Posted on 09/07/2005 10:43:23 AM PDT by Chicos_Bail_Bonds
Anybody know what the vote was on Mike Brown's confirmation via the Senate? I've been trying to find this out. I think this guy will be the fall guy but that's not really why I'm asking. A lot of my liberal "colleagues" are screaming about cronyism and my guess is that this guy was confirmed by the entire Senate or damn close.
Can't seem to find the information, however.
Yes indeed. I suspect many of Brown critics have resumes that are woefully inadequate.
Have you looked at ...
http://hsgac.senate.gov/072402Billsummary.htm
Scroll about half way down to ... Directorate of Emergency Preparedness and Response
This only says the director will be confirmed by the Senate.
I haven't found any confirmation either.
Brown is holding a news conference right now that clearly dispels the myth of his being "woefully inadequate" to the task at hand.
Not woefully inadequate at all. I just think the administration will have a fall guy and he will be it.
The cnn/usa today poll should be a comfort to Brown and Bush. Sixty three percent said no Fed official should be fired, and only 13% blamed Bush for Katrina misteps.
His bio, as set forth in his confirmation hearings:
Mr. Brown was first appointed to serve as the FEMA General Counsel in February 2001, and then as Acting Deputy Director in September, where he served as the Chairman of the Consequences Management Working Group. As FEMA's General Counsel, Mr. Brown is both the principal legal advisor to FEMA's Director Joe Allbaugh and the head of the Office of General Counsel. Not only does he provide legal advice to the Director, but he and his staff of approximately 30 attorneys provide legal services to all of FEMA's programs and support offices and they also represent the agency in litigation.
Prior to his current job, from 1991 to 2000, Mr. Brown was the Commissioner of the International Arabian Horse Association, an international subsidiary of the National Governing Organization of the U.S. Olympic Committee. In his position there, he created ethical programs, enforcement policies and procedures, conducted investigations, and prosecuted fraud and corruption cases.
Before that, he served as General Counsel of Dillingham Insurance, Suits Drilling, Suits Rig, and Latigo Energy, in addition to Dillingham Ranch and Dillingham Enterprises. Earlier positions included 8 years in private practice, 2 years as an advisor to the Oklahoma State Senate's Finance Committee, and 3 years as Public Administrator for Edmond, Oklahoma, where he co-founded joint public-private partnerships for economic development.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_senate_hearings&docid=f:81311.wais
It is only natural that firefighters would want to be at the center of action and would be disappointed that their actual mission was "community relations". But this was the mission as presented by FEMA to the fire chiefs who sent the men. However, in an emergency, you need to have authority figures do community relations and that will include many duties aside from fighting fires. You cannot hire the homeless to do community relations. That said, this is not a reason to fire anyone, let alone Brown.
From the linked article:
The firefighters - or at least the fire chiefs who assigned them to come to Atlanta - knew what the assignment would be, Hudak said.
"The initial call to action very specifically says we're looking for two-person fire teams to do community relations," she said. "So if there is a breakdown [in communication], it was likely in their own departments."
One fire chief from Texas agreed that the call was clear to work as community-relations officers.
"A lot of people are bickering because there are rumors they'll just be handing out fliers," said Roy firefighter Logan Layne, adding that his squad hopes to be in the thick of the action
>> FEMA has extraordinary power and latitude in dealing with emergencies of Katrina's magnitude.
Not true.
>> Mike Brown, as an appointee of Pres. Bush (possibly through Chertoff of Homeland Security) deserves the hit (and by extension, Bush) at the federal level, for a woefully inadequate initial response <<
How was Brown's initial response 'woefully inadequate'?
>> FEMA has turned away help from people and groups, Firefighters who have gone down to help rescue people have instead been asked to hand out flyers. 50 firefighters were asked to follow President Bush around for photo-ops as he toured the area. <<
I think you are a victim of the left-wing spin-machine.
How about the 50 firefighters whose jobs it was to follow Bush around on his tour? Can you defend that?
Is Trent Lott a victim of the left wing media spin machine? Because he is not happy with FEMA either.
I appreciate your concern. The mission of these firefighters was community relations. Other firefighters were on the scene and deployed to fight the fires. With respect to 50 firefighters following Bush around, I would want to know more information about that. I haven't seen a large group of firefighters following the President, so I don't know what that would be for.
My post is not a defense of firefighters employed to do anything they are called upon to do. It is a defense of your implication that Brown should be fired.
FEMA is a federal agency that steps in to help when the local and state governents face a situation which they are unable to handle.
However, the fastest response will always be the local response, and in this case the local response was pitiful due to gross, and in my opinion criminal, negligence on the part of the local and state government.
Resources had to be brought in from long distances when the transportation infrastructure was in very bad shape because the local government neglected the simple procedures that every individual should know.
When you're facing a bad storm you should make sure you have lots of water and non-perishable food on hand. The city of New Orleans did not stock food and water at their hurricane shelters, and simply didn't bother gathering any while telling the citizens to go there.
Can you immagine FEMA's surprise when they heard there wasn't supplies of food and water at the superdome and convention center?
Can you immagine the logistics nightmare of getting the kind of quantities of food and drinking water to the disaster area, when the disaster area was as huge as it was, and there weren't local supplies set aside?
Can you immagine having to completely shuffle around their resources to bring in food and water when they also had to move rescuers and equipment into the area, and there wasn't likely a good source of the what they needed close at hand because all the whole area was in need.
They have been criticized for not dropping supplies, yet at the same time they were criticized for not rescuing people with helicopters fast enough.
If they used their air resources to go get food and water, they tied them up for considerable amounts of time, because considerable distance had to be traveled. At the same time, people were dieing from exposure on rooftops in flooded areas.
FEMA was left with the job of cleaning up a disaster made considerable worse by the worst example of municipal governmental incompetence in the history of this country.
I think they've done an amazing job.
I think the Mayor of New Orleans has some hard questions to answer, and likely should face criminal charges for how his negligence contributed to the deaths of thousands.
I heard Trent Lott was upset at everybody because looters stole his wig collection..
Thanks. I get a little riled up sometimes.
I believe they could have begun operations several days earlier. In a crisis like this, hours count.
Given that my first belief is in error and that they couldn't have begun operations several days earlier, I believe their ability to communicate their actions to the public, either directly or indirectly, was apallingly lacking. In a democracy, representative or otherwise, effective communication is everything.
I can't believe that you haven't yet denied beating your wife.
Keep up the good work:)
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