading no contest to a charge that he had defrauded investors, but he skipped out on a court appearance and was never seen again.
E. Lawrence Barcella, Mr. Hsu’s lawyer, said that Mr. Hsu was getting a California lawyer to represent him before the state attorney general. Mr. Barcella declined to comment on where Mr. Hsu was, or on the status of any bench warrants issued against him in that state. “On that matter, he will be represented by California counsel,” Mr. Barcella said.
Investigators believe that after Mr. Hsu skipped his court appearance in 1992, he went to his native Hong Kong and then continued working in the garment trade. At some point, Mr. Hsu, a naturalized American citizen, returned to New York and in 2003 made the first of what became hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to Democratic campaigns around the nation.
People who met him said they knew only that he ran an apparel business. Efforts to learn more about his trade hit dead-ends yesterday. Visits to companies at addresses listed by Mr. Hsu on campaign finance records provided little information. There were no offices in buildings in New York’s garment district whose addresses were given for businesses with names like Components Ltd., Cool Planets, Next Components, Coopgors Ltd., NBT and Because Men’s clothing — all listed by Mr. Hsu in federal filings at different times.
At a new loft-style residential condominium in SoHo that was also listed as an address for one of his companies, an employee there said that he had never seen or heard of Mr. Hsu. Another company was listed at a condo that Mr. Hsu had sublet in an elegant residential tower in Midtown Manhattan just off Fifth Avenue, but an employee there said Mr. Hsu moved out two years ago, after having lived there for five years. The employee, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about residents, said he recalled that Mr. Hsu had received a lot of mail from the Democratic Party.
Mr. Kerrey said he was introduced to Mr. Hsu about two years ago, and shortly thereafter Mr. Hsu joined the board of governors at the Eugene Lang College for liberal arts at the New School. He joined the university’s board of trustees last July.
“So much of the university is about the immigrant culture, and I liked his personal story, coming from China, and he had an interest in fashion as well,” Mr. Kerrey said. “It all intrigued me.”
He said that the university did not do background checks of prospective trustees, and that he saw no reason to ask Mr. Hsu to resign from its board.
By MIKE McINTIRE and LESLIE WAYNE
From $62,000 for Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York, to $10,000 for the Tennessee Democratic Party, the full extent of fund-raising by Norman Hsu came into focus yesterday, as campaigns across the country began returning his money in light of revelations that he is a fugitive in a fraud case.
Beyond the hundreds of thousands of dollars he raised from others for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Mr. Hsu personally contributed more than $600,000 to federal, state and municipal candidates in the last three years, a review of campaign finance records shows. It was a startling amount of money for someone whose sources of income remained far from obvious yesterday, as visits to addresses he has provided for his businesses found no trace of Mr. Hsu.
In interviews with Democrats, a picture emerged of Mr. Hsu as a valued and reliable rainmaker, someone who was frequently tapped at all levels of politics to make a contribution, bundle checks or hold an event. In addition, Mr. Hsu donated about $100,000 to the New School, where he is a board member and where a scholarship is offered in his name, according to Bob Kerrey, the former Democratic senator from Nebraska who is president of the university.
John Liu, a New York City councilman who said he last spoke to Mr. Hsu a few months ago at a gathering of Asian-American Clinton supporters in Washington, said Mr. Hsu “certainly had a strong reputation” for being able to raise lots of money.
“He actually told me he doesn’t get involved in municipal elections the first time I met him, but then he went ahead and gave to my campaign, and others,” Mr. Liu said, adding that he refunded Mr. Hsu’s $4,950 donation yesterday.
The Clinton campaign has said it will give to charity $23,000 that Mr. Hsu contributed, and yesterday representatives of Mr. Spitzer and Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, who received $50,000 from Mr. Hsu, said they would do the same. A spokesman for Senator Barack Obama, the Illinois Democrat who is a rival of Mrs. Clinton for the party’s presidential nomination, said Mr. Obama intended to give away $7,000 that Mr. Hsu contributed to his committees.
Mrs. Clinton appeared with Mr. Spitzer yesterday at an event in Manhattan, where she made her first public comments on the matter, saying revelations of Mr. Hsu’s past criminal problems were “a big surprise to everybody.”
“When you have as many contributors as I’m fortunate enough to have,” she said, “we do the very best job we can based on the information available to us to make appropriate vetting decisions.”
Mr. Hsu’s rapid fall was precipitated this week when the California attorney general’s office said there was an outstanding bench warrant for his arrest dating from 1992. Mr. Hsu was facing up to three years in prison after pleading no contest to a charge that he had defrauded investors, but he skipped out on a court appearance and was never seen again.
