For GOP only

[southsider2k5]

Some details on Hsu's arrest...

 

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/09/10/traveling-man/

 

Norman Hsu: Traveling Man

Kris Hudson reports on the ever strange case of Norman Hsu.

 

New details continue to emerge of the strange flight of fugitive political fund-raiser Norman Hsu, now in custody in Colorado after falling ill on an Amtrak train last week.

 

 

Norman Hsu (center) with his attorneys.

Hsu, 56 years old, has contributed or raised more than $1.2 million for Hillary Clinton and other Democrats, and is one of the party’s leading fund-raisers. But he became such a source of embarrassment for the Clinton campaign after press reports on his questionable campaign giving, and that he was a fugitive wanted in an early 1990s investment- fraud case, that the Clinton campaign said it was returning $850,000 from 260 donors associated with him.

 

Hsu called the matter a misunderstanding, then failed to show up at a court hearing in Redwood City, Calif., on the case Wednesday. Instead, he booked passage on an Amtrak train headed to Chicago.

 

That night, passengers on in the sleeper compartment across the aisle from his noticed a hat, a book and other items spilling into the hallway from under the door. The next morning, the drapes were still drawn. Returning from breakfast, one passenger peeked through the curtains and saw a person wedged against the door. The passenger, Joanne Segale, a retired school-bus driver from Sonora, Calif., knocked on the window but got no answer. Segale said she saw a man who appeared to be in fetal position, bare-chested. “It appeared this person had fallen out of bed,” she said.

 

Eventually, three conductors used the crowbar to pry the door open.

 

Segale said that Hsu “could not stand. He was acting like he didn’t understand them. They tried to get him up but he couldn’t walk.” At one point, Hsu asked the Amtrak attendants if he was in jail, according to Segale.

 

When Hsu was helped to the bathroom, Segale says she saw “lots and lots of medication in that room. I could see pills on the floor and rolling around.”

 

Amtrak conductors called paramedics, who met the train in Grand Junction, Colo. When Hsu was checked into a local hospital, law-enforcement officials were notified that Hsu had been found.

 

Hsu’s public-relations advisers declined Monday to comment on Segale’s account. Previously, his representatives called accounts of his actions on the train “mostly hearsay” and “sensational.”

[Texsox]

So as the Hsu scandal grows by the day, instead of giving back just the $23,000 given directly by Hsu, Hillary thinks it is a good idea to give back the near $1 million that was bundled by this guy.

 

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20070911/D8RIVR8G0.html

 

Simple formula*

 

Number of Votes gained without HSU's $850,000 is > or = to the Number of Votes gained with Hsu's $850,000

 

*From my newly created Center For Bi-Partisan Cynicism

[southsider2k5]

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2...mail/components

 

Talk about déjà vu. Pressed by questions about a scandal-tarred fundraiser, a candidate named Clinton decides to return hundreds of thousands of dollars. The politician's operation promises to conduct criminal background checks on big fundraisers in the future. And it leaks its decisions at night after a busy day in hopes of burying the news and minimizing the damage.

 

In 1997, the pol, of course, was Bill Clinton and the tainted money came from folks such as John Huang, Charlie Trie, Johnny Chung and Pauline Kanchanalak. A decade later, it's Hillary Rodham Clinton's turn to write refund checks to deflect attention from a bundler named Norman Hsu. Few American political families in modern times have proved as adept at raising money -- or as practiced at the art of giving it back if it comes with too much baggage.

 

The eerie echoes of the last Clinton campaign finance scandal are what make the Hsu case so problematic for the current Democratic presidential frontrunner. If it were just a matter of the facts of this particular case, it might be the sort of bad-news story that comes and goes, forgotten long before anyone shows up at a ballot box to case a vote. After all, Hsu also raised money for other Democrats as well, including Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.). But none of them has the same history to overcome.

 

 

The Hsu case illustrates the challenges for Hillary Clinton in defining her past. She has to this point managed to use her time as first lady and her marriage to a former president popular within her party ranks to her advantage while largely scrubbing those eight years in the White House of the more controversial chapters. The disputes that dogged her in the 1990s -- Whitewater, cattle futures, the White House travel office, Vincent Foster -- have been absent from the campaign trail this time, as have memories of the many issues that her husband had to contend with, including campaign finances.

