Is the New School a conduit between China and the Clintons?

 
Possibly. At minimum, it's a bizarre tit-for-tat as funds go to the New School and board-members/trustees of the school send funds to Hillary. Consider these intriguing discoveries:

1) The New School -- a famously progressive, anti-war institution -- is quietly engaged in sensitive work for the DOD thanks to -- apparently -- Bob Kerrey's stewardship and possibly Hillary Clinton's direction

2) The New School also has deep ties to Bernard Schwartz, former head of Loral, who allegedly instigated donations by the Chinese military to the DNC in exchange for the right to access sensitive missile technologies

3) The New School reserved a prestigious post for Norman Hsu, Hillary Clinton's fundraiser extraordinaire-cum-fugitive (also a Chinese national), possibly at Schwartz's request

4) The New School has another deep connection to China through its ICI arm (the India-China Institute)

4) The New School has at least eight large donation bundlers (Hillraisers) in various board-level or trusteeship positions; these are folks who have each funneled $100,000 or more to Hillary

5) Hillary has sent her own pork-barrel contracts to the New School (e.g., a $1 million federal grant)

To summarize, a fugitive, bankrupt Chinese national -- connected to Bernard Schwartz, who played a role in the release of national security secrets working with the Chinese government -- somehow acquires huge wealth and donates hundreds of thousands of dollars to the leading Democratic candidates... along with several other folks at the New School.

Over at Daily Kos, commenter Golem666 comments:

...Bernard L. Schwartz, who worked for the Chinese shell company that the Clintons gave the ballistic missile technology [for] Bill Clinton's re-election, put Norman Hsu on the Board of Trustees of the New School in NY. Hillary Clinton ear-marked 750,000 dollars to the New School recently as a pork barrel project. Bernard L. Schwartz taught the Communist Chinese party how to build ICBM's which could make it out of the lower atmosphere. This was one of the main reasons that China was able to destroy a satellite in space this year, touching of fears of a new arms race in space...

This is disturbing stuff.

Why does the New School appear to be both a beneficiary and a source of funds to Hillary? Given Hsu, Schwartz, and the tarnished history of the Clinton administration, is China's government linked somehow? If so, what is China getting in return -- besides access to a presidential front-runner? And why is the notoriously progressive, anti-war New School working for the DOD?

Also: the New School has a direct affiliation with China and India through its "India-China Institute".

My question is... is the New School a more clever cutout for China/Clinton linkages than Johnny Chung and the Lippo Group?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Hat tip: Larwyn

Toys You Had As a Kid That Would Be Outlawed Today

 
Jarts! a.k.a. "Lawn Darts." I'm not sure how many thousands of punctured limbs these things were responsible for, but the class-action lawyers must have cleaned up.

Tonka Dump Trucks: fabricated entirely from Ginsu knives by Tonka. They could slice fingers off if slightly mishandled.

Stretch Armstrong: the kind filled with jelly. If these were sold today, a hypo-allergenic, ADD nutcase would swallow the jelly, get sick, and his parents would sue the Chinese manufacturer. The entire episode would form a 20/20 special hosted by John Stossel; Nancy Grace would devote a week of shows to the injustice.

Bow and arrows: remove the suction-cups from the ends of the arrows and -- whhoooooeeee -- you really could put an eye out; and I'm sure some kids did.

Bangsite!: evil-smelling, granular crap that came in an industrial-strength toothpaste tube -- it may have been calcium carbide. Mixing Bangsite with water made an explosive gas. Some kids had Bangsite cannons, heavy cast iron things that were relatively safe to use. Normal kids took a metal baking soda can and punched a nail hole through the bottom. This turned the can into a three-man, crew-served weapon. One kid tipped some Bangsite into the can, spat on it, jammed the lid on, and placed the can on the edge of the curb. Second kid put his foot on the can to brace it. Third kid applied the match to the nail hole. KAF---INGBOOM!!! -- with a burst of flame, the lid goes flying clear across the street. I still cannot believe that my parents knew I was doing this, and let me.

