The article "FEMA troubles no shock to previous chief" reports the thoughts of former head of FEMA Joe Allbaugh:
[He says:] "FEMA has been broken for quite some time…"
The FEMA that he directed did a good job responding to the 9-11 terrorist attacks four years ago, he said. But now it suffers as one of 22 […]
No, not as long as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Howard Dean, and the rest of the Democrats are in charge the looting will continue. However, in "Hurricane looting not over yet", the Right Rev is concerned with the more Republican form of looting:
…Already Halliburton is on hand with a no-bid contract for reconstruction.
Actually, I think […]
Reuters:
Companies with ties to the Bush White House and the former head of FEMA are clinching some of the administration's first disaster relief and reconstruction contracts in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President George W. Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal […]
From "In Storm's Ruins, a Rush to Rebuild and Reopen for Business":
Private contractors, guided by two former directors of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other well-connected lobbyists and consultants, are rushing to cash in on the unprecedented sums to be spent on Hurricane Katrina relief and reconstruction.
From global engineering and construction firms like the […]
WASHINGTON - The three top jobs at the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Bush went to political cronies with no apparent experience coping with catastrophes, the Daily News has learned…
…FEMA's No. 2 man, deputy director and chief of staff Patrick Rhode, was an advance man for the Bush-Cheney campaign and White House. He also […]
Yesterday, Errol Louis in the NYDN was one of the first of the anti-Michael Brown wave:
…Behind the tears, you could hear that Nagin and Broussard know full well what outsiders are only beginning to understand: They are part of a system of government that is broken at all levels, rife with cronyism and corruption and […]
It all fits together! According to this not-exactly-credible report:
Among his many acts of service, Allbaugh was reportedly the man dispatched to clean out Bush's Texas National Guard file prior to the 2000 presidential campaign.
It does, however, have this useful but unconfirmed bit of information:
In March 2003, the Bush administration degraded matters further by demoting FEMA […]
In February, Joe Allbaugh's company registered to become a lobbyist for Kellogg, Brown & Root, a Halliburton subsidiary. KBR is currently tapping a $500 million contract to do emergency repairs related to Katrina.
A leftie site says:
Just last week, the Wall Street Journal reported, "Senate Appropriations staffers warn business lobbyists are maneuvering to tack on special-interest […]
The Palm Beach Post joins in:
Before he began working for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael Brown spent a decade enforcing rules for the International Arabian Horse Association. And people wonder why FEMA did so poorly last year in Florida and last week on the Gulf Coast. Along with the rebuilding of that region must […]
Michael Hitzlik of the L.A. Times offers a less-than-trustworthy screed dismissing FEMA head Michael Brown, Bush, conservatism, and on and on. While it has some interesting quotes, I hesitate to wonder which of them are taken out of context:
New Orleans is, or should be, the graveyard of the conservative ideology that government is useless. An […]
