The real reason Trump wants to start a trade war
How Trump’s stance
on foreign trade goes back decades
On most
policy issues, when President Trump states his position, you can tell that he’s
blurting out an unformed idea that is always subject to change. No one is
really surprised when, a day or an hour later, he says the exact opposite,
because when it comes to policy, generally speaking, he doesn’t know and he
doesn’t care.
There is
one exception, however: trade.
In January, Trump imposed tariffs on imports of washing machines and solar panels. Then
yesterday, he announced he would be imposing tariffs
of 25 percent of imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum. To those
who say that this could touch off a trade war, the president offered this as an
answer today:
When a country (USA) is losing many billions of dollars on trade with
virtually every country it does business with, trade wars are good, and easy to
win. Example, when we are down $100 billion with a certain country and they get
cute, don’t trade anymore-we win big. It’s easy!
You
could survey a hundred economists — both liberal and conservative — and not one
would tell you that “trade wars are good, and easy to win.”
Nevertheless,
we may well be heading toward one. Even if we can avert an outright war, we
have a good idea of what the results will be. The immediate beneficiaries will
be the American steel and aluminum industries, while the victims will be .
. . well, anyone who buys anything that’s made with steel or aluminum, which is
pretty much everyone.
Wilbur Ross on @CNBC
now: "There’s about 1 ton of steel in a car. The price of a ton of steel
is $700 or so, so 25% on that would be one half of 1% price increase on the
typical $35000 car. So it’s no big deal."
I’m not sure if Ross’ numbers are right, but 25
percent of $700 is $175. That may not seem like a big price increase when
you’re buying a car, but given that House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) was stoked about folks getting $1.50 a week
from the Republican tax cut, it seems like quite a bit — not to mention
that it isn’t exactly the message you want to be sending to the public.
This
is the dynamic that makes trade a tricky issue: Free trade has widely distributed
benefits and concentrated costs, while a tariff like this one that is meant to
help a particular industry has concentrated benefits and widely distributed
costs. Some steel jobs may be saved, but it will cost consumers more, and
perhaps cost jobs elsewhere. That you could buy a 12-pack of tube socks
for $6.99 at Walmart or another retailer because they were made in Vietnam is
good for your family and millions of others. But if you were one of the people
who lost his job sewing tube socks — since it’s impossible to make them as
cheaply here in the United States — it’s very bad. In political terms, people
aren’t motivated to vote and act based on getting cheaper consumer goods, but
they might well be so motivated if the plant that sustained their town shut
down because of foreign competition.
said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio.) The
AFL-CIO released a statement saying, “We applaud the
administration’s efforts today to fix this problem. Effective enforcement of
trade laws . . . is critical to leveling the playing field and ensuring
that U.S. steel producers and their employees have a fair shot in the global
economy.” But on the whole, Trump’s decision is being panned by his own party and all of
our trading partners. That’s
why there are some Democrats, particularly in the industrial Midwest, who
support Trump’s decision. “This welcome action is long overdue for shuttered
steel plants across Ohio and steelworkers who live in fear that their jobs will
be the next victims of Chinese cheating,”
The thing
about this policy change, though, is that Trump doesn’t need anyone’s
cooperation or approval. He can impose them all by himself. And he really,
really wants to.
1:30
Steel tariffs
explained using Reddi-wip whipped cream
For as long as he has been a public figure,
long before he became a politician, Trump has complained about America’s trade
policies and those of the rest of the world. There have always been two core
ideas underlying his beliefs on trade. The first is that trade is a zero-sum
contest in which the only goal is exporting goods. If we import something from
another country, even if comparative advantage makes
it perfectly reasonable for us to do so, then the other country has “won” and
the United States has “lost.”
laughing at us.” When we, say, buy cheap
consumer goods from abroad, it means we’re the sucker, the sap, the patsy. Trump’s
second idea about trade is that it represents a kind of contest of pride, even
manhood. When he talks about trade he nearly always says that other countries,
particularly China, are “
Yet oddly enough, despite his long objection
to American trade policies he shows not the least understanding of how trade
even works, beyond the idea that we should impose lots of tariffs. He has long
complained that the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, for instance, is “the worst trade deal maybe
ever signed anywhere, but certainly ever signed in this country.” Yet you’ve
never heard Trump say exactly which provisions of NAFTA he dislikes or what he
would change, probably because he doesn’t know himself. He just thinks that
trade wars are good, and easy to win.