Airplane and ship models: yep, we spent hours in our rooms with model glue... and our parents didn't care a bit. These days, a SWAT team might get called in.

Flexy Racers: a sled on wheels that was missing only one thing: brakes. These mysteriously disappeared from the market after -- I'm guessing here -- some kid slid into an Interstate and got pancaked by an 18-wheeler.

Wrist Rockets: basically a weapons-grade slingshot that fit around your wrist and used massive rubber tubes as the bands. The ammo was indistinguishable from a heavy ball bearing. Slightly less powerful than a .357 Magnum, and slightly more powerful than a .38.

All-aluminum snow sleds: on a decent hill, you could hit 70 MPH and some kids did, may they rest in peace.

Water-air rockets: I don't remember the brand, but this was a rocket that you filled with water and then pumped full of air. Let's just say that after a couple of hundred concussions and numerous missing teeth, it was removed from the market.

Adapted from a 2004 post

Columbia U. decides to publish Genocide Magazine

 
Not really. But since Columbia decided to offer a free public relations coup for genocidal maniac Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I figured they'd publish a magazine for him as well. How off-kilter has the MorOn.org crowd become? One Cosmos offers a stellar synopsis of the irrationality endemic to the left (hat tip: Larwyn).

...the normal train of leftist logic would be ROTC --> Don't ask, Don't tell policy --> Homophobia --> Get off our campus, fascists! But Ahmadinejad -- whose government's policy toward homosexuals is [we'll execute you] -- is given a pass because he shares the left's passionate hatred of America and of President Bush. Their interests converge in the deep, symmetrical unconscious. Ironically, it is obvious that Ahmadinejad is much more conscious of this than the left to which his manipulative talking points are tailored. You might say that he is consciously speaking to the left's unconscious, pushing every one of their happy buttons he can think of. Don't believe me? Daily Kos: 45% Want Ahmadinejad As US President or Daily Kos: I Am a Jewish Lesbian, and I Have a Crush on Ahmadinejad "... the guy speaks some blunt truths about the Bush Administration that make me swoon... Okay, I admit it. Part of it is that he just looks cuddly. Possibly cuddly enough to turn me straight. I think he kind of looks like Kermit the Frog. Sort of. With smaller eyes.... I can’t help but be turned on by his frank rhetoric calling out the horrors of the Bush Administration and, for that matter, generations of US foreign policy preceding...." For the left, it is always feelings, nothing more than feelings.... But always with a reality-flattening dose of unconscious logic.

OC posted a little too early to catch another brain-dead Kosian post:

* Daily Kos: Ahmadinejad 'Sounds Entirely Too Reasonable'

No wonder those that are beating the war drums against Iran didn’t want Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak any place American [sic] might hear him. Thanks to Columbia University and CPAN [sic] he was heard by many. He sounds entirely to [sic] reasonable. Hearing his own word doesn’t help the cause of demonizing him as a madman and the most recent [sic] Hitler. This is someone we definitely should be talking to... in the interest of promoting peace and knowledge...

Yup. Peace and knowledge.

The dictator who flogs and executes homosexuals, who stones women for adultery, and who outlaws the practice of religions other than Islam has said peaceful, knowledgeable things like:

* Death to America: "I say accomplishment of a world without America and Israel is both possible and feasible."

* Death to Israel: "The efforts to stabilize Israel’s fraudulent regime have failed. Believe me, soon this regime will be no longer... Today, there is no reason left for it to remain, and it is about to disappear. ...[Israel is a] disgraceful blot [that should be] wiped off the face of the earth..."

* Holocaust is a Myth: "They have invented a myth that Jews were massacred... The West has given more significance to the myth of the genocide of the Jews... If you have burned the Jews, why don't you give a piece of Europe, the United States, Canada or Alaska to Israel."

