WTF? Dianne Feinstein resigns committee post

[ben_meyers]

Well this looks real good. She's up to her neck in the VA scandal.
Who can you trust?
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/49970/

[Viva_La_Revolution]

1. please add info to your post, your headline is a bit misleading

SEN. Dianne Feinstein has resigned from the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee. As previously and extensively reviewed in these pages, Feinstein was chairperson and ranking member of MILCON for six years, during which time she had a conflict of interest due to her husband Richard C. Blum's ownership of two major defense contractors, who were awarded billions of dollars for military construction projects approved by Feinstein.

[azurnoir]

5. It was not billions

it was in the 29-30 million range in 2 separate contracts, it was a link from a righty blog and I don,t want or know if it can be posted here, she's "guilty" but relatively small potatoes. BTW she resigned in January 2007 and her husband resigned in late 2005.

[shance]

9. Small potatoes of war profiteering fraud when she's pretending to be our friend?

That's the larger problem. How much are many of these so called "Democrats" bought and paid for and owned by the corporate entities?

We have to address this.

[Frustratedlady]

11. I agree. Not only bought and paid for, but the info used as blackmail.

We can hardly accuse the RW of wrongs and overlook any Dems. Although I am saddened to hear this, resigning helps but doesn't answer all the questions. They should be addressed.

[John Q. Citizen]

27. Neither alternet (the link in the OP) or the Silicon Vally Metro (an alternative news weekly)

are right wing blogs. I would imagine that rightwing blogs would report this story though, since Feinstein is a prominent Democratic Senator.


http://www.alternet.org/blogs/peek/49970/
This story is from the Silicon Valley Metro (ht: Robert, our intrepid copyeditor):


SEN. Dianne Feinstein has resigned from the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee. As previously and extensively reviewed in these pages, Feinstein was chairperson and ranking member of MILCON for six years, during which time she had a conflict of interest due to her husband Richard C. Blum's ownership of two major defense contractors, who were awarded billions of dollars for military construction projects approved by Feinstein.


As MILCON leader, Feinstein relished the details of military construction, even micromanaging one project at the level of its sewer design. She regularly took junkets to military bases around the world to inspect construction projects, some of which were contracted to her husband's companies, Perini Corp. and URS Corp.


Perhaps she resigned from MILCON because she could not take the heat generated by Metro's expose of her ethics (which was partially funded by the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute). Or was her work on the subcommittee finished because Blum divested ownership of his military construction and advanced weapons manufacturing firms in late 2005?


The MILCON subcommittee is not only in charge of supervising military construction, it also oversees "quality of life" issues for veterans, which includes building housing for military families and operating hospitals and clinics for wounded soldiers. Perhaps Feinstein is trying to disassociate herself from MILCON's incredible failure to provide decent medical care for wounded soldiers.

(more)

[azurnoir]

34. Here is the link

her husbands company did get about a billion dollars all told, so should she be made to resign completely? Who would replace her in the Senate?
http://www.metroactive.com/feinstein/

[BlooInBloo]

2. Aaaah.... only 30 more minutes of this....

[bananas]

3. Depends on your time zone...nt

[orleans]

4. i believe the full headline is:

Dianne Feinstein resigns committee post amid scandal; accused of war profiteering

and she should have resigned a long time ago imo

(there are articles dating back to march 21 on this topic)

[librechik]

29. yes--she did the right thing

and we should as well.

[sandnsea]

6. Left perpetuates right wing smears AGAIN

I've been fighting this smear on some right wing blogs on occasion since Cunningham was arreste. I'm surprised it took so long to rear its ugly head on DU.

And where do you get she's up to her neck in the VA scandal anyway?

[ben_meyers]

7. I didn't know alternet was right wing

Could have fooled me! This is the first I've heard of this mess. I guess I don't get out enough.

[sandnsea]

12. That's the point

This particular smear has been on the right wing blogs for a while. Sad that alternet decided to pick up the baseless smear. But there you have it. How the left helps the right win.

[shance]

14. What are you saying Sand? That this isn't fact?

n/t

[sandnsea]

16. Where's the crime?

:shrug:

[RufusTFirefly]

40. When we disagree with a source, it's automatically right-wing

It's just that simple (and convenient) for some.

