From a reluctant Associated Press:

Top Dem fundraiser turns himself in

By PAUL ELIAS, Associated Press Writer

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - A top Democratic fundraiser whose criminal past has roiled the campaigns of top presidential candidates turned himself in Friday in California, where he had been a fugitive for more than 15 years.

Judge H. James Ellis ordered Norman Hsu handcuffed and jailed on $2 million bail. The judge declined Hsu’s request to immediately reduce the bail by half, instead scheduling a Sept. 5 hearing to consider the request.

Hsu pleaded no contest in 1991 to a felony count of grand theft, admitting he’d defrauded investors of $1 million in a bogus investment scam. He was facing up to three years in prison when he skipped town before his 1992 sentencing date, Deputy Attorney General Ronald Smetana said outside court.

Hsu also resigned from the board of trustees of The New School and from the board of governors of The New School’s Eugene Lang College. The college received a federal appropriation secured by Clinton last year, but a spokesman for the school said Hsu was not involved in seeking money for the school.

Friday’s 10-minute hearing in San Mateo County Superior Court was the culmination of a stunningly quick fall from grace for a disgraced California businessman who remade himself in New York apparel executive and benefactor of Democratic causes and candidates, including presidential contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose campaign designated Hsu a “HillRaiser” — a title given to top donors.

Federal Election Commission records show Hsu donated $260,000 to Democratic Party groups and federal candidates since 2004. Though a top fundraiser for Clinton, he also donated to Obama’s Senate campaign in 2004 and to Obama’s political action committee.

After reports surfaced this week of his fugitive status, politicians at all levels scrambled to distance themselves.

Obama’s campaign said Thursday it would give to charity the $2,000 Hsu contributed to his 2004 Senate campaign and the $5,000 Hsu gave to his political action committee, Hopefund.

Hsu’s $43,700 in donations to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and $2,500 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee also will go to charity, both groups announced.

Clinton joined the other candidates, returning $23,000 in contributions that Hsu made to her presidential and senatorial campaigns and to her political action committee, HillPac. But his close association with her campaign put Clinton on the defensive just as she prepared to ramp up for an intense post-Labor Day campaign stretch.

California officials who said they would get rid of donations from Hsu include Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and House members Mike Honda and Doris Matsui.

Earlier this week, Hsu said he thought the criminal charges had been taken care of when he completed his bankruptcy proceedings in the early 1990s.

“I have not sought to evade any of my obligations and certainly not the law,” Hsu said in a prepared statement…

Hsu’s lawyer and publicist declined say whether he would immediately post bail.

Luckily it’s the Friday before the Labor Day weekend, or the AP would have probably skipped this story altogether.

After all, what’s newsworthy about it?

There isn’t even a suggestion of gay sex.

From the terrorist enablers at Al Jazeera:

Korean hostages negotiator Kim Mambok, left with an unidentified associate addresses the press in a Dubai hotel, Friday Aug. 31, 2007.

S Korea criticised for hostage deal

South Korea is facing growing criticism amid reports it paid a ransom to secure the release of 19 Koreans recently freed by the Taliban.

Several sources have told Al Jazeera that a sum of money was paid by Seoul.

Japan’s Asahi Shimbun newspaper also quoted an Afghan source as saying the move was made after mediators decided the payment of a ransom was the only way to resolve the crisis.

However, a South Korean presidential spokesman said there had been no discussions with the Taliban about a ransom…

Taliban and Afghan officials have also denied that a ransom was involved.

But Alan Fisher, reporting for Al Jazeera from Kabul in Afghanistan, said that the “Taliban left the table substantially richer” and that the ransom could have been as high as $20m.

“We’ve gone back to several sources and again they have told us that as far as they are aware there was certainly a ransom paid and a figure that is being bandied around in Kabul is about $20m … All our sources tell us that money did change hands.”

He also reported that kidnappings by the Taliban were likely to continue.

“In a vow to continue with the kidnappings they [the Taliban] said that ‘we will do the same thing with other allies in Afghanistan because we found this way to be successful’,” he said.

Seoul had earlier restated its decision to withdraw its small military presence in Afghanistan - about 200 people comprised mainly of medical workers and engineers - by the end of the year.

It also agreed with the Taliban that it would ban missionary groups from going to Afghanistan, prompting criticism from the Korea World Missions Association.

“Korean churches cannot help expressing deep concerns over the agreement reached between the government and the Taliban to halt missionary activities in Afghanistan,” the organistaion said in a statement…

Critics have also hit out at the Afghan government, saying that the deal with the Taliban was a propaganda victory for the religious group.

Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, the Afghan foreign minister, said on Germany’s RBB radio that “if the impression is created now that the international community and the Afghan government allow themselves to be blackmailed, then this sends a very dangerous message”…

German politicians also criticised South Korea’s handling of the crisis, Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, saying Berlin would stand firm in its refusal to negotiate over a German engineer captured by the Taliban more than six weeks ago…

How absolutely appalling, if true.

How many more people will be kidnapped thanks to their short-sighted idiocy?

From the hopeless reactionaries at Life Site News:

[AP caption:] Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Mayor Jim Naugle, while insisting during a Aug. 28, 2007 interview that he is not homophobic and is simply trying to combat illegal and unsafe activity in his city, has made a string of recent comments that critics say were blatantly homophobic. He portrayed city park restrooms as popular gay sex spots and opposed a gay book collection in a public library. He’s called for less tourism emphasis directed specifically at gays and questioned tourism brochures showing men in bed together.

Gay Sex in Public a Major Health Risk - Naugle Calls on Homosexuals to Stem the Spread of HIV

FORT LAUDERDALE, August 23, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - At a news conference at City Hall this week, Jim Naugle, the mayor of Fort Lauderdale, Florida has called on homosexual men to end their public sexual encounters in order to curb the local HIV/AIDS rate. “We want to put a stop to that activity,” he said.

Since his first public comments in July, Naugle has been attacked on all sides for being nearly the only US public figure to oppose on moral grounds the encroachment of homosexual activity in his town.

Now Naugle is in the news again for his determination to clean up Fort Lauderdale’s beaches and tourist spots, that he says are a health threat. The tourist destinations, he says, are being used as “cruising” scenes for homosexual men looking for the anonymous sexual encounters that characterize the “gay” subculture. This activity, he says, is one of the major factors in the spread of the HIV virus in the area.

“Our goal isn’t to arrest people,” the Mayor said. “Our goal is to stop the activity…and we’re going to save some lives in the process.” Naugle said that eight men have been arrested in two years for having sex in restrooms at public parks.

“The health department, based on past statistics, estimates that around five hundred people in Broward County are going to contract HIV from men having sex with men.” The mayor said that the local health department estimates that 74% of HIV cases are the result of male homosexual activity.

Naugle first ran afoul of the US homosexual activist community when he supported the decision of the Boy Scouts to ban homosexual troop leaders. He has also objected to the presence of a large collection of homosexual pornography in the local public library.

His forthright campaign to clean up Fort Lauderdale has earned him the vilification of the mainstream press as well as the homosexual lobby. James A. Smith Sr., Executive Editor of the Florida Baptist Witness writes that a “Flush Naugle” campaign has been launched seeking his removal from office, although his current term ends in 2009 and he is ineligible for re-election…

He told press that he would ask members of the Tourist Development Council to stop promoting bathhouses, where homosexual men meet for sex. Tourist information provided by Broward County invites tourists to visit bathhouses. Fort Lauderdale is known as the “Venice of America” and is one of North America’s most important tourist destinations.

But at the meeting today, Naugle found himself at odds with local tourism business leaders who are using the homosexual subculture to promote “gay” tourism locally.

NBC6 News reports that Fort Lauderdale Tourism Board members said the mayor’s opposition to public sex in tourist spots and bathhouses is hurting business.

“The county is receiving quite a few e-mails and inquiries of concern about what’s happening,” said Richard Gray, owner of Palm Resorts and Spa. “The gay and lesbian tourism market is a massive market here. It’s about a $1 billion industry. It’s a very important niche market for Fort Lauderdale.”

As mentioned elsewhere, our watchdog media and the rest of the “gay community”" normally hold homosexual sex in public places such as restrooms to be a civil right.

The latest proof of which can be found in the relentlessly vicious attacks of Mr. Naugle’s campaign to clean up Ft. Lauderdale’’s public facilities.

But apparently this is yet another civil right that is denied Republicans. (Even Republicans who were only accused of “soliciting.”)

Why is that?

From the fans of the Taliban at the Associated Press:

South Korean hostages go home from Afghanistan

Friday, August 31, 2007

KABUL: Nineteen South Koreans freed by Taliban kidnappers prepared to fly home Friday as their government denied allegations that it paid a ransom to end the six-week hostage standoff.