 

The Hsu case has nothing to do with those episodes in a direct sense, of course. An apparel manufacturer in New York, he grew up in Hong Kong before moving to the United States in 1969 to attend college and eventually raised money for Sen. John F. Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004 before joining the Clinton team this time. When a 15-year-old arrest warrant from an investment fraud conviction emerged, he failed to appear at a hearing and was later caught in Colorado.

 

After the Los Angeles Times reported that the FBI was looking into a Hsu business venture in which investors were pressed to contribute to Clinton, the campaign took a page straight from the 1990s playbook -- it decided to return the $850,000 Hsu had raised, then tipped off a couple reporters late on a day dominated by testimony by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the Iraq commander.

 

The case evokes the fundraising scandals born out of Bill Clinton's reelection in 1996, which dominated Washington for more than a year after the vote as one unseemly tale after another emerged about White House fundraising tactics and the characters trying to buy access through questionable if not illegal methods.

 

The president used the White House to stroke donors in a more methodical way than any of his predecessors had ever done, inviting hundreds of top contributors and politically connected people to attend coffees with him in the executive mansion or even to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom. ("Ready to start overnights right away," Clinton wrote on a fundraising memo.) Vice President Al Gore made fundraising calls from his office and attended a fundraiser at a Buddhist temple where nuns who had taken vows of poverty were illegally reimbursed for $2,500 contributions.

 

The Clinton team ended up sending back millions of dollars as the revelations widened. John Huang, a Democratic National Committee fundraiser, raised $3.4 million for the party and its campaign, but nearly half of it had to be returned because of questions about the donors, including some from overseas. Huang was the one who organized the Gore event at the Hsi Lai Temple outside Los Angeles that brought in $140,000, most of which had to be given back.

 

The DNC also returned $253,000 donated by businesswoman Pauline Kanchanalak after she said the money came from her mother-in-law and $366,000 to Johnny Chung, who told investigators a Chinese military officer had given him hundreds of thousands of dollars to funnel to the Democrats. The Clinton legal defense fund refunded or refused to accept at least $640,000 from Charlie Trie, a businessman who showed up one day with two manila envelopes filled with checks.

 

Hillary Clinton was caught up in the scandals to some degree. At one point, it emerged that Chung had delivered $50,000 directly to the first lady's chief of staff, Maggie Williams, at the White House. Williams forwarded the check to the DNC, even though federal law bars officials from receiving political donations on government property.

 

Much of the money was aimed at buying access. Roger Tamraz, a Lebanese-American oil financier, openly admitted that he gave $300,000 to advance his plans to build a $2.5 billion oil pipeline and said he gladly would have given twice as much. Chung, who parlayed his generosity into 49 visits to the White House to further his interests with foreign business clients even though the National Security Council had warned that he was a "hustler," provided perhaps the most memorable line of the scandal, explaining his actions by saying: "The White House is like a subway. You have to put in coins to open the gates."

 

As it happens, Hillary Clinton is not the only candidate running for president now who had a role in the 1990s drama that might hurt today. Former senator Fred Thompson (Tenn.), who just jumped into the Republican race, was the chairman of the Senate committee that investigated the fundraising abuses, but came under withering criticism from fellow Republicans for being too evenhanded and not aggressive enough in attacking Democrats.

 

-- Peter Baker

[southsider2k5]

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2...mail/components

 

Talk about déjà vu. Pressed by questions about a scandal-tarred fundraiser, a candidate named Clinton decides to return hundreds of thousands of dollars. The politician's operation promises to conduct criminal background checks on big fundraisers in the future. And it leaks its decisions at night after a busy day in hopes of burying the news and minimizing the damage.

 

In 1997, the pol, of course, was Bill Clinton and the tainted money came from folks such as John Huang, Charlie Trie, Johnny Chung and Pauline Kanchanalak. A decade later, it's Hillary Rodham Clinton's turn to write refund checks to deflect attention from a bundler named Norman Hsu. Few American political families in modern times have proved as adept at raising money -- or as practiced at the art of giving it back if it comes with too much baggage.

