It will be "interesting" to see if this is even mentioned by ABC, NBC, etc...

What story? She's a democrat. I see Cold Cash J. is still holding onto his seat.

Posted by Purple Avenger at March 29, 2007 05:21 AM

I'm betting Feinstein will hold on for quite a while. Maybe not in any more committee's but against any charges.

I am 58 so obviously have been watching politics for a few decades. Does it seem that our government is getting more corrupt, more involved in our lives, more restrictive of our freedoms, less responsive to our needs and in general a greater liabilty than ever before? I can not find a period in American history that is worse than the one we are currently in. I have supported the conservative cause through the years, yet they do little to really effect a change except during the Regan years. We just finished 6 years of Republican control of the government and instead of a smaller, better government we are worse off than under Clinton. What can we do to change the situation short of armed revolution???

Posted by David Caskey at March 29, 2007 09:28 AM

Vote totally new personnel into office, bar none.

Insist on a bill to law system that is only one measure to a bill (no Tac-On's),if it doesn't pass on it's own merit, it's gone.

No more lobbyists. No more bennies for Congressmen, not even a $25.00 meal.

Term limits, maybe 10 yrs tops.

Congressmen paid on a percentage of thier constituants salaries, averaged.

No longevity seniority in congress. They are equal if they have been there for one day or 10 years.

Problem is to get all in the U.S. to vote out the incumbants and force the new ones to accept what we, the people want.

Like you said, CY, I'll wait to see how the story develops. Personally, I am not impressed with the innuendo of MetroActive's story. Here's a couple of my thoughts:

MA notes Feinstein inquires about certain projects/proposals and a few years later a Blum connected company announces winning a contract on such. Is the Feinstein inquiry aspect out of the ordinary for her or does she do this on a regular basis? If the latter, is it any surprise Perini or other of Blum connected Co.'s, wins a contract that Feinstein has inquired about during hearings years earlier?

In parallel to the above, my knowledge of Fed Contracts is that the funding is usually in place before a project is put through the Q&E and RFP stages. One would have to show that a Blum connected Co. received preferential treatment in these processes to show other than coincidence.

Those are two on the Feinstein side. As for Perini breaking into the big time of Engineering/Construction Co's, I am not surprised this coincided with taking on Government Work, nor that they decided to take it on. Private work fluctuates with the economy as well as with the waxing and waning of different sectors. Only one thing is steadiest, and that is government work. Their size, reputation and organizational experience pretty much guaranteed a good share of the pie quickly just because of that. As for the suggestion that "Perini shot from near penury in 1997", I think it's just that MA liked the idea of using that cool sounding word to inflate their case, not that it has any real business meaning. Actually, Perini looked pretty good in 1997. It was earlier years that they had considerable losses which were carried forward through 1997.

On the Senate (or MetroActive) side of things, what is Feinstein doing as Chairperson of a Senate Subcommittee from 2002-2006, as MetroActive intentionally states, when the Republicans had majorities? Unless, of course, MA is actively taking advantage of their crappy writing skills to suggest something that is not accurate. Maybe MA is right and it is I who is misinformed by my belief that the party in the majority fills the committee and subcommittee chairmanships with their own members.

More digging is required before there is any reason to compare Feinstein's activities and actions to Cunningham's. Right now it is appearance of appearance of hypocrisy and appearance of appearance of conflict of interest.

Posted by Dusty at March 29, 2007 12:04 PM

Once the RFP is out there, there are no longer limitations on who is selected for the contract. It no longer goes to the lowest bidder but to the one believed to deliver the best product. If it can be determined that it was steered towards her husbands companies, that should be enough. The funding may be in place in the Govt. but not to the ultimate contractor until the selection is made, and then only as the contract dictates. That is what they need to look into.

Dusty, poor dusty. Reading is fundamental. You missed the following in the metroamerica article: "Boston Scientific Corporation: $17.8 million for medical equipment and supplies; 85 percent of contracts awarded without benefit of competition.

Kinetic Concepts Inc.: $12 million, medical equipment and supplies; 28 percent noncompetitively awarded."

No Competition? Would that be considered preferential? I bet you thoght it was when it was a Halliburton award.

No, CoRev, I didn't think it was preferential when it was a Halliburton Award. Yes, reading is fundamental, that is why I checked and corrected my initial MediaActive to MetroActive before I posted.

Thinking is just as fundamental as reading. There are several good reasons for issuing non-competitives. Before I get my shorts in a twist about that, I'd like to know the general character of that process of allowing them and some specifics for the ones as examples. For instance, how much, in dollar value, is put out that way in a year and what percentage do the amounts to Blum connected companies represent. Lot's of non-competitives go out on a rotating basis among the reliable contractors that have long experience with an agency, e.g., a non-preferential check built in the system. Did Blum connected companies get put up front too often? Also, were those dollar values to Blum connected companies above the mean for those products or did the government get a good deal. If not, was there a good reason -- rush order, for example?

Take that second item you quote, the $12M order, the way I read that, that's 3.36M. What were the circumstances? Was it a separate contract? Does it represent several smaller ones? Was it an add on to the contract because the government got such a good price? Specifics, and details are in order before anything of substance can be discerned from the MediaActive blurbs of potential improprieties.

