I first heard about these donations earlier this year. It boggles the mind.
Why is a Democratic Senator, former First Lady and future Presidential candidate accepting donations from the Chinese family behind the sweatshop abuse on the Commonwealth of North Mariana Islands (CNMI)?
It makes no sense. These folks are deeply connected to Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay and the GOP culture of corruption. Bribes from the Tan Family and payoffs (with US taxpayer funds) by DeLay and his pals will send some Congressmen/women to jail.
And yet, Hilary Clinton has accepted $10,000 from the family for her Friends of Hillary Campaign Committee:
Donations to Hillary Clinton from the Tan Family
KIM LAM, PEK, Homemaker; 9/30/2005; $2,000
TAN, JOISE, N/A/Homemaker; 10/2/2005; $2,000
TAN, RAYMOND, Luen Thai/President; 9/30/2005; $2,000
TAN, SIU L, Tan Holdings Corp./Chairman; 9/30/2005; $2,000
TAN, WILLIE, Luen Thai/COO; 9/30/2005; $2,000
This is a problem and it needs to be corrected.
More on the jump...
In my Diaries
about the Abramoff scandal I have spent a lot of time focusing on the Tan Family. I have also spent a good deal of time making it clear that this is a GOP owned and operated scandal. One of the worst aspects of this scandal is the human cost of labor abuse, human trafficking, forced prostitution and forced abortions on CNMI.
By 1994 it was clear that the abuse on CNMI was a big problem and there was a bi-partisan revulsion to the practices of the Tan Family (emphasis added). On August 29, 1994 the Washington Post reported:
For most visitors, this tiny U.S. island is an idyllic place of flowering flame trees, turquoise waters and homey cordiality where motorists routinely wave to each other. Natives like to call it "the Friendly Island."
But for many foreign workers over the last several years, a little slice of paradise in the Pacific has become an outpost of tropical hell under the American flag -- a place where labor and human rights are routinely violated by islanders who are U.S. citizens. [snip]
Waitresses have been forced into prostitution and locked up during their free time, the sources say. Housemaids have been beaten and raped. Farm laborers have been treated as virtual slaves. Construction workers have been abandoned without pay. And foreign employees of all categories have been routinely cheated of their wages. [snip]
A missionary said a waitress in his congregation was locked in a shipping container by her employer when she refused to become a "take-out girl," as prostitutes are called in local parlance. [snip]
In attempting to pursue some abuse complaints on the islands, federal authorities have regularly encountered challenges to their jurisdiction, hostility from tight-knit local communities and witnesses too intimidated to testify. "It's like trying to do a civil rights action in the old Deep South," said Mikel Schwab, an assistant U.S. attorney on neighboring Guam.
"Congress has got to send a very clear message that this kind of behavior cannot be tolerated," said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.). He favors cutting the commonwealth's current annual federal grant of $ 28 million. Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Calif.) wants U.S. immigration laws applied to curb the importation of "slave labor."
Then the Tan Family hired Jack Abramoff through their control of the local CNMI government. Over the next 10 years they kept the money flowing through Abramoff to feed the DeLay Inc. GOP Slush Fund. And over the last dozen years the abuse has not stopped. DeLay and the GOP made sure of that.
Now Abramoff is going to jail. DeLay may be right behind him. And many more GOP Congressmen did favors for Jack Abramoff and the Tan Family. Doolittle, Young, Rohrabacher, Taylor, Pombo and a host of others pray every night that the truth will not come out. Or at the very least they can muddy the waters and hide their crimes in the confusion.
In fact, the Everybody Does It meme is the GOP fallback position. That is why they worked so hard to equate every dollar from a Native American with their crimes. It muddied the waters. They work overtime inflating Democratic scandals and downplaying the Republican ones. They have the Media as willing participants because the narrative supports the illusion of balance. (It is the same illusion of balance that gives ink to proponents of intelligent design and deniers of global warming).