His aides don’t seem to be able to persuade
him otherwise. According to CNBC, Gary Cohn, the president’s
chief economic adviser, tried to argue to him that increased tariffs would hurt
the economy by raising prices on goods that contain steel and aluminum, to
which Trump replied that it’s “a small price to pay.” Since he sees this issue
to be about not just jobs but even more importantly about pride and dignity,
that won’t persuade him.
Never have we seen such chaos and corruption
The ceaseless barrage of news — both real and fake — from the Trump administration can be numbing, so it’s important to step back every once in a while and look at the big picture: Never have we seen such utter chaos and blatant corruption.
None of what’s happening is normal, and none of it should be acceptable. Life is imitating art: What we have is less a presidency than a cheesy reality show, set in a great stately house, with made-for-television histrionics, constant backstabbing and major characters periodically getting booted out.
Hope Hicks, the White House communications director, decided Wednesday to self-eject. Was it because she had spent the previous day testifying on Capitol Hill and was forced to admit having told “white lies” for President Trump? Was it because the man she had been dating, Rob Porter, lost his important White House position when the Daily Mail revealed he faced multiple allegations of wife-beating? Or was Hicks simply exhausted?
Porter’s job involved controlling the flow of paperwork, some of it classified and extremely sensitive, to the president. Because of those abuse allegations, however, he couldn’t get a permanent top-secret security clearance. That was bad enough, but later we learned that dozens of White House officials, perhaps 100 or more, were working with only interim clearances, not permanent ones. Their access to secret information was cut off by Chief of Staff John F. Kelly — but only after all of this had become public.
Among those now with limited access is Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, whose heavily indebted real estate empire and grudging disclosure of his many foreign contacts worried FBI investigators. Kushner is a senior adviser to the president whose many assignments include forging peace in the Middle East — but who now is not cleared for documents or meetings that discuss what’s really happening in the Middle East or anywhere else. So why is he still there?
Why was he there in the first place? Because of Trump’s appalling nepotism.
Trump also brought his daughter Ivanka into the White House as an adviser. What does she do? What qualifies her to do it? In a real administration, conservative or liberal, Kushner’s office and Ivanka Trump’s office would be occupied by experienced professionals who actually know something about diplomacy or administration or some government function.
According to the New York Times, Kushner set up White House meetings for two business executives whose private equity firm and bank later made loans to the Kushner Companies real estate firm totaling more than $500 million. Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp” was a cruel joke. He has expanded it into a vast protected wetland, to be enjoyed by friends and family.
Never before have we had a president openly at war with his own attorney general. The Post reported Wednesday that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is investigating whether Trump’s attempts to force Attorney General Jeff Sessions out of his job last summer were part of a pattern of attempted obstruction of justice. According to The Post, Trump’s private name for Sessions is “Mr. Magoo,” a baby-boomer reference that younger readers will have to Google.
Trump began his day Wednesday by tweeting that a decision Sessions recently made was “DISGRACEFUL!” Sessions responded by issuing a statement strongly rebutting Trump’s criticism. And that evening, Sessions was photographed at a posh Washington restaurant dining with Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein — who oversees the Mueller investigation — and Solicitor General Noel Francisco. If it wasn’t a deliberate display of unity at the Justice Department, it sure looked like one.
Also on Wednesday, Trump convened a televised negotiating session with members of Congress on the subject of gun violence. To the escalating horror of Republicans present, he heartily endorsed several Democratic gun control proposals — and then went much further, saying that in the case of individuals who are mentally unstable, authorities should “take the guns first, go through due process second.”
If President Barack Obama had ever said such a thing, we’d be in the middle of Civil War II.
Any other president who displayed such cavalier disregard for previous policy positions and total ignorance of basic facts would have provoked an uproar. Trump barely gets a shrug. Nobody expects him to be consistent. Nobody expects him to know anything about anything. He is defining the presidency down in a way that we must not tolerate.
I spent years as a foreign correspondent in Latin America. To say we are being governed like a banana republic is an insult to banana republics. It’s that bad, and no one should pretend otherwise.
Read more from Eugene Robinson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A.
no one has served red china more than feinstein... she's
pocketed millions from the back room deals her husband,
richard blum huckstered and voted in the senate for any and
all that would benefit red china and richard blum,
america's war profiteers!
The Post reported Tuesday that at least four countries, identified as Mexico, Israel, Qatar and China, had discussed using Kushner’s business activities as leverage with the Trump White House.
Ruling class conflicts in the US target inner circle of Trump White House
3 March 2018
The past week has seen an unprecedented escalation of the conflicts within the American ruling class, with the New York Times, the Washington Post, CNN, NBC and other leading corporate media outlets acting as the spearhead for a campaign to cripple the Trump White House.
Trump’s inner circle—his son-in-law Jared Kushner, his daughter Ivanka, his close personal assistant and communications director Hope Hicks—have been the principal targets of leaked reports from the FBI and other intelligence agencies. These led Tuesday to the downgrading of Kushner’s security clearance, the resignation of Hicks Wednesday, and the revelation Thursday that the FBI’s counterintelligence unit had opened an investigation into Ivanka Trump’s overseas business activities.
Press reports throughout the week have focused on Kushner, heir to a billion-dollar real estate fortune. The Post reported Tuesday that at least four countries, identified as Mexico, Israel, Qatar and China, had discussed using Kushner’s business activities as leverage with the Trump White House. The Times published a report Thursday on how two financial institutions made large loans to Kushner real estate operations in 2017 shortly after their CEOs met with Jared Kushner at the White House over financial and tax issues.
The New York Times published Wednesday and Thursday an extraordinary, two-part, 3,000-word statement by its editorial board denouncing the White House role of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, focused on the nepotism of the Trump White House.
It has, of course, not been difficult to implicate the Trump administration in various corrupt and nepotistic themes. However, from the Times, and the sections of the ruling class for which it speaks, such criticisms are thoroughly hypocritical. Trump is a product of the American ruling class; his own personal and financial history exemplifies the financial oligarchy, for which corruption, insider-dealing and nepotism are standard business operations.
NBC News reported Thursday that the Mueller investigation into alleged Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential election had begun to scrutinize whether Kushner’s “business discussions with foreigners during the presidential transition” shaped White House policy. The network cited claims by witnesses that Mueller investigators had asked about Kushner’s business contacts with investors from Turkey and Qatar, among other countries, contacts which could have no direct relation to the question of the alleged Russian hacking or other efforts to assist Trump during the 2016 elections.
Finally, the Washington Post carried a report on its web site Thursday night headlined, “‘Jared has faded’: Inside the 28 days of tumult that left Kushner badly diminished.” The article described an atmosphere of mutual suspicion driven particularly by the Mueller investigation. “Some of his administration colleagues are just more reluctant to have conversations with him or in his company because they’re not sure if he’s a witness or a target of the Mueller investigation,” one unnamed official told the Post.
The targeting of those closest personally to Trump indicates that the political warfare in Washington has reached an unprecedented level of intensity. It is necessary to cut through the personalized and sensationalized elements in the factional warfare in Washington to grasp the real underlying driving forces of this conflict.
As a result of his ever-expanding investigation into the White House, Robert Mueller, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation during the first twelve years of the “war on terror,” has become the most powerful man in America. Mueller exemplifies the vast and sweeping powers that the state intelligence agencies are assuming in conjunction with the Democratic Party’s conspiratorial drive to undermine or remove Trump.
As previously explained, the Mueller investigation originated in the opposition of sections of the military-intelligence apparatus, backed by the Democratic Party, to any softening of the anti-Russian national security offensive undertaken in the second term of the Obama administration, particularly in relation to US intervention to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia’s main Mideast ally, and the US backing for the fascist-led coup that overthrew a pro-Russian government in Ukraine.
The conflict has broadened, however, to a considerable range of foreign policy issues, including this week’s widespread backlash, both internationally and in Wall Street circles, over Trump’s declaration Thursday that he intends to impose tariffs of 25 percent on imported steel and 10 percent on imported aluminum, followed by tweets celebrating “trade war” as a positive good.
There is not the slightest progressive or democratic content to the campaign by the Democrats, the media and the intelligence agencies to cripple the Trump White House and, if possible, create the conditions to force Trump to leave office. They have not objected to Trump’s ferocious attacks on democratic rights, his removal of criminal illegals, his attack on social programs like food stamps and Medicaid, or his militaristic threats against North Korea, Iran and China.
