For those who think Diane Feinstein is even remotely sincere

Feinstein has you fooled if you think she's an innocent pawn caught up in the evil clutches of the Bush Administration. She's been using her position to syphon off incredibly lucrative contracts to her husband's businesses which include military contracts and mortgage brokering. After reading the following excerpt from Wikipedia you won't still think it isn't to Feinstein's benefit to make sure Bush's wars continue. Her husband, Richard Blum, has made billions if not millions on military contracts, which she carefully steers his way. She can fool people because she covers her ass well and her political timing is so fine tuned that she gets away with all the things she does behind closed door under the guise of being the Chair of the Intelligence Committee and therefore able to move around with impunity because she can claim she has to keep her activities secret for National Security reasons. She didn't get where she is on her own merit and hard work. She became Mayor of San Francisco by default when Dan White killed George Moscone and Harvey Milk in 1978. For some reason her name was conflated with the tragic event and somehow she always uses that mantle of tragedy to her benefit. But if you think she has our best interest at heart, like a high ranking Democrat should, you're wrong. Her luck is the same luck John McCain has. People associate them with tragedies in their past and keep being fooled by them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_C._Blum


Blum did hold over 111,000 shares of stock in URS Corporation, which is now one of the top defense contractors in the United States. URS bought EG&G, a leading provider of technical services and management to the U.S. military, from The Carlyle Group in 2002. Carlyle's trusty advisers, past and present, include former President George H.W. Bush, James Baker, and ex-SEC Commissioner Arthur Levitt, among other prominent neoconservatives and Washington power brokers.

URS and Blum have since banked on the Iraq war, scoring a $600 million contract through EG&G. As a result, URS has seen its stock price more than triple since the war began in March 2003. Blum has cashed in over $2 million on this venture alone and another $100 million for his investment firm.

"As part of EG&G's sale price," reports the San Francisco Chronicle, "Carlyle acquired a 21.74 percent stake in URS – second only to the 23.7 percent of shares controlled by Blum Capital."

The Carlyle Group has long been accused of exploiting its political connections to turn a profit.

more at the link...

Stunk to high heaven from start to suicide finish and I never trusted Feinstein for a second. I'm not going to cast aspersions here on DU but I was always kind of shocked that she ever had any credibility at all.

All you'll cast is some light on the truth after reading the facts.

I lived near College and Broadway--Rockridge.

What a fucked up year, the murder suicide AND Jonestown.

I thought the world was coming to an end.

And I, too, despised her; first just from a gut feeling that she was an opportunist and kind of corrupt, and then from all of her positions and behaviors and statements.

So I agree, and I'm not afraid to say it, she sucks.

Small world ain't it. Yeah fall of 78 was one weird season. It was my first year there and even I knew something was up. Big hotel fire in Las Vegas too that month with eighty fatalities, making it all weirder. But then we've had a few weird seasons since then.

I posted previously of being in SF that day and have wondered who else on DU was there. DiFi was there when it happened and came outside to the reports to annouce before the TV cameras what had happened that morning.

I happened to be in SF that day, watched from my hotel as they searched for White. That evening as we left the restaurant, my (now ex-)wife, a close friend then living in SF, and I were caught up in the candlelight vigil.

We followed along and, once again, I was witnessing a major event unfold. We took a few pictures while on the street and a couple from our hotel room. Will never forget any of this, have found a few of the pictures, and discussed it with my ex-wife a couple of weeks back.

We wondered how many of those who were there that night were still living. We concluded it is probably only 6-8,000 at most.


BTW the MGM Grande fire was in 1980.

Figured out later about the hotel fire. Geez, senior moment, am I really that old?! Seemed like it was all the same month looking back, but you're right.

I wrote her regarding the investigation over 911

I wrote her regarding Safe-guards for TARP funds

Each and every time her office has told me to pound sand

And she did anyway because 'she knows things that are secret for National Security reasons'. Then when crap started leaking out about the WMD being lies, and everything else uttered by the Bush administration being deliberate lies to use to go to war she came out oh so self-righteously whining that Bush had lied to her. She's excellent at self serving herself.