* Nuclear threats: "Anybody who recognizes Israel will burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury... Remove Israel before it is too late and save yourself from the fury of regional nations... As it has lost its raison d' tre, Israel will be annihilated... Israel is a tyrannical regime that will one day will be destroyed... Israel is a rotten, dried tree that will be annihilated in one storm."

* Messianic Delusions: "...one of our group told me that when I [spoke at the UN and said] "In the name of God the almighty and merciful," he saw a light around me, and I was placed inside this aura. I felt it myself. I felt the atmosphere suddenly change, and for those 27 or 28 minutes, the leaders of the world did not blink. … And they were rapt. It seemed as if a hand was holding them there and had opened their eyes to receive the message from the Islamic republic..."

Reasonable. Peaceful. Knowledgeable. Daily Kos has turned into a sick joke. One wonders whether a nuclear detonation in Berlin, London, Tel Aviv or San Francisco would even get their attention.

Marcel Marceau died yesterday

 
Marcel Marceau died yesterday in Paris. The internationally renowned mime was 84.

The tragic aspect of the story is that Marceau choked to death in a restaurant. Onlookers, believing they were watching another of his brilliant performances, simply applauded.

Sorry about that last paragraph, folks. Sometimes I have a sick sense of humor.

The "Hillraisers" go to School. The New School, that is.

 
A few days ago, Suitably Flip's phenomenal analysis linked fugitive Clinton fundraiser Norman Hsu to the former ownership of the Lillian Vernon (LV) company. Fred Hochberg, son of the founder, had contribution patterns that uncannily match those of Hsu. Or maybe cannily -- if that's a word -- given the ties between the two.

The annual report of The New School -- a liberal arts college in New York -- lists both Hsu and Hochberg as board members/trustees. In addition, Bernard Schwartz, former CEO and Chairman of Loral Space & Communications is also among the members of that august group.

The name Loral may ring a bell. In 1998, Congress investigated the bizarre ties between the Clinton administration, the Chinese military, and a series of fundraisers for Democratic causes.

Starting in 1995, Schwartz gave around a quarter of million dollars to the DNC and related groups. Less than three months after the last contribution, Bill Clinton approved the launches of four U.S. satellites on Chinese rockets. And less than a month after that -- on March 14, 1996 -- Clinton moved the satellite licensing function from Defense to the Commerce Department over objections from the military and intelligence communities. It gets worse. Read the summary from MSNBC in 1998 (when the network still had news and investigative departments) for a series of shocking revelations that, truthfully, deserve to be told and retold during Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Back to the New School and the Hillraisers: the New School -- by its own admission -- is a "legendary, progressive university" that produces "economists and actors, fashion designers and urban planners, dancers and anthropologists, orchestra conductors, filmmakers, political scientists, organizational experts, jazz musicians, scholars, psychologists, historians, journalists, and above all, world citizens-individuals..."

Whether the school is a breeding ground for open-border socialists I'll leave to the conspiracy theorists among us. I was more intrigued by the revelation that Hsu, Hochberg, and Schwartz were board members/trustees of the school. I wrote a small program that would analyze the list of board members or trustees (around 200 names) and compare it to the list of around 200 "Hillraisers" -- Hillary's donation bundlers who had contributed $100,000 or more to her campaign.

I no longer trust the Hillary site's list of Hillraisers, since Mr. Hsu has disappeared from the list. Instead, I used the list for all presidential candidates operated by WhiteHouseForSale.org, which tracks bundlers for both parties.

Using a soundex algorithm -- rather than an exact name match -- I found that there are not three, but at least eight Hillraisers who are also board members or trustees of the New School. They are:

John Catsimatidis Barbaralee Diamonstein (Diamonstein-Spielvogel in The New School's Annual Report) Blair/Cheryl Effron (Blair is a Hillraiser, wife Cheryl on the New School list) Fred Hochberg Norman Hsu Bernard Schwartz Jay Snyder Sally Susman

It would be interesting to determine whether -- besides Hsu and Hochberg -- other patterns of apparently bogus donations exist between the New School Hillraisers.

