Brown Should Have Been Fired in 2003
Michael Brown’s FEMA biography:
Under Secretary Brown has led Homeland Security’s response to more than 164 presidentially declared disasters and emergencies, including the 2003 Columbia Shuttle disaster and the California wildfires in 2003.
A refresher: the 2003 wildfires lasted seven weeks and burned three-quarters of a million acres. The billowing smoke was easily visible from space. By the time they were extinguished, 3,600 homes had been destroyed, 22 people were killed, and $2.5 billion in damages were amassed.
How did Brown perform? The reviews of his work may sound familiar:
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and some other California members of Congress have criticized the Federal Emergency Management Agency for not declaring a disaster area in Riverside, San Bernardino and San Diego counties last spring because of the bark beetle infestation.
The bugs killed drought-stricken trees over 415,000 acres of forest, making them particularly prone to fire. On April 16, [then-Gov. Gray] Davis wrote to President Bush urging a disaster declaration. Eight days later, Boxer, Feinstein and 10 House members from Southern California — seven of them Republicans — urged Bush to approve the request.
The request was passed to FEMA, which turned it down last week. [San Jose Mercury News, 11/1/03]
FEMA was refusing California’s pleas up to the tragic end:
On Oct. 24, just hours before the Southern California wildfires began to rage out of control, the Federal Emergency Management Agency denied a state application for $430 million to clear dead trees from fire-prone areas. The letter came six months after the governor’s office warned the agency that the state considered the dead trees an immediate threat to lives and property. [Los Angeles Times, 12/15/03]
Same Michael Brown, different day. He should have been fired two years ago.
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38 Responses to “Brown Should Have Been Fired in 2003”
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Nico - San Jose Mercury News, 11/1/05 ?
September 9th, 2005 at 2:27 pmGlad you’re on quality control, Darth. Fixed.
September 9th, 2005 at 2:29 pmThink Progress in on QC — and we thank you a million times.
Maybe Bush will check the web for suggestions — obviously Senior Advisor Rove has very few ideas for helping this government serve its people.
September 9th, 2005 at 2:34 pmBush is a classic ‘failed CEO’, he only wants yes men. If you always say yes sir, and make him think you’re loyal, and let him win at golf, then your incompetence isn’t the issue…
September 9th, 2005 at 2:50 pmBush would be an ingrate to fire Mike Brown. After all, Brownie delivered Florida for Bush in 2004.
For the full story on the politics of Bush-era disaster relief, see:
“FEMA: Florida Election Management Agency.”
September 9th, 2005 at 2:52 pmRyan,
September 9th, 2005 at 2:56 pmI know, he surrounds himself with people that don’t mind doin’ a little boot lickin’.
But … let him win at golf? That’s goin’ a little too far!
This is the never-ending story of Bush and his golfing buddies, frat-boy friends, campaign donors and friends of poppy.
September 9th, 2005 at 2:56 pmKeith,
I agree - I could never work for him… That kind of boot licking is more appropriate for the wannabees and whack jobs that come troll here. I bet they’d lose to bush just to sniff his butt…
September 9th, 2005 at 2:59 pmBrown wouldn’t have been fired then — California voted for Kerry (and before that, Gore). Also, not just let him win at golf, but never pass him on his bicycle rides.
September 9th, 2005 at 3:20 pmjunior is really having nightmares now.
http://rawstory.com/ news/ 2005/ Activists_plan_911_Katrin_0909.html
September 9th, 2005 at 3:24 pmI posted this a couple of days ago:
The hard work of keeping America safe(r). Brown & possibly Chertof will be sacrificed. It is all PR at this point.
I believe there will be a three pronged campaign; 1) the presidential commission (with a simultaneous quashing of any Democratic/Congressional investigations) 2) continued “leaking†of Louisiana State Democratic short comings 3) and ultimately a bloodletting of “officials once removed from the administrationâ€.
There, we should all feel safe(r).
Now that all three have transpired, it is not “I told you so”, but what’s next?
