JOSHUA FRANK: The Feinstein Family of War-Profiteers -- Part Two

[Tace]

Partisanship Trumps Ethics

By Joshua Frank -- World News Trust

Senator Dianne Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum could well be called the Democratic Daddy War Bucks. He’s scored bundles from war contracts. He has recently purchased a $16.5 million crib in San Francisco and along with his wife has handed hundreds of thousands of dollars over to fellow Democrats. Since the 2000 election cycle Blum has contributed over $75,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Committee, and thousands more to individual Democratic senatorial campaigns including John Kerry, Robert Byrd, Joe Lieberman, Ted Kennedy and Barbara Boxer.

Richard Blum’s history as an entrepreneur began at the ripe age of 23 when he began to work for the San Francisco brokerage firm Sutro & Company. Blum quickly climbed the ranks and became a partner by the age of 30. According the SFGate.com, “Blum proved that he had an eye for fixer-upper properties when he led a partnership that acquired the struggling Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for $8 million -- then sold it to Mattel Inc. four years later for $40 million.”

In 1975, Blum went out on his own and formed a brokerage agency. Today Blum’s lofty firm, Blum Capital, holds positions in more than 20 companies, including real estate giants, credit bureaus, and yes, even military contractors.

Blum sees himself as an altruistic capitalist, says one of his ex-employees. “He likes to go after companies that are down and out, and bring their stock back to life. He thinks he doing good.” Blum shares a large stake in Perini, a civil construction company that is happily employed in Iraq and Afghanistan. But not all of Blum’s war-profits come from Perini. In 1975 his venture capital firm went after fledging construction and design company, URS, when the business was about to be bought out by another corporation.

Since then Blum has increased his stock in URS, capitalizing on its recent military contracts. Unlike Blum’s dabbling with Barnum & Bailey, his current profits aren’t so safe for child consumption.

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http://worldnewstrust.org/modules/AMS/article.php?storyid=2476

[marmar]

1. DINOanne is a few steps short of Lieberman...

And really, she always has been. Maybe Barbara Lee or Lynn Wolsey will consider running for her seat.

[...of J.Temperance]

7. If Senator Feinstein goes for re-election she'll win n/t

[Coastie for Truth]

16. Well - If Matt Gonzales unseats her in the Primary

DAN LUNGREN FOR SENATE


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BERKELEY LAW PROFESSOR JOHN C. YOO FOR NINTH US CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS

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[The Magistrate]

19. That Is Franks' Queasy Little Hope, Sir

He is of the "let's make it worse to make it better" school. That is a program that always fails, of course, but continues to draw adherents anyway....

[EFerrari]

2. Here are the nuts and bolts:

"Here are the basics to date: Blum currently holds more than 111,000 shares of stock in URS Corporation, which is now one of the top defense contractors in the United States. Blum is an acting Director of URS, which 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 advisors include President George Bush Sr., James Baker and ex-SEC Commissioner Arthur Levitt, among other prominent neo-conservatives and Washington powerbrokers.

URS and Blum have since banked on the Iraq war, scoring a phat $600 million contract through EG&G. As a result URS has seen its stock price more than triple. Blum has cashed in more than $2 million on this venture alone and another $100 million on 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.'"

You're wrong, Mr. Frank. We can't stand her EITHER.

[...of J.Temperance]

4. And he's given campaign contributions to Kennedy and Boxer

So, Joshua Franks next articles will be called:

How Ted Kennedy benefits from war profits by taking campaign contributions from Richard Blum.

How Barbara Boxer benefits from war profits by taking campaign contributions from Richard Blum.

Franks is a loon, I'm sorry but I'm allowed to have my own opinion.

[Coastie for Truth]

13. EG&G is Harold "Doc" Edgerton's company

"Doc" invented the ubiquitous "strobe light" - became a millionaire, and continued teaching at MIT until he died (in his 80's).

"Doc's" son Bob is a good, solid Progressive - and has made major (like really major) breakthroughs in the fresnel surface film of photovoltaic cells.



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"Doc" was my friend.

Bob is a friend.

[...of J.Temperance]

3. Joshua Frank is no friend of the Democratic Party and he's NOT credible

Joshua Frank wrote a book called 'How Liberals did Bush's work for him'. He also wrote a completely ridiculous article called 'Hillary and George: Two Warmongers in a Pod'. He also writes articles for that fishwrap Counterpunch....and as we know Alexander Cockburn's Counterpunch NEVER says anything good about a Democrat or the Democratic Party.