A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said the militant group planned to abduct more foreigners, reinforcing fears that South Korea’s decision to negotiate directly with the militants would embolden them at a time of surging violence in the country.

“We will do the same thing with the other allies in Afghanistan, because we found this way to be successful,” he said via cellphone from an undisclosed location.

The 19 hostages, all church volunteers seized as they traveled by bus in southern Afghanistan on July 19, were freed in separate handovers on Wednesday and Thursday under the terms of a deal struck between the Taliban and South Korean government representatives…

Under the terms of agreement Tuesday, Seoul repeated a pledge it had made long before the kidnappings to withdraw its 200 troops in Afghanistan before year’s end and vowed to prevent missionaries traveling to the country…

A senior Afghan official close to the negotiations alleged Friday the South Koreans also paid a ransom.

“Definitely there was money, but I don’t know how much. I do not want to lie,” said the official on condition of anonymity, because of the sensitivity of the topic.

Cheon dismissed the claim, which other Afghan officials have also aired in recent days.

“There is no additional agreement other than what has been made public,” he said.

The Taliban have repeatedly denied receiving any money.

Rumors of multimillion-dollar ransom payments have swirled around other deals to release foreign hostages held by criminal gangs or the Taliban in Afghanistan, but they are difficult to prove, not least because neither side has any interest in acknowledging them…

The final three released - two women and a man - were handed over by armed men on a main road in the Janda district after apparently walking through the desert for some distance. Covered in dust, they were quickly bundled into a Red Cross vehicle and driven away.

The men accompanying the three gave an unsigned note to journalists accusing the South Koreans of coming to Afghanistan on a mission to convert the staunchly Islamic country to Christianity.

“They came to our nation to change our faith,” the handwritten note read. “The Afghan people have given their lives for their faith. This is the reason we arrested them.” …

In Washington, the State Department welcomed the hostages’ release. When asked if South Korea’s negotiations with the Taliban set a dangerous precedent, a spokesman refrained from directly criticizing the Seoul government.

“I’d simply reiterate that the long-standing U.S. policy,” he said, is “not to make concessions to terrorists.” …

While one is glad for the hostages’ release, it is a near certainty that the South Koreans paid the Taliban a sizeable ransom, in addition to promising to remove all their support for the allies’ mission in Afghanistan by the end of the year.

Terrorism wins again. 

From their fans at the Washington Post:

Rove Protesters Charged

AU Students Agree To Pay $100 Fines

By David Montgomery
Friday, August 31, 2007; B01

Six American University students agreed late yesterday to pay $100 fines to settle misdemeanor charges stemming from a raucous April 3 protest of White House counselor Karl Rove’s visit to the campus, their attorney said.

The cases were filed by the D.C. attorney general’s office last week — nearly five months after the demonstration in which one student mooned Rove’s car while some of the others allegedly lay in the street to block the vehicle. Five students were accused of crossing a police line and of disorderly conduct. The sixth was charged with crossing a police line.

The students had not turned themselves in to be formally charged when their attorney, Mark L. Goldstone, began negotiating with the D.C. attorney general’s office. Goldstone said a prosecutor proposed the $100 fines for a single charge of crossing a police line. The students would have a record of arrest but not conviction. They accepted the proposal after the close of business yesterday, but Goldstone said he was unable to reach the prosecutor to convey their acceptance. The settlement would not be official until the students appear in D.C. Superior Court early next week…

The students said the protest took place after campus Republicans had invited Rove to speak. The demonstrators crafted a plan to enact a “citizens arrest.”

“We could not allow somebody of that stature who has had such a detrimental effect on the country to come to our campus and have no statement of disapproval accompany that,” said Michael Canning, 21, one of the students.

About 80 students participated in the demonstration and 15 to 20 tried to block Rove’s car, said Michael McNair, director of American University’s public safety department, the campus police.

Until last week, the students thought the activities were behind them. Then came news of the criminal charges against six of the demonstrators…

“I was pretty much in shock,” said Elizabeth Sanders, 20, a senior, of the moment she learned of the warrant for her arrest…

Goldstone, who has represented political demonstrators for more than 20 years, said it was highly unusual that no arrests were made at the time of the demonstration, which is when police usually act against suspected lawbreakers during protests.