On much of the Trump agenda, particularly the tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy, the slashing of health, safety and environmental regulations on business, and the record levels of military spending, there is bipartisan agreement in the ruling elite.
But there is mounting concern that Trump is too erratic a figure to be relied on as the “commander-in-chief” of American imperialism, particularly under conditions of a growing movement from below, from the American working class, to oppose the policies of big business and both the political parties that represent and defend corporate America.
It is no accident that the media frenzy against Trump has accelerated during the week that the class struggle in America has exploded to the surface in the state of West Virginia, with the powerful statewide strike by 30,000 teachers and school workers, in defiance not only of the Republican governor and state legislature, but state Democratic politicians and the union leaders allied to them.
Trump only became president thanks to the electoral votes of states like West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan, where deindustrialization and the destruction of jobs and living standards discredited the Obama administration and the Democratic Party’s pretense to defend the interests of working people.
The conspiratorial methods of the palace coup being used to settle scores within the ruling elite are contrasting ever more directly with the working class’s turn to class struggle. It is the fear of such an independent movement spreading and taking on a mass, nationwide character that impels sections of the ruling elite to seek a reorganization or restructuring in Washington, to bring in an administration that will be stronger, more competent and even more ruthless in its attacks on both the foreign and domestic opposition to American imperialism.
Patrick Martin
Steven Mosher on Trade Deficit: China ‘Might as Well Have Carpet Bombed the American Heartland’
Richard Nixon had “created a monster” by opening America and the West to China, said bestselling author and Asia expert Steven Mosher in a Wednesday interview on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight with Senior Editor-at-Large Rebecca Mansour.
“I think allowing China into the World Trade Organization must rank as one of the greatest strategic blunders made by any great power in human history,” said Mosher, framing the 37th president’s policy towards China as sowing the seeds of a rival state’s geopolitical ascendance.
Mosher, the author of Bully of Asia: Why China’s Dream is the New Threat to WorldOrder, explained that the Chinese state does not operate in good faith in trade arrangements.
“[China] had no intention of playing by the rules,” said Mosher. “The Chinese communist party thinks that rules are for fools and that political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. It’s basically a matter of our power politics. They pretended to be a weak developing country in order to get favorable terms in the World Trade Organization, and when they joined, they broke all the rules and have been behaving in a predatory fashion ever since.”
Chinese theft of intellectual property amounts to $600 billion per year in value, said Mosher: “Everyone is getting sick of the fact that China cheats, that China signs agreements only to violate them, that China steals $600 billion — according to the FBI — in intellectual property every year.”
Decades of trade with China have decimated America’s manufacturing base, said Mosher.
“China’s been committing economic hate crimes against the American people for a long time,” said Mosher. “By stealing technology and so forth, they might as well have carpet bombed the industrial heartland of America into rubble. The end result has been the same. You need a defense industrial base. You need hard industry. There are only four countries that really make things, in any number and that is the united States, Japan, Germany, and China. We need to make things. Manufacturing is still the basis of a strong economy. How would we be able to be the arsenal of democracy if we allow our steel factories to be shuttered by Chinese steel dumping on our markets?”
“We’ve not only lost our jobs to them and built a middle class in China while we decimated our own, we have also lost all sorts of technological know-how,” said Mansour. “We no longer manufacture, here. It’s horrifying how we have crippled ourselves to this.”
The Chinese government seeks to displace America as the world’s primary superpower through economic designs across Eurasia, said Mosher.
“China is already becoming the dominant power in East Asia, and now it’s reaching with its One Belt One Road [project] across the Eurasian continent,” said Mosher. “Its purpose is quite clear. It wants to draw the economy of all Asian and European countries into China’s orbit. It wants to reorient the world’s economy around China, and with that economic dominance will come strategic dominance.”
“If they come to dominate Eurasia with four billion people and sixty percent of the world’s economy, I think it’s game over,” warned Mosher.
Following the Cold War, China became America’s primary adversary, said Mosher.
“China declared war on us in 1991, and has been at war with us in cyberspace, stealing intellectual property, on trade by devaluing its currency, on espionage of all kinds, and by making great territorial claims in the South China Sea,” said Mosher.
America’s “generous American spirit” is taken advantage of by bad faith negotiations on China’s part, with the latter deploying realpolitik.
“If your enemy says you’re at war, you’re probably are war whether you want to be or not,” said Mosher.
