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Bill Richardson cancels flight due to thick fog English.news.cn 2010-12-20 19:46:29 PYONGYANG, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) -- U.S. New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, who is visiting the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), on Monday canceled his flight to Beijing due to thick fog. Richardson said he would made comment in Beijing, but disclosed nothing about his visit and talks with senior officials of the DPRK. Richardson arrived in Pyongyang on Thursday. The U.S. governor said in a statement before his visit that he would travel as a private citizen at the invitation of Kim Kye Gwan, DPRK's first vice foreign...

ABC News has learned that Richard Holbrooke, the US Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, has died. On Friday, Holbrooke was rushed to the hospital with a torn aorta. He went through more than 20 hours of surgery. Earlier this evening, speaking at the US State Department, President Obama sang Holbrooke's praises and called him "a tough son of a gun." Holbrooke, 69, was a former ambassador to the United Nations and served as chief negotiator at the Dayton Peace Accords, which ended the war in Bosnia. The New Yorker's George Packer wrote a nice story about Holbrooke last year,...

WASHINGTON | Wed Dec 8, 2010 4:03pm EST WASHINGTON (Reuters) - New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said on Wednesday he would travel to North Korea from December 16-20, hoping to ease mounting tensions with Pyongyang over its nuclear program and belligerence toward South Korea. "I am increasingly concerned with the recent actions by the North Koreans, which have raised tensions and are contributing to instability on the Korean Peninsula," Richardson said in a statement, saying he was going as a private citizen. "I am not carrying any messages, but I want to be helpful during this volatile period," Richardson said....

With the situation in North Korea having gotten pretty dicey in recent months, Gov. Bill Richardson – a favorite of the North Korean government – may be heading back there next week. That’s according to the Washington Post: “Adm. Mike Mullen, the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, is off this week to South Korea to tell officials that the United States is standing with them. And there’s talk that outgoing New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson may be off to North Korea next week for a private chat with top officials at the invitation of key people in the nuclear crowd...

... And there's talk that outgoing New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson may be off to North Korea next week for a private chat with top officials at the invitation of key people in the nuclear crowd over there. ... We're hearing Richardson has signed up with the Washington Speakers Bureau, which will probably enable him to put some fine bread on the table. In addition, he's going to set up a center in Santa Fe to focus on ways to rescue people being held hostage by bad guys and on initiating dialogue with rogue regimes.

Any casual observer can easily see how [NM] state government is structured to prevent things from happening. And that is why, as his eight years in office wind down, I find myself, grudgingly, tipping my hat ever so slightly in the direction of Gov. Bill Richardson. For better and for worse, and, I have little doubt, motivated largely by his desire to be president, Bill Richardson changed a state that is designed to change only rarely. ... Richardson pushed through tax law changes, got the state Constitution amended by popular vote to increase funding for schools, established a Department of...

New Mexico's budget crunch for the coming fiscal year could be $190 million worse than previously thought, and announcement of the bad news set off another fiery exchange between the outgoing administration of Gov. Bill Richardson and Gov.-elect Susana Martinez. Richardson's finance secretary Dannette Burch said Thursday that Martinez and state lawmakers will face a $450 million revenue shortfall for the fiscal year, starting next July 1, just to maintain the state's current level of services. That's a much higher number than the Legislative Finance Committee's earlier projected shortfall of $260 million. There have already been spending cuts in Santa...

Gov. Bill Richardson took his lumps during New Mexico's gubernatorial campaign and said Thursday he wished he'd had the opportunity to punch back. Two days after Republican Susana Martinez won a decisive victory to become the state's first elected female governor, the two-term Democratic officeholder voiced frustration at having his policies repeatedly -- and forcefully -- targeted by Martinez's campaign. "My only regret is that I wasn't able to defend myself and the accomplishments of my administration in so many areas," Richardson said after a news conference in Santa Fe. Richardson, who cited teacher salary increases, a decrease in DWI...

The Richardson administration, apparently tired of all those pesky questions about the governor's political appointees, recently refused to release an up-to-date list of the employees, their salaries and titles. It had provided such lists on numerous occasions over Gov. Bill Richardson's nearly eight years in office. I asked the administration last month for a list of the appointees to state jobs. Instead, the Department of Finance and Administration gave me an "organizational list" for all of the nearly 24,000 state workers, including career employees. Buried in those 1,500 pages is the information on the appointees, formally known as exempt employees....

Moise summed up the scandal this way: There was too much power in too few hands with too little oversight. That describes New Mexico government at just about every level. We could catch, arrest and fire all the bad guys responsible for the state's depressingly varied financial scandals. It probably wouldn't matter much. The way our state is organized almost invites corruption. The governor is empowered by law to appoint members to hundreds of boards and commissions, some of them centers of considerable power. All of the state-licensed professions, for example, are regulated by their own boards. Accountants, cosmetologists, dentists...