E. Lawrence Barcella, Mr. Hsu’s lawyer, said that Mr. Hsu was getting a California lawyer to represent him before the state attorney general. Mr. Barcella declined to comment on where Mr. Hsu was, or on the status of any bench warrants issued against him in that state. “On that matter, he will be represented by California counsel,” Mr. Barcella said.
Investigators believe that after Mr. Hsu skipped his court appearance in 1992, he went to his native Hong Kong and then continued working in the garment trade. At some point, Mr. Hsu, a naturalized American citizen, returned to New York and in 2003 made the first of what became hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions to Democratic campaigns around the nation.
People who met him said they knew only that he ran an apparel business. Efforts to learn more about his trade hit dead-ends yesterday. Visits to companies at addresses listed by Mr. Hsu on campaign finance records provided little information. There were no offices in buildings in New York’s garment district whose addresses were given for businesses with names like Components Ltd., Cool Planets, Next Components, Coopgors Ltd., NBT and Because Men’s clothing — all listed by Mr. Hsu in federal filings at different times.
At a new loft-style residential condominium in SoHo that was also listed as an address for one of his companies, an employee there said that he had never seen or heard of Mr. Hsu. Another company was listed at a condo that Mr. Hsu had sublet in an elegant residential tower in Midtown Manhattan just off Fifth Avenue, but an employee there said Mr. Hsu moved out two years ago, after having lived there for five years. The employee, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about residents, said he recalled that Mr. Hsu had received a lot of mail from the Democratic Party.
Mr. Kerrey said he was introduced to Mr. Hsu about two years ago, and shortly thereafter Mr. Hsu joined the board of governors at the Eugene Lang College for liberal arts at the New School. He joined the university’s board of trustees last July.
“So much of the university is about the immigrant culture, and I liked his personal story, coming from China, and he had an interest in fashion as well,” Mr. Kerrey said. “It all intrigued me.”
He said that the university did not do background checks of prospective trustees, and that he saw no reason to ask Mr. Hsu to resign from its board.
Posted in Barack Obama, China, Democrat / Liberal / Communists, Hillary Rodham Rodham, Norman Hsu, Political Corruption | Leave a Comment »
Communist Dictator Fidel Castro Hopes Clinton/Obama Ticket Wins U.S. Election
Posted by wdporter on August 29, 2007
Castro’s tip: Clinton-Obama the winning ticket
Wed Aug 29, 2007 2:06AM EDT
By Anthony Boadle
HAVANA (Reuters) – Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro is tipping Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to team up and win the U.S. presidential election.
Clinton leads Obama in the race to be the Democratic nominee for the November 2008 election, and Castro said they would make a winning combination.
“The word today is that an apparently unbeatable ticket could be Hillary for president and Obama as her running mate,” he wrote in an editorial column on U.S. presidents published on Tuesday by Cuba’s Communist Party newspaper, Granma.
At 81, Castro has outlasted nine U.S. presidents since his 1959 revolution turned Cuba into a thorn in Washington’s side by building a communist society about 90 miles offshore from the United States.
He said all U.S. presidential candidates seeking the “coveted” electoral college votes of Florida have had to demand a democratic government in Cuba to win the backing of the powerful Cuban exile community.
Clinton and Obama, both senators, called for democratic change in Cuba last week.
Castro has not appeared in public since intestinal illness forced him to hand over power to his brother Raul Castro in July last year.
He has turned to writing dozens of columns and essays, but rumors that his health is worsening or that he may even be dead have swirled through the Cuban exile community in Miami in the last two weeks.
Castro’s only reference to U.S. President George W. Bush in his latest essay was to say that he “needed fraud” to win Florida’s electoral college votes and the presidency in the fiercely contested election in 2000.
Castro said former President Bill Clinton was “really kind” when he bumped into him and the two men shook hands at a U.N. summit meeting in 2000. He also praised Clinton for sending elite police to “rescue” shipwrecked Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami relatives in 2000 to end an international custody battle.
But even Clinton was forced to bow to Miami politics and tighten the U.S. embargo against Cuba in 1996, using as a “pretext” the shooting down of two small planes used by exile groups to overfly Havana, Castro wrote.
He said his favorite U.S. president since 1959 was Jimmy Carter, another Democrat, because he was not an “accomplice” to efforts to violently overthrow the Cuban government.
Sixteen years after Dwight Eisenhower broke off diplomatic ties with Cuba, Carter restored low-level relations in 1977 when interest sections were opened in each country’s capital.
Castro made no mention of Republican Cold War victor Ronald Reagan, or of John F. Kennedy, whose Democratic administration launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion by CIA-trained Cuban exiles in 1961.
One of the most dangerous moments of the Cold War came a year later when Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev faced off for 13 days over Soviet missiles that Castro allowed Moscow to place in Cuba.
