Talk:1996 United States campaign finance controversy/Archive 1

message: what specific allegations of pov violations are made?  without discussion of the topic, there is no way to fix it. Derex 03:45, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  npov 

message: what the hell?  i've _never_ heard of that with regard to the phrase "chinagate".  there are vast numbers of google hits for wen ho lee and chinagate separately.  a miniscule percentage of those are hits for them together.  and most of those do so coincidentally.  it's simply not correct that wen ho lee is any part of what is popularly known as chinagate, other than that he's chinese.   
that's a problem with this article title, it's a neologism.  the title ought to be something descriptive about controversial Chinese political contributions.  Derex 03:56, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: does someone want to defend the inclusion here?  stashing lee under chinagate is, as best i can tell, purely a wikipedia invention.  am i wrong?  is there a sourceable basis for this? Derex 23:19, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  wen ho lee? 

message: I edited a few phrases to distinguish facts from opinion.  I've removed the POV check banner.  Whoever added the Wen Ho Lee material will have to resolve that with Derex.  --Eseymour 23:23, 31 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  npov check removed 

message: I have reworked the article to be more neutral, more concise, and focus on the original meaning of the phrase: a campaign finance scandal.  The material about Wen Ho Lee and the espionage issues already has dedicated articles ... Wen Ho Lee and Cox report respectively.  The Buddhist temple aside (not directly related) is covered as the first issue in the Al Gore controversies page.  So, I'm not trying to "censor" anything, just get some sort of logical organization to the various components.  There was quite a bit of material about those two issues here, and I tried to verify it was already present in those two articles.  However, there I may have missed something, because of the large amount.  If so, I apologize, it's not my intent to remove any factual information. Derex 18:36, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  article content 

message: This page was in dire need of detailed information, references, notations, etc. I am in the process of rebuilding the entire page. I hope to be finished within a few weeks. --Jayzel68 16:15, 8 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  In Process of Re-building Entire Page 

message: I'm considering moving this entire page to 1996 Campaign Finance Scandal and having all traffic redirected there. Does anyone have any disagreements with this? I realize "chinagate" is more popular with people on the net, but is was only known as "campaign finance" with print and tv media at the time in question. --Jayzel68 15:31, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Move to different page 

message: Financial scandal in Zimbabwe? Russia? France? This should be rename to 1996 USA campaign finance scandal or sth similar.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:53, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Tnx. Do mind that the links to the FAC/PR templates need to be fixed as well.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 21:57, 16 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rename 

message: John Kerry was named in several of these scandals when they were in the news - see his talk page. I think that should be mentioned here. 67.15.76.185 02:21, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, I don't see any mentions on that page of 1996 campaign finance scandals. Is that the year you're thinking of? -Will Beback 02:50, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Many U.S. politicians received tainted money. Sens. Dianne Feinstein, John Kerry, and Ted Kennedy, as well as Rep. Curt Weldon to name a few. I din't add this information into the article for a few reasons: All money was returned and no criminal charges were brought against them; I didn't want to overload the article with factoids that don't fit into the flow of the prose; The article already runs pretty long at 50 kilobytes. --Jayzel 12:54, 28 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sounds fair to me. I am an Australian, so fairly non-partisan. Unless the Kerry scandals are related to this particular topic I don't believe they should be in this article. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:02, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Naming politicians 

message: This is a biased piece.  You'll notice that the sources do not necessarily confirm what the author has written, that there is a lot of innuendo.  They entire "New China Lobby" makes it seem like this scandal was about treason, rather than campaign finance.  Unlike normal articles, the author cites straighforward facts, but does not cite controversial ones-- in otherwords, this is commentary.
While questions regarding the U.S. Democratic Party's fund-raising activities first arose in October 1996 (uh, cite please?  Who posed these questions? I'm guessing Rush), China's alleged role in the affair first gained public attention after Bob Woodward and Brian Duffy of the Washington Post published a story stating that a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the fund-raising activities had uncovered evidence that agents of China sought to direct contributions from foreign sources to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) before the 1996 presidential campaign. (The media also thought whitewater was important-- and it wasn't)
The US senate committee report is not reputable.
and on...
* The first press report about John Huang appeared on September 21 in the Los Angeles Times. Source: Miller, Alan C., "Democrats Return Illegal Contribution", Los Angeles Times, Sept. 21, 1996
* The aricle is sourced by not just the Senate Report, but also PBS, Associated Press, CBS, New York Times, CNN, New York Daily News, TIME, Newsweek, Los Angeles Times, the U.S. Justice Department, Scripps-Howard News Service, and The New Republic, to name a few. What sources would the poster consider reliable? A note from mom? --Jayzel 05:22, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Hack 