It's good to keep tabs on the folks in DC and it's worth looking into these occurrences to make sure things are on the up and up but, like I indicated before, there is nothing I see so far in this report to merit allegations of corruption, which to be clear, is something I think is a crime in the legal sense, not a political sense. Who knows, maybe Feinstein's actions could fill a football filed sized cesspool. If you want to jump to that conclusion as quickly as you jumped to your conclusion about me with the Halliburton snark, fine by me, but I'll give you directions to a good cliff instead of taking your bet.

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Retired Navy, I agree. Q&E's and RFP's are dependent on the circumstances of the project and I do not know all the rules for which process is used or how rigid the process is for military agencies. Aren't pretty much all contracts advertised by law (except the non-competitives, of course)?

From what I know, if you start with the Q&E, usually there is a reduction to three or so for additional info and/or interviews. Professionally speaking, the best rated is then asked to provide a proposal which is then negotiated. If terms aren't mutually agreed to, then the agency goes to the second on the list and repeats the last two steps.

With long run agencies and consistently similar projects year in and year out, the same names tend to show up all the time and they been vetted by years of experience, and some of the process gets thrown out the window for the sake of brevity and cost. I can see where some preferential treatment can ooze into the process and you are right in saying it should be looked into.

I can also see where a rooky to the process looks better than tired old vet contractors who have years of baggage from little or big mistakes that everyone remembers, not to mention the preferential treatment that would appear if a rooky is not taken as an equal in the process once in the system. So, I wouldn't be surprised by a rooky appearing to have a meteoric rise in contracts and the appearance of preferential treatment for a number of reasons, one being because he was taken as an equal in the list of contractors. I wonder, though, isn't there an independent in-house group monitoring the possibility of preferential treatment and corruption? (Used the y in "Rooky" to get past a spam filter stop sign)

Dusty, sorry for the snark. You are sowing your ignorance. "Sole Source" means what it says. Exigencies exist to expedite contracting, sole source is usually not one of them. All contracts over $25K are supposed to advertised (at least that was the limit when I was in the business.)

Any time a company is awarded 85% of its Fed business as sole source is extremely suspect , UNLESS, the Fed is buying the same product, andand obviously it is the only source.

The same rules, laws and regulations apply to all Executive Agencies. DOD may rewrite them and reissue in their own words, but they are the same in the end.

I don't know what process you were describing in your hypothesis, a letter contract perhaps but it is NOT the normal contracting process. Once a competitive range is established, then it is common to negotiate with all within that range .

With nearly 300M citizens in an oversight role it is uncommon for rules to be bent too far. And in times of emergency, Katrina for example, the post event reviews NEVER take into account the value of of some waste to deliver a need versus doing the correct thing by following all the rules. Imagine waiting 30 days for an announcement for ice after a hurricane.

Any way, I don't know why you are defending Ms Feinstein in this matter. It is no worse than Halliburton, where most of its contracts were multiple orders off a competitively awarded contract.

Remember, the key is 85% of its awards being sole source.

Apology is not needed, CoRev, but noted. I guess mine was snark as well. So apologies there by me.

I haven't offered much in the way of expert knowledge, just experience from a having to deal with the process in general from the grunt side of things in Engineering from, I admit now, quite a few years ago.

I should note, however, that Sole Source was not a situation that had occurred to me, so if those are the type of contracts being quoted, further investigation is more worthy of consideration. I wish that was clear in the MediaActive story for then it would have been brought to my attention, but, alas, they make no mention of those types of contracts. Are you sure that is what those contracts were or is that your surmise from experience?

I agree with the sole product scenario exemption as I have encountered them alot and in my situation have to include such in specifications often.

As for the process I briefly described, that is generally the process recommended by AIA, ASCE, NSPE. We don't like pure bidding because 1) we are professionals providing brain power not materials/labor and expect to be treated that way, 2) anyone can play word games in rigging a price to win a low bid via a) the owner's error, b) the owner's naivete, and/or c) the owner's stupidity. That the governement still works on the basis of lowest bid rather than second lowest bid just proves 2) is apt, and dangerously so, and no one need harp too much on the lack of humility in 1).

Lastly, I am not defending Feinstein. I noted MetroActive maybe onto something, but right now -- how can I put this kindly -- the report needs another monkey typing to make a case, for me, anyway, that isn't a clear partisan hit piece but one that offers dispassionate evidence. I agree with what you note about Halliburton and that also means I should want more information of the Blum connected companies' contracts as well as more of Feinstein's record before I judge either their companies' work and/or Feinstein's actions.

BTW, you note the key is 85% of it's awards being sole source. Other than that it does not say sole source, that was for the first item, the one you didn't quote to me. The second which you did quote was 28%. As for the first, the 85% for the Boston Scientific bullet, the amount of $17.8M, doesn't say if that is for 2006 or since it started contracting until Dec 2006. Heck, I don't even know if that 85% got our military 500 SOTA MRI's or just 500 off-the-shelf rectum thermometers. Just another instance of the story not impressing me enough to treat Feinstein the way the left (or even Feinstein) treats Cheney and Halliburton.

Pelosi's hubby is big in a company that does a lot of shoddy construction in Florida too. Last year there was an electrocution of a workman at one of their homes due to shoddy work.

The FBC (Florida Building Code) had to be emergency amended to account for the scenario that caused the fatality. Now electricians have to ground all steel stud framing because neither the sheetrockers or electricians can apparently be trusted to abide by the prior codes (which would not have prevented the fatality if adhered to), and the inspectors are paid off to let shoddy work slide.

I meant to say the prior codes WERE SUFFICIENT to prevent last years fatality if adhered to.