WE KNOW THERE IS NO ONE ON EARTH WHO LIKES SQUANDERING MONEY
ON DEFENSE COMPANIES THAT WAR PROFITEER SENATOR DIANNE FEINSTEIN!
SHE’S MADE A VAST FORTUNE, ONE OF MANY, IN THE WAR INDUSTRY
1. Wells Fargo (Banking)
BRIBES AND DEALS SIPHONED THROUGH HER PIMP-HUSBAND RICHARD BLUM FROM THE FOLLOWING:
1. Wells Fargo (Banking)
2. Northrop Grumman (Defense)
3. Bank of America (Banking)
4. General Atomics (Defense)
5. General Dynamics (Defense)
Hidden in the New House Coronavirus Relief Bill: Billions for
Defense Contractors
A section of the HEROES Act championed by Virginia Democrat
Gerry Connolly would cover executive compensation and other perks for defense
and intel contractors. The legislation’s wording mirrors what an industry group
proposed.
by Jake Pearson
Virginia Democratic Rep. Gerald Connolly on the floor of the
House of Representatives on April 23. (House Television via AP)
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses
of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
When they passed another bill this month to help the tens of
millions of Americans left unemployed and hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic,
Democrats in the House of Representatives touted the $3 trillion legislation’s
benefits to working people, renters, first responders and others struggling to
get by.
They made no mention of the defense contractors.
Tucked away deep in the nearly 2,000-page Health and Economic
Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions, or HEROES, Act, is a section that will
funnel money to defense and intelligence companies and their top executives,
according to experts.
The section of the new bill seeks to “clarify” a provision of
the $2 trillion CARES Act that passed on March 27. That legislation reimburses
firms for the wages and benefits of contract employees who must be kept “in a
ready state, including to protect the life and safety of Government and
contractor personnel,” but who can’t work because federal offices are closed or
they’re following stay-at-home orders.
In language that mirrors what an industry group proposed, the
HEROES Act goes beyond just reimbursing wages. It says that such firms can bill
the Department of Defense and intelligence agencies for a range of other costs
associated with “the financial impact incurred” of keeping workers employed
during the health crisis. That includes for “fees,” a term of art in federal
contracting, and “general and administrative expenses,” a catch-all phrase
associated with the costs of running a business such as paying executives,
running the corporate office and even marketing and sales.
The Senate has yet to take up the new House bill, so the
companies have not reaped a windfall yet. But experts say that if the Senate
passes a new bill, this clause would likely survive.
The legislation was effectively a stealthy way to bail out
the defense and intelligence government contracting industry and their
executives at taxpayer expense, said Mandy Smithberger, who directs the Center
for Defense Information at the Project on Government Oversight, a watchdog
group.
Others agreed. “It’s one thing for the government to say,
‘We’ll keep the workers going,’” said Charles Tiefer, a University of Baltimore
School of Law professor who specializes in government contracting. “But this is
money for the firm.”
In a statement provided by a spokesperson, Rep. Gerry
Connolly, a Democrat who championed the relief bills’ contracting sections and
whose Virginia district is home to many contract employees and companies, said
the legislation’s goal was to make sure these firms “can survive this crisis
and recover their lost revenue.”
He said the HEROES Act language wasn’t intended as a
“loophole” for firms to bill for expenses like corporate headquarter costs and
said he would “object if the Trump Administration interpreted it as such.” But
he didn’t answer questions about why he fought to include the broader HEROES
Act language that would allow for such charges or why its text matched what an
industry group had proposed.
The defense and intelligence agencies have increasingly
become reliant on hundreds of thousands of government contractors for
everything from fighting on the battlefield to setting up classified computer
systems to cleaning offices. At the Department of Defense, which spends more
than all other government agencies combined on contractors, the amount
obligated for such agreements jumped from $189 billion in fiscal year 2000 to
$320 billion in fiscal 2017, according to a July 2018 Congressional Research
Service report.
While small businesses that contract with the government
would qualify for the reimbursement outlined in the COVID-19 relief bills,
major multinational corporations like Raytheon Technologies and market
champions like Amazon Web Services would too.
The taxpayer price tag for the section would be enormous.
Already the federal bailout for just payroll and benefits for
defense contractor employees stuck at home outlined in the CARES Act will run
in the “billions and billions,” the Pentagon’s top acquisition official, Ellen
Lord, told reporters in an April 23 press briefing.
