Wow. Recommended.

This has to go wide.

What a stupid article. A family gives $15K to Bush and $10K to Clinton and that must mean the politicians agree with all their activities and are in their hip pocket? How many individual donors for Obama's campaign? $40 million in one month? Care to go through that list and start grouping people to see who did what and guess what sordid presumptions you can build off of it? Nah, didn't think you did.

I'm gonna post this wherever I can.

No way. She's gotta go and Obama needs to stay as far away from her as possible. It's not ok if you're DeLay, it's not ok if you're failing Repub Co senate candidate Bob Schaffer who is getting killed by this in his race against Udall and on the frontpage of TPM and it's not ok if you're a Clinton.

She and Bill have been in league with the infamous Tan family since 1995. She'll argue ignorance but it won't matter, nobody will believe it. The issue of corruption is killing the Republican party. Fixing that corruption is one of the central tenets of Obama's "change the way Washington does business" message. Hillary kills that message, and gives Repubs the chance to say "they all do it", he's no better, he picked Hillary to be his running mate, look at her. She'll muddy our message like she's muddied her reputation and kill our turnout.

Sen. Clinton, Guam and Sweatshop $$$: A Stain on the Democratic Party

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/27/33526/9800/199/5042

And to anybody who says this is false: have you not been paying attention lately? Clinton tried to tie Obama to Ayers, and I don't think the republicans will be any more honest about her.

She's still playing out the string with many trying to slot her as the VP candidate. There is no way she can be VP candidate.

The Clintons took hundreds of thousands of dollars from sweatshop slave labor operators in Guam for Bill's re-election campaign in 1996.

In December 1996, John Garamendi, the Clinton administration's point man on island issues, circulated an internal report supporting key provisions of a bill changing Guam's governing status to that of the Marianas.

Today, John Garamendi is a Clinton Super Delegate and Lt. Gov. of California. Back in the mid-1990s he was part of the anything goes fund-raising ethic that plunged both major political Parties into moral twilight.

As the WaPo wrote in 1997:

Garamendi's proposals on Guam policy, made in a seven-page report, are contentious because U.S. officials fear that if local authorities on the island are given the right to decide who can come there, they will import thousands of low-wage laborers from Asia and subject them to poor treatment, including an effective ban on unions and other civil rights. These officials point to Guam's northern neighbor, the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, known in the area as Guam's "ugly sister."

Congress gave those islands control over immigration in 1976, and since the mid-1980s businessmen have shipped in more than 29,000 low-wage laborers from Asian countries to work in 18 garment factories built to take advantage of the fact that goods made in the Marianas are "Made in the USA" and not subject to U.S. customs quotas. The average worker labors for $ 2.90 a hour at least 60 hours a week in horrendous conditions that one U.S. Department of Labor official described as "feudal servitude."

As Dennis writes: The Washington Post story embarrassed the Clinton Administration. It became part of the litany of attacks from the Right Wing and the media. As far as I know, the money was never returned, but the forces in the Clinton Administration who were opposed to the Pirates of Saipan won out over the folks like John Garamendi who would appease those running the sweatshops for a few sacks of blood money.

In the end, the Clinton Department of Interior fought a valiant effort to end the abuse in the Mariana Islands, but they were defeated by Jack Abramoff, Tom DeLay and the Republican Party.

Many in the Clinton Administration fought for justice in the CNMI and many still do.

As for Senator Clinton, hers is a record of silence on the issue and her actions seem to be more supportive of the Tan Family than supportive of the victims of their system of abuse.

In 1995, she visited Guam and hung out with Willie Tan. Then he joined others in a fundraiser in her honor when she left. A decade later Willie and his Family would give her $10,000 and their head of Tan Family American operations would kick in another $16,000.

She can serve in the senate as long as the people of NY will have her. She should pray 60 Minutes or Bill Moyers doesn't come knocking on her door.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/4/27/33526/9800