The Discerning Texan

In Grand Junction. No details yet, but it sounds like he may have been injured somehow:

Authorities said Hsu was taken into custody at St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction at 7 p.m. local time. He had been on the lam for almost two days after failing to appear in a Redwood City courtroom Wednesday to surrender his passport.

Stand by for updates.

Update: The feds are going to drop the interstate fugitive charge against him when they turn him over to California? Huh?

Update: Forty minutes later and the AP story is still the only game in town. While we wait for news, speculate away as to what he was doing in Colorado. A google search reveals no links there save for a donation Hsu made to Rep. Mark Udall’s senate campaign. Nothing unusual there; Hsu donated to Democrats all over the country. A commenter below says he’s surprised Hsu is still in the country but that’s really not surprising. He fled to Hong Kong after his first round of legal trouble in the early 90s. Airports would have been the first place the feds looked and Hsu surely would have expected it. Maybe he was driving cross country, back to familiar territory on the east coast, and got sidetracked somehow in Colorado?

Update: Plain ol’ rotten luck?

Labels: Campaign Contributions, Corruption, Democratic Criminal Activity, Hillary, Hsu Scandal, Scandal

Let's see. After pleading guilty to fraud in 1991, Hsu jumped bail rather than appear at his sentencing hearing for his agreed-upon three-year stretch. Fifteen years later, the long arm of the law finally caught up with Hsu after funneling over $1.5 million to Democrats around the country.

So what did the California court do? Let him out on bail again -- and Hsu has apparently skipped again, to no one's surprise but the moron who granted bail in the first place.

Who put up the bail money for Hsu? Where did they get it? Those two questions could serve as a good start to finding the fraudster. If they catch him again, Californians should recall the next judge who thinks bail is appropriate for someone who spent 15 years on the lam.

And he’s still got his passport! I’m simply woozy at the thought of how awesome this scandal may yet prove to be:

California businessman Norman Hsu, a former New York apparel executive and major contributor to Democratic candidates and causes, failed to appear for a bail reduction hearing Wednesday, leading to speculation that he again is a fugitive from the law, FOX News has learned.

Hsu’s attorneys say they do not know his whereabouts, and that their client did not surrender his passport.

Maybe he’s stuck in traffic? Could we really be so lucky as to have one of Hillary’s, and the Democrats’, top donors turn this glowingly radioactive? Stand by for giddy schadenfreudean updates!

I guess I can see his point; that is to some extent the unknown can cause more speculation and gossip than the known. But personally I see it as a defeat for the good guys, and a big win for the corruption machine that is the Democrat party and the sleazy left in this country.

So who starts the betting pool?:

• Is he dead in some Washington park of an apparent "suicide"?
• Is he out of the country and on his way back to China--his and the Clintons' benefactors?
• Did he just "misunderstand" the need for his to be present (that was his excuse when he did not report for jail 3 years ago)
  

How do you say “Punked” in Chinese? The Democrat bagman is missing again:

Democratic fundraiser Norman Hsu failed to appear Wednesday for a bail hearing and a judge issued a new warrant for his arrest.

Hsu forfeits the $2 million bail he posted last week.

Hsu’s lawyer said he doesn’t know where his client is.

Hsu had been a fugitive in California for 15 years during which time he became a top donor to Democratic candidates, including presidential contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

Jim Hoft snarks: Maybe those Chinese gang members kidnapped him again.

Andrew Malcom at the LATimes blog: “By not appearing, Hsu forfeits his request to cut his $2 million bond in half. Maybe he had a sudden fundraiser of his own to attend.”

[...]

More from FoxNews.com

Dan Riehl thinks he may be heading back to Hong Kong.

The NYT says he was supposed to turn in his passport on Monday:

On Monday, Mr. Hsu was required to turn his passport over to the court, but he told court officials that he had not been able to find it then. Mr. Brosnahan said they were hoping Mr. Hsu would bring it to court with him today.

Guess not.

Today's Examiner editorial wonders how on earth a guy flees the country after pleading no contest to felony grand theft charges for running a $1 million Ponzi scheme in California, then shows up 15 years later in New York as one of the brightest fund raising stars of the Democratic Party.
Good question.

