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NM judge booked, fingerprinted in political bribery scandal tied to Democrats, RichardsonArticle by: Associated Press Updated: May 20, 2011 - 3:35 PM LAS CRUCES, N.M. - A New Mexico judge charged with bribery in a scandal tied to former Gov. Bill Richardson pleaded not guilty Friday, then was booked, fingerprinted and ordered to hand over his passport. State District Judge Michael Murphy is accused of telling a potential judicial candidate that if she wanted a seat on the bench she needed to donate to the Democratic Party through a political activist linked to Richardson. Allegations in a special prosecutor's report...

The federal investigation into allegations of pay to play in one state agency may be over, but that doesn’t mean Gov. Bill Richardson is in the clear, a top New Mexico political analyst said today.In an interview with NMI, Albuquerque pollster and analyst Brian Sanderoff pointed out that federal and state investigators are still looking into allegations in the investment scandal that began in New York and has since spread to New Mexico and other states. That case, which is separate from the probe that has ended, involves some prominent Richardson friends and donors.The probe that we learned today...

... New Mexico is finally free of a back-room highway bond deal that kept then-Gov. Bill Richardson out of then-President-elect Barack Obama’s Cabinet once it was exposed. Back in 2004 and 2006, very few people understood what had been done to get $1.6 billion in state highway bonds used to start a bunch of highway projects and the Rail Runner commuter train. And even fewer knew why a company known as CDR Financial Products Inc. of Beverly Hills, was involved. The Richardson administration wanted the $1.6 billion in bonds to make a big splash on the state’s economy... But the...

I'm seeking an external (USB) CDR/DVD burner that is HIGHLY accurate. Any recommendations is most welcomed and appreciated.

Fifteen summers ago, America's news media informed us that black churches throughout the South were being torched by white racists. The purported wave of arsons dominated the airwaves and generated thousands of newspaper articles. Pundits, politicians and preachers decried the terrorism and the hate it represented. In fact, it never happened. Here is the little-known story of how an obscure radical group teamed up with a leftist national church organization, an unprincipled President and a legion of compliant news outlets to create a media firestorm -- one based entirely on lies.

One of Gov. Bill Richardson's longtime friends and political advisers worked as a consultant for the California firm at the center a federal pay-to-play investigation that derailed the Democratic governor's appointment as commerce secretary. Federal investigators are looking at whether political contributions influenced the selection of the firm, CDR Financial Products, for lucrative bond deals in New Mexico and whether Richardson's former chief of staff, David Contarino, played a role in CDR being hired. A Denver-based firm operated by Mike Stratton, Richardson's longtime friend, was a consultant for CDR, including in 2004 when the company worked on bond deals with...

“Pay to Play” keeps getting better everyday: President-elect Barack Obama took big money from a man at the center of a federal probe that has forced one of Obama’s top Cabinet picks to withdraw. Financial records show the Obama campaign got more than $30,000 from California financier David Rubin, the target of an investigation into donations and possible “pay-to-play” deals involving New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Obama’s pick for commerce secretary. ~~~ In late September, Rubin attended an exclusive Los Angeles fundraiser for Obama, held at the Beverly Hills’ Greystone Mansion.

<p>HARRISBURG, Pa. - A campaign donor who is the target of an federal investigation that forced New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to withdraw from consideration for U.S. Commerce secretary also gave to Gov. Ed Rendell's campaigns and was a generous supporter of the Democratic Party and President-elect Barack Obama.</p>

Putting aside whatever involvement New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson had in an alleged "pay-to-play" scheme in his home state, his future as U.S. commerce secretary is now a casualty of an ongoing federal investigation into a company that has funded the former presidential candidate's state-level political committees. While no other incoming federal lawmaker or Cabinet member is said to be under investigation, others have certainly seen their campaign efforts propped up by the embattled company. Since 1991, California-based CDR Financial Products and its president, David Rubin, have given $279,100 in campaign contributions at the federal level alone, 95 percent to...

A businessman who is entangled in the grand jury inquiry into possible "pay-to-play" schemes in the New Mexico government has also contributed heavily to Democrats, including Barack Obama. Rubin and his company donated $100,000 in 2003-2004 to the political committees of Richardson. The contributions came both before and after Rubin's company won a state contract in New Mexico to help finance $1.4 billion for highway and transportation projects, a contract that brought $1.5 million in business for the company, CDR Financial Products.

Gov. Bill Richardson's office Thursday would neither confirm nor deny reports the governor has hired a lawyer to represent him in a grand jury investigation over a possible "pay-to-play" scheme involving a state transportation and highway program. KRQE, Channel 13, reported Wednesday that Richardson had hired Albuquerque lawyer Peter Schoenburg as his legal counsel in the grand jury case. The grand jury, as reported by The Associated Press and other news organizations this week, is looking into a possible connection between a Beverly Hills, Calif., financial company's large contributions to Richardson political action committees and nearly $1.5 million the company...

For several years, I had been using a tape drive & NovaStor software to backup files. The tape drive has died. I'm looking for alternative methods to backup data; primarily a CD-R drive. (Never used/owned one.) System specs: Soyo SY-6VBA MB 1ghz Pentium 3 512mb RAM Win98 20gb IDE HD (I forget the manufacturer) I live in a rural area. Store choices within driving range are limited to OfficeMax, Best Buy and Circuit City (which I dislike). The CD-R/burner software should produce CDs which can be read by any PC, even if the system is running MS-DOS. Currently, I'm looking...

Hi all; After reading/hearing various opinions on the reliability of various CD-R recording materials ("the blue cyanine-coated CD-Rs are the least reliable, while the silver- and gold-colored CD-Rs are most reliable"), I wanted to hear whether any FReepers were knowledgeable about this. I'm archiving family photos and music onto CD-R and want to use the most durable medium, if any difference exists.

CDs 'could be history in five years' Compact discs could be history within five years, superseded by a new generation of fingertip-sized memory tabs with no moving parts. Scientists say each paper-thin device could store more than a gigabyte of information - equivalent to 1,000 high quality images - in one cubic centimetre of space. Experts have developed the technology by melding together organic and inorganic materials in a unique way. They say it could be used to produce a single-use memory card that permanently stores data and is faster and easier to operate than a CD. It's claimed that...

Is your car spying on you? David Coursey Executive Editor, AnchorDesk Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2003 Most people know that most cars couldn't run without computers. But most people don't know that one of those computers records what your car does in the seconds just before an accident. And even fewer know that this information could find its way to your insurance company or even into court. ORIGINALLY INTENDED to monitor air-bag deployments in real-world situations, General Motors introduced this technology in 1990. Ford followed in 1998. The automakers kept the existence of these crash data recorders (CDRs) secret until 1999,...

MP3s Are Not the Devil Since every penny I earn depends on copyright protection, I'm all in favor of reasonable laws to do the job. But there's something kind of sad about the recording industry's indecent passion to punish the "criminals" who are violating their rights. Copyright is a temporary monopoly granted by the government -- it creates the legal fiction that a piece of writing or composing (or, as technologies were created, a recorded performance) is property and can only be sold by those who have been licensed to do so by the copyright holder. Without copyright, once a...

The Dutch PC-Active magazine has done an extensive CD-R quality test. For the test the magazine has taken a look at the readability of discs, thirty different CD-R brands, that were recorded twenty months ago. The results were quite shocking as a lot of the discs simply couldn't be read anymore: Roughly translated from Dutch: The tests showed that a number of CD-Rs had become completely unreadable while others could only be read back partially. Data that was recorded 20 months ago had become unreadable. These included discs of well known and lesser known manufacturers. It is presumed that CD-Rs...

During the summer of 1996, Americans were deluged with thousands of newspaper, magazine and television reports that racists were torching black churches* throughout the South. This article traces the origins and events of what appears to have been a remarkably effective campaign of disinformation. *Since few churches have completely white or black memberships, references to 'white' or 'black' churches identify the predominant race of their members. The Activists In late March, The Center for Democratic Renewal (CDR) and the National Council of Churches (NCC) held a press conference to announce a huge increase in arsons against black churches. The Rev....