Executive compensation, fees and other expenses would be on
top of that.
In federal contracting, general and administrative expenses
relate to all the costs of running a home office, including support staff whose
jobs can’t be billed to any one government contract and the salaries of executives.
(The Bipartisan Budget Act caps the amount executives can be paid from a
government contract at $540,000 a year, though the firms can augment that
through other means, including by using profits from a government contract.)
The HEROES Act language introduces its own ambiguity about
what firms can charge when it comes to what are referred to as “fees.” In
certain federal contracts, the recipients are paid a fee on top of their costs.
In others, fees refer to money contractors pay to third parties like lawyers
and accounting firms. The new language opens the door for contractors to count
those as billable, even if work isn’t being done, said Tiefer, the contracting
expert.
“And now they still collect even though some of their workers
are home,” he said.
At issue is a section in the CARES Act that reimburses
contractors at “minimum applicable contract billing rates.” The vaguely worded
term touched off a blitz of inquiries and suggestions in the weeks after the
CARES Act passed from Beltway firms who perform IT, security and other national
defense services for the federal government. The HEROES Act section pushed by
Connolly seeks to “clarify” that.
The Intelligence and National Security Alliance, a trade
group that says it represents more than 160 companies that do work for the
Department of Defense and the intelligence community, was among the firms that
lobbied for the new language. In an April 15 letter to the DOD, Larry Hanauer,
the group’s vice president for policy, suggested that the term “minimum applicable
contract billing rates” should mean “an employee’s base hourly wage rate, plus
indirect costs, fees, and general and administrative expenses.”
That language made it into the HEROES Act, which defined
“minimum applicable contract billing rates” to include costs “such as the base
hourly wage rate of an employee, plus indirect costs, fees, and general and
administrative expenses.”
Peggy O’Connor, an INSA spokeswoman, said nobody from her
organization discussed the HEROES Act with Connolly’s office and she didn’t
know how the group’s suggested definition of “minimum applicable contract
billing rates” wound up in the bill.
“There were a lot of letters drafted by various
organizations,” she said. “We posted ours, as well as various government
guidance memorandum on our website, which is open to the public.”
The industry’s largest trade organization, the Professional
Services Council, issued a statement thanking Connolly for his efforts after
the HEROES Act passed the House on May 12. A spokeswoman for PSC declined to
answer questions about the bill’s language or the group’s interactions with
Connolly ahead of the vote.
The six-term congressman has long been an advocate for
contracting firms and before joining Congress worked for the Science
Applications International Corp., a government contractor that became Leidos.
Among his top contributors since taking office in 2008 are government
contractors Northrop Grumman, Leidos and Deloitte LLP.
Dump the F-35 program plagued with excessive
costs and failing weapons
1. Wells Fargo (Banking)
SEN.
DIANNE FEINSTEIN RANKS AS ONE OF THE MOST CORRUPT AND SELF-SERVING POLITICIANS
IN AMERICAN HISTORY.
SHE
HAS AMASSE A STAGGERING FORTUNE AS SHE STALKED THE HALLS OF CONGRESS SNIFFING
OUT DEALS THAT SHE AND BARBARA “BRIBES” BOXER VOTED ON THAT DROPPED HUNDREDS OF
MILLIONS INTO THE POCKETS OF FEINSTEIN’S PIMP-HUSBAND RICHARD BLUM
BLUM
HAS HANDED OUT CAMPAIGN “CONTRIBUTIONS” BRIBES TO VIRTUALLY ALL MAJOR DEM POLS
SO THEY KEEP THEIR MOUTHS CLOSED ABOUT FEINSTEIN’S STAGGERING CORRUPTION.
FEINSTEIN
HAS VOTED AGAINST ALL SENATE ATTEMPTS TO CURB SIPHONING OFF BRIBES TO FAMILY
MEMBERS IN THE FORM OF “CONSULTANT” FEES.
BARBARA
“BRIBES” BOXER MADE A VAST FORTUNE SHE SIPHONED OVER TO HER SON, OAKLAN LAWYER
DOUG BOXER.
PELOSI
HAS SIPHONED OFF BRIBES TO HER HUSBAND. AND THEN THERE ARE THE BACK ROOM DEALS
BLUM MADE TO PROFIT ON FEINSTEIN’S RED CHINA CONNECTIONS.
JUST
FOLLOW THE MONEY AS THESE TRAITORS DESTROY OUR COUNTRY AND FILL THEIR POCKETS
DOING IT!