[Mojorabbit]

8. This has been discussed

on this board before. I say good riddance. i want squeaky clean politicians.

[sandnsea]

13. Evidence?

Where's the bribes and payoffs?

It's bullshit to repeat this garbage the right wing is spewing because they're pissed about Cunningham.

[shance]

10. Please. When they call us "left wing" or "right wing" it only means we are PAYING ATTENTION.

to the corruption and our taxpayer dollars being used against us, and our education system, our state governments, our fair election systems, our healthcare systems.

You don't believe in conspiracies?

You might want to rethink that one.

[sandnsea]

15. The left and right are conspiring

to expose corruption???

If you say so.

[EFerrari]

17. I don't understand how you can defend this person

when thousands of us, her constituents, called, wrote, emailed and faxed her before the war, begging her to oppose it.

She ignored us.

Her husband had an interest in the company that built CentCom. Do the math.

This isn't a right wing smear. This is corruption.

[Name removed]

18. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[EFerrari]

19. I can go drag out a link. And no, I won't shut up, thanks.

http://www.stubbornfacts.us/politics/feinstein_resigns

[EFerrari]

20. Here's another one.

It's no pleasure to me to know that one of my senators is a war profiteer.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/wow/bio.aspx?act=pro&ddlC=45

[sandnsea]

24. Crime??

Where's the crime?

[Selatius]

46. There's no crime, but it looks an awful lot like a "conflict of interest"

That is why she resigned. Her husband's company was awarded billions in reconstruction contracts in Iraq, and she voted in favor of the IWR in 2002. It looks like a massive conflict of interest.

[sandnsea]

21. What crime? What bribe?

She resigned. So what. That's not evidence she did anything illegal. That's the evidence I asked for. Do you have anything besides hatred? People don't go to prison because you hate them you know.

[EFerrari]

22. I'm going to just let your post sit there. n/t

[sandnsea]

23. I bet you are

Cuz you've got nothin' and you know it.

And if you think defending Democrats from smears from extremists bothers me, you couldn't be more wrong.

[EFerrari]

25. Excuse me. It's well known here in California

that Feinstein has no problem with conflict of interest.

I guess only "extremists" actually evaluate the facts.

lol

[sandnsea]

26. No facts yet

:shrug:

Your beliefs are not facts. There are no facts to indicate she did anything illegal with those contracts. She also does not have a history of scandal surrounding her. What she has is extremists, yes extremists, who smear anybody who disagree with them.

Hatred of Diane Feinstein does not equate to criminality. Hate her all you want for whatever you want. But when it comes to making criminal accusations without proof, then no, I won't sit back and ignore that.

[EFerrari]

36. You won't read the links I gave you but you can somehow

divine that I feel hatred?

Diane Feinstein is a POS who has been lining her pockets while Californians died in Iraq. Calling me names doesn't change that an iota.

[walldude]

49. May not have been "criminal" but it sure wasn't ethical

she's the chairperson(or was) of a committee that gave her husbands company millions in contracts. These facts are not in dispute. Are you saying that even though it wasn't exactly illegal for Cheney to allow Enron executives to dictate energy policy it was ok for him to allow it? We cannot have 2 sets of standards.

[John Q. Citizen]

30. This certainly has the appearence of nepotism.

If Orin Hatch's name were the name in the story instead of a Dem, would you be posting about how unfair it seems for people to be posting about this?

Your rush to 'look away' since it's a Dem seems somehow self serving.


Are we as a party going to take an article published in the Silicon Valley Metro alternative news weekly and somehow assume it's just a right wing attempt to get a Dem, or are we going to look at the facts and open an investigation to see where it leads?

Covering up or just ignoring it doesn't sound like a Democratic value, to me.

[Le Taz Hot]

28. Jesus Christ

you sound like Karl Rove: "Where's the crime?" Even if there wasn't a crime it gives the APPEARANCE of a conflict of interest and she should have recused herself years ago.

Right before the IWR vote, she got on national television and said that communications to her office was about 10,000 AGAINST the IWR and about 300 for and this POS voted "Yes."