Please vote no on the idiotic Big Pharma bill - but she did anyway.

Please vote no on the absurd Bankruptcy vill - but she did anyway.

Please vote no on bailout funds - but.....

She's been a greedy DINO since the beginning and I wish she would just go away from CA politics.

I know she has armed bodyguards as well as a license to carry a handgun.
I was amazed at the flack I got for calling her a liar.
I am still amazed that so many fall for her bullshit.


mark

Here's an article explaining how in 2007 she quit the Senate Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee because she was being sniffed out. That's how she keeps her mantle of respectability on. She runs away before it becomes a full blown scandal.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54932

ON CAPITOL HILL
Feinstein quits committee
under war-profiteer cloud
Report documents military contracts
for firms owned by senator's husband
Posted: March 28, 2007

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has abruptly walked away from her responsibilities with the Senate Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee after a report linked her votes to the financial well-being of her husband's companies, which received billions of dollars worth of military construction contracts she approved.

As reported in Metroactive, an online report from the Silicon Valley, Feinstein's resignation followed six years of subcommittee work during which time her alleged conflict of interest stemmed from her husband Richard C. Blum's ownership of Perini Corp. and URS Corp.

Feinstein, chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee, regularly reviewed and accepted contracts from her husband's companies for not only construction work for military bases, but also addressing "quality of life" issues for the veterans of the United States military services.

"As MILCON leader, Feinstein relished the details of military construction, even micromanaging one project at the level of its sewer design," wrote Peter Byrne in the report. "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."

more...

This woman has her finger on every opportunity to cash in on the tragedy of war as well as the present economic collapse. If you've lost your home to a foreclosure maybe her husband has bought it up for re-sale for profit.

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/apr/21/senate-husbands-firm-cashes-in-on-crisis/

EXCLUSIVE: Senator's husband's firm cashes in on crisis
Feinstein sought $25 billion for agency that awarded contract to spouse

By Chuck Neubauer (Contact) | Tuesday, April 21, 2009

On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband's real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms.

Mrs. Feinstein's intervention on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was unusual: the California Democrat isn't a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with jurisdiction over FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments - not direct federal dollars.

Documents reviewed by The Washington Times show Mrs. Feinstein first offered Oct. 30 to help the FDIC secure money for its effort to stem the rise of home foreclosures. Her letter was sent just days before the agency determined that CB Richard Ellis Group (CBRE) - the commercial real estate firm that her husband Richard Blum heads as board chairman - had won the competitive bidding for a contract to sell foreclosed properties that FDIC had inherited from failed banks.

One of Richard Blum's businesses is CB Richard Ellis, a Real Estate Business. From the contract she gave her husband, this is how he makes money -
The firm, known for its commercial real estate services, is to be paid monthly maintenance fees for each foreclosed property it handles, as well as commissions and incentives. The total compensation can range from 8 percent of the sales price on many residential properties to 30 percent for properties worth $25,000 or less.

Most real estate agents earn no more than 6 percent on residential, even on foreclosed properties, and CBRE doesn't have as much experience in foreclosure sales as other firms.

I tell you she gets away with real criminal activity and she's making herself disgustingly more wealthy on every bad thing that's been happening in our country and the world. She isn't just corrupt. She's a scavenger who lives on the road kill of the wars and the economy. And people think she's going to work against her own greedy self interest and try to end the wars and help people in danger of foreclosures?! Are you kidding! That's working against your own self-interests.

I call bullshit. I can't think of a single friend I have in a relationship, gay or straight, where the significant other doesn't know what is going on. They all have fights over money. It is an equal partnership.

If she doesn't know, it is because she doesn't WANT to know.

What a couple of predators they are!

I am totally ashamed they call themselves Democrats.

You can Google it easily.

Feinstein is an opportunistic hypocrite. It is amazing that so many fall for her shtick. Here in Texas, we have those by the ton, but we used to think that California was so sophisticated that they wouldn't fall for that.

In the words of Marine Pyle: Shame, Shame, Shame.

she seems to be corrupt and too interested in making herslf wealthy instead of doing the publics business.

Her war profiteering makes her no less a member of BushCo then Rumsfeld and the rest of the cabal. It's time for her to go.

DiFi has her big shoes on again not unlike her very public berating of President-Elect Obama for appointing Panetta to the CIA without her blessing. She loves putting herself out in front of the cameras.

She is contemplating a gubernatorial run here in California, although she did issue a press release yesterday saying she intends to run again for the Senate in 2010; I don't believe that for a minute.

I get the impression she's trying to be perceived as being on the right side of the torture issue, but I am confident she is more interested in her own political backside than anything else.

no matter how incompetent, corrupt or disgusting they were in addition to the "patriot" act and other pieces of trash legislation. She is currently not going to vote for the Employee Free Choice Act. She consistently votes against the financial and power interests of anyone but the upper 1%. I don't vote for her. If she lived in any other state she'd be honest and call her self a repuglican.

one of those, "it's my turn" Senate thing that goes on for every 4 years.

That's the way it is when a new President comes in. Everyone jockeys around to let him know who's who in the pecking order. The message is, 'this is the way it happens around her' and 'if you want me to work with you and save you the time of having to talk to everyone under me or of lesser importance than me, then you better show public respect for me'. It's a game that's older than the hills because Congress is one of three equal branches of the government. Something we do well to remember since the last 8 years were full of a concerted effort to make Bush The Unitary Executive and we all but forgot that Congress' power is equal to the Executive power and the Judicial power.

over the appointment of Leon Panetta to oversee the CIA without consulting with her first. I don't know that for sure but it happened in rapid succession after her very public hissyfit.

* Edited to change "probably" to "maybe" as I'm just guessing here.

I was all for anybody with a D after their name when we were in the minority because I believed then, and still do, that there are huge advantages that come with simply being the majority party and controlling the committees even if you can't get a lot of what you want done because you have no progressive majority. However, now that we're in the majority and the country has shifted drastically away from the Republican Party, we need to light some fire under these peoples' asses to actually vote like Democrats.

A primary challenge doesn't necessarily result in unseating the incumbent, either. It just has to coerce the incumbent into actually voting like a Democrat if they want to keep their seat.

Aaron Sorkin does a pretty good job of showing us how it's done.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXmRYJwK3wM

.

Granted it's only two points more. But it's also drastically more than she won her first election by and 6 points more than she won her election in 2000 by.

"You have any idea how much noise Air Force One makes when it lands in San Fransisco, Senator? President Obama doesn't hold a grudge. That's what he pays me for."

There are times when thats ALL THERE IS!

I think I like Lemon Lymon better than rahmbo!

Did you hear how AF#! scared the pants off NYC today????

She really needs to get out of the government.

She's always' going against the internet. High tech companies give her a 1, on a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of Internet freedom. I couldn't trust her.

It's very hard to unseat an incumbent, or to defeat an "heir apparent" for an office that has term limits.

We're trying to change that. It won't affect the US Senate seats, but our redistricting method will be radically changed in 2010. That may affect the 2012 elections.

...she is capable of dealing honestly in situations where money hasn't gotten to her first.

...and no, I don't trust her very far.

...with the Moscone / Milk assassinations. Yes she benefited greatly, but I do not believe it was planned by her or anyone else except for Dan White, who did it for his own reasons. The facts were pretty plain, he had resigned his seat on the city council and then wanted it back, no one has ever disputed that. So his motives were pretty straightforward.

As an aside, during her stint as mayor of S.F., Feinstein pushed through funding for an earthquake retrofit of Candlestick Park. Thank goodness -- when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit, Candlestick was packed for the third game of the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics. Without the earthquake retrofit, there almost certainly would have been fatalities there. So that's a karma point or two on her side.

On the other hand, I totally agree she is a tool who is in it for the money, and I would love to see her defeated in her next primary. I just don't buy that she was involved in any way with the Moscone / Milk assassinations.

I don't see where I even implied that.

But the fact is, she was in the right place at the right time, and the Dan White shooting was extremely bizarre, and knowing what we know now, extremely suspicious, at least to me.

...should have replied to bottomtheweaver. You did not imply that.

:thumbsup: