Joseph Sarandos
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Senator Dianne Feinstein ABRUPTLY RESIGNS her leadership of MILCON
Cross-reference:
http://com3.runboard.com/btheowlsnest.f14.t10830 [Page 2]
(15 Replies and 2,124 Views as of now)
Joseph Sarandos
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Re: Bush Administration BUSTED for SHABBY TREATMENT of wounded Veterans!
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I'll post this separately as a new topic in the Politics/Current Events section, but it definitely belongs here in this thread also, which is because of the clear nexus between this subject and Senator Feinstein's "running ahead of the axe" to abruptly resign her leadership role in MILCON -- the oversight committee for goings-on in the Department of Veterans Affairs' and the Army's facilities for the care and handling of injured veterans.
No, of course there are no mentions of the facts that Feinstein and Blum are Jewish, or that Feinstein is a member of the Trilateral Commission. Smart decisions by the author, by Metroactive, and by every publication that has carried this report in whole or in part, since all of them are aware and anticipative of attacks by the ADL, the JDL, AIPAC, and/or other so-called “anti-defamation” organizations, that would quickly “go for the jugulars” of the involved individuals, labeling them as “anti-Semites,” “conspiracy theorists,” “neo-Nazis,” or worse.
Joseph Sarandos
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Feinstein Resigns
Senator exits MILCON following Metro exposé, vet-care scandal
By Peter Byrne
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.
Two years ago, before the Washington Post became belatedly involved, the online magazine Salon.com exposed the horrors of deficient medical care for Iraq war veterans. While leading MILCON, Feinstein had ample warning of the medical-care meltdown. But she was not proactive on veteran's affairs.
Feinstein abandoned MILCON as her ethical problems were surfacing in the media, and as it was becoming clear that her subcommittee left grievously wounded veterans to rot while her family was profiting from the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It turns out that Blum also holds large investments in companies that were selling medical equipment and supplies and real estate leases—often without the benefit of competitive bidding—to the Department of Veterans Affairs, even as the system of medical care for veterans collapsed on his wife's watch.
As of December 2006, according to SEC filings and www.fedspending.org, three corporations in which Blum's financial entities own a total of $1 billion in stock won considerable favor from the budgets of the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs:
* Boston Scientific Corporation: $17.8 million for medical equipment and supplies; 85 percent of contracts awarded without benefit of competition.
* Kinetic Concepts Inc.: $12 million, medical equipment and supplies; 28 percent noncompetitively awarded.
* CB Richard Ellis: The Blum-controlled international real estate firm holds congressionally funded contracts to lease office space to the Department of Veterans Affairs. It also is involved in redeveloping military bases turned over to the private sector.
You would think that, considering all the money Feinstein's family has pocketed by waging global warfare while ignoring the plight of wounded American soldiers, she would show a smidgeon of shame and resign from the entire Senate, not just a subcommittee. Conversely, you'd think she might stick around MILCON to try and fix the medical-care disaster she helped to engineer for the vets who were suckered into fighting her and Bush's panoply of unjust wars.
Source:
http://www.metroactive.com/metro/03.21.07/dianne-feinstein-resigns-0712.html
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3/29/2007, 8:32 am
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Joseph Sarandos
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Re: Senator Dianne Feinstein ABRUPTLY RESIGNS her leadership of MILCON
Referring to the last paragraph in the quoted article, it can be said that this is yet another case of “a fox being appointed to guard the henhouse”. But, as the new chair of the Senate Rules Committee, in charge of policing ethics violations by senators, Feinstein is moreso “a fox among foxes in the foxhouse,” who will be yapping; “Do as I say, not as I did!”
Joseph
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Corruption Chronicles
http://www.corruptionchronicles.com/2007/03/violations_force_feinstein_mil.html
March 29, 2007
Violations Force Feinstein Military Committee Resignation
A veteran California senator has resigned as chair of a powerful military construction committee after reports that for years she abused her position to award her husband’s companies billions of dollars in government contracts.
During her six years as chair and ranking member of the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, Senator Dianne Feinstein annually supervised the appropriation of billions of dollars for specific military construction projects. The San Francisco lawmaker supervised her own staff of military construction experts and she lobbied Pentagon officials to support her favorite projects.
She wielded quite a bit of power and succeeded in steering hundreds of billions of dollars in military contracts to companies partially owned by her wealthy husband, Richard Blum. One company alone earned $792 million from military construction and environmental cleanup projects approved by Feinstein’s committee and another $759 million.
The blatant ethics violation and obvious conflict of interest was first exposed earlier this year by a weekly Northern California publication. The story details how Feinstein voted over the years for appropriations that enriched her husband’s firms and that her top legal advisor also happens to be one of her husband’s longtime business partners; in other words, a financial beneficiary of the senator’s decisions.
No wonder Feinstein, a former San Francisco mayor elected to the U.S. Senate in 1992, is among the wealthiest members of congress. Last year she ranked eighth with a net worth of $42.6 million, boosted by assets she holds with her husband. Most of them are companies that have made their fortune from the very government contracts she has granted them.
Perhaps Feinstein quit her coveted military construction committee position because she is taking her new role as the senate ethics police quite seriously. As the new chair of the Senate Rules Committee Feinstein, for years an ethics violator, is actually in charge of regulating her colleagues’ ethical behavior.
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3/30/2007, 9:04 am
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