Some info on DiFi, if anyone is interested. Feinstein opposing Paneta...Wonder why?

[KoKo]

:shrug:

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Early life and career

Feinstein was born Dianne Emiel Goldman<1> in San Francisco to Betty Rosenburg, a former model, and Leon Goldman, a nationally renowned surgeon who was the first Jewish person made tenured physician at the UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco.<2> Feinstein's paternal grandparents were Jewish immigrants from Poland, while her maternal grandparents, who were of the Russian Orthodox faith, left St. Petersburg, Russia, after the 1917 Russian Revolution;<3> Feinstein's maternal grandfather was an imperial army officer<4> who was a convert from Judaism to Christianity. Feinstein attended the Convent of the Sacred Heart High School and was given a Catholic religious education, but also attended Hebrew school and was confirmed in the Jewish faith at the age of thirteen, having said that she has "always considered Jewish".<3>

Feinstein has two sisters, Lynne Kennedy and Yvonne Banks. She received her B.A. degree in history in 1955 from Stanford University. In 1956, she married Jack Berman, a colleague in the San Francisco District Attorney's office. They were divorced three years later. Their daughter, Katherine Feinstein Mariano (b. 1957), is a superior court judge in San Francisco. Berman later became a judge; he died in 2002.

In 1962, shortly after starting her career in politics, she married neurosurgeon Bertram Feinstein, who died of colon cancer in 1978. In 1980, she married Richard C. Blum, an investment banker. Feinstein has received scrutiny for husband Richard Blum's extensive business dealings with China and her past votes on trade issues with the country. Critics have argued that Feinstein's support, as a member of the Senate's Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee, of policies that may benefit her husband may raise the appearance of a conflict of interest.<5> Suburban newspaper Metro Silicon Valley reported in 2007 that Feinstein's husband holds large investments in companies that have won large government contracts without competitive bidding. In April 2007, Feinstein's office denied there was a conflict of interest and stated that her departure from the subcommittee had nothing to do with the reports in the Metro weeklies.

As of December 2006, according to SEC filings and Fedspending.org, three corporations in which Blum'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.

In 2003, Feinstein was ranked the fifth wealthiest senator, with an estimated net worth of $26 million.<6> By 2005 her net worth had increased to between $43 million and $99 million.<7> Her 347-page financial disclosure statement<8> – characterized by the San Francisco Chronicle as "nearly the size of a phonebook" – draws clear lines between her assets and those of her husband, with many of her assets in blind trusts.<9>

more at.............
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianne_Feinstein


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Feinstein’s Cardinal shenanigans
By David Keene
Posted: 04/30/07 06:24 PM

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) chairs the Senate Rules Committee, but she’s also a Cardinal. She is currently chairwoman of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies subcommittee, but until last year was for six years the top Democrat on the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (or “Milcon”) sub-committee, where she may have directed more than $1 billion to companies controlled by her husband.

If the inferences finally coming out about what she did while on Milcon prove true, she may be on the way to morphing from a respected senior Democrat into another poster child for congressional corruption.

The problems stem from her subcommittee activities from 2001 to late 2005, when she quit. During that period the public record suggests she knowingly took part in decisions that eventually put millions of dollars into her husband’s pocket — the classic conflict of interest that exploited her position and power to channel money to her husband’s companies.

In other words, it appears Sen. Feinstein was up to her ears in the same sort of shenanigans that landed California Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R) in the slammer. Indeed, it may be that the primary difference between the two is basically that Cunningham was a minor leaguer and a lot dumber than his state’s senior senator.

Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington, or CREW, usually focuses on the ethical lapses of Republicans and conservatives, but even she is appalled at the way Sen. Feinstein has abused her position. Sloan told a California reporter earlier this month that while”there are a number of members of Congress with conflicts of interest … because of the amount of money involved, Feinstein’s conflict of interest is an order of magnitude greater than those conflicts.”

And the director of the Project on Government Oversight who examined the evidence of wrongdoing assembled by California writer Peter Byrne told him that “the paper trail showing Senator Feinstein’s conflict of interest is irrefutable.”

It may be irrefutable, but she almost got away without anyone even knowing what she was up to. Her colleagues on the subcommittee, for example, had no reason even to suspect that she knew what companies might benefit from her decisions because that information is routinely withheld to avoid favoritism. What they didn’t know was that her chief legal adviser, who also happened to be a business partner of her husband’s and the vice chairman of one of the companies involved, was secretly forwarding her lists of projects and appropriation requests that were coming before the committee and in which she and her husband had an interest — information that has only come to light recently as a result of the efforts of several California investigative reporters.

http://thehill.com/david-keene/feinsteins-cardinal-shenanigans-2007-04-30.html

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Army contract for Feinstein's husband
Blum is a director of firm that will get up to $600 million

David R. Baker, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, April 22, 2003

URS Corp., a San Francisco planning and engineering firm partially owned by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband, landed an Army contract Monday worth up to $600 million.

The award to help with troop mobilization, weapons systems training and anti-terrorism efforts is the latest in a string of plum defense jobs snared by URS. In February, the firm won an army engineering and logistics contract that could bring in $3.1 billion during the next eight years.

Government contracting has come under increasing scrutiny by Congress and citizen groups, with critics decrying the political connections of firms winning lucrative jobs. Richard Blum, Feinstein's husband, serves on the company's board of directors and controls about 24 percent of the firm's stock,

according to Hoover's Inc. research firm.

A Feinstein spokesman Monday declined to comment on the contract.

Blum and several URS representatives could not be reached for comment. A Pentagon spokesman said he was unfamiliar with the contract.

Announced in a company press release Monday, the contract calls for URS Corp.'s EG&G division and partner International Consultants Inc. to help with operations planning, troop mobilization, weapons system training and anti- terrorism assessment. The contract runs for five years.

"We are very pleased with this important win, which further expands our strong relationship with the Army and demonstrates our ability to provide a full spectrum of support services to ensure that our troops remain combat ready and capable of quickly mobilizing to address threats around the world," said George R. Melton, president of the EG&G division, in a press release.

URS boasts some 25,000 employees working in more than 20 countries. Although the firm has a long history of government work, it has focused more on those activities since acquiring EG&G from the Carlyle Group investment firm last year for about $500 million.

EG&G works with the military, NASA, and several federal departments, according to Hoover's. The company's areas of expertise range from designing transportation infrastructure to training people to dismantle weapons of mass destruction.

URS brought in more than $2.4 billion in revenue during 2002.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/04/22/MN310531.DTL&type=printable

[martymar64]

1. She's a war profiteer

Making lots of $ off of her toys of death.
She looking at the possibility of her losing her cash cow.

[no limit]

6. Isn't most of her money in a blind trust?

I know many people that made money in the market thanks to this idiotic administration, doesn't mean they were war profiteers, they were just smart enough to know where to put their money with those dangerous assholes running this country.

[martymar64]

9. Then she needs to open her eyes and divest

Her blindness is no excuse.

[KoKo]

10. You didn't read the article then. Her hubby is in the War Market...not Stock Market...

It's very questionable why she is Head of the Intelligence Committee with her background.

[NMDemDist2]

2. my hubby works for URS

just a random thought, has no bearing on the conversation at all.

:hide:

[Ichingcarpenter]

3. Bad Blood during her run for governor also

It sounds like Feinstein screwed Panetta over by waffling about whether to run until it was too late for Panetta to launch a viable campaign of his own. That can't have been good for their relationship.


http://www.montereycountyweekly.com/archives/1998/1998-...

January 22, 1998

The decision by Senator Dianne Feinstein not to seek the state''s highest office represents the chance of a lifetime--or an opportunity coming too late in the game--for local boy Leon Panetta.

The longtime Central Coast congressman, who was tapped by President Clinton first to head up the Office of Management and Budget and then to whip Clinton''s office into shape as chief of staff, has been mentioned since last spring as a possible contender in the 1998 race for governor of California. All along, Panetta has stated that he had not yet made a decision about running for governor, all the while saying that he would remain in contact with Feinstein, hinting that he would not run against the former San Francisco mayor.

On Tuesday, Panetta--characteristically speaking through a spokesperson--said he was "very disappointed in Senator Feinstein's decision not to run for governor." He also said that he had "urged to run," adding that even though it is "obviously late in the campaign season," he would "spend the next few days reassessing my own plans."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns...

February 3, 1998

Former White House chief of staff Leon E. Panetta yesterday announced he will not run for governor of California, but two other candidates, both with the cash to finance a bid, are considering last-minute entry into the contest.

With the deadline for picking up filing papers today, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, a moderate Republican, and Rep. Jane Harman, a Democrat representing a Los Angeles-area district, are trying to decide whether they are willing to make the $15 million-plus investment to be competitive in the primary.

The huge fund-raising demands prompted Panetta to drop his bid: "I estimate that I'd have to raise something like a million dollars a week, starting now, to be competitive," he said in a statement.

Both Riordan and Harman are very wealthy. California political operatives expect the contest will break spending records and could cost in excess of $50 million for the winner of the primary and general elections.

[Windy]

4. She wasn't consulted as she condoned torture, etc...

I really think that this is a sign the Obama is going to clean house.

[Dover]

5. Oy veh!

The corruption in Washington is deep and wide...and is nonpartisan. Corporate America OWNS
our government. If we pull just one or two threads, the whole thing will unravel.

[Joanne98]

7. My father worked for a company that got bought by EG&G

The companies name was Astrophysics. They made the x-ray machines for the airports. When he retired his retirement checks came from Mellon Bank in Pittsburg.

He got 100 shares of EG&G stock at retirement. He was walking behind his CEO one day and heard him say to another man..It will go up to 45 and then drop. When he first retired EG&G wasn't even listed. When it finally showed up on an exchange it was 16$. We watched it for months and when it hit 44$ we sold it. It went to 45$ and then it dropped down until it was unlisted again. I bought it in the 90's. It came on at 16$, I sold it at 32$. Don't know what it went to.

After my father died, I read all the shareholders stuff they sent him. EG&G is really evil. They're into everything. They do security for Area 51 and some submarine nuke bases. They do medical research. Creepy stuff.

We have got to clean up our party.

[librechik]

8. I don't care why, but it makes me like this appointment more

Wild card!

[bvar22]

11. DiFi has been working for the "other side" for a while.

If she is upset, I am happy. :)



Republican Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas

OR

Democrat Diane Feinstein of California.
.
.
.
.
.
.

ANSWER: (Trick question) They BOTH are.

Easy to confuse.
They look alike and vote alike.