 

The eerie echoes of the last Clinton campaign finance scandal are what make the Hsu case so problematic for the current Democratic presidential frontrunner. If it were just a matter of the facts of this particular case, it might be the sort of bad-news story that comes and goes, forgotten long before anyone shows up at a ballot box to case a vote. After all, Hsu also raised money for other Democrats as well, including Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.). But none of them has the same history to overcome.

 

 

The Hsu case illustrates the challenges for Hillary Clinton in defining her past. She has to this point managed to use her time as first lady and her marriage to a former president popular within her party ranks to her advantage while largely scrubbing those eight years in the White House of the more controversial chapters. The disputes that dogged her in the 1990s -- Whitewater, cattle futures, the White House travel office, Vincent Foster -- have been absent from the campaign trail this time, as have memories of the many issues that her husband had to contend with, including campaign finances.

 

The Hsu case has nothing to do with those episodes in a direct sense, of course. An apparel manufacturer in New York, he grew up in Hong Kong before moving to the United States in 1969 to attend college and eventually raised money for Sen. John F. Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004 before joining the Clinton team this time. When a 15-year-old arrest warrant from an investment fraud conviction emerged, he failed to appear at a hearing and was later caught in Colorado.

 

After the Los Angeles Times reported that the FBI was looking into a Hsu business venture in which investors were pressed to contribute to Clinton, the campaign took a page straight from the 1990s playbook -- it decided to return the $850,000 Hsu had raised, then tipped off a couple reporters late on a day dominated by testimony by Gen. David H. Petraeus, the Iraq commander.

 

The case evokes the fundraising scandals born out of Bill Clinton's reelection in 1996, which dominated Washington for more than a year after the vote as one unseemly tale after another emerged about White House fundraising tactics and the characters trying to buy access through questionable if not illegal methods.

 

The president used the White House to stroke donors in a more methodical way than any of his predecessors had ever done, inviting hundreds of top contributors and politically connected people to attend coffees with him in the executive mansion or even to stay in the Lincoln Bedroom. ("Ready to start overnights right away," Clinton wrote on a fundraising memo.) Vice President Al Gore made fundraising calls from his office and attended a fundraiser at a Buddhist temple where nuns who had taken vows of poverty were illegally reimbursed for $2,500 contributions.

 

The Clinton team ended up sending back millions of dollars as the revelations widened. John Huang, a Democratic National Committee fundraiser, raised $3.4 million for the party and its campaign, but nearly half of it had to be returned because of questions about the donors, including some from overseas. Huang was the one who organized the Gore event at the Hsi Lai Temple outside Los Angeles that brought in $140,000, most of which had to be given back.

 

The DNC also returned $253,000 donated by businesswoman Pauline Kanchanalak after she said the money came from her mother-in-law and $366,000 to Johnny Chung, who told investigators a Chinese military officer had given him hundreds of thousands of dollars to funnel to the Democrats. The Clinton legal defense fund refunded or refused to accept at least $640,000 from Charlie Trie, a businessman who showed up one day with two manila envelopes filled with checks.

 

Hillary Clinton was caught up in the scandals to some degree. At one point, it emerged that Chung had delivered $50,000 directly to the first lady's chief of staff, Maggie Williams, at the White House. Williams forwarded the check to the DNC, even though federal law bars officials from receiving political donations on government property.

 

Much of the money was aimed at buying access. Roger Tamraz, a Lebanese-American oil financier, openly admitted that he gave $300,000 to advance his plans to build a $2.5 billion oil pipeline and said he gladly would have given twice as much. Chung, who parlayed his generosity into 49 visits to the White House to further his interests with foreign business clients even though the National Security Council had warned that he was a "hustler," provided perhaps the most memorable line of the scandal, explaining his actions by saying: "The White House is like a subway. You have to put in coins to open the gates."

 

As it happens, Hillary Clinton is not the only candidate running for president now who had a role in the 1990s drama that might hurt today. Former senator Fred Thompson (Tenn.), who just jumped into the Republican race, was the chairman of the Senate committee that investigated the fundraising abuses, but came under withering criticism from fellow Republicans for being too evenhanded and not aggressive enough in attacking Democrats.

