One April day this year, the Los Angeles Times reports, Hillary Clinton collected $380,000 from a fund-raiser in just about the poorest section of New York City. That section is Chinatown, where dishwashers and busboys who, in the main, don't speak much English and often work for sub-minimum wages, were somehow able to find, say, $1,000 in their pockets--tips?--for Mrs. Clinton. (By contrast, John Kerry netted $24,000 in 2004. )
    Funny money for Hillary? Again?
    The LAT reports: "
    The Times examined the cases of more than 150 donors who provided checks to Clinton after fundraising events geared to the Chinese community. One-third of those donors could not be found using property, telephone or business records. Most have not registered to vote, according to public records."
    Hmmmm....  
    "And several dozen were described in financial reports as holding jobs -- including dishwasher, server or chef -- that would normally make it difficult to donate amounts ranging from $500 to the legal maximum of $2,300 per election."
    The Times goes on to describe the reasons these very poor, non-English-speaking, non-registered immigrants say they are shelling out what sounds like  their life savings--or maybe someone else's life savings?--to HRC: Their "neighborhood associations" told them to; they want help with immigration problems; they just love her to bits. One donor denied giving any money in the first place.
    The temptation is, of course, to turn this latest episode of Clinton-business-as-usual into a punchline, a guffaw at behavior so obviously out of line, so blatantly corrupt as to defy belief. The Clintons have been caricatures of themselves for so long that we tend to accept their out-of-bounds behavior as being somehow appropriate for the cartoon world of corruption and scandal they inhabit.
    But the thought of ceding the White House to that world again is no joke.