PROFITEER
Search Results
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Dianne
Feinstein: War profiteer and war criminal | Freepress.org
Senator
Feinstein's War Profiteering - Antiwar.com Original
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Feinstein: War Profiteer - Antiwar.com Original
Feinstein Family
War Profits - Daily Kos
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- War Profiteer by Marriage. - Daily Kos
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as a Merchant of Death - LewRockwell
Army contract
for Feinstein's husband / Blum is a director of ...
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Maddow: Trump Knew 'Exactly What Was ...
How to Profit Off War: Iraq,
Afghanistan and Big-Money ...
Dump the F-35 program plagued with excessive
costs and failing weapons
by Kevin
Mooney
Wasteful,
counterproductive spending is a threat to U.S. military readiness that should
be rooted out now before taxpayers are saddled with “sustainment costs” that
will burden future generations.
That’s just one of several takeaways from a just-released government
accountability report analyzing the many defects of the F-35 Joint
Strike Fighter program. With government spending proceeding at an
unprecedented and dangerous level in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, now is
the time for the Trump administration to search for ways to offset the impact
of future stimulus efforts.
While it’s important for our military to exploit its
technological prowess with an eye toward China and other rising threats, there
appears to be a misguided effort to pack everything into one plane ranging from
stealth technology to vertical takeoff ability.
At a time when the economy is in recession and the national
debt is rising, defense spending must be smart and efficient. But since its
inception in 2001, the F-35 has been bedeviled with cost overruns that are
coming back to bite taxpayers without delivering any return on their
investment.
The major findings from the Government
Accountability Office report should give defense planners good reason
to hit the pause button. They don’t need to go back very far into the history
of the program to see that it has gone sideways.
From 2018 to 2019, the GAO reports the total cost estimate
of the F-35 acquisition program increased by $22 billion from $406 billion to
over $428 billion.
These costs are supposedly tied in with needed hardware and
software upgrades. But where does it all end? The answer seems to be that it
doesn’t since the acquisition costs are just the beginning. The sustainment
costs, the costs needed to keep the program running once it's activated for its
planned 66-year life cycle, are eye-popping. GAO reports costs will hit $1.2
trillion, bringing the total cost of the F-35 program to more than $1.6
trillion.
But what about military readiness? Is there an argument to
made that the F-35 will give the United States the critical edge it needs in
21st-century warfare that justifies its exorbitant costs? Once again, GAO findings
strongly suggest otherwise. In fact, the F-35 program is beset with thousands
of “deficiencies” that directly affect its fighter capabilities.
“Through 2019, F-35 program test officials had identified
over 3,200 deficiencies,” the GAO report says. “Deficiencies represent specific
instances where the weapon system either does not meet requirements or where
the safety, suitability, or effectiveness of the weapon system could be
affected. The test officials categorize deficiencies according to their potential
impact on the aircraft’s performance.”
The prospects for improving and altering the F-35 to the
point where it can be transformed into a lean, mean fighting machine are bleak.
A $17 billion Lockheed Martin Corp. diagnostic system used to analyze the F-35
and detect potential flaws in need of repairs is itself laced with flaws.
Maintenance crews at military bases reportedly said they spent an average of
5,000 to 10,000 hours each year tracking information that the diagnostic system
should have tracked automatically.
The runaway costs of the F-35 have not escaped the notice
of President Trump, who tweeted about the fighter jet's many
problems. Now is the time for him to pull the plug on the costly mess that
subtracts needed resources away from other vital projects.
Kevin
Mooney (@KevinMooneyDC) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway
Confidential blog. He is an investigative reporter in Washington, D.C., who
writes for several national publications.
Senator Dianne Feinstein
- Website
- SF
Office
(415) 393-0707 - DC
Office
(202) 224-3841 - Los
Angeles Office
(310) 914-7300
WAR
PROFITEER DIANNE FEINSTEIN SUCKS OFF BRIBES AND DEALS SIPHONED THROUGH HER
PIMP-HUSBAND RICHARD BLUM FROM THE FOLLOWING:
1. Wells Fargo (Banking)
2. Northrop Grumman (Defense)
3. Bank of America (Banking)
4. General Atomics (Defense)
5. General Dynamics
(Defense)
SEN.
DIANNE FEINSTEIN RANKS AS ONE OF THE MOST CORRUPT AND SELF-SERVING POLITICIANS
IN AMERICAN HISTORY.