 

-- Peter Baker

[BigSqwert]

On a side note, shouldn't the filibuster have a catch all thread for news tidbits?

[NorthSideSox72]

On a side note, shouldn't the filibuster have a catch all thread for news tidbits?

It sort of does. There are the GOP and DEM only threads, which can be used for stories specific to a party. Then there are the candidate threads. I'd say this Hsu stuff could go in the DEM candidate thread. Or its own thread.

 

[Texsox]

As it happens, Hillary Clinton is not the only candidate running for president now who had a role in the 1990s drama that might hurt today. Former senator Fred Thompson (Tenn.), who just jumped into the Republican race, was the chairman of the Senate committee that investigated the fundraising abuses, but came under withering criticism from fellow Republicans for being too evenhanded and not aggressive enough in attacking Democrats.

 

I like hearing that.

[southsider2k5]

Hmm, I wonder why this wasn't reported in the Iraqi people poll that was much sites during the recent congressional testimony...

 

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/robin-boyd/20...c-bbc-iraq-poll

 

Take Question 2 of the poll: "What is your expectation for how things overall in your life will be in a year from now?" 61% answered either "much better", "somewhat better" or "about the same". 39% answered "somewhat worse" or "much worse". The results don't sound as gasp-inspiring as "Only 29% think things will get better in the next year" as reported by the BBC.

 

Question 10 asked "In the past six months has the security situation in this neighbourhood/village become better, become worse or stayed the same?" 69% of those responding said security had become better or stayed about the same. 31% said it was worse. Since we were only 2 months into the surge, those results are not as dire as reported by the Democrats in Congress.

 

One question that got a lot of media exposure was Question 21 "How long do you think US and other Coalition forces should remain in Iraq?" 47% answered "leave now". BUT 53% answered that US and Coalition forces should remain until security is restored or the Iraqi government is stronger.

 

And about withdrawal before civil order is fully restored? 46% believe that withdrawal will make it more likely for Iraq to become a base of operations for international terrorists. 46% also believe that Iran will take control of parts of Iraq if there is an early withdrawal.

 

Results that painted Iraqis as on the road to reconciliation were completely ignored by the media. Question 13 asked "Which of the following structures do you believe Iraq should have in the future?" 62% of Iraqis responded "one unified Iraq with a central government in Baghdad.

 

"Confidence in the Iraqi Army - 66% answered "great deal of confidence" or "quite a lot of confidence"

 

Confidence in the Iraqi Police - 69% answered "great deal of confidence" or "quite a lot of confidence."

 

Willingness of members of the National Assembly of Iraq to make necessary compromises to bring peace and security to the country? - 50%

 

Separation of people on sectarian lines - 98% responded it was a "bad thing"

 

The Iraqis' responses to questions about Al Qaeda in Iraq and Iran were conveniently left out of the media reporting. 21% of Iraqis surveyed blame Al Qaeda and foreign jihads for most of the violence (up from 18% in 2/07). While 19% blamed the US or Coalition forces for most of the violence, that number is down from 31% in Feb 2007.

 

Other questions about Al Qaeda included:

attacks on US and coalition forces - 51% unacceptable

attacks on Iraqi civilians - 100% unacceptable

attempts to gain control in local areas - 98% unacceptable

 

Countries actively engaged in encouraging sectarian violence within Iraq:

Syria - 66%

Iran - 79%

Saudi Arabia - 65%

 

So while the small sample size did reveal some negative results for the US and Coalition Forces, there were many more positive results that never made it into the media. These positive results actually back up the maligned testimony of Iraq's reconciliation progress.

 

Once again the media reports the poll results that make America look bad and ignore the results that point to progress. Typical.

[NorthSideSox72]

Hmm, I wonder why this wasn't reported in the Iraqi people poll that was much sites during the recent congressional testimony...

 

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/robin-boyd/20...c-bbc-iraq-poll

Maybe because that clip there uses really bad analysis? Look at the first item they question. The MSNBC article stated a specific answer percentage - this person prefers to lump all the better or the same stuff together. What does that prove, if its already bad?

