THE PROGRESS REPORT / 9-9-05
by Judd Legum, Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney, and Christy Harvey
September 9, 2005
KATRINA
Brown, More Unqualified Than You Thought
KATRINA
Bush's Poor Managerial Record
UNDER THE RADAR
Go Beyond The Headlines
For news and updates throughout the day, check out our blog at ThinkProgress.org.
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KATRINA
Brown, More Unqualified Than You Thought
Astoundingly, FEMA Director Michael Brown is even more unqualified for his job than previously believed. The reason: he's been lying on his resume. A 2001 White House press release states that "from 1975 to 1978, Brown worked for the City of Edmond, Oklahoma, overseeing the emergency services divisions." Brown's official government biography says he served "as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight." Time Magazine contacted Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond and got the real story. Deakins revealed that Brown "was an 'assistant to the city manager' from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. 'The assistant is more like an intern,' she told TIME. 'Department heads did not report to him.'" It's just one of several fabrications Brown has made about his professional experience.
BROWN FALSELY CLAIMS HE WAS NAMED "OUTSTANDING PROFESSOR": In a profile on Findlaw.com, Brown claims he was named "Outstanding Political Science Professor, Central State University." Charles Johnson, a member of the university's public relations office, said Brown "wasn't a professor here, he was only a student here." (Johnson added, "'He may have been an adjunct instructor' ... but that title is very different from that of 'professor.'") Johnson said the chair of the Political Science Department at CSU was not aware of the "Outstanding Political Science Professor" award.
BROWN FALSELY CLAIMS HE'S A DIRECTOR AT A NURSING HOME: On his Findlaw.com profile, Brown "states that from 1983 to the present he has been director of the Oklahoma Christian Home, a nursing home in Edmond." An administrator at the home told Time that Brown is "not a person that anyone here is familiar with." The nursing home doesn't have a board of directors anymore and when it did, no one remembers Brown being on it. According to a veteran employee Brown "was never director here, was never on the board of directors, was never executive director. He was never here in any capacity. I never heard his name mentioned here."
BROWN'S CONDUCT MAY JEOPARDIZE HIS LAW LICENSE: Brown is a member of the Oklahoma State Bar. According to the "Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct," conduct involving "dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation" is a violation constituting "professional misconduct." Oklahoma state law specifies that "any lawyer violating these Rules of Professional Conduct shall be subject to discipline." Discipline includes "disbarment, suspension of a respondent from the practice of law for a definite term ... public censure or private reprimand." Note to other members of the Oklahoma State Bar: According to Rule 8.3 of the Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct, "A lawyer having knowledge that another lawyer has committed a violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct that raises a substantial question as to that lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects, shall inform the appropriate professional authority."
INCOMPETENCE AT FEMA RUNS DEEP: The Washington Post reports that "[f]ive of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters." The top three officials -- Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- "arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation." Because of high turnover in recent years, "nine of 10 regional directors are working in an acting capacity." The result: "[E]xperts inside and out of government said a 'brain drain' of experienced disaster hands throughout the agency, hastened in part by the appointment of leaders without backgrounds in emergency management, has weakened the agency's ability to respond to natural disasters."
KATRINA
Bush's Poor Managerial Record
The fallout of Hurricane Katrina has served as yet another example of the poor leadership and faulty management Americans have witnessed from the Bush administration over the past five and a half years. According to a CBS News poll, 58 percent of Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of Katrina; only 38 percent approve. A Pew Research Center poll showed Bush's approval ratings slipping to the lowest levels of his presidency, with only 40 percent giving Bush a favorable evaluation. "The CBS survey found that almost half the country has little or no confidence in Bush's ability to handle a crisis." The Financial Times writes that a majority of Americans are questioning Bush's leadership skills, and with good reason. After years of witnessing repeated high-profile, mismanaged failures from the administration, the American public is seeing the Katrina catastrophe as just the latest example.
9/11 FAILURES SIMILAR TO THOSE IN KATRINA: The former chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Gov. Thomas Kean, said, "The same mistakes made on 9/11 were made over again, in some cases worse.... Those are system-wide failures that can be fixed and should have been fixed right away." Despite Bush's pledge that he would not "forget the lessons of 9/11, September 2001," Kean and former co-chairman, Rep. Lee Hamilton, cited parallels between Katrina and 9/11, such as emergency communications problems and a failure to target resources at communities facing the greatest risk. As the anniversary of 9/11 approaches this weekend, Kean warned that changes in leadership need to be made. "There was nobody in charge.... There have got to be clear lines of authority because if there isn't somebody in charge, it costs lives."
RECONSTRUCTION OF IRAQ HAS BEEN POORLY MANAGED: Yesterday, the top U.S. official in charge of auditing Iraq reconstruction funds said extra funding will be needed to finish key Iraqi reconstruction projects because the U.S. has spent more money than expected on security. Shortly after the invasion of Iraq occurred, U.S. Agency for International Development Director Andrew Natsios said only $1.7 billion would be needed to reconstruct Iraq. Paul Wolfowitz claimed that Iraqi oil money would be able to pay for the country's own reconstruction. The Bush administration then doled out high-dollar reconstruction contracts to close allies and lobbyists until the deteriorating security situation drove away many of the contractors. The Bush administration continued to bungle the reconstruction effort by not spending the appropriated funds at a time when the security situation was becoming more and more untenable. The latest announcement that more money will be needed is the fallout of a poorly managed effort by the administration to reconstruct Iraq.