Hitler at Columbia

 
A few days ago, I created a poster mocking Columbia for its willingness to host genocidal madman Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

I included the names of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot as other members of a "distinguished speakers series" consisting of mass-murderers; leaders of despotic regimes responsible for the deaths of scores of millions of innocents.

Problem was, no one told Columbia University about the parody. Interviewed on Fox News, the institution's Dean of International and Public Affairs -- John Coatsworth -- asserted that he'd be delighted to host Hitler.

I wonder why we haven't heard anything from authors like Elie Wiesel or Allan Dershowitz in response. Or, for that matter, frequent Fox contributor Benjamin Netanyahu. It would be interesting to get their perspectives on Columbia's willingness to provide public relations support for genocidal maniacs. And their shocking refusal to allow the ROTC to speak on campus.

Also see: Hot Air

New York state issues drivers licenses for illegals

 
Gordon Taylor at Red State:

The question before the state [of New York] was, "What should we do to get rid of illegal aliens driving illegally in New York State?" A. When stopped for a traffic violation, arrest them for driving without a license. B. When stopped for a traffic violation, arrest them for driving without a license and also for being here illegally and deport them. C. Apologize for the inconvenience and send them on their way with a free lottery ticket. D. Escort them to the nearest Department of Motor Vehicles to get a license. The answer the state chose was... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...D

The New York Post summarized the ramifications for residents of the state.

Gov. Spitzer announced yesterday that illegal immigrants will get driver's licenses - but at a cost to legal citizens because they'll now be useless as airport ID... Spitzer said the state would no longer require a Social Security number or proof that a person is not eligible for such a number in order to qualify for a driver's license. ...States that fail to meet the [2005] standards will lose their certification by the Department of Homeland Security, meaning that driver's licenses in those states will no longer be valid for air travel, entry to federal facilities and for tax purposes... Travelers will now have to carry a second form of ID, like a passport, which was met with criticism yesterday. "To outright dismiss the security needs of our state and nation and provide illegal aliens documentation is dangerous and inconceivable," said Sen. Dale Volker (R-Depew)... "Gov. Spitzer should not view New York state driver's licenses like baseball cards - handing them out just to score political points." Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.), the ranking member on the House Committee on Homeland Security, said: "I strongly disagree with giving state-authorized IDs to illegal immigrants. More importantly, this proposal raises serious homeland-security concerns..."

True, but I can think of few other concerns as well.

Such as the possibility of illegal voting scams that would benefit the likes of Hillary Clinton and Spitzer himself.

Story idea: Larwyn. McLovin's drivers' license: Gothamist. UBL's license adapted from: TRJ.

When I was a kid, the only thing you could build with Legos...

 
...was a really crappy-looking house. These kids today have no idea how good they've got it! Cell-phones with text-messaging and Internet browsing; high-end, ultra-thin laptops; Halo on X-boxes; and even their Legos are infinitely cooler than the ones we had in the seventies.

Back in the day, the only way to make Legos look like this would have been to use a blow-torch and my little brother's hands to shape the burning plastic.

Look up Political Correctness in the dictionary...

 
...and you'll see this photo.

If historians want to point to a single day in America when life just stopped making sense, it was probably this one.

What did Arafat and Hitler have in common?

 
Besides a homicidal hatred of Catholics and Jews, that is.

A Mr. E.G.C. Brandt, a member of the Swedish parliament, nominated Adolf Hitler for the 1939 Nobel Peace Prize. The nomination was withdrawn in a letter dated February 1, 1939.

Good thing the nomination was withdrawn. Based upon wins by folks like Arafish, Hitler was a lock. Hat tip: LGF

Why did Canada's member of parliament cross the road?

