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By Michael Beckel, Center for Public Integrity 

Mark Gilbert, right, and wife Nancy flank former Pinecrest School head Robert Goldberg

Mark Gilbert, right, and wife Nancy flank former Pinecrest School head Robert Goldberg

President Barack Obama has named two more of his top campaign fundraisers for plumb diplomatic posts, nominating Boca Raton’s Mark Gilbert to be U.S. ambassador to New Zealand and Rob Barber to the same position in Iceland.

With the choices, Obama continues his aggressive push to elevate major bundlers and loyalists to top diplomatic jobs.

By Nicholas Kusnetz, Center for Public Integrity 

Governor Jan Brewer and Jerry Colangelo cut the ribbon at an Arizona Commerce Authority event in 2012.

Governor Jan Brewer and Jerry Colangelo cut the ribbon at an Arizona Commerce Authority event in 2012.

The offices of the Arizona Commerce Authority are housed in downtown Phoenix at the Freeport-McMoRan Center, the gleaming glass headquarters of an international mining firm of the same name.

The authority, which oversees state corporate tax incentives and grants worth hundreds of millions of dollars, is not quite a public agency, as its location two miles east of the state government complex suggests. It’s led by a board of directors run by the governor and Jerry Colangelo, who, after four decades as an Arizona sports and real estate mogul, is a local icon.

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