Last Month Crazies, Relevant Organs Edition

The pan-Blue side is really starting to bring their dish of smears to a fine simmer under Ko Wen-je. Since the attempt to smear Ko as corrupt with the MG149 account totally failed, they are trying to make silk purses out of the sow's ear of organs from China. The KMT news organ writes:

The journalist revealed his observations on Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), a physician of National Taiwan University Hospital, indicating that Ko “faced a genuinely vexing moral dilemma. His patients would die without the transplants he had arranged…. At the end of the day, Dr. Ko’s willingness to speak candidly is evidence of a singular courage. His account is the smoking gun. It represents the culmination of a long quest to find medical confirmation of China’s harvesting of prisoners of conscience from an unimpeachable source.” The journalist claimed that Ko not only agreed to have his name used in the book, but also said that he was willing to consider testifying before the US Congress.

The journalist wrote in the book, “Dr. Ko went to China and meticulously worked through the checklist of intimacy with his medical colleagues: The go-to-hell banquet. The karaoke bar. The cognac followed by the Mao-Tai. The subtle flattery and the jokes about his accent. And when the ritual was truly finished, the Chinese surgeons summoned him. You are one of us and you are a brother. So we will give you the family price. But we are going to do more than that. We noted your worries and concerns about organ quality. So you will have no worries for your patients. They will receive nothing but the best: all the organs will come from Falung Gong.”

Ethan Gutmann testified before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives on September 12, 2012 with regard to organ harvesting on the Chinese Mainland. He confirmed that a surgeon from Taiwan had participated in the organ trade.

In addition, Ethan Gutmann testified before the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development in the Canadian Senate on October 21, 2014. He stated, “Ten years ago Dr. Ko went to a mainland hospital to negotiate reduced kidney and liver prices for his department’s elderly patients. After a friendly banquet, Dr. Ko was given the Chinese price, which was about half of what a foreigner pays.” Gutmann went on to praise Ko, saying that “Dr. Ko is now the leading candidate to be mayor of Taipei, largely due to the perception that he is a man of integrity. I’ll go further. Dr. Ko’s testimony has done more for this investigation than all the world’s health organizations put together.”

It's always both ironic and hypocritical when the KMT criticizes its opponents. But never mind that, note Gutman's attitude towards Ko, whom he admires and respects. Gutman has spent years researching this and knows what he is talking about. This is another attack that isn't going to fly.

Not that it matters because the Ko campaign is still flogging this wiretap thing which it never should have mentioned aloud and can 't prove anything about. Another round was fired off in today's newspapers. The taps were apparently placed in the correct spot, in a phone switchbox, on two numbers Ko himself used. However, they weren't plugged into anything... There's no reason the wiretaps could not be from old taps placed on some prior occupant, and coincidentally wound up on Ko's numbers since he's in the power office, same as the previously tapped occupant, fed by the same phone lines. Would like to see some evidence that it is from the Lien campaign...

Lien's manager, Alex Tsai, said he'd quit politics if he were found to be "personally involved" in wiretapping. The promise to "quit politics if X" is a common one among politicians here and is usually not honored, but the fact that he used the term "personally" is quite interesting, as if to distance himself from coming wiretapping revelations: "I wasn't personally involved in that stuff. Never knew a thing." It would be sad if he quit politics; he's been exactly the kind of manager for the Sean Lien team that the Ko Wen-je team needs him to be...

My man Les remarks on Facebook:

Ko P should offer to make public any information that Lien's team wants, they just need to ask, no need to plant bugs or insert spies.

Exactly.
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Daily Links:

• President Xi of China visited Tanzania last year; his delegation sent home tons of ivory in diplomatic bags. Brazen.
• Committee to Protect Journalists on the attacks on journalists here during the Sunflower protests.
• The Prediction Market at NCCU is attacked for being a gambling operation, raided by police. The whole thing is very obviously political. I'd sure like to feel the chill here, but considering that this misuse of official power is so normalized here, I'm numb. And NCCU is so staunchly pro-KMT, and for so many years, all I can feel is well, this world where police raid people merely for predicting that the wrong party will win the election is the world that so many at NCCU have struggled so long to bring into being...
• Say it loud, language and identity in the protests in HKK and Taiwan.
• Scary wargame shows China's huge quantitative advantage over US. The US could develop this rube goldberg gadget mentioned therein... or we could just sell some fighters to our ally, Taipei, as a friend observed.

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