Joshua Frank is not credible, but he is hateful....about Democrats.

On Edit: Dammit spelling error.

[DerekG]

5. What are your arguments against the veracity of this piece?

n/t

[...of J.Temperance]

9. It's written by the uncredible and Democratic hater Joshua Franks

That's enough.

On Edit: I edited.

[The Magistrate]

10. It Is Blitheringly Unimportant, Sir

What is true in it is of no importance, save as a pretext for a propagandist's poor attempt at knife-work....

Franks does not like Democrats; evidently he prefers Republicans. He seldom bothers to attack them, after all....

[DerekG]

14. I suspect his motivation is similar to that of Malcolm X

One of the more vivid digressions in Malcolm's autobiography centered on the '64 contest between Johnson and Goldwater: the former was likened to the crafty fox, and the arch-conservative the wolf. Malcolm preferred the wolf, who left no room for ambiguity in regard to its intentions. The civil rights leader was, of course, vindicated (albeit posthumously), as the Great Society liberal sent tens of thousands of blacks to murder, and die, in the fields and jungles of Indochina.

One only needs possess a modicum of decency/intelligence to see through Bushco; exposing neo-liberals like Clinton and Feinstein, on the other hand, is a far more ambitious, and worthwhile, effort.

[The Magistrate]

17. Oh, Thank You For The Laugh, Sir

Genuine farcicality is hard to come by.

Let us review. Supporting Sen. Goldwater was preferable for Blacks to supporting President Johnson, or in other words, supporting a staunch opponent of Civil Rights legislation was preferable for Blacks to supporting the man who drove the modern enactments of Civil Rights law through the Congress, and at great personal political cost to boot. If you find that a sensible and compelling stance, you have my deepest sympathies.

What you have said boils down to the claim the great harm done to our people and country is best opposed not by attacking those who are actually inflicting that harm, but by those who are not quite as zealous in their opposition to it as one might prefer. This is a recipie for continuing the worst elements of reaction in national office, and hamstringing effective opposition to them.

A thorough-going Leninist would have no trouble or compunction in asserting Franks was simply an agent in fascist pay....

[DerekG]

20. If only I could thank you for the assumptions

1. Support has nothing to do with it. Malcolm X merely preferred the certainty, over that which was ersatz. It's a dilemma often faced by the disadvantaged and impoverished: Who's more dangerous, the chest-thumper, or the back-stabber? (Tell me: Would you include Johnson's tacit approval of the FBI's war on Rev. King, and McNamara's Project 100,000 "Moron Corps", in that noble Texan's civil rights legacy?)

2. Actually, I think we'd be well served to attack both groups, until my two senators, Gog (Schumer) and Magog (Clinton), cease supporting and funding this goddamn war. Laugh all you want, but there's something about the burning of children that makes me hanker for zealous opposition.

3. If Cockburn, Franks, and Goff are indeed in the employ of the empire, they've gone about it the wrong way. One can play the part of fascist-enabler within the DLC, and have far more lucrative prospects...

[The Magistrate]

22. No Assumptions Are Involved, Sir

The fact of the matter is that at the time, Mr. X was a racist ideologue, and his position and that of his organization would benefit from failure of the hopes for progress of the main-line Civil Rights movement. Thus he urged that the greatest enemy of Blacks comprised those persons who might see to the achievement of those goals, and considered lesser enemies those who opposed those goals, since their success would benefit him and his faction, while the contrary would do that damage. It is a shabby calculation of self-interest that is old as the hills, and political factions encamped on them. It is nothing special, and it is certainly nothing to be regarded with reverence and looked to for guidance.

You may state that you would prefer to see attacks on both groups, but in fact, you are speaking in support of a faction that prefers to attack chiefly but one of them, and that the group that bears a far lesser share of the responsibility for the thing that outrages you. That is perverse and mis-guided, and when pressed as policy, counter-productive.

The antics of people like Cockburn, et al, do more to secure the reactionaries in power than just about any other feature of our political life. That sort of shrill nonesense is precisely why the general run of our people reject anything identified as liberal or left at the polls, because they identify liberal and left with the sort of hysterical hyperbole those fellows specialize in, and do not want to identify themselves with such. The state of their bank accounts is unknown to me, but the service they render the enemy is invaluable: they strike me personally as the sort who would do it for no more recompense than the thrill of transgression....