Gov. Bill Richardson has announced furloughs and layoffs will be avoided in the latest round of state budget-cutting, which takes effect today. Richardson's office just sent out a news release in which the two-term Democratic governor said he'll use $1.4 million in federal stimulus money under his control to help executive and judicial branch agencies avoid furloughs.

Gov. Bill Richardson's job approval rating has plummeted as he nears the end of his second term and nearly two out of three New Mexico voters think the state is on the wrong track. The Democratic governor's approval rating has eroded significantly in the last two years, a new Journal Poll found. The state has been hit hard by recession and budget cutting has followed. The administration has been clouded by investigations of pay-to-play politics. Just 33 percent of proven, likely voters surveyed statewide Aug. 23-27 said they approved of the job Richardson is doing. Sixty-three percent said they disapproved...

As everyone knows the only people in America who are so heartless as to report illegal immigrants to the immigration cops are evil conservative Republicans like those profiling fascists in Arizona, right? Right? Well not so fast there, Bubba. Left wing wunderkind, Bill Richardson, Democrat and waiting-for-indictment corruptocrat, lame-duck governor of New Mexico, has ordered the state department of children's and family services to begin reporting illegal immigrant children to ICS. Oh the horror of it all! Reported by the NY Times, right? Well, no. Reported by the Washington Post and the LA Times, right? Well, er, ah, no....

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington chose New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson for a dubious distinction Wednesday, naming him to a list of the nation's most unethical and incompetent governors. Richardson's office called the Washington, D.C.-based group's report on him "ridiculous" and cited the Journal as the culprit for his inclusion. "Governor Richardson has led the way for ethics reform in New Mexico," said Richardson spokeswoman Alarie Ray-Garcia. "It's also difficult to take it seriously, since it relies almost exclusively on the Albuquerque Journal as its source." The CREW group cited Richardson, a Democrat, for using state investments to...

Since the imposition of the state "hiring freeze" in November 2008, at least seven workers in the Governor's Office have moved to jobs elsewhere in government. All but one of them has been given exempt, or political appointee, positions, earning just about the same amount of money they did in the Governor's Office. Under the hiring freeze imposed by Gov. Bill Richardson to help ease the state budget crunch, an exempt position can be filled only if the hiring is necessary and critical to an agency's mission. ~~big snip~~While the administration uses the term "hiring freeze" to describe the employment...

Gov. Bill Richardson has ordered the New Mexico National Guard to patrol the state's border with Mexico after recent violence in the area. An administration official declined to release numbers but said the order was effective immediately. "There will be guardsmen on the border within 24 hours," John Wheeler said late Wednesday afternoon. Wheeler heads the state's Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, which is coordinating the beefed-up law enforcement presence on the border. "I want residents in southern New Mexico to know we are taking this border violence very seriously by adding a National Guard presence along with...

U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions will be holding a health care town hall meeting at Richardson's Eisemann Center next Monday, March 29, 2010. From Sessions' email invitation: Richardson Town Hall Meeting This month, I will be returning from Washington, DC for a District Work Period to meet with North Texans and to discuss your views about the work of Congress and the direction of America. As your Member of Congress, I invite you to join me for a Town Hall Meeting to discuss the future of health care in America. Richardson Town Hall Meeting Monday, March 29, 2010 7:00pm – 8:30pm...

The shady Iranian fundraiser who for years donated lucrative sums to top Democrats—including the president, vice president and secretary of state—has pleaded guilty to a major bank-fraud scheme that could land him in jail for nearly two decades.Disgraced Democratic money man Hassan Nemazee admitted this week that he defrauded three financial institutions out of nearly $300 million in loan proceeds by falsifying documents and signatures to show he had hundreds of millions of dollars worth of collateral. The Ivy League-educated crook then used the proceeds to donate big bucks to the campaigns of federal, state and local candidates. Among them...

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) is likely to find itself the target of more criticism after a Dallas immigration judge ordered one of their former board members deported due to terror connections. Nabil Sadoun, a leader in the Dallas Islamic community, had already left the United States for his native Jordan at the time of the ruling and Judge Anthony Rogers said that by taking such action he had waived his right to appeal the case. Dallas-Fort Worth news reports: In court, the judge made vague references to the government’s voluminous motion to deport him, including alleged involvement...

Note: The following text is a quote: Holy Land Foundation Representative Arrested United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade announced today that Mohamad Mustapha Ali Masfaka, a 47-year-old native of Syria, was arrested by U.S. Customs and Border Protection when he attempted to enter the United States from Canada via the Ambassador Bridge. Mr. Masfaka made his initial appearance in federal court in Detroit on an Indictment charging him with Attempted Naturalization Fraud, False Statements, and Perjury. Joining in the announcement was Brian Moskowitz, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Office of Investigations for Ohio and Michigan...