PrintBig Bad Bill and Dem FOB's
Corruption by Democrats in New Mexico so commonplace that it is becoming an expectation that state newspapers will have a front-page scandal story du jour. Readers are seldom disappointed. Our globetrotting, celebrity fan governor, Bill Richardson, who seems to spend more time in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara than Los Alamos and Santa Fe, and a Democrat-dominated legislature, have managed to take this beautiful state from a $1 billion budget surplus four years ago to a looming $500+ million deficit in the current fiscal year.
While much of that surplus has been squandered on Big Bill's Boondoggles such as a spaceport and an under-utilized, rapid transit system between Santa Fe and Albuquerque, which cost hundreds of millions to build and runs $15 million in the red each year, a significant amount has been lost in the questionable investment of state funds by FOB's, Friend's of Bill, who have managed to rake off lucrative commissions while losing almost $200 million from state pension and investment funds.
When the newly-installed political hacks in the Obama Justice Department put a quick end to the ongoing federal investigation of Big Bill and Dem FOB's, surprising absolutely no one, New Mexico's U.S. Attorney, Gregory Fouratt, apparently not buying into another Democrat whitewash, quickly declared that the Administration's actions in no way represented an exoneration of Richardson or his cronies. Fouratt's Wikipedia bio states he is "a self-described specialist in the areas of racketeering, capital murder and gang related crimes." Sounds like Fouratt might be bad news for Big Bill and Dem FOB's down the road, if Obama doesn't fire him first.
More recently, in testimony given to investigators in a similar, as well as related, New York investment scandal, Saul Meyer, founder of Aldus Equity, one of the investment advisor agencies being investigated, admitted that,
"on numerous occasions, contrary to his fiduciary duty to SIC and ERB*, he ensured that Aldus recommended proposed investments that were pushed on him by politically-connected individuals in New Mexico, knowing that these politically-connected individuals** or their associates*** stood to benefit financially or politically from the investments and that the investments were not necessarily in the best economic interest of New Mexico."
*N M State Investment Council and the state Education Retirement Board **Dem FOB's ***Sons of Dem FOB's
A large chunk of those lost investments went to Vanderbilt Financial Trust, a Chicago firm. Now, an independent reviewing agency, EnnisKnupp, also of Chicago, has recommended significantly curtailing Big Bill's influence over the SIC and reducing his political influence in state investment decisions. In addition, there are now two, major class-action suits, one of them just filed, underway targeting some of Dem FOB's.
Remember folks, this corruptocrat is the guy Obama had picked to be his Secretary of Commerce, whose departmental mission is, "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce. Talk about putting a fox in the hen house. Now rumors are flying in New Mexico that lame-duck Bill, facing huge state budget deficits, law suits and possible indictments, is about to become a lame-"duckout, cutting and running for political and legal shelter . I'll bet you'd never guess where, Bubba. Yep, you got it; rumor around here is that Obama still wants this turkey inside the Beltway and in his administration.
He'll certainly fit right in.