"The curious largesse of Norman Hsu"

It also makes you wonder if there are any connections to the Chinagate scandal.

Labels: Hillary, Hsu Scandal, Scandal

Labels: Attack Politics, Bill Clinton, Cartoons, Scandal

Over the holiday weekend, I pointed you to Flip Pidot’s excellent investigative post charting Norman Hsu’s campaign finance contributions. He’s done more digging and has a new report:

[I]t turns out there’s quite a bit more under the campaign finance rock than previously realized.

The Journal originally collected contribution data largely from federal campaign disclosures. After re-constituting that FEC data, I collected state-level campaign data from the National Institute on Money in State Politics, which served as the basis for the previous post. That tally totaled roughly $1.37 million in contributions to dozens of candidates since the 2004 cycle, slightly less than half of which were made by Hsu directly.

I’ve since added data from municipal elections (most of which turned up in New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco) as well as the most current data available in each state’s respective campaign finance database. Additionally, the NYC Campaign Finance Board collects “intermediary” data, which frequently identifies the bundler associated with a given contribution. This revealed three new individuals in Hsu’s network: Noah Yago, Youn Hadar, and Susan Chilman. While Yago’s and Hadar’s contributions appear to have been isolated incidents, a search for Chilman among the state and federal records turned up scores of additional donations. Totaling nearly $40,000 over three years, the size and timing of Chilman’s contributions frequently fit the suspicious patterns that have already led the FEC and the DOJ to investigate Hsu’s fundraising history. In the disclosure reports, Chilman lists herself as a self-employed actress. I’ve included Chilman’s contributions in the aggregate data, but not Yago’s or Hadar’s.

The grand total currently sits at roughly $1.6 million.

Labels: Campaign Contributions, Corruption, Democratic Criminal Activity, Hillary, Hsu Scandal, Scandal

Another campaign contributor to Senator Hillary Clinton came under the spotlight, according to the Washington Post.

Sant S. Chatwal, an Indian American businessman, has helped raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaigns, even as he battled governments on two continents to escape bankruptcy and millions of dollars in tax liens. ...

There followed a description of a trail of shady deals in Chatwal's wake. None of which seemed to bother anyone. "He was out on bond when he showed up in India in 2001 during a visit by his longtime friend Bill Clinton." Maybe meeting Bill while out on bail is par for the course.

Yet none of the legal and financial woes -- occasionally touched on in American or Indian newspapers or highlighted by political opponents -- raised red flags inside Hillary Clinton's fundraising operation. Chatwal recently said he plans to help raise $5 million from Indian Americans for Clinton's presidential bid.

Asked whether anything in Chatwal's background caused concerns about his activities on behalf of the campaign, Clinton spokesman Phil Singer answered, "No." He declined last week to be more specific, saying only that major fundraisers are routinely vetted "through publicly available records."

Like Hsu, Chatwal is described by his lawyers as a man struggling to get up after a run of bad luck. One of those riches-to-rags stories. "The man came to this country, accumulated an empire, lost it during the time of real estate [softness], and has struggled and worked to try to pay off his debts," said A. Mitchell Greene, Chatwal's lawyer for 25 years. "It has been a long battle, but he has cleared up all of his obligations, and in the process he is trying to accumulate his wealth again." Can't blame a man for trying to get back his riches. That would be un-American.

Labels: Campaign Contributions, Corruption, Hillary, Scandal

DT, it is pretty damn obvious that Hsu did not make all this money from a lemonaid stand on the corner. And if a person is making that kind of money in the garment industry (my business for 15 years) that he can give $1.3 mil in just a few years to political causes, he had to be making a whole like more.

I checked my resources and found no listing for Hsu in any of my garment vendor data. None. And I have a book of vendors that include fabric, notions, labels, importers, jobbers, production (sweat) shops, shippers, etc. Nothing. He did not exist in the garment world.

So how does a man with no clear business write a check for $2,000,000.00? Where did he get that kind of dough?

