Ex-FEMA head’s correspondence shows banter, trivialities before storm

In the days leading up to Katrina, former FEMA Director Michael Brown sent jocular e-mails to colleagues about his clothing, finding a dog-sitter and asking if he could quit, an investigation revealed.
The House panel investigating the government’s slow response to the storm has released pages of internal e-mail dating from before Katrina hit on Aug. 29 in which Brown appears focused on issues other than the catastrophe at hand.

More:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9912186/

Gems from Mr. Sensitive....  ::)

1)  “Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?”

2)  “I got it at Nordstroms,” “Are you proud of me? Can I quit now? Can I go home?”

3)  “Order a #2, tater tots, large diet cherry limeade"

4)  “If you don’t take action to save these creatures of God who are part of the family of the victims, may God forgive you because
the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the rest of America, and the world, will not. I guarantee you that!”

5)  “My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional.”

Oh, and by the way, Mr Brown, to quote Daffy Duck....

http://images.art.com/images/products/large/10006000/10006252.jpg

dude, what's with #4? that one's all out of place. is that part of the whole blame-the-state strategy the feds were using?

oh, i see. it was a federal official writing to brown. rock on.

there's all sorts of stories like this. was it chertoff who couldn't bother to answer phone calls because he was going off to dinner and his secretary was all talking about, look, we've got to go across town and then there's gonna be a wait for a table, so we really can't be bothered? it's amazing. did you hear about the firefighters who volunteered to go help pick up in the immediate aftermath of the storm, only to be told by FEMA they had to attend a week of seminars and workshops on "community outreach" -- that is, public relations? there's an article in the post today about bush's poll numbers (again) breaking previous low records -- 39% approval, 60% disapproval. as long as the repugs continue to view this as a PR debacle rather than a human disaster, i think they're keep sagging in the perception of the public.

which is fine with me, i don't think this country has been in such desparate need of a change since vietnam.

Lets face it, "Brownie: was just a political hack, crony, part of the old boy network, that our illustrious pres relies on to get the job done.  So?  Should we be surprised?

Gems from Mr. Sensitive....  ::)

1)  “Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?”
2)   “I got it at Nordstroms,” “Are you proud of me? Can I quit now? Can I go home?”
3)   “Order a #2, tater tots, large diet cherry limeade"
4)   “If you don’t take action to save these creatures of God who are part of the family of the victims, may God forgive you because
the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the rest of America, and the world, will not. I guarantee you that!”
5)  “My biggest mistake was not recognizing by Saturday that Louisiana was dysfunctional.”


In fairness, I think these are sort of cheap shots -- the man is allowed to order lunch and exchange brief pleasantries with colleagues. 

But this is damning:
On Aug. 31, FEMA official Marty Bahamonde sent Brown a desperate e-mail from New Orleans, calling the situation “past critical.” Describing patients in temporary emergency shelters, Bahamonde wrote, “Estimates are many will die within hours."  He also wrote, “We are out of food and running out of water at the dome, plans in works to address the critical need.”

Brown’s reply to the e-mail was: “Thanks for the update. Anything specific I need to do or tweak?”

Um... yeah, dude -- tweak your ass into gear.

Brown Joked In E-mail As Katrina Churned
Hmm... not quite bumper-sticker material.  How about:

1. Brown got laughs as roofs became rafts
2. Brown LOL'd as buildings fell
3. Brown got chuckles as structures buckled
4. Brown typed prose as waters rose
5. Brown emailed while FEMA failed

But seriously, ladies and germs, even those who feel no love for BlunderBush and the Cronies must admit that...
http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/6572/brotherray8sj.th.jpg
Brother Ray is an ass.

I'll be here all week.

But seriously, ladies and germs, even those who feel no love for BlunderBush and the Cronies must admit that...
http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/6572/brotherray8sj.th.jpg
Brother Ray is an ass.

I'll be here all week.


imagine the cheekiness of local and state authorities not being able to deploy buses to evacuate people from new orleans when

the entire city and state had been indundated by a category 4 hurricane, the bus drivers had been evacuated, the levees had broken and much of the state was soaked in 12 feet of water!

i'm sorry but this really burns me up. if the federal authorities can't be there to help out local authorities who are completely overwhelmed by a natural catastrophe of unprecedented proportion, what's the f**king point of paying federal taxes? frankly, those a**holes in the federal government who insist on saying that the local government in louisiana was supposed to take care of this situation themselves, when these same local authorities had been flooded out of their command-and-control facilities and had their communications decimated.... ugh. i can't even discuss it. just like in 9/11... we pay the federal government, above all, to protect the people in time of need, and when that moment arises, where are the feds? having PR workshops and trying to figure out whether they're supposed to wear ties to dinner.

katrina revealed the GOP-controlled federal government as a complete redistribution-of-wealth racket, as far as i'm concerned. those guys love to be in office, but they sure don't seem to have the first inkling of how to govern. and there's nothing like a good crisis to bring out their thorough incompetency. sorry, love to help, but we have dinner reservations...

imagine the cheekiness of local and state authorities not being able to deploy buses to evacuate people from new orleans when

the entire city and state had been indundated by a category 4 hurricane, the bus drivers had been evacuated, the levees had broken and much of the state was soaked in 12 feet of water!

i'm sorry but this really burns me up. if the federal authorities can't be there to help out local authorities who are completely overwhelmed by a natural catastrophe of unprecedented proportion, what's the f**king point of paying federal taxes? frankly, those a**holes in the federal government who insist on saying that the local government in louisiana was supposed to take care of this situation themselves, when these same local authorities had been flooded out of their command-and-control facilities and had their communications decimated.... ugh. i can't even discuss it. just like in 9/11... we pay the federal government, above all, to protect the people in time of need, and when that moment arises, where are the feds? having PR workshops and trying to figure out whether they're supposed to wear ties to dinner.

katrina revealed the GOP-controlled federal government as a complete redistribution-of-wealth racket, as far as i'm concerned. those guys love to be in office, but they sure don't seem to have the first inkling of how to govern. and there's nothing like a good crisis to bring out their thorough incompetency. sorry, love to help, but we have dinner reservations...


Oh, I hear ya, I'm not letting the Feds off the hook by any means, but RN also seemed to drop the ball big time, and was bitching from a bunker a safe distance away while his citizens were floating.

Oh, I hear ya, I'm not letting the Feds off the hook by any means, but RN also seemed to drop the ball big time, and was bitching from a bunker a safe distance away while his citizens were floating.


fair enough, although i'm not sure what the dude was supposed to do without any resources. i remember when it was going down and the feds were saying, well, what are they doing down in NO and he's all, i just ate an MRE for dinner, because that's all we've got. and he's asking, did the fed official who's calling me out, did HE just eat an MRE for dinner? i mean, those guys didn't have anything to work with in NO. and meanwhile here's mike brown trying to find a dogsitter.

i'm reading somewhere that nagin is a republican, and became a demo just to run for office in NO. is that true? because it does funny things with the partisan assumptions. i gotta be honest, i like nagin. by the end he was starting to crack, he was saying things that didn't make a lot of sense, because i just think it really was hard for him, i got the strong impression that guy was suffering big time...

i'm reading somewhere that nagin is a republican,

What an Uncle--...  um... I mean, that's cool!
;D

(Oh, lighten up, you humorless conserv... um, humorless people of all political stripes.  It's a joke!)

he's all, i just ate an MRE for dinner...

Ok, I'll ask the stoopid question:  what's an MRE? 

Microwave-Ready Entree?

(M)eal (R)eady to (E)at... it's what soldiers eat in the field. the US army airdropped MRE's out of cargo planes to avert famine in afghanistan after the war there in 2001. but for whatever reason doing the same thing in NO wasn't possible... possibly because the feds were busy trying to figure out whether they were supposed to put on ties.

(M)eal (R)eady to (E)at... it's what soldiers eat in the field. the US army airdropped MRE's out of cargo planes to avert famine in afghanistan after the war there in 2001. but for whatever reason doing the same thing in NO wasn't possible... possibly because the feds were busy trying to figure out whether they were supposed to put on ties.


Thanks. 
(Um... duh, Harpo -- as if microwave dinners do a lot of good in flood conditions.)  :-[  ::)

So, did "Brownie" make the cut?  Did he get into Delta House?

http://hugereviews.com/Comedy/images/Covers/wpe29.jpg

i'm sorry but this really burns me up. if the federal authorities can't be there to help out local authorities who are completely overwhelmed by a natural catastrophe of unprecedented proportion, what's the f**king point of paying federal taxes? frankly, those a**holes in the federal government who insist on saying that the local government in louisiana was supposed to take care of this situation themselves

and pardon my fr**ch!

here's another take on the michael brown email thang:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/110405B.shtml

"Melancon used an e-mail sent September 2, four days after the hurricane hit, to illustrate his point. On that day, Brown received a message with the subject "medical help." At the time, thousands of patients were being transported to the New Orleans airport, which had been converted to a makeshift hospital. Because of a lack of ventilators, medical personnel had to ventilate patients by hand for as long as 35 hours, according to Melancon.

    The text of the e-mail reads: "Mike, Mickey and other medical equipment people have a 42-foot trailer full of beds, wheelchairs, oxygen concentrators, etc. They are wanting to take them where they can be used but need direction."

    "Mickey specializes in ventilator patients so can be very helpful with acute care patients. If you could have someone contact him and let him know if he can be of service, he would appreciate it. Know you are busy but they really want to help."