China’s political ascendance will expand illiberalism, as the authoritarian state seeks to “replicate” its system abroad, said Mosher.
“I have seen China’s growing economic and military might, and I know they’re going to use it not for good purposes, not to promote democracy and freedom, they’re going to use it for illiberal purposes, to destroy democracy, to destroy freedom around the world, to replicate themselves and of course what they are is a one-party dictatorship dominated now by the new red emperor Xi Jinping,” said Mosher.
“As China grows more powerful, it will seek to replicate itself,” he continued. “But the countries that replicate themselves after China will come to resemble Cambodia, Zimbabwe, and North Korea, because China will move in, will give them low interest rate loans, will extract their resources, will corrupt their governments, and will leave strong men in place over a countries whose economies have been gutted. So you’re not going to see the rise of China contribute to the rise of other countries, you’re going to see it contribute to the colonization of other countries, the extraction of their resources, the devastation of their political systems, and disrespect for human rights. They will spread their mistakes around the world.”
“Gary Cohn is not interested in putting tariffs on China or in any way curbing China’s appetites when it comes to trade,” said Mosher of President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser.
Peter Navarro, the president’s assistant on matters of trade an industrial policy, shares Trump’s desire to “get tough on trade with China,” said Mosher.
Mosher is the president of the Population Research Institute and an internationally acclaimed expert on China. In 1979, he was the first American social scientist to visit and conduct research in mainland China, where he he witnessed firsthand the communist regime’s human rights violations vis-Ã -vis the forced abortions under their “one-child policy.” His latest book is Bully of Asia: Why China’s Dream is the New Threat to World Order.
Breitbart News Tonight airs Monday through Friday on SiriusXM’s Patriot channel 125 from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Eastern (6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific).
LISTEN:
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.
Senator Feinstein's War Profiteering - by Joshua Frank - Antiwar.com
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Army contract for Feinstein's husband / Blum is a director of firm that ...
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War brings business to Feinstein spouse / Blum's firms win multimillion ...
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War profiteering - Wikipedia
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# 23 Feinstein's Conflict of Interest in Iraq – Top 25 of 2008
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Unacceptable! Senator Profits from War and Post Office - Roots Action
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Dianne Feinstein: War profiteer and war criminal | Freepress.org
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The Greatest Threat to Campus Free Speech is Coming From Dianne ...
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Feinstein quits committee under war-profiteer cloud - WND.com
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Senator Feinstein's War Profiteering- Democratic Blood Money By ...
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rom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the United States[edit]
Unacceptable! Senator Profits from War and Post Office
Shortly after San Francisco's then-Mayor Dianne Feinstein married private equity financier Richard C. Blum in 1980, those who knew them called theirs "a marriage of the public and private sectors."
Although Feinstein lost a gubernatorial bid to Republican Pete Wilson, she soon took his seat in the U.S. Senate. Working across the aisle, her power rapidly grew along with her husband's diversified investments and their mutual wealth.1
• As Chair and ranking member of the Military Construction and Appropriations Subcommittee, Senator Feinstein appears to have steered contracts to companies controlled by her husband.2 Blum has profited handsomely from military contracts.3
• In 2009, Senator Feinstein introduced legislation to provide $25 billion in taxpayer money to the FDIC after it gave Blum's CBRE real estate company a contract to sell foreclosed properties at unusually high rates.4
• As a Regent of the University of California, Blum appears to have profited from contracts with the UC-run nuclear weapons laboratory at Los Alamos.5
• In the summer of 2012, the U.S. Postal Service awarded Blum's CBRE company the exclusive contract to sell its portfolio of public properties. Feinstein's office denies any influence in the awarding of the contract.6
“Our entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” ---- Karen McQuillan THEAMERICAN THINKER.com
Senator Feinstein's War Profiteering - by Joshua Frank - Antiwar.com
www.antiwar.com/frank/?articleid=8609
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Feb 28, 2006 - Dianne Feinstein and her husband are also making tons of money off the ... It's a disgusting display of war profiteering, and just like Cheney, the ...
Army contract for Feinstein's husband / Blum is a director of firm that ...
www.sfgate.com/.../Army-contract-for-Feinstein-s-husband-Blum-is-a-2621196.php
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Apr 22, 2003 - URS Corp., a San Francisco planning and engineering firm partially owned by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband, landed an Army ...