SHE
HAS AMASSE A STAGGERING FORTUNE AS SHE STALKED THE HALLS OF CONGRESS SNIFFING
OUT DEALS THAT SHE AND BARBARA “BRIBES” BOXER VOTED ON THAT DROPPED HUNDREDS OF
MILLIONS INTO THE POCKETS OF FEINSTEIN’S PIMP-HUSBAND RICHARD BLUM
BLUM
HAS HANDED OUT CAMPAIGN “CONTRIBUTIONS” BRIBES TO VIRTUALLY ALL MAJOR DEM POLS
SO THEY KEEP THEIR MOUTHS CLOSED ABOUT FEINSTEIN’S STAGGERING CORRUPTION.
FEINSTEIN
HAS VOTED AGAINST ALL SENATE ATTEMPTS TO CURB SIPHONING OFF BRIBES TO FAMILY
MEMBERS IN THE FORM OF “CONSULTANT” FEES.
BARBARA
“BRIBES” BOXER MADE A VAST FORTUNE SHE SIPHONED OVER TO HER SON, OAKLAN LAWYER
DOUG BOXER.
PELOSI
HAS SIPHONED OFF BRIBES TO HER HUSBAND. AND THEN THERE ARE THE BACK ROOM DEALS
BLUM MADE TO PROFIT ON FEINSTEIN’S RED CHINA CONNECTIONS.
JUST
FOLLOW THE MONEY AS THESE TRAITORS DESTROY OUR COUNTRY AND FILL THEIR POCKETS
DOING IT!
*
IN THE November 2006
election, the voters demanded congressional ethics reform. And so, the newly
appointed chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.,
is now duly in charge of regulating the ethical behavior of her colleagues. But
for many years, Feinstein has been beset by her own ethical conflict of interest,
say congressional ethics experts.
“All in all, it was an incredible victory
for the Chinese government. Feinstein has done more for Red China than other
any serving U.S. politician. “ Trevor Loudon
“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 AMERICAN
THINKER.com
A SEARCH FOR FEINSTEIN AND WAR
PROFITEER
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Dianne
Feinstein: War profiteer and war criminal | Freepress.org
Jul 5, 2013 - Dianne Feinstein: War profiteer and war criminal ... Senator Feinstein has been quick to be at the forefront of defending these
programs and ...
Senator
Feinstein's War Profiteering - Antiwar.com Original
Feb 28, 2006 - If the antiwar movement takes on the Democrats for their bitter
shortcomings, a few liberals are bound to criticize us for not hounding Bush
instead. ... According to the Center for Public Integrity, Feinstein’s husband Richard Blum has racked in millions of dollars
from Perini, a ...
Dianne
Feinstein: War Profiteer - Antiwar.com Original
Oct 11, 2009 - Dianne Feinstein: War Profiteer. Justin Raimondo ... A particularly brazen example of the
latter is Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California ...
Feinstein Family
War Profits - Daily Kos
May 11, 2006 - Senator Dianne
Feinstein's husband,
Richard Blum, could well be called ... ties and war profiteering, as it did in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, then ... senator's spouse
gleaning off the spoils of war and passing it along to ...
Senator Feinstein
- War Profiteer by Marriage. - Daily Kos
Feb 28, 2006 - Is this the kind of Democrat we want serving us? We already have
Lieberman, Biden, Dodd and a host of other DINOs. It's about time for ...
Sen. Feinstein
as a Merchant of Death - LewRockwell
Apr 4, 2007 - Democratic Blood Money and Senator Feinstein's War Profiteering ... Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California silently resigned from ...
Army contract
for Feinstein's husband / Blum is a director of ...
Apr 22, 2003 - URS Corp., a San Francisco planning and engineering firm
partially owned by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein's husband, landed an Army ...
Democratic Blood
Money and Senator Feinstein's War ...
Apr 5, 2007 - Democratic Senator
Dianne Feinstein of
California silently resigned ... Here's a brief rundown of the Feinstein
family's blatant war profiteering.
(DV) Frank:
Senator Feinstein's War Profiteering
Senator Feinstein's War
Profiteering by Joshua
Frank www.dissidentvoice.org. March 1, 2006. Send this page to a friend! (click
here). It happens all the time.
The Greatest
Threat to Campus Free Speech is Coming From ...
Sep 25, 2015 - ... about Israel that Dianne Feinstein and her war-profiteering husband ... Illinois Democratic Senator Dick
Durbin — is merely illustrative of this ...