“It’s suspicious that the government waited until the first day of school, in effect, to serve them with arrest warrants,” Goldstone said. “We suspect there was some political pressure put on the government to prosecute because of it being Karl Rove.” …

McNair said the reason no arrests were made the night of the protest was because campus police and the Secret Service were taken by surprise by the demonstrators’ tactics. No D.C. police were on the scene. McNair said the priority was to remove the students and let Rove’s car exit the campus…

McNair said the campus police originally focused on using the campus disciplinary process. Five of the six students were accused of violating the campus code of conduct, and at least some were assigned community service…

Here is a video clip we posted last April of the young rapscallions’ puckish pranks, via YouTube:

I guess we should be grateful for the minor miracle that they were prosecuted at all.

But just as a thought experiment, try to imagine the outcome if this had happened to Mr. (or Mrs.) Clinton’s chief of staff.

Somehow I don’t think the punishment would be limited to $100 fines or community service.

A search on Google News for "Larry Craig" returns 5,482 articles, mostly from the brand name mainstream news media:

Larry Craig is alleged to have made improper advances in a public bathroom. (An activity our media usually uphold as a "civil right.")

He will resign his Senate office today in disgrace.

The actual incident happened three months ago. Mr. Craig is a Senator that most people have never heard of before.

Meanwhile, a search on Google News for "Norman Hsu" returns 437 articles, and many of them are from "blogs":

Norman Hsu is alleged to have violated our campaign finance laws by funneling millions of dollars into the coffers of the Democrat party over the last three years. (Laws our media usually deem "sacrosanct.")

The money involved is very possibly from the Communist Chinese government. Hsu has been on the lam from a three year prison sentence for 15 years for stealing a million dollars.

The story involves the Democrat’s current presumptive Presidential nominee, their last Presidential nominee, and many of its best known candidates.

Moreover, the DNC and the Clintons both have had well documented problems in the past with corrupt contributors, and even several with Communist Chinese connections.

So which story would you think has more significance for the republic in the long term?

But perhaps there is some other criteria at work in the media’s decision as to what is important news.

From an outraged Reuters:

Petraeus says Iraq “surge” working: paper

Thu Aug 30

CANBERRA (Reuters) - The U.S. troop surge in Iraq has thrown al Qaeda off balance and led to a reduction in sectarian violence and bombings, the U.S. commander in Iraq was quoted on Friday by an Australian newspaper as saying.

“We say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do everything we can to build on that progress and we believe al Qaeda is off balance at the very least,” General David Petraeus told the Australian in an interview after briefing Australia’s defense minister, Brendan Nelson, in Baghdad…

Petraeus told the Australian that there had been a 75 percent reduction in religious and ethnic killing since last year, while the number of al Qaeda “kills and captures” was on the rise.

Coalition deaths from roadside bombings were also declining since Bush sent an extra 30,000 troops to Iraq, he said, according to the newspaper.

Nelson said he had received a frank assessment of progress during a 90-minute meeting with Petraeus and said “the message is that this is achievable.” …

Articles like this are going to make it tough for our watchdog media and the rest of the lunatic left to claim that the forthcoming Petraeus report is not optimistic.

Luckily, this will get very little play in the mainstream media, even on the slowest week for news of the year.

From those defenders of the faith (Islam) at Reuters:

The Blake Prize entry titled ‘Bearded Orientals: Making the Empire Cross’ by artist Priscilla Bracks is exhibited in Sydney August 30, 2007. The ‘double vision’ print, which depicts both Jesus Christ and Osama bin Laden, in a Christ-like pose, depending on which side the viewer looks at the artwork, has been criticised by Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard for undermining Australians’ religious beliefs.

Christ-like bin Laden image stirs debate in Australia

By Katrine Narkiewicz Thu Aug 30

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Artworks depicting Osama bin Laden in a Christ-like pose and a statue of the Virgin Mary covered in a burqa have caused a stir in Australia after they were showcased in a prestigious religious art competition.

“Bearded Orientals: Making the Empire Cross” by Priscilla Bracks is a “double vision” print that depicts both Jesus and bin Laden.

Luke Sullivan’s “The Fourth Secret of Fatima” is a statue of Mary, her head and torso obscured by a blue burqa like the one Afghan women had to wear under the militant Taliban.

The artworks were among more than 500 entries in the Blake Prize for Religious Art, and have been included in an exhibition at the National Art School in Sydney.

“The choice of such artwork is gratuitously offensive to the religious beliefs of many Australians,” Australian Prime Minister John Howard told Thursday’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.

Opposition Labor leader Kevin Rudd also criticized the artwork. “I accept you know people can have artistic freedom, but I find this painting off, off in the extreme. I understand how people would be offended by it,” he said.