I will say it again. Pressure should be brought on the Paws with a promise of a long vacation at Club Fed if they don't turn a dime on Hsu. As well as the Lee family.

Do I think there is a common thread in all of this? Yes, and it leads right to the PRC and Beijing.

The human comedy is not to be disdained. Nonetheless, after listening to the post-arrest audio tape of Craig’s interview with Sergeant Dave Karsnia, I find myself inclining toward Henry Kissinger’s pronouncement on the Iran/Iraq war: It’s a shame they both can’t lose. As it happens, I passed by the very same men’s room at the Lindbergh Terminal only a couple of months ago. I didn’t go in, however. My general philosophy on public restrooms was summed up by the late Derek Jackson, the Oxford professor and jockey, in his advice to a Frenchman about to visit Britain. “Never go to a public lavatory in London,” warned Professor Jackson. “I always pee in the street. You may be fined a few pounds for committing a nuisance, but in a public lavatory you risk two years in prison because a policeman in plain clothes says you smiled at him.”

Just so. Sergeant Karsnia is paid by the police department to sit in a stall in the men’s room all day, like a spider waiting for the flies. The Baron von Richthoven of the Minneapolis Bathroom Patrol has notched up a phenomenal number of kills and knows what to look for — the tapping foot in the adjoining stall, a hand signal under the divider. Did you know that tapping your foot in a bathroom was a recognized indicator that a criminal act is about to occur? Don’t take your i-Pod in with you! [...]

What else is a giveaway that you’re a creep and a pervert seeking loveless anonymous sex? Well, according to Sergeant Karsnia, when the Senator entered the stall, he placed his wheelie bag against the door, which (according to the official complaint) “Sgt Karsnia’s experience has indicated is used to attempt to conceal sexual conduct by blocking the view from the front of the stall”.

No doubt. But, if you use the men’s room at the airport, where are you meant to put your carry-on? There’s not many other places in a bathroom stall other than against the door, unless Minneapolis is planning on mandating overhead bins in every cubicle. In happier times, one would have offered some cheery urchin sixpence to keep an eye on one’s bags. But today if you go to the airport bathroom and say to some lad, “Would you like to take care of my wheelie for five minutes?”, you’ll be looking at 30 years in the slammer.

I’ve no doubt Senator Craig went to that bathroom looking for sex. Listen to the tape of his encounter with Sergeant Karsnia and then imagine, as Jonah Goldberg suggested, how the conversation would go if Senators McCain or Webb had been in that stall and were accused of brushing shoes with the flatfoot. Not being privy to the codes of the privy, it would take ‘em 15 minutes even to figure out what Sarge was accusing ‘em of and, when it became clear, the conversation would erupt in a blizzard of asterisks and, shortly thereafter, fists. Instead, Senator Craig copped a plea. Because of that, he should disappear from public life as swiftly as possible and embrace full time the anonymity he cherishes in his sexual encounters. Not, as the left urges, on grounds of “hypocrisy” — because he’s a “family values” politician who opposes “gay marriage” yet trawls for rough trade in men’s rooms. A measure of hypocrisy is necessary to a functioning society. It’s quite possible, on the one hand, to be opposed to the legalization of prostitution yet, on the other, to pull your hat down over your brow every other Tuesday and sneak off to the cat house on the other side of town. Your inability to live up to your own standards does not, in and of itself, nullify them. The Left gives the impression that a Republican senator caught in a whorehouse ought immediately to say, “You’re right. I should have supported earmarks for hookers in the 2005 appropriations bill.” ...

Today some Republicans pat themselves on the back for their “courageous” stand against liberal charges of hypocrisy as they were early in their denunciation of Craig. Now, these would be the same liberals who show routinely their hypocrisy embracing Bill Clinton (accused of rape), Barney Frank (accused of allowing his home to be used for male prostitution), and the late Gerry Studds (who had sex repeatedly with a seventeen-year-old page). These Republicans fear the “culture of corruption” label the liberals have assigned them and aren’t quite sure how to respond to it. Mostly, they refuse to fire back by highlighting the numerous examples of demonstrable sleaze involving William Jefferson (alleged bribe), Alan Mollohan (alleged self-dealing), John Murtha (earmarks related to his brother), Dianne Feinstein (her husband profiting from military contracts), Hillary Clinton (Norman Hsu, et al), and, of course, the aforementioned Clinton, Frank, and Studds examples.