1) Confuse: You liberals are never satisfied, your “blame game” worked, Bush has taken responsibility.
2) Stall: Now that the president has shown “strong leadership”, “there is a Congressional investigation, let them finish their work”
3) Ram: Going into high shrill mode about Louisiana State Democratic short comings, and how Democrats never take responsibility (insert clinton blow job here…).
All the above is POLITICS, NOT GOVERNENCE. Their real issue here is the IDEOLOGY OF FAILED REPUBLICAN RULE.
September 9th, 2005 at 3:33 pmThey believe in an ineffectual federal government and they have it. They believe in private sector take over and they have it. So, it is time we hit them over and over with what they believe, THERE IS NO “WE” IN THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, ONLY “ME” IF YOU CAN PURCHASE THE PRICE OF ADMISSION!
This is exactly the reason for affirmative action… to rid ourselves of the government country club.
September 9th, 2005 at 3:45 pmWell, I would say a merit based system is required.
AA plays into fairness which is important in itself.
This is a case of cronyism which is manyfold bad.
Still, it is pretty clear the NEOs got what they wanted:
1) Purchase of Florida electoral votes last year
2) Destruction of a goog government agency
Only problem was this disaster was too hard to
hide. Otherwise it was “mission accomplished”
all the way.
They win anyway as they now gave $50B to a
September 9th, 2005 at 3:52 pmbunch of political cronies. They can buy
lots of elections with that money.
I just received our local paper here in Lake Arrowhead, site of the 2003 Old Fire and the headline is that Congress has cut funding to remove more of the trees that have died from the bark beetle infestation. The San Bernardino forest is the largest urban forest in the nation and now we can look forward to as much help as the folks in New Orleans.
September 9th, 2005 at 4:06 pmSue, Why not let W clear some brush in the area around SB? That would keep him out of the way for a while.
September 9th, 2005 at 4:18 pmI dunno, Chimpy with a chainsaw is scary to me.
September 9th, 2005 at 4:23 pmI have seen the photo-ops, but we know what
those are like.
This is a pattern. When the hurricane hit florida (a republican run state), fema dished out aid to those who hadn’t even suffered anything. When to democratic regions are hit - they fall on their face with incompetence. This is politicized hit by a right wing self absorbed with its own sense of unchecked power. They’re crappy because they think they can be. They’ve gotten the rigged voting machines - so they obviously don’t think it matters what anyone things. The nonthinking brownshirts who come troll here will never question their failures and actually use their brains and they know it… So they have a brainwashed core, a press largely under their thumb, and voting machines to ensure that they retain their dictatorship… It’s very cuban of them…
September 9th, 2005 at 4:47 pmYou know Ryan,
I would never have believed such a thing from
September 9th, 2005 at 4:54 pmANY previous administration in my lifetime
(back to JFK), but after what
we have seen the last 4.5 years, it really
looks like you are correct.
Not sure that they have rigged the machines yet,
but other dirty tricks are clear.
Uniter, yeah, right.
ACTION ALERT! ACTION ALERT!
Howdy, folks. A few of us at DailyKos.com are trying to get the news programs to interview the Cheney “Go F-ck Yourself” guy. It turns out he’s a very colorful dude, a doctor no less, who both lost his house and gained a baby girl during the storm! Here’s more from my DailyKos post…
…SO LET’S GET DR. BEN MARBLE ON THE AIR!! Get e-mailin’, folks. I’ve pulled the following news e-mail addresses off Google, so I DON’T know that they’ll all work, but I’m sure many/most will. I’ve taken the liberty of coming up with a brief sample message, or write your own:
September 9th, 2005 at 4:54 pm**********************
Hello. I would like to know more about the gutsy citizen who told V.P. Dick Cheney to “Go F— Yourself” in Mississippi yesterday. His name is Dr. Ben Marble, an emergency room physician who lives in Gulfport, where Cheney spoke. Dr. Marble, an intriguing personality who also organizes charity fundraisers and plays in a rock band, had lost his home to the flood just days earlier, about the same time his wife gave birth to a baby girl. THIS STORY BEGS TO BE COVERED! I’d love to see your news program interview this colorful individual — apparently he has A LOT to say. His contact info is below. Thank you.