Australia’s 20 million population is overwhelmingly Christian and the print was condemned by the Australian Christian Lobby.

“It’s really unfortunate people take liberties with the Christian faith they wouldn’t take with other religions,” Lobby spokeswoman Glynis Quinlan told reporters…

Spokesperson for the Blake Prize, Reverend Rod Pattenden, defended he controversial selection for this year’s competition, saying the aim of the prize was to encourage discussion about spirituality in society — the goal of both artists…

The Blake Prize entry titled ‘The Fourth Secret of Fatima’ by artist Luke Sullivan is exhibited in Sydney August 30, 2007. The statue of the Virgin Mary, wearing a burqa, has been criticised by Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard for undermining Australians’ religious beliefs.

Priscilla Bracks’s oh-so-naughty exhibition, “Bearded Orientals: Making the Empire Cross” can be viewed here.

But here is another example of her artistry, along with her oh-so-clever exegesis::

About Making the Empire Cross

A long, long time ago, in a land far, far away …

A preacher, a hegemonic ruler, and his inappropriate use of nails threatened the tenuous balance of power in a remote outpost of the Empire. These ‘troubles’, which have since grown to plague the entire planet, are documented by the chronicle - Making the Empire Cross.

In Unleashed! - the first episode for the new millennium - the peace of the New World is shattered by the evil Jihad Joe who storms the Capital, destroying everything in his path. It seems clear that this dealer of death is merely a foot soldier in a war between two fundamentalist groups, each fighting for the supremacy of their own self-styled hegemony. But many questions remain.

Who is Public Enemy Number 1? And who is this two-bit dictator wading into a battle that has now raged for two millennia? A babble of speculation filled the news-wire, opinions were offered, and official statements released. But just when the truth seemed within reach, a strange silence descended upon the people….

The Queensland Government, through Arts Queensland, has provided $9,999 to Priscilla Bracks to produce and present this series of artworks.

That’s right. Ms. Bracks’s exhibit was funded by Australian taxpayers’ dollars.

Here is the painting of Jesus, the Osama Bin Laden image juxtaposed with it, and the artist’s (clearly revised in the face of recent criticism) "statement":

Bearded Orientals Making the Empire Cross by Priscilla Bracks 2006

Lenticular Image (Pigment Ink Digital Print) in a Gold Frame
40 x 40 cm
Edition of 8

Artist Statement

This work is concerned with relationships between contemporary popular culture, and the futures we (for better or for worse) create.

It is not intended as a statement but rather as a means to ask questions. In particular, I’m questioning the relationships between media, popular culture, and the development of truth, history and ideology.

When you observe these two people, Osama Bin Ladin and Jesus, their ethics could not be more different. But they were both pursued by two of the world’s most powerful armies – the US and the Roman armies. Jesus is clearly defined by history, but I am interested in how history will treat the image of Osama.

There is a very real possibility that by giving such significant media attention to those who commit crimes and advocate violence, we may inadvertently elevate of them [sic] to a status where in some circles, they are perceived as sacred and holy – revered in the same way we revere Jesus.

This work has quite an open text so people are likely to read the image in many different ways. Some have mentioned they see it as a juxtaposition of good and evil, whilst others are interested in its comment on how iconic figures are created.

To me this work is a cautionary tale about our fixation with crime, violence and catastrophe. Access to information is important and there are instances where this has been well balanced with the temptation to sensationalise. No war was declared against the Lockerby [sic] bombers. Instead they were extradited and tried for murder amidst media coverage that left few people with a lingering memory of their names. Similarly, Martin Bryant was moved to an inner cell in his Tasmanian prison to ensure his media attention did not turn him into a cult figure like Charles Manson. There is a wisdom in this approach that has been forgotten in the case of Bin Laden, and this lapse may have unintended, unwelcome effects in the future.

Priscilla Bracks

August 2007

Gosh, that is deep.

And so daring.

From those champions of campaign finance reform at the New York Times:

Clinton Donor Under a Cloud in Fraud Case

August 30, 2007

By MIKE McINTIRE and LESLIE WAYNE

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign said yesterday that it would give to charity $23,000 it had received from a prominent Democratic donor, and review thousands of dollars more that he had raised, after learning that the authorities in California had a warrant for his arrest stemming from a 1991 fraud case…

The travails of Mr. Hsu have proved an embarrassment for the Clinton campaign, which has strived to project an image of rectitude in its fund-raising and to dispel any lingering shadows of past episodes of tainted contributions.

Already, Mrs. Clinton’s opponents were busy trying to rekindle remembrances of the 1996 Democratic fund-raising scandals, in which Asian moneymen were accused of funneling suspect donations into Democratic coffers as President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore were running for re-election…

“Everyone is trying to make the implications that it’s Chinese money, that it’s the Al Gore thing all over again, but I haven’t seen any proof of that,” said John A. Catsimatidis, a leading donor and fund-raiser for Mrs. Clinton in New York.

Some donations connected to Mr. Hsu raise questions about his bundling activities, although there is no evidence he did anything improper. The Wall Street Journal reported that contributors he solicited included members of an extended family in Daly City, Calif., who had given $213,000 to candidates since 2004, even though some of them did not appear to have much money.

A lawyer for Mr. Hsu, E. Lawrence Barcella Jr., has said that Mr. Hsu was not the source of any of the money he raised from other people, which would be a violation of federal election laws.

On his own, Mr. Hsu wrote checks totaling $255,970 to a variety of Democratic candidates and committees since 2004. Even though he was a bundler for Mrs. Clinton, his largess was spread across the Democratic Party and included $5,000 to the political action committee of Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois…

Mr. Hsu’s success on the political circuit was not always matched by success in business.

Born and raised in Hong Kong, Mr. Hsu came to the United States when he was 18 to attend the University of California, Berkeley, as a computer science major. He later received an M.B.A. at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, according to a brief biography that appeared in apparel industry trade publications in 1986.

With a group of partners from Hong Kong, Mr. Hsu started a sportswear company in 1982 called Laveno that went bankrupt two years later, not long after he left the company. From that, he cycled through several other enterprises, mostly men’s sportswear, under the Wear This, Base and Foreign Exchange labels.

Mr. Hsu’s career hit a low in 1989, when he began raising $1 million from investors as part of a plan to buy and resell latex gloves.

Ronald Smetana, a lawyer with the California attorney general’s office, said Mr. Hsu was charged with stealing the investors’ money after it turned out he never bought any gloves and had no contract to resell them.

When Mr. Hsu was to attend a sentencing hearing, he faxed a letter to his lawyer saying he had to leave town for an emergency and asking that the court date be rescheduled, Mr. Smetana said.

He failed to show up for the rescheduled appearance, and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. That was the last that prosecutors saw of Mr. Hsu.

“We assumed he would go back to Hong Kong, where he could recede into anonymity,” Mr. Smetana said…

Mr. Hsu issued a statement yesterday, saying he was “surprised to learn that there appears to be an outstanding warrant” and insisting that he had “not sought to evade any of my obligations and certainly not the law.”

“I would not consciously subject any of the candidates and causes in which I believe to any harm through my actions,” he said.

At some point, Mr. Hsu resurfaced in New York, where he was connected to several clothing-related businesses, according to campaign finance records, which list his occupation variously as an apparel consultant, clothing designer, retailer or company president…

In typical fashion, we are only hearing about the Hsu scandal in the New York Times by way of a defense of their DNC bosses.

What’s the problem? Hillary is going to give the money to charity? (After first insisting that she was going to keep it.)

And notice how the theft of one million dollars is played down as a “fraud case” and “a career low.” 

Note too how The Times accepts the explanation that Hsu simply forgot about his three year prison sentence. Yes, that is very plausible. 

And they are right, there is certainly no reason to suspect any Chinese involvement in this – just because all of the people involved so far are Chinese immigrants to this country.

Obviously Mr. Hsu is just a nice guy who tends to put these kind of unpleasant details out of his head.

Though, despite being a complete failure at business, he is amazingly generous to the Democrat Party.

Which of course that makes him blameless in the eyes of the New York Times and the rest of the media.

From a delighted Associated Press:

Deputy chief of the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), Olli Heinonen, (L) shakes hands with deputy secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, Javad Vaeidi.

IAEA: Iranian cooperation significant

By GEORGE JAHN, Associated Press Writer

VIENNA, Austria - The U.N. nuclear agency said Thursday that Iran was producing less nuclear fuel than expected and praised Tehran for “a significant step forward” in explaining past atomic actions that have raised suspicions.

The assessment is expected to make it more difficult for the United States to rally support for a new round of sanctions against Tehran.

At the same time, the report confirmed that Iran continued to expand its uranium enrichment program, reflecting the Islamic republic’s defiance of the U.N. Security Council. Still, U.N. officials said, both enrichment and the building of a plutonium-producing reactor was continuing more slowly than expected.

