Posted on 03/31/2007 7:30:23 AM PDT by DBCJR
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?
Continued below
(Excerpt) Read more at metroactive.com ...
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.
By 2005 her net worth had increased to between $43 million and $99 million dollars.
Her financial disclosure statement -- nearly the size of a phonebook
.................Nice...beats shrillaries $100K from cattle futures
Isn't that interesting, democarts corruption continues, who would have thought that? It is also obvious that she had a hand in the terrible Walter Reed Scandal, although she took the money for herself rather than supporting wounded vets. Oh my
Not a peep in the Democrat controlled Defeat and Retreat media.
this is the third day that this major news on Fraudstein has appeared on FreeRepublic but I was really spooked by general media silence, even Drudge!, and then the thread was pulled off Free Republic the past two days running!! Why???
DEMAND a congressional hearing on this!
Her shrewdish financial move was putting a D behind her name.
RUSH: Here's the Dianne Feinstein story, and this is from a website that is in suburban San Francisco. It actually has not been picked up by the Drive-By Media yet, which is fascinating in and of itself. Peter Byrne writes the story.
"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 couldn't take the heat generated by this newspaper's exposé of her ethics, or was her work on the subcommittee finished? Because Blum divested ownership of his military construction and advanced weapon manufacturing firms in late 2005. Now, the military construction appropriations 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 dissociate herself from the military construction appropriations subcommittee 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 the military construction appropriation subcommittee, Dianne Feinstein had ample warning of the medical care meltdown, but she was not proactive on Veterans Affairs. Feinstein abandoned MILCON as her ethical problem for 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."
(more...)
many many thanks for your post!!!
I love how they thoughtfully left off (D-CA) after her name .. and totally ignored her name in the title of the story .. thereby causing people to ASSUME it's another repub .. I can't express how disgusting these media people are.
Another neo-con war criminal....er...uh...nevermind.
Money won't sway me...I always vote against her and
the other pseudoSenator..Boxer. The Calfornia R-party
never has anyone (who can win) run against either one
of these jokers. When they contact me for a measly
donaion (I'm poor)...I tell them..get me someone with
a chance against these emnbarrasing representatives
and I'll support him/her. Otherwise, get lost. JK
If the media went after Fienstein, this could potentially cause her to leave the Senate. If she was Republican, they would be howling for her to leave now. But with a one seat majority, the media will allow the Democrats to get away with ANYTHING to maintain their control of the Senate.
***...the vets who were suckered into fighting her and Bush's panoply of unjust wars.***
I don't agree with your inclusion of Bush's name in the above sentence. OTHER THAN that, thank you for the aritcle. By the way, despite the lib media, there was only one buiidng at Walter Reed which was neglected, and that was used for vets who were healed and waiting for transfer, and for some outpatients who were housed there. Patient care at WR has been highly praised by the vets and their families.
***nd then the thread was pulled off Free Republic the past two days running!! Why???***
I saw the lead up to one of those threads before it was pulled and it included statements that could be libelous. Probably just some of the fleas who jumped over from DU.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.