There is indeed a culture of corruption, and it extends well beyond any single politician. It swirls around big government. It always has and it always will. It has become institutionalized in many ways. And that culture of corruption celebrates clever word games used by unelected judges to exercise power they don’t have as they rewrite the Constitution; it demeans people of faith who speak out against the culture of corruption and for — dare I say — family values; it undermines and seeks to demoralize Americans in uniform as they fight a horrible enemy on the battlefield; it demonizes entrepreneurs and successful enterprises; it uses race, age, religion, gender, and whatever works to balkanize Americans; and so on. This is the real culture of corruption. Let’s call it what it is — modern liberalism. And its impact on our society is far worse than the disorderly-conduct misdemeanor to which Larry Craig pled guilty and for which he has now resigned.

Labels: Campaign Contributions, Democrat Sabotage, Hsu Scandal, Media Bias, Scandal, The Left, US Senate

A Pakistani immigrant who hosted fundraisers in Southern California for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is being sought by the FBI on charges that he funneled illegal contributions to Clinton’s political action committee and Sen. Barbara Boxer’s 2004 reelection campaign. Authorities say Northridge businessman Abdul Rehman Jinnah, 56, fled the country after an indictment accused him of engineering more than $50,000 in illegal donations to the Democratic committees. A business associate charged as a co-conspirator has entered a guilty plea and is scheduled to be sentenced in Los Angeles next week…

The case has transformed Jinnah from a political point man on Pakistani issues, a man often photographed next to foreign dignitaries and U.S. leaders, into a fugitive with his mug shot on the FBI’s "featured fugitives" wanted list. Jinnah’s profile peaked in 2004 and 2005 as he wooed members of Congress to join a caucus advancing Pakistani concerns and brought Clinton to speak to prominent Pakistani Americans, lauding their homeland’s contributions to the war on terrorism and calling relations with Pakistan beneficial to U.S. interests.

Jinnah and his family donated more than $100,000 to the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates. Now friends say they believe Jinnah has returned to Pakistan. Attempts to reach him and his relatives were unsuccessful. A "For Sale" sign stood in his yard on Thursday, and a neighbor said the family had not lived there for months.

Jinnah’s troubles appear to have begun when he attempted to circumvent election laws by reimbursing friends, business contacts and their family members for contributions made in their names, according to court records. Federal statutes set limits on contributions to federal campaigns and political action committees and bar donations made in the names of others. Authorities say that from June 2004 to February 2005, Jinnah directly or indirectly solicited contributions from more than a dozen "conduits," reimbursing them with funds from his company, All American Distributing, a seller of cellphone service and accessories. Authorities said the scheme allowed Jinnah to get around limits then in effect on individual donors of $5,000 per year to PACs and $2,000 per election to candidates, as well as the ban on using corporate money for political donations.

Jinnah’s case has been handled with discretion by the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, which recently lost a high-profile case against former Clinton campaign official David Rosen. Rosen was acquitted of charges of filing false reports about a Hollywood fundraiser given for Clinton in 2000…

Senator Clinton's likely Republican opponent in 2006 and a South Korean newspaper are raising questions about campaign donations the New York Democrat has received from a New York businessman who is involved in an organization that sets up cultural events in North Korea.

The organization was founded by a man who later resigned as South Korea's ambassador to America after allegations emerged that he helped establish a "slush fund" for South Korean politicians.

"Once again serious questions surround Senator Clinton's fund-raising operation," the Republican challenger in Mrs. Clinton's Senate re-election bid, a former mayor of Yonkers, John Spencer, said about the donations. "We know that federal charges were levied against her fund-raisers from her last campaign and that she has taken money linked to supporters of Iranian mullahs. Now another issue pops up. Senator Clinton needs to come clean and answer these latest questions."

