The latest action from Dianne Feinstein is a reminder but not even my rationale for why she needs to go.
Where do you draw the line for what is acceptable for Dems? Is it an ideological line on a spectrum from progressive to Blue Dog, or is it more bread and butter refusal to create contrast with the Republicans, as in the case of Joe Lieberman?
DiFi is one of several Democrats who need to primaried. Her most of all, due to privileging conditions in her state.
The latest DiFi outrage is far from my rationale, or even a main part of my rationale for ousting her. I've been calling for it a while, now. My reasons are much more simple than the latest media cycle. Feinstein is corrupt and refuses to strengthen our hand as progressives on the same fundamental issues that Joe Lieberman and Jay Rockefeller sell us out on. While Republicans no longer have consensus on their side, foreign policy is the issue where they don't look as laughably pathetic to the American people... it's their loophole. Many Dems supported the AUMF and capitulated on the budget, but few have so fervently led the lemmings off the cliff as the senior Senator from California. Therefore, you cut the head off.
Here she is in her full, Bozo the Clown-like glory with Rumsfeld, Inouye, Tubes Stevens, and noted bipartisan Kay "Country-first" Bailey-Hutchison ->snark on a trip to Gitmo. Thanks, Land of Enchantment
Attadave responded with these words: "A truly disturbing photo. It seems to somehow encapulate everything wrong with our government."
Here is the house that blood and bone built. An aristocrat through and through, the front approach to her house was landscaped like a veritable 18th century palace-garden.
As a libertarian-minded Independent, I usually am quick to refrain from passing judgement on one's economic background. But Dianne Feinstein didn't get to be one of the wealthiest members of Congress through the "free market". You see, it's not that surprising that Dianne Feinstein is one of Dick Cheney's favorite Democrats. Her husband and Mr. Cheney have a number of traits in common. Namely, the fabulous wealth of war profiteering. We're not even talking about George W. Bush rich. He was an oil guy. The serious riches are in war:
Dianne Feinstein—the ninth wealthiest member of congress—has been beset by monumental ethical conflicts of interest. As a member of the Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee (MILCON) from 2001 to the end of 2005, Senator Feinstein voted for appropriations worth billions of dollars to her husband’s firms.
From 1997 through the end of 2005, Feinstein’s husband Richard C. Blum was a majority shareholder in both URS Corp. and Perini Corp. She lobbied Pentagon officials in public hearings to support defense projects that she favored, some of which already were, or subsequently became, URS or Perini contracts. From 2001 to 2005, URS earned $792 million from military construction and environmental cleanup projects approved by MILCON; Perini earned $759 million from such projects.
In 2000, Perini earned a mere $7 million from federal contracts. After 9/11, Perini was transformed into a major defense contractor. In 2004, the company earned $444 million for military construction work in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as for improving airfields for the US Air Force in Europe and building base infrastructures for the US Navy around the globe. In a remarkable financial recovery, Perini shot from near penury in 1997 to logging gross revenues of $1.7 billion in 2005.
It is estimated that Perini now holds at least $2.5 billion worth of contracts tied to the worldwide expansion of the US military. Its largest Department of Defense contracts are "indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity" or "bundled" contracts carrying guaranteed profit margins. As of May 2006, Perini held a series of bundled contracts awarded by the Army Corps of Engineers for work in the Middle East worth $1.725 billion. Perini has also been awarded an open-ended contract by the US Air Force for military construction and cleaning the environment at closed military bases.
In 2003 hearings, MILCON approved various construction projects at sites where Perini and/or URS are contracted to perform engineering and military construction work. URS’s military construction work in 2000 earned it a mere $24 million. The next year, when Feinstein took over as MILCON chair, military construction earned URS $185 million. On top of that, the company’s architectural and engineering revenue from military construction projects grew from $108,726 in 2000 to $142 million in 2001, more than a thousand-fold increase in a single year.
Beginning in 1997, Michael R. Klein, a top legal adviser to Feinstein and a long-time business partner of Blum’s, routinely informed Feinstein about specific federal projects coming before her in which Perini had a stake. The insider information, Klein said, "was intended to help the senator avoid conflicts of interest." Although Klein’s admission was intended to defuse the issue, it had the effect of exacerbating it, because in theory, Feinstein would not know the identity of any of the companies that stood to contractually benefit from her approval of specific items in the military construction budget—until Klein told her.
Feinstein’s husband has profited in other ways by his powerful political connections. In March 2002, then-Governor Gray Davis appointed Blum to a twelve-year term as a regent of the University of California, where he used his position as Regent to award millions of dollars in construction contracts to URS and Perini. At the time, he was the principal owner of URS and had substantial interests in Perini. In 2005, Blum divested himself of Perini stock for a considerable profit. He then resigned from the URS board of directors and divested his investment firm of about $220 million in URS stock.1
DiFi is among the most unrepentant liberals who voted for the AUMF. Refuses to leave the "serious" side of the table shared with Dick Cheney and Joe Lieberman on the issues of intelligence--spying and torture--and the general flourishing of the military-industrial complex... at the expense of the children of Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine... and the United States.
We will be a nation of laws or not at all before long. We can either be a participant in the global movement towards democracy and opportunity, or we can be a tower of steel pillars guarded by private contractors. A grim beacon of death.
DiFi chose her side.
Some have already begun to claim that while we should pressure Senators like DiFi and J-Rock, we can't expect to overcome them. I disagree, because no one was expecting us to primary Lieberman out yet we did. We've learned some things isnce 2006 and this last election even. We need to take it to the next step.
There are two Democratic megalomaniacs in statewide California politics that should be feared: Jerry Brown and DiFi. Both are considerably older and very vocal on gay and abortion rights. Brown is currently trying to tap backlash to Proposition H8 as California AG. Both DiFi and Brown are shitty leaders who make great PR at critical moments. And both are studying the waters for a potential run at Governator in 2010. DiFi's term is not up until 2012, so she's potentially weighing whether or not to resign. I suspect she won't run ultimately, but it is a serious possibility.
So buyer beware. We need to keep this venal woman and this nut away from future rewards, and not incidentally build the California Democratic party, or we can have people like these continually head the party and stiffle progressivism within. Nothing says San Francisco liberal like a war profiteer.
Since that used to be the most offensive politically-loaded word in this country. Back when we had fight in our unions and progressives.