    Melancon said Brown didn't respond for four days, when he forwarded the original e-mail to FEMA Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks Altshuler and Deputy Director of Response Michael Lowder.

    The text of Brown's e-mail to them read: "Can we use these people?" "

more evidence some moderate republicans might have found their conscience...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/111205Y.shtml

***

Rep. Davis Threatens Subpoenas
    By Patrick O'Connor
    The Hill

    Friday 11 November 2005

House Government Reform Committee Chairman Tom Davis (R-Va.) yesterday threatened to subpoena three members of the Bush Cabinet and White House counsel Harriet Miers if they do not comply with document requests issued by his select committee on Hurricane Katrina response.

During a committee hearing yesterday, Davis decried the failure of White House officials to release e-mails and other communication records related to the hurricane and its aftermath. Davis set a hard deadline of Nov. 18 for all federal agencies to comply with his requests.

"If documents aren't produced by that date, I'm ready to proceed with subpoenas," Davis said.

Davis chairs the special committee investigating the emergency response to Hurricane Katrina and the resulting flooding of New Orleans. The committee's creation was a topic of intense partisan wrangling earlier this fall, when three Gulf Coast Democrats agreed to participate despite a party boycott urged by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).

see, mushroom, here's the problem. now, we started off talking about posse comitatus and why it says the military isn't supposed to be used domestically. as i recall i was talking to odyssey about the demonstrators and why o'reilly doesn't care if SF is attacked by terrorists. then you come in and say, well, what's my problem with the slow response to katrina when the military isn't supposed to operate in the country anyway? okay, apparently you followed on with a bunch of interesting facts about the military etc., which is fine, i appreciate enthusiasm, but i got distracted by how prespammersite your first assertion was. because as i am to understand it, then, because of posse comitatus, we shouldn't be unsurprised if the federal government NEVER responds to a disaster. i found this whole statement so startling that no, i didn't even read the rest of what you wrote.

and let me tell you why. let's go back to first principles. here's a simple fact that everyone knows and understands:

in a time of crisis, it is the federal government's responsibility to step in and help if state and local authorities are overwhelmed. this is a basic and obvious truth. everyone knows it. it's a basic founding tenet of any civilized society.

unfortunately, when just such a crisis arose, and the state and local authorities WERE overwhelmed, the bush administration abjectly, obviously, plainly, pitifully, and in the sight of everyone RESOLUTELY FAILED to do its job. this failure was unequivocal, absolute, in-your-face, it was broadcast hour by hour on national television, failure upon failure, for everyone to see. hundreds of people died, and thousands of people suffered unspeakably, because of it. needlessly!

so now it becomes your unenviable job, as a conservative and bush supporter, to do the impossible: to convince us that it is in fact not the federal government's job to aid state and local governments when they are overwhelmed. you have no alternative. and i've had these conversations with people before, and this is where suddenly they become incredibly long-winded, and detailed, and confusing, because they're charged with an impossible task. and when you have an impossible job, you address everything but the issue at hand -- talk about a hurricane in the mid-90s! mention that you're a veteran! smear me for being a conspiracy theorist! talk about the difference between the regular army and the air force! mention the governor of mississippi! it's like when i was a kid and my hand got caught in the cookie jar -- oh hey mom! look over there!

the problem with this, and why i think this argument should be responded to vigorously whenever it happens, is because if the citizens of this country allow the dwindling coterie of bush supporters to make these arguments, these evasive arguments, it's quite plain what the consequences are going to be: the next time an overwhelming natural disaster, terrorist attack, or any other mass-casualty event blights this country, we're going to get the exact same thing. again. because the causes of the original disastrous non-response were obvious, and they had nothing to do with the intricate laws and bylaws of national guard procedures or the elaborate amendments of the posse comitatus act. they had to do with the fact that the original, unqualified head of FEMA named his equally unqualified successor on the basis of their being college roommates. and that when the disaster happened, said successor, who famously had professional expertise in brushing horses' rear ends rather than mobilizing emergency responses, spent his time rolling up his sleeves to look busy. they had to do with the fact that the president represents a far right view of government that holds it is good for nothing except as a perquisite that can be awarded to one's own allies in the corridors of power, a reward for services rendered during the campaign. grover norquist, economic mentor to most of the people in this current government, says he wants to see a government so small it can be drowned in a bathtub -- so we shouldn't be surprised when the result is government that's completely ineffective for anyone who can't afford to sail out of new orleans on their own yacht.

the country's watching bush. all this hoo-ha about how it was the governor's fault, how it was mayor nagin's fault, is well and good, but i think it's why your boy is polling under 40 percent and i tell ya, y'all need to change your act because everyone saw what really happened.