The indictment, rare for a political campaign, was unsealed in Los Angeles charging David Rosen with four counts of filing false reports with the Federal Election Commission. The charges focus on an Aug. 12, 2000, dinner and concert supported by more than $1.1 million in "in-kind contributions" -- goods and services provided for free or below cost. The event was estimated to cost more than $1.2 million.

The FBI previously said in court papers that it had evidence the former first lady's campaign deliberately understated its fund-raising costs so it would have more money to spend on her campaign.

While the event allegedly cost more than $1.2 million, the indictment said, Rosen reported contributions of about $400,000, knowing the figure to be false.

The indictment charged that he provided some documents to an FEC compliance officer but withheld the true costs of the event and provided false documents to substantiate the lower figure.

In one instance, Rosen obtained and delivered a fraudulent invoice stating the cost of a concert associated with the gala was $200,000 when he know that figure was false, according to the indictment. The actual cost of the concert was more than $600,000.

Each of the four counts of making a false statement carries a maximum penalty of up to five years in prison and up to $250,000 in fines upon conviction.

Labels: Campaign Contributions, Corruption, Democratic Criminal Activity, George Soros, Hillary, Scandal, The Shadow Party

Labels: Cartoons, Scandal, US Senate

Labels: Republican, Scandal, US Senate

For the last 15 years, California authorities have been trying to figure out what happened to a businessman named Norman Hsu, who pleaded no contest to grand theft, agreed to serve up to three years in prison and then seemed to vanish."

He is a fugitive," Ronald Smetana, who handled the case for the state attorney general, said in an interview. "Do you know where he is?"

Hsu, it seems, has been hiding in plain sight, at least for the last three years.

Since 2004, one Norman Hsu has been carving out a prominent place of honor among Democratic fundraisers. He has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions into party coffers, much of it earmarked for presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

In addition to making his own contributions, Hsu has honed the practice of assembling packets of checks from contributors who bear little resemblance to the usual Democratic deep pockets: A self-described apparel executive with a variety of business interests, Hsu has focused on delivering hefty contributions from citizens who live modest lives and are neophytes in the world of campaign giving.

On Tuesday, E. Lawrence Barcella Jr. -- a Washington lawyer who represents the Democratic fundraiser -- confirmed that Hsu was the same man who was involved in the California case. Barcella said his client did not remember pleading to a criminal charge and facing the prospect of jail time. Hsu remembers the episode as part of a settlement with creditors when he also went through bankruptcy, Barcella said.

The bulk of the campaign dollars raised by major parties comes from the same sources: business groups, labor unions and other well-heeled interests with a long-term need to win friends in the political arena.

But the appetite for cash has grown so great that politicians are constantly pressured to find new sources of contributions. Hsu's case illustrates the sometimes-bizarre results of that tendency to push the envelope, often in ways the candidates know nothing about.

As a Democratic rainmaker, Hsu -- who graduated from UC Berkeley and the Wharton School of Business -- is credited with donating nearly $500,000 to national and local party candidates and their political committees in the last three years. He earned a place in the Clinton campaign's "HillRaiser" group by pledging to raise more than $100,000 for her presidential bid.

Records show that Hsu helped raise an additional $500,000 from other sources for Clinton and other Democrats."Norman Hsu is a longtime and generous supporter of the Democratic Party and its candidates, including Sen. Clinton," Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for the campaign, said Tuesday."

During Mr. Hsu's many years of active participation in the political process, there has been no question about his integrity or his commitment to playing by the rules, and we have absolutely no reason to call his contributions into question or to return them."

Wolfson did not immediately respond Tuesday night to questions about Hsu's legal problems.

Is America Really Ready for another 4 years of Clinton Scandals?

Hillary and Bill already own all of the records for scandal from their first stint in office- the infamous Clinton Culture of Corruption Years:

* Number close to the Clinton machine who have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to crimes: 44
* Number of convictions during his administration: 33
* Number of indictments/misdemeanor charges: 61
* Number of imprisonments: 14
* Number of presidential impeachments: 1
* Number of independent counsel investigations: 7
* Number of congressional witnesses pleading the 5th Amendment: 72
* Number of witnesses fleeing the country to avoid testifying: 17
* Number of foreign witnesses who have declined interviews by investigative bodies: 19

The Clinton machine now holds the record for the administration with:

* The most number of convictions and guilty pleas
* The most number of cabinet members to come under criminal investigation
* The most number of witnesses to flee the country or refuse to testify
* The most number of key witnesses to die suddenly
* The greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions
* The greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions from abroad.

