GRIP

New Mexico sent a heads up to the Obama administration Friday: The Land of Enchantment has 29 shovel-ready projects worth $628 million that are just waiting for federal stimulus money.

Gov. Bill Richardson isn’t the only one who probably regrets ever hearing the letters CDR. CDR Financial Products Inc. is the Beverly Hills-based financial service firm that is the subject of the federal investigation that derailed Richardson’s nomination as Secretary of Commerce. Twenty municipalities are now suing CDR on the ground that it advised them to make deals with banks that paid kickbacks to the firm, and elected officials from Philly to Birmingham have been arrested in connection with sketchy bond deals.

Michael Stratton, an advisor to Gov. Bill Richardson’s presidential campaign and a fundraiser for Richardson, lobbied New Mexico for JPMorgan Chase, a financial services company involved in the municipal bond deals currently under investigation, Bloomberg reports.
Why do we care? Because JPMorgan was the firm that underwrote most of the bonds sold to finance Richardson’s GRIP [...]

We haven’t figured out yet what to call this scandal. GRIP Slip? CDR-Gate? Rubin-water?
(Actually, we’re open to suggestions, hopefully some that don’t involve -gate or -water. Post them in the comments.)
In the meantime, Muckety.com has posted a fascinating interactive map of the investigation that caused Richardson to withdraw as nominee for the Secretary of Commerce.