 

This really looks like a lame attempt to find positives that don't exist.

 

[Texsox]

That is why these polls should receive no serious consideration. We can start picking apart this and make everything look good, or bad.

 

Couple of points:

 

The Iraqi public better start caring about what we think, I could care less what they think. Last I looked we're footing the bill and I see a lot more made in America weapons and s*** there. So basically, I don't really care about a poll where Iraqis self report their "feelings". Here's a feeling for you, how about you sell us really cheap oil? I might be in favor of sticking around and keeping Syria, Iran, and Saudia Arabia, countries you think are try to harm you, off your asses, if I was filling up with $1 petrol.

[NorthSideSox72]

That is why these polls should receive no serious consideration. We can start picking apart this and make everything look good, or bad.

 

Couple of points:

 

The Iraqi public better start caring about what we think, I could care less what they think. Last I looked we're footing the bill and I see a lot more made in America weapons and s*** there. So basically, I don't really care about a poll where Iraqis self report their "feelings". Here's a feeling for you, how about you sell us really cheap oil? I might be in favor of sticking around and keeping Syria, Iran, and Saudia Arabia, countries you think are try to harm you, off your asses, if I was filling up with $1 petrol.

I think polls are useful, when you have all the information. One thing I agree with, in terms of the point SS2K5 was making, is that you can pull numbers out of polls to try to shift the appearance of the results. Here is a novel idea - when a poll comes out, just state the facts. Give people the actual, statistical results. Instead, we get a few hard numbers from the poll, surrounded by "expert analysis" that is usually nothing more than fluff and dumbing down of the results.

 

[Balta1701]

I think polls are useful, when you have all the information. One thing I agree with, in terms of the point SS2K5 was making, is that you can pull numbers out of polls to try to shift the appearance of the results. Here is a novel idea - when a poll comes out, just state the facts. Give people the actual, statistical results. Instead, we get a few hard numbers from the poll, surrounded by "expert analysis" that is usually nothing more than fluff and dumbing down of the results.

And on top of that...there's still the other issue...that even in what we'd consider a large sample, like 2000 people, Iraq has to be unbelievably difficult to poll accurately...because you don't want your pollsters to wind up dead. It has to be unbelievably difficult to get an unbiased sample, and even 2000 people might not be enough

 

For an example...the first Lancet study of casualties in Iraq, talked to 988 households, and thus sampled 7868 people. The 2nd Lancet study, which produced the most recent 655,000 casualties due to the war estimate, was over 2x as large.

[BigSqwert]

The Iraqi public better start caring about what we think, I could care less what they think.

Not to pick a fight with you but come on....they didn't ask to be invaded and then occupied for 4+ years.

[mr_genius]

And on top of that...there's still the other issue...that even in what we'd consider a large sample, like 2000 people, Iraq has to be unbelievably difficult to poll accurately...because you don't want your pollsters to wind up dead. It has to be unbelievably difficult to get an unbiased sample, and even 2000 people might not be enough

 

For an example...the first Lancet study of casualties in Iraq, talked to 988 households, and thus sampled 7868 people. The 2nd Lancet study, which produced the most recent 655,000 casualties due to the war estimate, was over 2x as large.

 

ah yes, the abuses of applied statistics. how random was selection of the people polled? did the person setting out to gather data report credible data or data that they wanted to hear? were areas of heavy insurgence violence polled more often than those without? has the poll been fabricated for political uses (which is easy to do in a place like Iraq)? did the people doing the poll include non-violent death?

 

the number of actual reported deaths due to violence in Iraq is around 75,000 civilian deaths.

Edited September 14, 2007 by mr_genius

[Texsox]

I think polls are useful, when you have all the information. One thing I agree with, in terms of the point SS2K5 was making, is that you can pull numbers out of polls to try to shift the appearance of the results. Here is a novel idea - when a poll comes out, just state the facts. Give people the actual, statistical results. Instead, we get a few hard numbers from the poll, surrounded by "expert analysis" that is usually nothing more than fluff and dumbing down of the results.