War brings business to Feinstein spouse / Blum's firms win multimillion ...
www.sfgate.com/.../War-brings-business-to-Feinstein-spouse-Blum-s-2652085.php
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Apr 27, 2003 - When it comes to scoring mega-military-related contracts, Sen. Dianne Feinstein's multimillionaire husband, Richard Blum, is right in the thick ...
War profiteering - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_profiteering
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A war profiteer is any person or organization that profits from warfare or by selling weapons and .... The Center for Public Integrity has reported that US Senator Dianne Feinstein, who voted in favor of the Iraq Resolution, and her husband, ...
# 23 Feinstein's Conflict of Interest in Iraq – Top 25 of 2008
projectcensored.org/23-feinsteins-conflict-of-interest-in-iraq/
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Apr 28, 2010 - Dianne Feinstein—the ninth wealthiest member of congress—has been ... With Blum's financial backing, Klein, a war contractor, operates a ...
Unacceptable! Senator Profits from War and Post Office - Roots Action
act.rootsaction.org/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=7309
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Senator Dianne Feinstein's numerous apparent conflicts of interest are clear grounds for an Ethics Committee investigation.
Dianne Feinstein: War profiteer and war criminal | Freepress.org
freepress.org/article/dianne-feinstein-war-profiteer-and-war-criminal
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Dianne Feinstein: War profiteer and war criminal. by Gerry Bello. July 5, 2013. Somewhere in northwest Pakistan Tuesday a sound was heard. Hellfire missiles ...
The Greatest Threat to Campus Free Speech is Coming From Dianne ...
https://theintercept.com/.../dianne-feinstein-husband-threaten-univ-calif-demanding-b...
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Sep 25, 2015 - But none of that seems to matter to Dianne Feinstein and her war-profiteering husband, Richard Blum. Not only is Blum demanding adoption of ...
Feinstein quits committee under war-profiteer cloud - WND.com
www.wnd.com/2007/03/40845/
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Mar 28, 2007 - Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has abruptly walked away from her responsibilities with the Senate Military Construction Appropriations ...
Senator Feinstein's War Profiteering- Democratic Blood Money By ...
www.countercurrents.org/frank050407.htm
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Apr 5, 2007 - Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California silently resigned from her post on the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee ...
Senator Feinstein's War Profiteering
rom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2009) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)
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A war profiteer is any person or organization that profits from warfare or by selling weapons and other goods to parties at war. The term can have strong, negative connotations. General profiteering may also occur in peace time. An example of war profiteers were the "shoddy" millionaires who allegedly sold recycled wool and cardboard shoes to soldiers during the American Civil War. The ten highest war profiteers are Lockheed Martin, Boeing, BAE Systems, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company EADS, Finmeccanica, L-3 Communications, and United Technologies.[1] These corporations are all directly connected with production of weapons, machinery, vehicles, aircraft, electronics and artillery(including missiles) and as such have significant political influence given their lobbying efforts and campaign contributions to members of the United States Congress in the promotion of war efforts. In 2010, the defense industry spent $144 million on lobbying and donated over $22.6 million to congressional candidates.[2]
In the United States[edit]
Companies such as Halliburton have been criticized in the context of the Iraq War for their perceived war profiteering.[24]
Steven Clemons, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation think tank, has accused former CIA Director James Woolseyof both profiting from and promoting the Iraq War.[25]
The Center for Public Integrity has reported that US Senator Dianne Feinstein, who voted in favor of the Iraq Resolution, and her husband, Richard Blum, are making millions of dollars from Iraq and Afghanistan contracts through his company, Tutor Perini Corporation.[26][27]
Indicted defense contractor Brent R. Wilkes was reported to be ecstatic when hearing that the United States was going to go to war with Iraq. "He and some of his top executives were really gung-ho about the war," said a former employee. "Brent said this would create new opportunities for the company. He was really excited about doing business in the Middle East."[28]
