"My lord, the guy heading FEMA has no qualifications."

[Rose Siding]

from War and Piece...

September 01, 2005
My lord, the guy heading FEMA has no qualifications. What was he doing before getting pulled into FEMA by the Bush administration in 2003? He was an estate planning lawyer in Colorado and of counsel for the International Arabian Horse Association Legal Department. And yes, it is the same Michael D. Brown.


Posted by Laura at September 1, 2005 11:05 AM

http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/002458.html

[Neocondriac]

1. Of course he does....

In Bushworld.....he worked or played golf with the right Neocon. That's the resume.

[kath]

10. More importantly, he probably donated lots of $$$ to the Bushistas.

[Liberal In Texas]

12. It's political patronage. At least Clinton put people in the jobs who had

actual qualifications.

This country is sooooo screwed up.

[starroute]

17. Donated $500 to the Bush campaign in 1999 and again in 2000

http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=CO&last=brown&first=michael

Not exactly huge bucks -- there might be something else at work.

[SunDrop23]

2. If he can say one of two things...

1. Nobody told me.

OR

2. I had no way of knowing.

Not only will he get kudos from the Administration, but he will be considered a hero by the kool aid drinkers.

[Boo Boo]

3. That's the Bush Admin for ya.

Replace competent, experienced people with ass-kissing sycophants and Bush Pioneer cronies. Anybody they had with an ounce of self respect has already left this Administration.

[K-W]

4. Good god. EOM

[mattclearing]

5. Well at least he's qualified to plan for the deaths of the people in NO.

Cause that's clearly the end result of his tenure.

[Dr Fate]

14. Those folks dont have anything to leave in their wills.

n/t

[jackstraw45]

6. Don't forget to thank the Senate for their comprehensive

"advice and consent."

9/11 ushered in an era of NO accountability in government thanks to Bush.

[G_j]

8. yep

hens are coming home to roost

[Skidmore]

7. Sure he does, he's either a * Ranger or

he fixed an election somewhere.

[SoCalDem]

9. NONE of the people running departments are really "qualified"

Dept of Interior, a LOBBYIST/lawyer FOR the lead industry..come on!!

and it's all through this adminsitration..

They are hires to RAPE and pillage the very departments they head..

patronage pure and simple

[muwriter]

11. All department heads are political hacks. See Tommy Thompson at HHS

The guy had absolutely NO medical related training whatsoever.

[Dr Fate]

13. ESTATE PLANNING? He writes Wills & Trusts? HUH????

Holy smokes!!!!

Mabye he should be replaced with a former Undertaker.

[tabasco]

15. The same thing has happened throughout the government.

Bush has handed out patronage jobs without consideration for qualifications. In the military, the best generals have been bypassed and the yes-men promoted. The administration operates like gangsters, who value only loyalty.

This has hurt our Nation seriously and will take a long time to fix.

[LisaLynne]

19. So true.

* and his ilk think that this is some sort of game. They treat the government and government positions like they are meaningless tokens, to be given to the highest bidder or the closest friend. They don't seem to realize that running a government takes actual skill. There are actual things that need to be done. There is an actual function that government is supposed to fulfill.

They don't know that. They've always thought the federal government was just something that stopped them from doing business the way they wanted for no good reason (i.e. exploiting workers and ruining the environment).

[tnlefty]

16. Lately, I've been wondering if what we are witnessing is the reason

that the Hart-Rudman specifically stated that FEMA should be kept seperate from any measures to increase security. Instead it has been rammed into DHS and now we witness a colossal failure on the part of FEMA and emergency preparedness.

[KamaAina]

18. What do you expect? The guy heading the White House doesn't either.

Maybe the refugees can ride Arabian horses across the GNO to safety? :sarcasm:

[SofaKingLiberal]

20. "My lord, the guy heading FEMA has no qualifications."

Yeah, he was appointed by *. I would be surprised if he knew the difference between his ass and a hole in the ground.

[Jacobin]

21. Hey, but I'm sure he's a good Krishin

Faith based emergency relief.

[spanone]

22. As long as America let's them get away with it, they will prevail

Cause they don't play by the rules.

[Nothing Without Hope]

23. If you think HE'S bad, look at the insane wacko they put in there to

gut FEMA management - Albaugh. Think: Bolton and how he is deliberately disrupting the UN because the neocons want it crippled. The Bushies did the same thing with FEMA with this vile nutjob - in addition to slashing their funding. Here are some comments about Albaugh's job destroying FEMA from a DUer who knows:

YES ! Joe Albaugh, 1 of Bush's campaign managers & nutcase.

This man has a truly violent temper and short trigger to go with it. At one of his first meetings with career FEMA high level staff, one woman who was called on to make a report started out by introducing herself to Albaugh with her name and title. He went ballistic, screaming and raging - DID SHE THINK HE DIDN'T KNOW WHO SHE WAS?!?!?!? HOW DARE SHE PRESUME SUCH A THING??? . . .yada, yada, yada along the same line for minutes to the dead silence of everyone else in the room who had never seen such a display of temper. In other words, someone following standard business etiquette was screamed at and berated in front of her peers.

This was typical behavior for Albaugh, and one result was that many, many of the top level FEMA people left for other jobs or took early retirement because Albaugh wouldn't allow them to do the jobs they were trained to do. This was a tremendous loss of institutional knowledge for the relatively small federal agency. Albaugh hated being at FEMA and left after about a year. Although he had zip experience with disaster relief or any kind of government/public service before his explosive period with FEMA, when he left there he started a very high priced consulting firm on counter-terrorism.

Bush initially put Albaugh in place to gut FEMA - I mean why should all that federal money go to people in trouble and need through some natural disaster. Bush's attitude was that if you weren't wealthy enough to private pay someone to help you handle a disaster, you deserved whatever befell you. Anyway, when 9/11 occurred, he couldn't outwardly gut FEMA, but he pretty much emasculated it by putting it under DHS.

That is from here originally: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4520347&mesg_id=4520775

And is currently also quoted in the OP of this here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4523783
Thread title: CNN/New Orleans:"Mayor blasts failure to patch levee breeches" and that's {only the beginning:}

This is deliberate. The neocons want FEMA to be an arm of their domestic police, NOT a relief agency. They want an excuse to declare widespread martial law and use their NorthCom/ Homeland Security military forces as domestic US police while OUR National Guard is banished to the Middle East to be killed, used up and thrown away. After all, they are friends and family of the people they would serve in the US - they might shoot if ordered to do so by the fascists.

It's not just incompetence, though there is more than enough of that - it's a deliberate move to a fascist martial law state with Pentagon-directed US domestic police powers. FEMA is being reshaped to fit that vision, not to truly provide disaster relief and planning.

[LibertyorDeath]

24. Oh dear god !

[Nikki Stone 1]

25. The poltically appointed heads of these things RARELY have qualifications

It is the middle level people who actually do the footwork and the planning. This is one problem of having political appointees in charge of government agencies instead of having career government employees in charge.

[me b zola]

26. People are dying because of this!!!!

I am so pissed I can't see straight!!!!!!!!!! :grr:

[dogday]

27. He has some experience in Bush Cheer-leading

He was trying to explain why they let people starve and die of thirst or drown. Can't change what is the truth. You can talk till you are (red) in the face, but we all have watched these people suffer on a daily basis and we are mad...

[MrBenchley]

28. This deserves a big kick....