- Senator 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.
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- 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 could not take the heat generated by Metro's expose of her
ethics (which was partially funded by the Investigative Fund of the Nation
Institute). Or was her work on the subcommittee finished because Blum divested
ownership of his military construction and advanced weapons manufacturing
firms in late 2005?
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- The MILCON 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 disassociate herself from MILCON's incredible failure to provide
decent medical care for wounded soldiers.
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- 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 MILCON, Feinstein had
ample warning of the medical-care meltdown. But she was not proactive on
veteran's affairs.
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- Feinstein abandoned MILCON as her ethical problems were
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. I don't have much to add.
For background, check out Joshua Frank giving it to the Senator with both
barrels, here.
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- I'll just say this. Even if you think this criticism
of Feinstein is unfair -- as I know some do -- you have to acknowledge
that this kind of stuff sends the message that all of Washington is the
same. It allows Republicans to hold onto the delusion that their brand
of corruption over the past decade was run-of-the-mill -- just Standard
Operating Procedure for the party in power -- and it just demoralizes progressives.
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- Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet.
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