http://www.hurricanekatrinasucked.com
http://www.theharbinger.org/xix/000919/smith.html
*********************
feedback@cnn.com, Sidebar@msnbc.com, viewerservices@msnbc.com, KOlbermann@msnbc.com,
news@msnbc.com, JScarborough@msnbc.com,
lou@cnn.com, evening@cbsnews.com,
nightline@abcnews.com, 60m@cbsnews.com,
dateline@nbc.com, Tucker@msnbc.com,
Paula.Zahn2@cnn.com, newshour@pbs.org,
charlierose@pbs.org,
Bush is such a towering pussy; afraid of confrontation and incapable of canning a man who lied on his CV and about his experience. So what does thepussy Bush do instead?
He moves to an administrative position out of the glare of media but, a position where he can STILL preside over FEMA’s multi-billion dollar budget.
I really wonder what Bush would do if Brown had raped Jenna or Barbara Jr.? Would he still be hog-tied and unable to cut him lose?
George Bush is a failure — period.
September 9th, 2005 at 5:35 pmafterthought,
They have rigged the voting machines, the proof at this point is rather conclusive despite rather limited mainstream coverage for ‘obvious’ reasons. Do you want me to post the links to some of this? I did so recently on some of the threads, but I can go dig up the most relevant links and post them if you like.
Apparently exit polls are generally accurate to within 1% point of the final results. In states where the voting machines are new, this varies as much as 14% statewide - and interestingly it ALWAYS varies in the favor of republicans. When they break out the numbers to states without the machines, or to counties with older machines, they fall within the 1-2% range consistently…
It’s all math and simple common sense… I don’t want to believe my fellow americans would do this either, but it’s clear they don’t see the same america of fair play, honesty and integrity that I do…
September 9th, 2005 at 5:42 pmHere’s one page that does some interesting analysis.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0411/S00072.htm
The first 10 states listed have virtually no electronic machines, and you’ll notice the exit polls match almost exactly. Whereas the states that have replaced those machines with Triad and Diebold in particular appear to be completely out of whack with the exit polls. You may also find it interesting this story was first published in new zealand and not in the american press… How sad that the foreign press has to tell us that we had a coup d’etat in our own country…
There’s also a whole master set of links, analysis and useful stuff here.
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/2004votefraud_1142004.html
And I could flood you with other analysis done by universities, governments, press, etc. that isn’t here. It’s so well known internationally, but virtually unknown in this country. I was out of the country last month, and I would talk about the stolen election and fraudulent voting machines abroad and they already knew about it! And yet the average american is clueless that this has even happened because the corporate press has been muzzled by its management… A couple of reporters said something right after the election at CNN and they were stopped in their tracks…
September 9th, 2005 at 5:51 pmYes Ryan,
I would like to see the links.
September 9th, 2005 at 5:51 pmI have heard a good deal of “buzz”, but
it seems like I never saw the analysis
to be able to make anything out of it.
I am skeptical of “tinfoil hat” stuff,
but always try to keep an open mind toward
scientific method, i.e., theory, experiment,
and proven results.
This is no time to play the
LAME BLAME GAME IN THE RAIN
OVER A DRAIN HOLDING A CAIN
TO REDUCE THEIR FAME BECAUSE
THEY’RE INSANE IN THE BRAIN!!!
Notice I did not
September 9th, 2005 at 6:51 pmmention Valerie Plame???
I’m sorry but the point escapes me. If the trees are such a problem then why dosen’t the state pay to remove them? Why does the federal government have to pay?
September 9th, 2005 at 7:33 pmEither the Democrats go to the mat, or it’s time to give up on them and start anew. It’s long past time to take the gloves off and start swinging for all they’re worth. Somebody needs to give Lieberman a 1-2 combination while they’re at it.