The War Profiteering Prevention Act of 2007 intended to create criminal penalties for war profiteers and others who exploit taxpayer-funded efforts in Iraq and elsewhere around the world.[29] This act was introduced first on April 25, 2007, but was never enacted into law.[30] War profiteering cases are often brought under the Civil False Claims Act, which was enacted in 1863 to combat war profiteering during the Civil War.[31]
Major General Smedley Butler, USMC, criticized war profiteering of US companies during World War I in War Is a Racket. He wrote about how some companies and corporations increase their earnings and profits by up to 1,700 percent and how many companies willingly sold equipment and supplies to the US that had no relevant use in the war effort. In the book, Butler stated that "It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war period. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits."[32]
In the American Civil War, concerns about war profiteering were not limited to the activities of a few "shoddy" millionaires in the North. In the Confederacy, where supplies were severely limited, and hardships common, the mere suggestion of profiteering was considered a scurrilous charge. Georgia Quartermaster General Ira Roe Foster attempted to increase the supply of material to the troops by urging the women of his state to knit 50,000 pairs of socks. Foster's sock campaign stimulated the supply of the much needed item, but it also met with a certain amount of suspicion and backlash. Either the result of a Union disinformation campaign, or the work of suspicious minds, rumors, which Foster denied as a "malicious falsehood!",[33] began to spread that Foster and others were profiteering from the socks.[33] It was alleged that contributed socks were being sold, rather than given freely to the troops. The charge was not without precedent. The historian Jeanie Attie notes that in 1861, an "especially damaging rumor" (later found to be true) had circulated in the North, alleging that the Union Army had purchased 5,000 pairs of socks which had been donated, and intended for the troops, from a private relief agency, the United States Sanitary Commission.[34] As the Sanitary Commission had done in the North, Foster undertook a propaganda campaign in Georgia newspapers to combat the damaging rumors and to encourage the continued contribution of socks.[35] He offered $1,000.00 to any "citizen or soldier who will come forward and prove that he ever bought a sock from this Department that was either knit by the ladies or purchased for issue to said troops."[33]
Unacceptable! Senator Profits from War and Post Office
Although Feinstein lost a gubernatorial bid to Republican Pete Wilson, she soon took his seat in the U.S. Senate. Working across the aisle, her power rapidly grew along with her husband's diversified investments and their mutual wealth.1
• As Chair and ranking member of the Military Construction and Appropriations Subcommittee, Senator Feinstein appears to have steered contracts to companies controlled by her husband.2 Blum has profited handsomely from military contracts.3
• In 2009, Senator Feinstein introduced legislation to provide $25 billion in taxpayer money to the FDIC after it gave Blum's CBRE real estate company a contract to sell foreclosed properties at unusually high rates.4
• As a Regent of the University of California, Blum appears to have profited from contracts with the UC-run nuclear weapons laboratory at Los Alamos.5
• In the summer of 2012, the U.S. Postal Service awarded Blum's CBRE company the exclusive contract to sell its portfolio of public properties. Feinstein's office denies any influence in the awarding of the contract.6
Ask your Senators to request an Ethics Committee investigation of Senator Dianne Feinstein now.
Background:
1. MetroActive: Senator Feinstein's Iraq Conflict
Z Magazine: The Power Couple of California
2. Bohemian: Senator Warbucks
3. San Francisco Chronicle: War Brings Business to Feinstein Spouse
San Francisco Chronicle: SF Firm Awarded Contract in Iraq
4.Washington Times: Senator's Husband's Firm Cashes in on Crisis
5. San Francisco Chronicle: Amid Loud Dissent, Panels Urge Los Alamos Bid
Santa Cruz Indymedia: Conflict of Interest for Vice Chair of the UC Regents, Richard C. Blum?
6. San Francisco Chronicle: Grim Outlook for Post Office Buildings
LaJolla Light: Berkeley Preservationists Question Senator's Ties to Post Office Sales
Truthout: The USPS Media #FAIL
Z Magazine: The Power Couple of California
2. Bohemian: Senator Warbucks
3. San Francisco Chronicle: War Brings Business to Feinstein Spouse
San Francisco Chronicle: SF Firm Awarded Contract in Iraq
4.Washington Times: Senator's Husband's Firm Cashes in on Crisis
5. San Francisco Chronicle: Amid Loud Dissent, Panels Urge Los Alamos Bid
Santa Cruz Indymedia: Conflict of Interest for Vice Chair of the UC Regents, Richard C. Blum?
6. San Francisco Chronicle: Grim Outlook for Post Office Buildings
LaJolla Light: Berkeley Preservationists Question Senator's Ties to Post Office Sales
Truthout: The USPS Media #FAIL
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