message: This article brings to mind various issues concerning campaign financing regulations which I find confusing. I suspect that my confusion may not be unique and that others may also benefit by learning from the writers whom have done such a good job with this article.
1) Can one reasonably expect that campaign finance laws to be effective at preventing foreign entities from gaining to influence American politics thru contributions? It occurs to me that there are many practical difficulties involved: contributions could be made thru American proxies, or, more subtly, by foreign entities using informal influence with American partners to encourage these partners to act on their behalf: When Boeing contributes to a China-friendly politician, are they doing it in hopes of bettering Chinese-American trade relations (presumably a legitimate action) or are they perhaps fulfilling an informal agreement to earmark a portion of their latest Chinese Airlines contract award to support a politician hand picked in Beijing (an aptly named Manchurian candidate)? 
2) Similarly in the category of practical difficulties: Can American political parties reasonably be charged with screening the identities of all contributors? How deep is the investigative requirement (ie, can they reasonably be expected to determine who is the man behind the man behind the man... Remember: the turnover time between receiving and spending a contribution may be just a matter of weeks).
3) The article mentions a Chinese restaurant owner making contributions to President Clinton in the range $200000 - $500000. Is it realistic that a president would endanger his programme for such small incentive?
4) How to account for the exceptions made in allowing Israeli lobbying organisations (AIPAC..) to exert financial influence? Is this simply a case of raw political power creating special rules for itself?
5) Has financial manipulation of American politics by foreign (and domestic!) entities always been a problematic feature of US democracy, or has it become a more serious issue over time? In the latter case, what are the reasons for this trend?
Thank you for your attention!
--Philopedia 11:43, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confused about Campaign Financing Issues 

message: This article is considered to fall outside the scope of the Version 0.5 test release, which is of limited size.  It is now being held ready for a later version. Jaranda wat's sup 16:55, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  0.5 nom 

message: I added a pov tag to this article. The problem is that this article weaves in all sorts of stuff about nuclear espionage and arms deals and so forth, giving the impression that they are all somehow connected with some fundraising issues. That's simply not documented here, or anywhere else that I've seen. Further, many of the underlying facts in the references are, to be charitable, spun rather hard here. Given that the major author of this article initially wrote a much more virulent version at posted it at freerepublic under the subject line "treason of biblical dimensions", I'd say a thorough vetting of facts here is in order. But, my fundamental objection is the interweaving of all of these arms issues with campaign finance, to imply an undocumented connection. Yes, they happened around the same time, so? It's written to imply that the government basically sold nuclear secrets for a few campaign contributions. Derex 12:22, 6 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  tag 

message: First, there is a misconception in the article that this was only about China. This started when both major presidential candidates in 1996, Clinton and Dole were found by Common Cause to have been recieving foreign donations, but not only from China. Focus was put more on Clinton than Dole for obvious reasons. The hearings in Congress also extended beyond China and featured witnesses, including businessmen, admitting that their contributions (including to Clinton) were meant as bribes. There was also a video tape of Clinton discussing with his aides how he could circumvent campaign finance laws, which was unrelated to foreign donations.
Second, as far as the situation with China goes, there was a Chinese general who admitted to donating money to influence US elections, so as far as that is concerned, some Chinese intent is not 'alleged'; whether it was a full scale government sponsored program is another matter, but its more than just suspicions by politicians with an agenda.
Even though I wouldn't want to make this about Clinton, because it was just an issue with corruption in US politics in general, and Dole's campaign was as as much suspicious; its important to note that during the hearings in Congress, Clinton's approval ratings were very low, and there was broad support of investigations by the public. People have some perception that Americans were behind Clinton and were tired of scandal-mongering; but this turnaround happened with the Lewinsky scandal.
Brianshapiro
*I agree there was more to the controvesy than just the China angle, however the bulk of the Senate report on the matter (which I used as a roadmap for this article) delt mostly with China and the figures mentioned (Huang, Riady, Trie, et al). Perhaps if I get some free time in the future, I will add a few paragraphs mentioning the other issues involving Roger Tamraz from Lebanon, then RNC head Haley Barbour, the White House "coffees", and the controversy about the Lincoln bedroom rentout. I'm not familiar with any issue regarding improper fundraising by Bob Dole. If you can point me in the direction of some articles regarding this I would be greatly appreciative. Thanks for your comments. --Jayzel 20:55, 18 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  misconception about fundraising scandals and hearings 

message: I have readded the alternate title Chinagate to the lead. While some may find the term politically biased, the term is well-known. A Google search of the words "Chinagate" and "Clinton" received over 27,000 hits and almost 500 at LexisNexis. Some of the publications where the term was found were at Salon.com, The Village Voice, Business Week, Asia Week, and the Washington Post. --Jayzel 16:14, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: On second thought, I made a compromise decision to move the alternate title Chinagate to the criticism of Justice Department investigation section. --Jayzel 15:29, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chinagate