 
Answer: To get to the better health-care on the U.S. side.

Canada's CTV reports (hat tip: Texas Rainmaker):

Liberal MP Belinda Stronach, who is battling breast cancer, travelled to California last June for an operation that was recommended as part of her treatment, says a report... Stronach's spokesman, Greg MacEachern, told the Toronto Star that the MP for Newmarket-Aurora had a "later-stage" operation in the U.S. after a Toronto doctor referred her. ...He said speed was not the reason why she went to California.... Instead, MacEachern said the decision was made because the U.S. hospital was the best place to have it done due to the type of surgery required...

Our thoughts and prayers are with Stronach, who faces a grave medical crisis.

But the lesson learned is a simple one. As in the UK, it appears government elites often opt out of the public health-care system in order to pursue private health-care solutions. Advocates of HillaryCare v2.0 would do well to ruminate on that fact --- long and hard.

The Microsoft Downgrade

 
Enough folks are sufficiently troubled by Microsoft Vista that manufacturers have begun quietly offering another option. You can downgrade your Vista machine to XP:

While Microsoft is still pushing Vista hard, the company is quietly allowing PC makers to offer a "downgrade" option to buyers that get machines with the new operating system but want to switch to Windows XP... "That's going to help out small- and medium-size businesses," Fujitsu marketing manager Brandon Farris told CNET News.com. ...While there is always resistance by some to move to a new operating system, there appears to be particularly strong demand, especially from businesses, to stick with XP... One of the challenges, for both businesses and consumers are Vista's hefty graphics and memory needs.

Some of Bruce Schneier's comments from February figure prominently into the equation.

Windows Vista includes an array of "features" that you don't want. These features will make your computer less reliable and less secure. They'll make your computer less stable and run slower. They will cause technical support problems. They may even require you to upgrade some of your peripheral hardware and existing software. And these features won't do anything useful. In fact, they're working against you. They're digital rights management (DRM) features built into Vista at the behest of the entertainment industry... And you don't get to refuse them.

Of course, users could always choose to downgrade from Vista to Ubuntu.

Hillary in Deep Hsit

 
The walls around Castle Hillary are crumbling. The blogosphere is slowly unwinding the back-story of the inscrutable Mr. Norman Hsu. Suitably Flip has the details -- and they are flat-out startling (hat tips: Anchoress and Larwyn).

If there's one thing that can be said about Clinton financial scandals, it's that they tend to be complex. And thus far, the Norman Hsu debacle is living up to the archetype... The mystery of Hsu's [choice of candidates] is a vexing one. Enlightenment, however, appears to be tucked away in a single transaction listed in a NYC Campaign Finance Board disclosure... [it's] peculiar. As an A-list Democratic fundraiser, Hsu is typically the bundler in these transactions, not the bundlee. So what gives? Lillian Vernon is a trinket catalog company... founded by Lillian Hochberg in Mount Vernon, NY (clever, eh?) in 1951. Lillian's son Fred is the current CEO and his brother David is an executive at the company... If you run a search for Fred Hochberg's own federal political contributions, the telltale Hsu pattern once again emerges. ...Fred Hochberg... [is] a fellow HillRaiser... Hochberg is also a dean at the New School, where Hsu was a trustee until this scandal broke last month and the school hurriedly removed his name from their website. Also on the New School board is Bernard Schwartz, one of Bill Clinton's biggest financial backers and the central figure in Clinton's scandal involving the sale of missile technology to China. And the lily gilder: Fred Hochberg was a member of President Clinton's Cabinet.

Read it all, folks. Hsu's links to China, ICBM technology, and Bill Clinton's scandal-ridden administration are still a bit fuzzy, but they are starting to come into focus.

The dirty money flowing to the Democratic Party from Hsu alone is about to surpass that of the Abramoff scandal. Somehow I don't think we'll see the same sort of coverage in the mainstream media.