We are fighting uphill. We need to be smart. Any Democrat taking money from the Tan Family is stupid. That goes triple for Hillary Clinton.
The Abramoff scandal is slowly turning towards CNMI. In 2002 the Bush Administration and GOP Congress gave CNMI more than $28 million in grants. And that was only part of your money that Jack's friends gave to the Tan Family that year. And that was just what the pay-off was in 2002. Since 1994 it has been a rich relationship between the Tans of Hong Kong and DeLay's GOP. It is important to note that the 1994 WP story mentioned that the entire Federal payment to CNMI that year was $28 million. By 2004 Jack, Tom, George W. Bush and the GOP were sending a lot of money back to their Chinese patrons.
Then Jack got caught. People are talking. Names and events are coming up in court filings. The Tans or CNMI are often mentioned. Trouble is brewing.
This story will break soon. And when it does all of the press will point out that the Tan family gave to Democrats too. And the only evidence will be the $10,000 they just sent to Hillary.
The RW noise machine is getting ready for the attack. It started on March 10 with National Review article by Byron York:
Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton has accepted campaign contributions from a Saipan garment-industry tycoon, sometimes described as a sweatshop operator, whose ties to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff have been part of the lobbying scandal investigation. [snip]
For years, Willie Tan, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen, has played a central role in business and politics in the Northern Mariana Islands. His chief interest has been in protecting his garment factories, which pay sub-minimum wages, from U.S. labor laws. In 1992, Tan's businesses were cited as sweatshops by the Labor Department, and Tan was forced to give $9 million in back wages and damages to workers. As part of his effort to steer clear of further American regulation, Tan hired Jack Abramoff.
Last year, ABC News reported that Abramoff "arranged a lavish overseas trip to the island of Saipan for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay over the New Year's holiday in 1997." Correspondent Brian Ross reported that DeLay met with Willie Tan during the trip, and ABC played a surreptitiously recorded tape in which Tan said DeLay had promised to stop moves in Congress to reform the island's garment factories. National Journal reported that Tan also met with DeLay and Abramoff during DeLay's 2000 trip to England and Scotland. And the Washington Post reported that "the owners of textile companies in the Mariana Islands" -- a group in which Tan was a major player -- contributed $500,000 to the U.S. Family Network, a so-called "astroturf" lobbying organization linked to DeLay which received an even larger sum -- in secret -- from Russian oil interests.
Tan's name has appeared in the volumes of Abramoff e-mails released by congressional investigators. In a March 28, 2000, note, published on the website of liberal blogger Josh Marshall, Abramoff billed Tan $223,679 for expenses relating to the sports skyboxes that Abramoff used in his lobbying.
Some of Sen. Clinton's fellow Democrats have long crusaded against Tan's labor practices. "We have been trying for years to secure hearings to investigate reports of mistreatment of foreign workers in this U.S. territory," California Rep. George Miller said at a press conference after ABC aired its report on Willie Tan and DeLay. "Now we apparently know why our requests (for hearings) have been denied -- a very cozy relationship between the Republican leadership of the House and the major garment industry tycoon in Saipan."
Last month, Sen. Clinton was one of 36 Democratic senators who called on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to appoint a special prosecutor in the Abramoff case. Among the reasons Clinton and her colleagues cited was the importance of the investigation into Abramoff's activities in the Northern Marianas.
And that was with York only tracing $8,000. He missed Lam Kim-pek, the wife of Tan Family patriarch Tan Siu Lin. That brings the total to $10,000.
One reporter who is clearly on this story is Zach Coleman of Hong Kong's business newspaper, The Standard. He laid it out for the slow witted (DLC insiders, I've included this bit for you):
Garment king backs Hillary Clinton's bid
Tarred by its financial support for Republican Party candidates and affiliated lobbyists in the United States, the Tan family of Hong Kong is throwing its weight behind likely US Democratic Party presidential contender and Senator Hillary Clinton. [snip]
As the biggest player in Saipan's garment and tourism industries, the Tans depend heavily on labor from China and, increasingly, mainland tourists.