And, already the Clintons are looking at another major fundraising scandal in the face.

Labels: Bill Clinton, Campaign Contributions, Corruption, Hillary, Scandal

One of the biggest sources of political donations to Hillary Rodham Clinton is a tiny, lime-green bungalow that lies under the flight path from San Francisco International Airport.

Six members of the Paw family, each listing the house at 41 Shelbourne Ave. as their residence, have donated a combined $45,000 to the Democratic senator from New York since 2005, for her presidential campaign, her Senate re-election last year and her political action committee. In all, the six Paws have donated a total of $200,000 to Democratic candidates since 2005, election records show.

That total ranks the house with residences in Greenwich, Conn., and Manhattan's Upper East Side among the top addresses to donate to the Democratic presidential front-runner over the past two years, according to an analysis by The Wall Street Journal of donations listed with the Federal Election Commission.

It isn't obvious how the Paw family is able to afford such political largess. Records show they own a gift shop and live in a 1,280-square-foot house that they recently refinanced for $270,000. William Paw, the 64-year-old head of the household, is a mail carrier with the U.S. Postal Service who earns about $49,000 a year, according to a union representative. Alice Paw, also 64, is a homemaker. The couple's grown children have jobs ranging from account manager at a software company to "attendance liaison" at a local public high school. One is listed on campaign records as an executive at a mutual fund.

The Paws' political donations closely track donations made by Norman Hsu, a wealthy New York businessman in the apparel industry who once listed the Paw home as his address, according to public records. Mr. Hsu is one of the top fund-raisers for Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign. He has hosted or co-hosted some of her most prominent money-raising events.

Labels: Campaign Contributions, Hillary, Scandal

Re Larry Craig, I'm inclined to agree with Hugh Hewitt. The Senator did, after all, choose to plead guilty.

In 2002, after George Michael released his anti-Bush/anti-Blair video, I wrote for the Telegraph in London a satirical column on his political views set in the context of his men's room arrest. George didn't care for it and, asked about this cruel mockery on some BBC show or other, responded petulantly: "What's he saying? That just because you've been arrested in a public toilet nobody should take your views on foreign policy seriously?"

Er, well, let's just say that it doesn't help. I've a high degree of tolerance even for laughingstocks, but honestly:

Craig stated “that he has a wide stance when going to the bathroom and that his foot may have touched mine,” the report states.

If only his stance on immigration was so firm. The point is, by the time you're issuing statements on your position in the men's room of Minneapolis International Airport, your position on Iraq is pretty much on an express chute to George Michael territory.

Labels: Republican, Scandal, US Senate

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton cites her experience as a compelling reason voters should make her president, but nearly 2 million pages of documents covering her White House years are locked up in a building here, obscuring a large swath of her record as first lady.

Clinton's calendars, appointment logs and memos are stored at her husband's presidential library, in the custody of federal archivists who do not expect them to be released until after the 2008 presidential election.

A trove of records has been made public detailing the Clinton White House's attempts to remake the nation's healthcare system, following a request from Bill Clinton that those materials be released first. Hillary Clinton led the healthcare effort in 1993 and 1994.

But even in the healthcare documents, at least 1,000 pages involving her work has been censored by archives staff because they include confidential advice and must be kept secret under a federal law called the Presidential Records Act. Political consultants said that if Hillary Clinton's records were made public, rivals would mine them for scraps of information that might rattle her campaign.

Labels: 2008 Presidential Race, Hillary, Scandal, Socialism, Socialized Medicine, The Left

Labels: Media Bias, Media War, Scandal

Labels: Bush Derangement Syndrome, Democrat Sabotage, Scandal

Labels: Scandal, The Kennedys, US Politics