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Feinstein's Husband, Richard Blum, Grows Fortune
Jul 16, 2015 - Richard Blum, husband of U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, has ... has a $50,000–$100,000 investment in Colony American
Homes War I and no ...
Code Pink,
Raging Grannies ask Feinstein to return profits to ...
Apr 9, 2007 - of corruption and war profiteering. Feinstein releases statement ... Senator Dianne Feinstein and Richard C. Blum. Feinstein has since broken ...
The CIA: the
double life of Dianne Feinstein | Editorial ...
Mar 11, 2014 - Editorial: The exasperation with the Democratic senator from
California is that she hasn't also directed her outrage at the NSA.
War Profiteering
– Underground Network
War profiteers are people, corporations, or any actors that profit from
war. ... US Senator Dianne Feinstein, who voted in favor of the Iraq Resolution, and her ...
Sen Dianne
Feinstein's Husband Top Iraq War Profiteer - Democratic ...
Jul 24, 2008 -
32 posts - 28 authors
That's because Blum's wife, Senator Dianne Feinstein, appears to have used her seat on the Military Construction
Appropriations subcommittee ...
Dianne Feinstein - Wikipedia
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is
an American politician serving as the senior United ... At the age of 86, Feinstein is
the oldest sitting U.S. Senator. ... committee has coincided with the Senate Report
on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq and the ...
Constituency: At-large district
(1970–1978); 2nd ...
Political
positions of Dianne Feinstein - Wikipedia
Dianne Feinstein is the current senior senator in
the U.S. Senate representing California. ... Feinstein supported the
Iraq war resolution in the vote of October 11, 2002; she has since
claimed that she was misled by President Bush on the ...
Censored 2009:
The Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007-08
Peter Phillips,
Andy Lee Roth, Project Censored - 2011 - Political Science
And in December 2007, Judicial Watch ranked Senator Feinstein as one of ... Sources “The Diane Feinstein War Profiteering Scandal,” Rush Limbaugh, ...
The Economics of
War: Profiteering, Militarism and Imperialism
Imad A. Moosa - 2019 -
Political Science
Profiteering, Militarism and Imperialism Imad A. Moosa ... (2003) has
reported that US senator Dianne
Feinstein, who voted in
favour of the invasion of Iraq, and ...
Kissinger's
Shadow: The Long Reach of America's Most ...
Greg Grandin - 2015 -
Biography & Autobiography
Iran-Contra and Senator John
Kerry's hearings on the CIA's use of drug ... activities in Nicaragua, and now
to Senator Dianne Feinstein's torture report, and the ... the press; Blackwater; Abu
Ghraib; war profiteering; the torture memos; drones.
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United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary - 2007 - Contracting out
Hearing Before the Committee on the Judiciary, United
States Senate, One ... Jr., Delaware HERB KOHL, Wisconsin DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California RUSSELL ...
The Corruption
of Senator Feinstein - Indybay
PDF
Dec 10, 2015 - Sen. Dianne
Feinstein's husband
wins CA rail contract . ... The Feinsstein Family held war profiteering contracts in Afghanistan, Bolivia and ...
The Dianne
Feinstein War Profiteering Scandal - The Rush ...
Mar 29, 2007 - The Dianne Feinstein
War Profiteering Scandal.
Mar 29 ... 'Sen. Dianne Feinstein has resigned from the Military Construction
Appropriations ...
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Diane
Feinstein's Conflict of Interest in Iraq | Town Square ...
Feb 24, 2008 - Shortly before my expose of Senator Dianne Feinstein's conflict of interest was published in January ... Blum
& Feinstein - Corrupt War
Profiteer
Feinstein quits
committee under war-profiteer cloud - WND
Mar 28, 2007 - Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has abruptly walked away from her responsibilities
with the Senate Military Construction Appropriations ...
Dianne
Feinstein: War Profiteer | Dyncorp Sucks
Oct 12, 2009 - A particularly brazen example of the latter is Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California and formerly the mayor of what is
generally ...
Lev Parnas on
Maddow: Trump Knew 'Exactly What Was ...
2 days ago - “It was never about corruption,” Parnas said, referring to the
unreliable Trump-team claim that the administration wanted to go after profiteering ...
How to Profit Off War: Iraq,
Afghanistan and Big-Money ...
Jan 18, 2015 - 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 has ...
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