[EFerrari]

39. Omigod, we agree.

lol

Let's mark the calendar. :)

I loved what Feinstein did to heal San Francisco after we lost Harvey Milk and Mayor Moscone. For that alone, I've tried to cut her a lot of slack over the years. But, the mendacious letter I got from her justifying her support for this "war" was my absolute limit. I'm probably a little crazy on this topic.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

31. Her husband's company has profited from the war and I recall when he received the contracts

and am not surprised that she has resigned from the committee, as well as she should have. This is not a wrongwing smear, it is just the facts.

The part in bold, I haven't a clue about, but doubt that she approved the contracts as I don't believe she had the power to do so. Yet, it is enough of a conflict of interests to question why she voted for the IRW in the first place. I know that when I heard about the contracts my trust in her dropped a great deal.

SEN. Dianne Feinstein has resigned from the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee. As previously and extensively reviewed in these pages, Feinstein was chairperson and ranking member of MILCON for six years, during which time she had a conflict of interest due to her husband Richard C. Blum's ownership of two major defense contractors, who were awarded billions of dollars for military construction projects approved by Feinstein.

[KoKo]

32. We have to hope she didn't participate in any vote on a contract that might

have had to do with her husband's business. I haven't seen any articles that mention whether she abstained from voting on anything that might affect her husband's business...but one would hope she did.

[youthere]

33. Hmm. I wonder if those who vehemently defend her actions...

would do so if there were an R after her name instead of a D?

:shrug:

Corruption stinks no matter what side of the aisle it's on.

[meldroc]

35. Corruption is corruption.

C'mon, we all know that the Democrats are not immune from corruption. I'd like to think that our party is capable of policing itself.

Besides, Feinstein is not my favorite Democrat - she pushed waaaaay too hard for idiotic gun control - "assault weapon" bans and such. :eyes:

In the end, it makes it easier for us to call out the Republicans if we police ourselves - that way we can't be called hypocrites.

[nomatrix]

37. Dec. 3, 2002 minutes of

CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF CORONADO

state that Dianne Feinstein will no longer be Chair of Military Construction Appropriations committee.


http://service.govdelivery.com/docs/CACORON/CACORON_1/CACORON_1_20021203_en.htm

"Some changes among the key California delegation: Representative Duncan Hunter is now chairman of the House Armed Services Committee; Senator Feinstein will no longer be the Chair of the Military Construction Appropriations Committee; Congresswoman Davis and Congresswoman Cunningham both reelected, increase in seniority, moving up both on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Appropriations Committee, respectively."

Do a google search and you will see these are talking points to divert the attention away from the real corruption going on with this war.

She must have really hit the nail on the head during the U.S. Atty. firings/hearings.

OTOH, I really wonder about some of the people who claim to know so much about her, how corrupt she is...yet failed to point the fact she hasn't been the chair for years.

[EFerrari]

38. I don't want to offend anyone here but why was she on that

committee at all?

I will cop to the fact that I am still furious with her for ignoring those of us who BEGGED her to oppose this "war". To later find out that her husband had an interest in defense contracts was insult to injury for me, anyway.

[RufusTFirefly]

41. But HRC supported the war, too.

So it must indeed be a truly righteous cause.

O8)

[EFerrari]

43. Why are you draggin HRC into this? Not a fan?

[RufusTFirefly]

44. Good pt, expat. Mea culpa

My post was off topic and ad hominem toward Hill.

But like you, I seem to have trouble "moving on" from that fateful Iraq Invasion vote. Guess I'm just bitter toward people who sacrifice tens of thousands of lives for calculated political purposes and perhaps even profit. Silly me.

[EFerrari]

45. I agree. That whole "move on" thing is hard to do

when people are dying for NO effen reason everyday. :(

[RufusTFirefly]

42. Bzzzt! Thanks for playing!

I hope you're not offering that up as proof.

A committee chairman is a member of the majority party. Your 4 1/2 year old minutes provide no proof. Beginning in Jan. of 2003 and continuing until Jan. of 2007, Dianne couldn't have been chair if she wanted to. In Nov. 2002, the Republicans regained control of the Senate, which is why the Coronado minutes indicated that Feinstein was no longer chair.

[Name removed]

47. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Forkboy]

48. Uh huh.

Tell us more.

[Balbus]

50. You haven't ever talked shit about Repulicans before, so why does it bother you?

:shrug: