Texas Teacher Retirement fund lost $99 million dollars by investing in a Las Vegas casino owned by a Rick Perry donor and political fundraiser host.

And there were some damfools freely walking the streets who wanted to elect him President of the United States of America.

Okay, first jump over the hurdle of the Texas Teacher Retirement Fund, overseen by Perry appointees, investing in an activity that’s illegal in Texas.

But when you do clear that hurdle, you land in this mud pit.

When Gov. Rick Perry wanted to hold a fundraiser in Las Vegas last fall for his nascent presidential campaign, he reached out to Frank Fertitta III.

Fertitta was chairman and chief executive officer of Station Casinos, the largest operator of gaming halls that cater to Las Vegas residents. He and his younger brother, Lorenzo, had met Perry a few times and donated $5,000 apiece to him in 2007.

The Fertittas made their contribution shortly after the Perry-appointed board of the Teacher Retirement System of Texas approved a $100 million investment in a leveraged buyout of Station Casinos. Nearly all the money was later lost in Station’s bankruptcy.

Perry claims that the retirement fund money loss had nothing, nothing I tell you, to do with all the financial political favors the Fertitta brothers give him.

Frank Fertitta

Yep, it’s just pure damn coincidence that every time we lose money in Texas, you can trace it back to one of Perry’s donors walking away with stuffed pockets and pushing a wheelbarrow filled with Texas taxpayer cash.

The Texas teachers’ fund and other large institutional investors began to write down the value of their investments in Station.

Yet the Fertittas kept rolling. They announced a $10 billion casino development in Las Vegas, their biggest ever. With Station trying to renegotiate with its lenders, Frank Fertitta III paid $28 million for an oceanside home in Laguna Beach, Calif.

Do you think Frank Fertitta is going to let Texas teachers come retire at his $28 million beach house?  Is that the plan?

I swear that Texas elected Fredo as Governor.  I swear we did.