Wed Aug 29, 2007 2:06AM EDT
By Anthony Boadle
HAVANA (Reuters) – Ailing Cuban leader Fidel Castro is tipping Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama to team up and win the U.S. presidential election.
Clinton leads Obama in the race to be the Democratic nominee for the November 2008 election, and Castro said they would make a winning combination.
“The word today is that an apparently unbeatable ticket could be Hillary for president and Obama as her running mate,” he wrote in an editorial column on U.S. presidents published on Tuesday by Cuba’s Communist Party newspaper, Granma.
At 81, Castro has outlasted nine U.S. presidents since his 1959 revolution turned Cuba into a thorn in Washington’s side by building a communist society about 90 miles offshore from the United States.
He said all U.S. presidential candidates seeking the “coveted” electoral college votes of Florida have had to demand a democratic government in Cuba to win the backing of the powerful Cuban exile community.
Clinton and Obama, both senators, called for democratic change in Cuba last week.
Castro has not appeared in public since intestinal illness forced him to hand over power to his brother Raul Castro in July last year.
He has turned to writing dozens of columns and essays, but rumors that his health is worsening or that he may even be dead have swirled through the Cuban exile community in Miami in the last two weeks.
Castro’s only reference to U.S. President George W. Bush in his latest essay was to say that he “needed fraud” to win Florida’s electoral college votes and the presidency in the fiercely contested election in 2000.
Castro said former President Bill Clinton was “really kind” when he bumped into him and the two men shook hands at a U.N. summit meeting in 2000. He also praised Clinton for sending elite police to “rescue” shipwrecked Cuban boy Elian Gonzalez from the home of his Miami relatives in 2000 to end an international custody battle.
But even Clinton was forced to bow to Miami politics and tighten the U.S. embargo against Cuba in 1996, using as a “pretext” the shooting down of two small planes used by exile groups to overfly Havana, Castro wrote.
He said his favorite U.S. president since 1959 was Jimmy Carter, another Democrat, because he was not an “accomplice” to efforts to violently overthrow the Cuban government.
Sixteen years after Dwight Eisenhower broke off diplomatic ties with Cuba, Carter restored low-level relations in 1977 when interest sections were opened in each country’s capital.
Castro made no mention of Republican Cold War victor Ronald Reagan, or of John F. Kennedy, whose Democratic administration launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion by CIA-trained Cuban exiles in 1961.
One of the most dangerous moments of the Cold War came a year later when Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev faced off for 13 days over Soviet missiles that Castro allowed Moscow to place in Cuba.
Posted in Barack Obama, Cuba, Democrat / Liberal / Communists, Fidel Castro, Hillary Rodham Rodham, Presidential Race | Leave a Comment »
Ex-Carter Official Endorses Obama
Posted by wdporter on August 27, 2007
Ex-Carter Official Endorses Obama
Friday, August 24, 2007 9:03 PM
Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser in the Jimmy Carter administration, is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Brzezinski, a key foreign-policy expert for the Democratic Party, told Bloomberg Television that Obama has a better global grasp than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Obama “recognizes that the challenge is a new face, a new sense of direction, a new definition of America’s role in the world,” Brzezinski said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt.”
“Obama is clearly more effective and has the upper hand. He has a sense of what is historically relevant, and what is needed from the United States in relationship to the world. I don’t think the country needs to go back to what we had eight years ago.’ There is a need for a fundamental rethinking of how we conduct world affairs. And Obama seems to me to have both the guts and the intelligence to address that issue and to change the nature of America’s relationship with the world.”
Brzezinski said of Clinton: “Being a former first lady doesn’t prepare you to be president. President Truman didn’t have much experience before he came to office. Neither did John Kennedy.”
Friday, August 24, 2007 9:03 PM
Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser in the Jimmy Carter administration, is endorsing Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Brzezinski, a key foreign-policy expert for the Democratic Party, told Bloomberg Television that Obama has a better global grasp than Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Obama “recognizes that the challenge is a new face, a new sense of direction, a new definition of America’s role in the world,” Brzezinski said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt.”
“Obama is clearly more effective and has the upper hand. He has a sense of what is historically relevant, and what is needed from the United States in relationship to the world. I don’t think the country needs to go back to what we had eight years ago.’ There is a need for a fundamental rethinking of how we conduct world affairs. And Obama seems to me to have both the guts and the intelligence to address that issue and to change the nature of America’s relationship with the world.”
Brzezinski said of Clinton: “Being a former first lady doesn’t prepare you to be president. President Truman didn’t have much experience before he came to office. Neither did John Kennedy.”
Posted in Barack Obama, Democrat / Liberal / Communists, Jimmy Carter (Worst President in American History) | Leave a Comment »