 

If they had any scientific validity, I might as well. But these have no reliability, no validity. And giving the people the stats is nice on the surface, and we could require everyone to take statistics in High School so they could analyze the statistics. But that ain't going to happen. What we have is a bunch of people giving their opinion. Did everyone in the population have an equal chance of being polled? That's step one. I doubt it in this case.

[Texsox]

Not to pick a fight with you but come on....they didn't ask to be invaded and then occupied for 4+ years.

 

And if someone did ask, would we go, invest billions of dollars, and thousands of lives? No, we go where it makes sense for American interests. I'm sorry it sucks to be them. I'm sorry if they think we should be there ten days or ten years. We'll answer to America's needs first.

[Balta1701]

If they had any scientific validity, I might as well. But these have no reliability, no validity. And giving the people the stats is nice on the surface, and we could require everyone to take statistics in High School so they could analyze the statistics. But that ain't going to happen. What we have is a bunch of people giving their opinion. Did everyone in the population have an equal chance of being polled? That's step one. I doubt it in this case.

If nothing else, remember, we're dealing with a nation where somewhere between 15 and 20% of the population has become refugees...over 10% of which has already fled the country. I can't imagine a way to get an actual randomized sample when those are the sorts of issues you have to overcome.

[Texsox]

If nothing else, remember, we're dealing with a nation where somewhere between 15 and 20% of the population has become refugees...over 10% of which has already fled the country. I can't imagine a way to get an actual randomized sample when those are the sorts of issues you have to overcome.

Exactly, but we can't lower the bar. We have to accept it is not a representative sample and treat it as such. Plus, self reporting is unreliable.

[kapkomet]

Maybe because that clip there uses really bad analysis? Look at the first item they question. The MSNBC article stated a specific answer percentage - this person prefers to lump all the better or the same stuff together. What does that prove, if its already bad?

 

This really looks like a lame attempt to find positives that don't exist.

Niiiiiiice. And that other poll that BS referenced the other day was ... solid.

 

Look... I think all these so-called polls are bunk, including this one (that SS referenced). You can't possibly have a valid poll over there right now and I also think that the questions that are asked will absolutely skew the results of "positives" and "negatives", which was the point I was making in the other thread, when I basically got told that I was simply trying to start s***.

[NorthSideSox72]

Niiiiiiice. And that other poll that BS referenced the other day was ... solid.

 

Look... I think all these so-called polls are bunk, including this one (that SS referenced). You can't possibly have a valid poll over there right now and I also think that the questions that are asked will absolutely skew the results of "positives" and "negatives", which was the point I was making in the other thread, when I basically got told that I was simply trying to start s***.

I didn't say anything was solid, I don't think. What I was saying was that analyis in that clip from SS2K5 was really poor analysis of the numbers. And by the way, I agree that the poll has some potentially huge bias factors in it. It has to. Too many things that would skew it.

 

[Cknolls]

http://www.cultureandmediainstitute.org/ar...0913180857.aspx

 

 

What does this turd object to?

[kapkomet]

I didn't say anything was solid, I don't think. What I was saying was that analyis in that clip from SS2K5 was really poor analysis of the numbers. And by the way, I agree that the poll has some potentially huge bias factors in it. It has to. Too many things that would skew it.

I was talking about the "other" steaming pile of poo thread (or one of them, aren't they all just steaming piles of poo?) At least here at the filibuster, we can say we're composting, and therefore environmentally friendly. . .

 

 

 

[Balta1701]

http://www.cultureandmediainstitute.org/ar...0913180857.aspx

What does this turd object to?

Considering how many details are left out of said article, including Olbermann's entire actual argument, I'll just link to the actual video they're trying to Bash Olbermann with, and let people decide on their own whether or not the points in that article are valid.

[kapkomet]

Considering how many details are left out of said article, including Olbermann's entire actual argument, I'll just link to the actual video they're trying to Bash Olbermann with, and let people decide on their own whether or not the points in that article are valid.

You're actually defending Olbermann? Wow, just wow.

 

[NorthSideSox72]

You're actually defending Olbermann? Wow, just wow.

Olbermann is kind of ridiculously over the top, but, all Balta was doing here was providing the actual video instead of a commentary on it. I don't see how that is bad.