But facts are facts and it's clear Hillary's campaign is beginning to crumble like a stale cracker.

The Genocidal Midget at Ground Zero

 
If he visited the WTC, I know who Ahmadinejad would be paying respects to.

And it won't be the innocent victims.

Hat tip: Rick

The Pardons 'R' Us Circus

 
Last week, Tony Rodham -- Hillary Clinton's brother -- settled an old lawsuit of infamous origins. Rodham was accused of failing to repay $107,000 plus interest to the estate of a carnival operator and his wife.

Mysteriously, the mainstream media didn't cover the story.

The couple -- Allen and Vonna Jo Gregory -- received pardons for bank fraud convictions from President Bill Clinton after Rodham became a paid consultant to a carnival business the couple owned.

I'm sure that was just a coincidence.

Rodham had claimed that the money he received from the Gregorys was for "consulting services," but attorneys said it was a loan.

Rodham said he had talked to his brother-in-law about the pardon, but went on to add that President Clinton made the decision to grant clemency on the merits of their case. And he said that with a straight face.

Another of Hillary's brothers, Hugh Rodham, became a beneficiary of Pardons-R-Us. He "was paid more than $400,000 for his successful efforts to win pardons for a businessman under investigation for money laundering and a commutation for a convicted drug trafficker. He eventually returned the money at his sister's request."

As his presidency drew to a close, Clinton pardoned 140 people, including billionaire fugitive Marc Rich. Rich's ex-wife, Denise Rich, contributed nearly a half million dollars to the Clinton presidential library project, $1.1 million to the Democratic Party, and at least $109,000 to Hillary Clinton's Senate campaign.

A circus is an entirely appropriate theme for this bunch of clowns.

Columbia's Distinguished Speakers Series

 
Here's the poster advertising the event.

It truly is a proud tradition.

Hillary's National Security Adviser is a Convicted Thief

 
Surprise!


"Excuse me, Mr. Berger! What's that you're carrying out?"
The mainstream media hasn't noticed one of Hillary's key national security advisers, Sandy Berger.

The more experienced Hillary Clinton, meanwhile, has relied largely on her husband and a triumvirate of senior officials from his presidency—former secretary of state Madeleine Albright, former U.N. ambassador Richard Holbrooke and former national-security adviser Sandy Berger (who tries to keep a low profile after pleading guilty in 2005 to misdemeanor charges of taking classified material without authorization).

That Hillary would name an admitted thief like Berger to this position says all you need to know about the Democrats and national security.

Line o' the Day: Who are the Dems afraid of?

 
President George W. Bush, commenting on Democrats' refusal to criticize MorOn.org's "General Betray Us" ad:

[It] leads me to come to this conclusion: that most Democrats are afraid of irritating a left-wing group like MoveOn.org, or more afraid of irritating them, then they are of irritating the United States military.

I guess they really don't support the troops

 
This really doesn't come as much of a surprise.

Supporting the troops essentially means supporting the illegal war. It seems that us anti-war types have been doing all sorts of mental and philisophical gymnastics to try and work around this...

If you call lying "doing all sorts of mental and philisophical gymnastics", then -- yes -- I suppose so.

As Marine Lt. Col. Stan Coerr wrote in today's Journal:

How is it that the people who are actually going to the war, who are actually sacrificing for this cause, are the ones who support it most strongly? ...These Americans have catalyzed a fledgling modern Iraq, which, though it has existed for decades, has just begun to live.

Genocidal midget wants to tour ground zero

 
Mahmoud Ahmedinejad plans to visit the United Nations in New York City for the General Assembly meetings later this month. NBC reports that the genocidal midget asked to visit ground zero to "lay a wreath". After meeting with the Secret Service and the Port Authority, NYPD officials decided to refuse the request citing "security reasons."

Hey, I've got an idea.

Let's let him tour a scenic building in the Bronx.

For, say, 444 days or so.