Posted on 09/29/2023 6:07:41 AM PDT by Red Badger
KEY POINTS
* Dianne Feinstein, the oldest member of the U.S. Senate and the longest-serving senator from California, has died at age 90.
* Feinstein’s death leaves vacant her powerful Senate seat, requiring Gov. Gavin Newsom to appoint a temporary successor.
* The Democratic senator’s decades-long career was studded with major legislative achievements on issues including gun control and the environment.
* Ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) attends a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing examining issues facing prisons and jails during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic on Capitol Hill June 2, 2020 in Washington, D.C.
Dianne Feinstein, the oldest member of the U.S. Senate and the longest-serving senator from California, has died at age 90, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News on Friday.
The Democrat’s passing marks the end of a boundary-pushing political career that spanned more than half a century, studded with major legislative achievements on issues including gun control and the environment.
Feinstein had planned to retire at the end of her current term in 2024.
Feinstein’s death leaves vacant her powerful Senate seat, requiring Gov. Gavin Newsom to appoint a temporary successor.
A San Francisco native, Feinstein cleared a path for women in politics as she rose the ranks of leadership. After two failed bids for mayor, she was elected president of San Francisco’s board of supervisors in 1978, becoming the first woman to hold the title.
Feinstein was made acting mayor of the city later that year, after then-Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, her colleague on the board of supervisors, were assassinated by Dan White, a former member of the same board.
In later interviews, Feinstein recalled finding Milk’s body and searching for a pulse by putting her finger in a bullet hole.
Feinstein was the first to announce the murders to the press. She was appointed mayor a week later, again becoming the first woman elevated to the office.
The tragedy had the side effect of jumpstarting Feinstein’s political career, but the trauma of the day stuck with her even decades later.
“I never really talk about this,” Feinstein said with a sigh when asked about the murders in a CNN interview in 2017.
Her streak of firsts continued at the national level. Feinstein lost a gubernatorial bid in 1990, but two years later won a special election to the U.S. Senate, becoming California’s first female senator.
Weeks later, the state’s second female senator, Barbara Boxer, was sworn into office, making California the first state in the U.S. to be represented in the Senate by two women.
Their 1992 elections helped define the “Year of the Woman,” in which four Democratic women were newly elected to the Senate — more than doubling the chamber’s female representation.
In the Senate, Feinstein clinched some of her biggest legislative achievements. She wrote and championed the 1994 assault weapons ban, both a landmark bill and a continuation of a career-long effort to enact stricter gun controls.
The legislation passed Congress and was signed by then-President Bill Clinton, albeit with major compromises including a 10-year sunset provision. The ban expired in 2004 during the administration of George W. Bush.
She also sponsored bills that protect millions of acres of California’s desert, worked to create a nationwide AMBER alert network, helped reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act and fought for the release of a lengthy report detailing the CIA’s torture practices, among other accomplishments.
Over her three decades in the Senate, Feinstein has generally been seen as a political moderate in her party. In the 1990s and 2000s, that reputation made Feinstein highly popular — but much of that popularity eroded in the proceeding years as California’s political tint shifted toward deeper shades of blue.
As her centrism grew increasingly out of fashion, Feinstein’s standing in her final stretch in office was further diminished by a crescendo of skepticism about her mental fitness for the Senate.
A damning report from the San Francisco Chronicle in April 2022 featured unnamed Democratic colleagues of Feinstein fretting over her apparent decline in mental acuity. Feinstein defended her ability to govern, while acknowledging that she had been going through an “extremely painful and distracting” period as her late husband, financier Richard Blum, had battled cancer.
By the time Feinstein announced that she would not seek reelection at the end of her term in 2024, multiple Democratic politicians had already launched campaigns to succeed her.
Any mention of her 30? Year Chinese Spy Guy? Handler?
Like all Democrats and many politicians she became a money grubbing power hoarding enemy of the USA.
I hope she was saved before she met our Maker.
Next??
Although I'm not a big Kavanaugh fan, EVERY Republican USSC Nominee is smeared by these Feinstein-type assclowns in the Hearings, while Democrat Nominees are rubber-stamped by RINO's.
There is only ONE Party; the Deep State.
will newsome appoint pencil neck schifty schiff to fill her term?
(where will richard get his tips for insider trading deals now that di fi chi spy is history? will that be a condition of her replacement appointment's deal? )
PS: how could she have the same chinese chauffeur for over 10 years without figuring out he was a spy?
MIchaelTArchangel said:
This is a gift for America. The Senate needs to kick UpChuck Schumer out as majority leader and install (*gasp*) a Republican into that post so the Senate can vote on all of the individual spending bills the House is about to send to the Senate and pass each bill by at least 50 to 49.
6 posted on 9/29/2023, 7:12:45 AM by MIchaelTArchangel
* * *
YEAH BABY YEAH
(I’m not happy that she’s dead though she certainly was never lovable; nevertheless I agree strongly with the above sentiment. IT’S THE TIME.)
well RIP.
Don’t worry. She will still be voting
Imagine how good we'll feel when we hear that Hillary has joined her!
What is the backstory about her personal chauffeur, the Chinese man, and his connection to the Communist ruling party????
RIP as well. The good news is the republicans said they wouldn’t replace her on the judiciary committee. I really hope they keep with that promise. 325 Biden judges is more then enough.
She probably was in her death throes for a while and every politician in her orbit knew it but still forced her to keep on keeping on.
I wonder how her Chinese spy driver is mourning. her....
I was her chauffeur for a few days in 1985 when the National Conference Of Mayors was in Anchorage. Just her and me in my blue Riviera. City employees could volunteer to help during the event, and she’s the one I got.
Back then she was pretty nice.
She was Jewish. I don’t think they go to the pearly gates. Their route is different.
NBC 9-11-23:
>>Newsom told Todd he still intended to appoint a Black woman should the need arise. “I abide by what I’ve said very publicly,” Newsom said when asked about it, but he strongly suggested that that person would no longer be Lee.
Old saying:
“Be nice to the people on the way up because they are the same people you will meet on the way down.”................
50-49 at the moment. Democrats lead by one.
Hot mic catches confused Feinstein being told to vote 'aye' in awkward committee moment
'Just say, "Aye,"' Sen. Patty Murray told Feinstein
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/hot-mic-catches-feinstein-told-vote-aye-awkward-committee-moment
This charade like Biden's and Mitch McConnell's situation was turning into a very sad spectacle of elder abuse. I have friends who are older than this crowd who still have their faculties, but it is getting absolutely ridiculous these days.
“Newsome appoints Kamala and Biden picks him for VP.”
Interesting scenario, outofsalt. I have been speculating the Democrats would like to get rid of Crazy Joe but have to get rid of Harris first. I guess they could tell her, “resign and take the Senate seat or be fed to the fish”.
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