"The more radical and violent the actions a new-comer urges, the more likely he is a police agent."

[DerekG]

25. My response

1. Malcolm did indeed harbor racism up to his transformative pilgrimage, but note that the final pages to his autobiography are peppered with regrets in how he had perceived mainstream civil rights workers, and even well-meaning whites (he seems somewhat shamed at the harsh advice he gave to a liberal college student). And yet, his fox/wolf analogy stands as it is. And why not, since it appeared at the end of the book? No, I see no indication that El Hajj Malik El-Shabazz would have endorsed Johnson any more than his former self.

One has to wonder what the radicalized King of '68 would have faced, had he lived to see the Nixon/Humphrey contest. After all, he threw caution to the wind in speaking out against Johnson's madness, even while some of his associates were cowed with the prospect of a Republican presidency. Would the good reverend have supported the Democratic nominee? I imagine it would have been quite the struggle for the American Gandhi to pull the lever for someone so good on civil rights, but so terribly wrong on issues of war and peace. We'll never know.

2. I support a faction that recognizes the Democratic leadership to be fully, and completely, complicit. I should have heeded their advice two years ago, when Cockburn and Co. predicted that the ABB coalition, which asked nothing of their pro-war candidate, and was rewarded with nothing, would end in spectacular failure. Yes, there are many things that outrage me: the disturbingly healthy "defense" budget, the shredding of the social safety net, the escalating drug war, the swelling prison-industrial complex, and the continuing reign of the corporatists. Sad to say, the upper echelon within the party has responded to these ignominies with either silence, or a nauseating enthusiasm.

3. I dunno. There are things one should avoid (burning flags, calling soldiers "baby-killers," trying to levitate the Pentagon via telekinesis), but I can't say for certain how the citizenry would respond to a candidate who promised, say, single-payer health care, or an isolationist foreign policy. They might be keen on that sort of thing.

[The Magistrate]

27. Late Conversion Do Not Much Impress Me, Sir

And the view expressed remains an extraordinarily foolish one.

You are free to hold whatever view you please concerning the nebulous concept of "complicity", but it remains a fact that the invasion of Iraq was a project of the present adnministration, and they are rsponsible both for its undertaking, and the failure it has become. Pretending others are somehow also culpable merely muddies the waters and confuses the isue, to the benefit of the real perpetrators.

So long as the person promoting those things, Sir, could be denounced as a liberal leftie, a sufficient number would reject the candidate, even if they supported the proposals, to tip the election to the other side. The shrill shriekers are the ones to thank for it.

[...of J.Temperance]

24. Golly, unintentional comedy

Hey you should get an agent and take that comedy to the stage.

[DerekG]

26. Many thanks. And for my next bit...

DerekG asks J. Temperance to respond with something substantial.

[Merlot]

6. What about the Bush Family of War Profiters?

[...of J.Temperance]

12. Joshua Franks would never write an article like that

The Bush's are Republican's....Franks is solely into bashing ANY Democrat.

[The Magistrate]

8. Much Thunder, Much Lightening, No Rain, Mr. Tace

This seems little more than a heavy-breathing account of a successful businessman.

Direct personal "profit" off the war seems to amount to about an eighth of the recent purchase price of a palatial home.

This creature Franks is really going to have to get some sense of proportion, or, failing that, perhaps a scrip for Valium....

[...of J.Temperance]

11. I think he needs more than valium....what about a strait-jacket?

It's a typical Joshua Franks article, full of seething hatred and inventing his own facts.

[FrenchieCat]

15. Now why is Joshua Franks sliming Democrats right before the

2006 election?

Can't he wait until after the fucking election, with his ignorant "won't help anyone but himself" dumbass mentality?

Hell, maybe I'll write an expose on him and how he has attempted to PROFIT monitarily by slinging mud and swiftboating those that are out of power, while allowing those in power to continue on. :mad:

[The Magistrate]

18. He Wants The Republicans To Remain In Power, Ma'am

His little niche market position depends on it....

[MH1]

23. Bingo. n/t

[MH1]

21. No, Joshua Frank cannot stop himself....after all,

he is essentially a shill for the other side.

Why people post this dreck here is beyond me....(okay, not really. They get away with it, so they post it.)