Feinstein quits committee under war-profiteer cloud
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/articl...TICLE_ID=54932
Senator exits MILCON following Metro exposé, vet-care scandal
http://www.metroactive.com/metro/03....igns-0712.html
----------------------------------------------------------
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."
Now, Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters also references this story today, and his take on this is right on the money. "The new Congress has barely made it past its start before a new face has been put on lobbyist influence. Dianne Feinstein, senior senator from California, has resigned her leadership position on a subcommittee which put billions of dollars into her family business. This is culture of corruption Democrat style." Now, wasn't it the Democrats who insisted that the Republicans jumped into bed with lobbyists and special interests? Now we have a senior Democrat who made sure that over a billion dollars of federal money got routed through her own checkbook with her husband as proxy. When can we expect to see a Democrat investigation into this brand of corruption?
Hint: We won't, folks.
"During the 2006 election, Feinstein's party made a lot of hay out of none competitive contracting by the government. Democrats railed about Halliburton, even though Halliburton won 95% of its contract dollars by full and open competition. Now we see that Feinstein herself had no problem with noncompetitive practices as long as it meant stuffing her own pockets with taxpayer money. Take a look at the percentages. I'll go through those here in just a second.] In 2005, CB Richard Ellis, one of the companies, made $100 million in federal contracts, only half of which had been part of full and open competitive building. As of December 2006, according to SEC filings and
www.FedSpending.org, three corporations in which Feinstein's husband'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.
"Here are the three. Boston Scientific Corporation, $17.8 million for medical equipment and supplies. 85% of contracts awarded without benefit of competition. Kinetic Concepts, Incorporated, $12 million, medical equipment and supplies, 28% 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's also involved in redeveloping military bases turned over to the private sector." This is "Culture of Corruption Democrat Style." So the bottom line here to the question is, the Democrats are not going to shut down the Navy.
Look at Murtha. Murtha has enriched himself and who knows how many people in his own district, via the Department of Defense budget and various projects and so forth. The military exists for that purpose as far as the Democrats are concerned. As far as Feinstein is concerned, she's resigned MILCON for whatever reason, but you won't hear much about this. There's a clear double standard. The Democrats are simply incapable of "corruption," folks. They're simply incapable of it. If anybody got on this path in an elected official, you would see the Democrat Party set out to destroy that person like the Clinton, Inc. bunch tried to destroy Ken Starr.
------------------------------------------------------
Linear Mode
