Tag Archives: Feinstein

Asking Forgiveness, Not Permission

The White House sadly has gotten to DiFi.

Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) had been very critical of the Bergdahl-Taliban Five trade, especially the failure to notify Congress.

Today she backed off:

“I think we need to put an end to all of this now. I think enough is enough. I think the Senate has had a hearing and the House has had a hearing. Everybody has heard what they need to hear.”

When the trade was under consideration in the past and Congress was in the loop, Feinstein strongly opposed letting those five Gitmo prisoners go free, as did others of both parties.  I think it’s become clear that the lack of notification wasn’t a fear that Bergdahl would die from health issues or be killed by his captors, but a fear that Congressional leaders, having opposed this trade in the past, would oppose it now.  The Administration decided it was better to ask for forgiveness, not permission.

Assad Paints Obama into a Corner with His Red Line

President Obama said that if Syria’s Bashar Assad used chemical weapons, that would be crossing a “red line” for the U. S.  Well, now it seems that Assad has used sarin, and Obama needs to put up or shut up.

Not just Republicans like John Boehner, John McCain, and Buck McKeon (Chairman of the House Armed Services Committees) are saying the Prez needs to do something or look weak, Dem Sen. Dianne Feinstein is too.

WH Trades Drone Memos for Brennan Vote

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) announced that the White House has agreed to provide the Senate Intelligence Committee access to all of the Justice Department drone memos dealing with the targeting of Americans.

The fight over the drone memos has delayed the confirmation of John Brennan to be CIA Director.

The Committee will finally vote on his nomination later today.

Enough Is Enough

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner and West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, both of whom have A ratings from the NRA, are saying that we need new gun laws after Newtown.

Warner says, “Enough is enough.  … [T]here are ways to get to rational gun control.”

Manchin says, “This awful massacre has changed where we go from here.”

It means a lot more having folks like Warner and Manchin on board than just those you’d expect like California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Yesterday I posted that this felt like a Sputnik moment to me.  This morning I’m thinking that another, and maybe better, analogy is the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in New York City in 1911.

146 garment workers, almost all of them young Italian and Jewish immigrant women in their teens or early 20’s, died when a fire broke out in their factory, and they were locked in because the factory owners feared theft of materials.  Many jumped to their deaths to escape the heat and flames.

Within two years, New York had passed 60 new labor reform laws, and the horrific Triangle fire was instrumental in the development of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union.

The final six victims of the fire were positively identified only last year, the centennial of the tragedy.

Stop the Paranoia

Dem Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, announced this morning that Gen. Petraeus has told her he will testify before her committee about Benghazi.

So all the paranoid stuff about his resigning from the CIA to avoid testifying before Congress has now been established as absurd.  His resignation did nothing to end his obligation to testify if Congress wants him to.  They have subpoena power, if necessary.