Iran promptly touted the report as supporting Iran’s stand that the U.S.-led calls for a third round U.N. Security Council sanctions on Iran over its refusal to halt uranium enrichment were unjustified…

“This report ended all the baseless U.S. accusations against Iran,” Mohammad Saeedi, deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, was quoted as saying by the state IRNA news agency. “Once again the agency confirmed validity of Iran’s stances,” he said, adding that “the U.S. had deceived the world over Iran’s nuclear activities by claiming that Iran was reprocessing plutonium.”

Drawn up by IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei, much of the confidential report obtained by The Associated Press focused on the already publicized action plan finalized just a few weeks ago between the agency and Iran, restating progress in some areas and time frames for Iran to respond to additional questions.

In that plan, Iran agreed to answer the final questions from agency experts by November.

If that and all other deadlines are met and Iran provides all the information sought, the agency should be able to close the file on its more than four-year investigation of Tehran’s nuclear activities by year’s end, a senior U.N. official said…

How utterly preposterous.

This report is based on Iran’s answer to four of the ten questions that the United Nations agency has asked them to answer. (They promise to answer the other six by November.)

Apart from some cursory visits to some Iraq nuclear sites, that is about it.

Some “investigation.”

But the IAEA decided Iraq should have the bomb a long time ago.

From an outraged Associated Press:

US man pleads guilty in plot to sells arms to Ahmadinejad opponents

Aug 30, 2007

An Iranian-born California man pleaded guilty to a scheme to buy submachine guns and sell them to Iranian government officials opposed to the country’s president, court records show.

Under the plea agreement reached this week, Seyed Mostafa Maghloubi, a US citizen, acknowledged that he attempted to obtain night vision goggles and as many as 100,000 Uzis for shipment to Iran, in violation of US laws.

Maghloubi, 49 was the subject of a sting operation in February, when a person he had reportedly approached about buying the equipment brokered a meeting between him and a Los Angeles police detective Maghloubi believed was an arms dealer, according to the plea deal.

Maghloubi, who claimed to have high-level contacts with government officials in Iran, eventually took delivery of three Uzis and a pair of night vision goggles, the court papers show.

The horror.

Thank goodness the police in Los Angeles have their priorities straight.

From the DNC’s Associated Press:

Iraqi soldiers take a break as their comrades stand guard at a checkpoint near Sadr City.

Auditors say Iraq goals not being met

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The Iraqi government has failed to meet the vast majority of political and military goals laid out by lawmakers to assess President Bush’s Iraq war strategy, congressional auditors have determined.

The Associated Press has learned the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, will report that at least 13 of the 18 benchmarks to measure the surge of U.S. troops to Iraq are unfulfilled ahead of a Sept. 15 deadline. That’s when Bush is to give a detailed accounting of the situation eight months after he announced the policy, according to three officials familiar with the matter.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the report has not been made public, also said the administration is preparing a case to play down the findings, arguing that Congress ordered the GAO to use unfair, “all or nothing” standards when compiling the document…

The GAO, the congressional watchdog, is expected to find that the Iraqis have met only modest security goals for Baghdad and none of the major political aims such as passage of an oil law…

An internal White House memorandum, prepared to respond to the GAO findings, says the report will claim the Iraqis have failed on at least 13 benchmarks. It also says the criteria lawmakers set for the report allow no room to report progress, only absolute success or failure.

The memo argues that the GAO will not present a “true picture” of the situation in Iraq because the standards were “designed to lock in failure,” according to portions of the document read to the AP by an official who has seen it…

“It’s pretty clear that if that’s your measurement standard a majority of the benchmarks would be determined not to have been met,” said one official. “A lot of them are multipart and so, even if 90 percent of it is done, it’s still a failure.”

At the Pentagon, spokesman Geoff Morrell previewed the administration’s response to the GAO report, comparing it unfavorably to the July findings.

“The standard the GAO has set is far more stringent,” he told reporters. “Some might argue it’s impossible to meet.” …

What a shock. A Democrat report claims that the Iraqis have not met their impossible benchmarks and therefore the war is lost.

Obviously the GAO’s ”all or nothing” standard was intended to guarantee this finding from the start.

The real surprise here is that for once the AP bothers to report the administration’s side.

But of course the headline and the lede are all that most people will read. And those claim that the surge has failed.

And that is what the Democrats and their media lickspittles want to drum into the public’s mind in advance of the (Democrat ordered) Petraeus report.

