Yesterday, during a committee hearing in the U.S. Senate on gun control legislation, newly elected Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and long-time Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) engaged in a heated exchange over the constitutionality of her proposed bill, Assault Weapons Ban of 2013, to ban “assault weapons” that include more than 150 rifles, shotguns, and handguns.
By far the most ambitious of and just like the gun-control bills introduced across the United States in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, Feinstein’s bill exempts government officials (including Congress, of course), law enforcement and retired law enforcement personnel.
At yesterday’s hearing, Sen. Cruz questioned the constitutionality of new gun laws: “It seems to me that all of us should begin, as our foundational document, with the Constitution. And the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights provides that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” Cruz went on to expound on the phrase “the right of the people,” its origins and its prolific use by the Founding Fathers in a number of Constitutional provisions, including the First and Fourth Amendments.
To that, Feinstein huffily replied: “I’m not a sixth grader.” Blah. Blah. Blah.
Like another Democrat senator, Chucky Schumer, Feinstein carries a concealed weapon and is also protected by armed police escorts, although she has plenty of moolah to hire her own body guards. One of the 10 wealthiest members of Congress, Feinstein reported a net worth of between $46 million and $108.1 million in 2010, according to financial disclosures.
Feinstein’s investment-banker husband Richard Blum was on the Board of Directors of Current TV and had facilitated the $500 million sale of Al Gore’s failing TV network to Al Jazeera.
The Hollywood Reporter reports that according to a lawsuit filed by John Terenzio, who claims it was his idea to sell to Al Jazeera but he was cut out of the lucrative deal, Gore at first was reluctant to sell to Al Jazeera but was persuaded by Blum. Feinstein’s husband pushed for the sale because “he and other Current investors were concerned about the prospect of losing their shirts in the financially troubled Current.”
As the spouse of a powerful senior U.S. senator, some of Blum’s lucrative business dealings have been questioned for potential conflicts-of-interest. From Wikipedia:
Blum’s wife, Senator Dianne Feinstein, has received scrutiny due to her husband’s government contracts and extensive business dealings with China and her past votes on trade issues with the country. Blum has denied any wrongdoing, however Critics have argued that business contracts with the US government awarded to a company (Perini) controlled by Blum may raise a potential conflict-of-interest issue with the voting and policy activities of his wife. URS Corp, which Blum had a substantial stake in, bought EG&G, a leading provider of technical services and management to the U.S. military, from The Carlyle Group in 2002; EG&G subsequently won a $600m defense contract.
In 2009 it was reported that Blum’s wife Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to provide $25 billion in taxpayer money to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, a government agency that had recently awarded her husband’s real estate firm, CB Richard Ellis, what the Washington Times called “a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms.”
Hey, Dianne Feinstein.
At age 79, you are most certainly not a sixth-grader. But I doubt there’s even ONE sixth-grader in all of America who’s as hypocritical as you!
H/t FOTM’s CSM
~Eowyn