I agree, Ryan. The elections are rigged. Mathamatics demands that there’s something fishy at the ballot box. It aint rocket science.
And Bush is a hopeless, miserable failure - except to his handlers. Morford has a good piece in the San Francisco Gate - regarding his “success.”
http://www.sfgate.com/ cgi-bin/ article.cgi?file=/ gate/ archive/ 2005/ 09/ 09/ notes090905.DTL
September 9th, 2005 at 8:19 pmTwo things need to be known about the 03 California wildfires:
1) Two or three of the five major fires were ARSON. Those arson fires linked the otherwise separated fires.
2) Rove and his Schwartzenegger protege used those fires to propel their vote-fraud special election.
Bush is busily burning roads into our national forests. They have ZERO compunction about destroying NO through avoidable flooding. They have ZERO compunction about burning down California’s forests.
Who started those fires? Who is blowing up levees under a press blackout in Louisiana?
Who has now killed a reported 1895 US soldiers in an illegal invasion?
All roads lead to Rove.
September 9th, 2005 at 9:03 pm“Either the Democrats go to the mat, or it’s time to give up on them and start anew.”
HILARIOUS. The main sources of this problem are corruption and VOTE FRAUD.
We have caught them stealing the elections of 2000, 2002, 2003 (CA recall), and 2004.
Blaming the Dems for a COUP is equivalent to willful ignorance about how our government is set up.
Under Dem leadership, Kerry, Pelosi, Boxer, Kennedy, Byrd, Conyers, and on and on, would be doing good, sometimes great work.
Regrettably, there is little that our Constitution provides for single-party takeovers which nullify the impeachment RIGHT.
Fight for state voting rights! Drive out the Diebolders.
Blaming the Dems for the collapse of the impeachment power is not an effective solution.
Suggesting that ‘we need to start anew’ is just leftist BS, the usual leftist BS in fact.
There is no power to do so, as is demonstrated by the lack of a SINGLE third party representative in DC. To want to start a new party is to want to wait TWENTY YEARS we don’t have.
We need to defend and strengthen THESE Democrats. And don’t kid yourselves otherwise.
September 9th, 2005 at 9:09 pmImpeachment is not an answer.
The solution is for every responsible citizen to get on grand juries and indict each and every one of the criminals including the Bush, Bush’s appointees, Cheney,Bush’s GOP supporters, Congressmen, Senators, and every other gad damn official that are in any way connected to any criminal activities. All the criminal activities the GOP has been involved in has contributed the disaster in New Orleans.
The crimes of the GOP in election fraud is just as responsable for the deaths in New Orleans as the FEMA incompetents that Bush has in charge.
If Bush is indicted and convicted then he must be removed from office as per the U.S. Constitution.
File the indictments quickly and bring them to trial tomorrow (yesterday is better).
September 9th, 2005 at 10:43 pmThe solution is to fix the voting machines so that these fascist dictators won’t rig any more elections to place incompetent boobs into government. At that point we have a chance of at least reversing some of this damage through civil elections, and democratic values - something REPUBLICANS clearly don’t understand. Their fascist winner take all at any costs is entirely unamerican, and phsyically repulsive.
September 9th, 2005 at 10:53 pmEasyrider, Do you really think we can get him indicted?
September 9th, 2005 at 10:57 pmIt’s so encouraging to consider such senario taking place, but I don’t see it happening. Bush has been given a pass for 5 years now and even this disaster has 40% of the people still adoring him. His party is strong and stubborn, they don’t care what is right and just, but only that they “win.”
I like to think we can bring him down, though.
Brownie should be fried in Mobil 1.
September 10th, 2005 at 12:13 amNotre Dame fired their football coach for inflating his college playing exploits on his resume. I guess the Bush gang has lowers standards for this life-and-death position. Unreal.
If you need a bit of comic relief from all of this try:
The Color of Chaos
Beleaguered FEMA implements color codes to forestall future failures.