Here is an article from last March by the same duo of reporters who broke the story that Norman Hsu is on the lam.

The Los Angeles Times seems to have purged the piece from its site. So this comes courtesy of the packrats at Rantburg:

Mr. Sadiq, Senator Hillary Clinton and Mr. Rehman Jinnah

Clinton donor wanted by FBI in scheme to funnel money

Robin Fields and Chuck Neubauer,

Los Angeles Times, March 3, 2007

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…

According to the indictment, Jinnah arranged $30,000 in donations to HillPac by having Schoenburg, a Tarzana television producer, approach family members and others to act as straw donors. Schoenburg and five others contributed $5,000 apiece. Jinnah later reimbursed them with funds from his corporation, prosecutors say. In one instance, authorities allege, Jinnah and Schoenburg agreed to write "production" in a reimbursement check’s memo line, falsely indicating it was payment for production services…

The indictment says Jinnah also found 14 straw donors to give $28,000 to the 2004 reelection campaign of Boxer (D-Calif.). Among the contributors were five employees of Jinnah’s company, Schoenburg and several members of Schoenburg’s family, records show.

Sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it?

Somehow this story got even less play in the mainstream than this week’s Clinton campaign finances scandal.

Which is to say none at all.

From the back pages of the New York Times:

NASA Chief of Safety and Mission Assurance Bryan O’Connor (L) and NASA Administrator Michael Griffin announce the results of a safety review which found no evidence of improper alcohol use by astronauts before space flight in Washington, DC.

Astronauts Were Not Impaired for Missions, NASA Says

By WARREN LEARY

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 — A NASA investigation into astronauts’ use of alcohol before space missions has found no evidence of heavy drinking or drunkenness in the hours prior to launches, according to an agency report released today.

After a month-long review of 20 years of spaceflights conducted by NASA’s safety chief, the former astronaut Bryan D. O’Connor, no evidence could be found to support hearsay claims of astronauts being impaired by alcohol before missions, the report said.

“Within the scope and limitations of this review, I was unable to verify any case in which an astronaut spaceflight crewmember was impaired on launch day,” Mr. O’Connor wrote.

He also said he found no evidence that a flight surgeon or fellow crewmember’s recommendation that an astronaut not fly had ever been disregarded by managers…

Top NASA officials asked Mr. O’Connor to investigate astronaut drinking after a review of spacefarers’ health, released in July, cited two unverified reports of problem drinking before flights.

The health review was one of two that were commissioned after the arrest in February of a former astronaut, Capt. Lisa Marie Nowak of the Navy, who confronted a romantic rival in an Orlando International Airport parking lot…

The health review cited two drinking incidents as examples of situations where the concerns of flight surgeons and other crewmembers had been ignored by other NASA officials before flights.

The chairman of that panel, Colonel Richard E. Bachmann Jr., a physician who commands the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, said the review included the anecdotal references to the drinking incidents to emphasize the seriousness of ignoring flight surgeons. The panel did not ask for details of the accounts, nor did it investigate them, he said…

How typical. The New York Times blared the false allegations on the front page above the fold.

The truth is hidden away on the back pages, in the “Space & Cosmos” section.

From a gobsmacked Associated Press:

Mahdi army militiamen parade during a rally in Baghdad, 2006.

Al-Sadr Suspends Militia Activity in Iraq

By DAVID RISING
Wednesday, August 29, 2007

BAGHDAD — Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered a six-month suspension of activities by his Mahdi Army militia in order to reorganize the force, and it will no longer attack U.S. and coalition troops, aides said Wednesday.

The aide, Sheik Hazim al-Araji, said on Iraqi state television that the goal was to “rehabilitate” the organization, which has reportedly broken into factions, some of which the U.S. maintains are trained and supplied by Iran.

“We declare the freezing of the Mahdi Army without exception in order to rehabilitate it in a way that will safeguard its ideological image within a maximum period of six months starting from the day this statement is issued,” al-Araji said, reading from a statement by al-Sadr.

In Najaf, al-Sadr’s spokesman said the order also means the Mahdi Army will no longer launch attacks against U.S. and other coalition forces.

“It also includes suspending the taking up of arms against occupiers as well as others,” Ahmed al-Shaibani told reporters.

Asked if Mahdi militiamen would defend themselves against provocations, he replied: “We will deal with it when it happens.” …

Of course this is great news, if it is true. But Mr. al-Sadr seldom tells the truth.

And we know how easily provoked they are.

So we shall see.