Mainland citizens can go to Saipan for work or play without a US visa, unlike other American territories. Under special provisions, local employers are allowed to pay wages below the minimum wages in mainland US and to ship products to the US free of tariffs and quotas. [snip]
Data recently published on the US Federal Election Commission's Web site show five family members each donated the legal maximum of US$2,000 to the Friends of Hillary campaign committee last fall.
Family donors include patriarch Tan Siu-lin, his wife Lam Kim-pek and sons Willie, Luen Thai's chief operating officer, and Raymond, its president.
In the company's 2004 prospectus, Raymond was listed as a Chinese national living in Hong Kong, but his Clinton contribution form identifies him as a US citizen resident in Saipan.
Federal campaign regulations mandate that only US citizens or permanent residents can donate. [snip]
Previous Tan contributions to Republican officials such as Congressman Richard Pombo are under scrutiny as those who accepted Tan money have been labeled by campaign challengers this year as sweatshop supporters in the wake of the bribery scandal centered on indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who directed the political defense of Saipan garment makers in Washington.
Tan-owned factories spent US$10.4 million to settle US government charges in 1991 and 1992 of violations of worker's pay, health and safety regulations. The factories paid another US$2.2 million in 2002 to settle a broad class-action by garment workers against Saipan manufacturers and their retail customers for alleged workplace abuses.
In the run-up to the 2004 US presidential election, Tan Siu-lin, his five sons and Josie Tan donated US$13,000 to President George W Bush's reelection campaign. Josie and Henry Tan, Luen Thai's chief executive each gave Bush US$1,000 for his 2000 campaign.
[Note: I highlighted the mention of Pombo by Zach Coleman because this is a name-heck nobody should want. There are dozens of GOP Congressmen who hav a Tan Family/Abramoff problem. The fact that Pombo got the name check should forshadow more trouble for him. I'm sure the the excellent Dairies of Land of Enchantment will run this scandal link to ground. But I digress...]
Let's turn our focus back to the junior Senator from NY.
So Hillary takes a GOP owned and operated scandal and steps right into the shit. Really, by now any donation from the Tan Family should be radioactive to any US politician. And yet, Hillary takes the money. And the odd thing is that she does not even need it. All this does is give the GOP talking points, smoke, mirrors and a time-tested way to cloud the issue when the facts about their crimes on CNMI come to light.
Thanks Hillary, for the great leadership and political smarts.
I had called her office and campaign within days of the Byron York story. Weeks have gone by without any action. It is way, way past time for Clinton to return these tainted donations.
Already the RW noise machine is in dull roar mode. A Google search of +"National Review", +"Hillary Clinton", +Tan brings in over 12,000 hits. When the Abramoff scandal starts bagging more GOP insiders because of the paybacks they gave the Tan Family, Hillary will find herself mentioned in every story. And of course the RW will tie all of this to their alleged Clinton/China fantasies. Already York is inventing a line of bullshit that ties these donations to a meeting on Guam in 1995.
We have to help Clinton. We have to help our Country. We can not let the GOP muddy the water as their crimes come home to roost. Contact the Hillary Clinton campaign and demand that they return the $10,000 donations from the Tan Family (and don't accept any more cash from them). This is tainted money. It is all wrapped up in sweatshops, human trafficking, sexual slavery and a host of other crimes.
This $10,000 to Hillary is the first time that I have seen a Democrat tied to the Abramoff scandal. Quite an accomplishment, especially since the donations came more than a year after Jack's political death.
We can win in November, but not if our political leaders are going to be this dumb.
We have a country to take back and we can not let stupidity and/or greed give the GOP an easy out.
So Hillary (and all you DLC folks), please stop it. Some money isn't worth it.
WTF.