EWM - (September 9, 2005) As part of a massive restructuring of the FEMA side of the Department of Homeland Security, Secretary Michael Chertoff is implementing a color-coded system to direct staff on protocols to be followed for a pending natural disaster…
…The colors will be communicated to FEMA personnel via GPS-controlled mood rings and the threat status will not be announced to the public.
http://www.eyewitnessmuse.com/musings.php?p=147
September 10th, 2005 at 12:29 am[…] Think Progress has deduced that since FEMA head Michael Brown did not head the demands of left-wing lawmakers (one of which was later thrown out of office) he must be the cause of the damage that resulted fro said disasters. Under Secretary Brown has led Homeland Security’s response to more than 164 presidentially declared disasters and emergencies, including the 2003 Columbia Shuttle disaster and the California wildfires in 2003. […]
September 10th, 2005 at 12:52 amSteve Rucker died in the Julian fires. He was a good man. Remember him:
September 10th, 2005 at 2:04 amhttp://www.novatofire.org/cedar_fire.aspx
http://www.artaid.org/californiafires.html
http://www.courageandvalor.com/award_winner.cfm
I’m not sure if the article is referring to those diseased, dead trees that sparked the fires in the San Berdoo mountains few years back, but if they are: NEWS FLASH TO FEMA — They still haven’t been cleared. And there are even more of them now. Maybe that’s one of the “bigger projects†they called Brown back to D.C. to deal with. But I’m guessing they’ll be surprised by that one too. Incidentally, I can only hope that the next Bad Religion song about the next flare up mentions him and his commander in chief by name. My federal tax dollar at work.
September 10th, 2005 at 3:49 amThere is a foul stench to the whole discussion. The gist of the liberal position is that if the Bush administration had not been so incompetent at killing poor people in Iraq, it might have saved some poor democratic voters in Louisiana.
The gist of the conservative position is that lawlessness in Iraq represents a threat to our way of life; besides, our way of life is one in which people look out for themselves, unless they represent a significant voting block.
Neither political party, nor ideology, disputes the major principle of Late Empire: the imperial government should provide bread and circuses at home (including protection from flood, storm, pestilence, and famine)…and seek to improve the world by engaging in almost constant wars all around the periphery.
The argument is only about which bunch of incompetents will do a better job of it.
Had Katrina struck during the reign of William J. Clinton, rather than that of George W. Bush, we doubt that there would be one single fewer body floating face down in New Orleans. On the other hand, by so openly and proudly taking on imagined enemies overseas, Mr. Bush has raised expectations. He has offered to make the world a better place than the place people make of it on their own. He showed himself ready to send troops wherever he thought they were needed. He made it clear that no sparrow could fall anywhere in the world without it being a cause of concern to the snoops and world-improvers in Washington.
If the all-knowing, all caring authorities in Washington would notice the falling of a sparrow between the Tigris and the Euphrates, wouldn’t they also see when a taxpayer drops along the Mississippi? If the Pentagon could send troops to Iraq on a whim, wouldn’t they rush them to the Gulf Coast on a worry?
By intervening so readily with guns in Baghdad, the citizens of Biloxi were encouraged to hope for more butter. When they didn’t get it, they turned a little sour.
September 11th, 2005 at 9:13 am“Had Katrina struck during the reign of William J. Clinton, rather than that of George W. Bush, we doubt that there would be one single fewer body floating face down in New Orleans.”
Then you’d be a betting fool. There were major disasters under the Clinton appointed fema director, and he consistently won praises for his competence and experience. Brown has consistently failed when major disasters have struck.
While it is true that the butter at home isn’t being tended to, it’s because of incompetence as much as anything. It’s true that the volume of the response is lower than it could have been if the national guard units now in iraq were at home, but in reality there was no significant response for 5 days - and the only reason that was the case was utter mismanagement and incompetence.
Don’t confuse your late empire metaphors with simple good governance. Similar things happened throughout the entire roman empire lifecycle - and well before collapse of the empire. Making sure that the ‘butter’ is handled will ensure the ‘late’ stage of the empire, but then again a rational person would expect this to be the case.
September 12th, 2005 at 4:07 am