PRESCRIPTION DRUG BILL ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF BUSH'S POOR MANAGEMENT: After initially ensuring the nation that its prescription drug bill would cost $400 billion, the administration's 2006 budget revealed that the cost will actually be $913 billion. With no guarantee that seniors will be afforded competitive drug prices, the plan may end up benefiting drug companies more than those who need it most. U.S. News reported, "White House officials are nervous that the elderly will be disappointed when they focus on the new Medicare prescription drug plan that the president is promoting."
BUSH REMAINS OUT-OF-TOUCH WITH THE PRIORITIES OF MOST AMERICANS: While Bush has dedicated most of his second-term agenda to privatizing Social Security, that plan now appears to be "off the radar." And despite the negative impact that Katrina recovery efforts will have on the nation's deficit, the White House and its right-wing allies have demonstrated a steadfast commitment to keeping tax cuts on the table. The recently passed energy bill, in the wake of Katrina, is demonstrating that it is of little help to Americans who are seeking relief at the gas pump. Most Americans believed the economy was heading in the wrong direction prior to Katrina -- now the need for better economic leadership is more pressing than ever.
Under the Radar
CORRUPTION -- TOM DELAY'S POLITICAL COMMITTEE INDICTED: A Texas grand jury has indicted Texans for a Republican Majority (TRM), the PAC formed by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), on charges of taking illegal corporate money as DeLay helped Republicans win control of the Texas Legislature and Congress in 2002. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has also charged the Texas Business Association with four indictments for working with TRMPAC "in a complicated scheme to circumvent the election code by funneling massive amounts of secret corporate wealth into elections." While no charges have been leveled against the majority leader and his spokesman claims that he played only a "limited" role on the advisory board and at fundraising events, it may be just a matter of time and jurisdictional reshuffling before DeLay can delay no longer. TRMPAC documents show DeLay was indeed heavily associated with the organization, as the founder, adviser, and prominent fundraiser, staffing it with close allies (who are now being charged). TRMPAC has also awarded work contracts to DeLay's daughter, Dani DeLay Ferro.
PUBLIC OPINION -- AMERICANS ANGRY OVER WHITE HOUSE RESPONSE TO KATRINA: Thank goodness President Bush doesn't look at polls. An AP-Ipsos poll released today shows that almost two-thirds of Americans, 65 percent, "say the country is headed in the wrong direction — up from 59 percent last month." Only 39 percent approved of President Bush's job performance, the lowest rating since AP-Ipsos began measuring public approval of Bush in December 2003. President Bush also scored all-time low approval ratings (41 percent) in a Zogby poll released yesterday. The historic lows may a response to the public's frustration with the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina. Only 36 percent of respondents to the Zogby poll gave the president passing marks on his handling of the crisis. Additionally, according to a CBS News poll, Americans disapproved of his handling of the crisis 58-38 percent; more than two-thirds of respondents to a Pew Research Center survey said President Bush could have done more to assist the relief efforts.
POVERTY -- THIRD WORLD IN OUR OWN BACK YARD: "Parts of the United States are as poor as the Third World," according the United Nations Human Development Report released yesterday. The study "reveals that the infant mortality rate has been rising in the US for the past five years -- and is now the same as Malaysia," the UK Independent reports. "America's black children are twice as likely as whites to die before their first birthday." In "unusually outspoken language," the United Nations accuses the Bush administration of having "an overdeveloped military strategy and an under-developed strategy for human security," creating an "urgent need to develop a collective security framework that goes beyond military responses to terrorism." American Progress has produced such a strategy -- Integrated Power -- check it out here.
LABOR -- WHITE HOUSE USING KATRINA TO CUT WAGES: The Bush administration still has not learned one of the central lessons of Hurricane Katrina: Poverty and substandard wages hurt our nation. The 1931 Davis-Bacon Act requires federal contractors to pay at least the prevailing wages in the area where the work is being conducted. Bush has issued an executive order to suspend Davis-Bacon and allow federal contractors rebuilding after the hurricane to profit at the expense of their workers. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, notes that Bush is "using the devastation of Hurricane Katrina to cut the wages of people desperately trying to rebuild their lives and their communities."
GENOCIDE -- ONE YEAR LATER: One year ago today, the Bush administration declared that the horrors unfolding in Darfur -- the mass slaughters, forced displacement, and coordinated rape campaigns -- amounted to genocide. To mark the anniversary, faith and advocacy groups spoke out about the administration's attempts to help resolve the crisis: "It is time to move the Darfur genocide from a talking point to an action item. President Bush must put this issue on the top of his inbox," said Richard Cizik, vice president of government affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals. Experts believe the violence in Darfur has abated somewhat in recent months, though recent reports "have also indicated an increase in sexual assaults on women and girls in many of the camps where most of the African population in Darfur have been displaced."
CULTURALLY INSENSITIVE RIGHT-WING QUOTE OF THE DAY: Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA) of Baton Rouge overheard telling lobbyists: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."
September 9, 2005
KATRINA
Brown, More Unqualified Than You Thought
KATRINA
Bush's Poor Managerial Record
UNDER THE RADAR
Go Beyond The Headlines
For news and updates throughout the day, check out our blog at ThinkProgress.org.
Sign up | Contact us | Permalinks/Archive | Mobile | RSS | Print
KATRINA
Brown, More Unqualified Than You Thought
Astoundingly, FEMA Director Michael Brown is even more unqualified for his job than previously believed. The reason: he's been lying on his resume. A 2001 White House press release states that "from 1975 to 1978, Brown worked for the City of Edmond, Oklahoma, overseeing the emergency services divisions." Brown's official government biography says he served "as an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight." Time Magazine contacted Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond and got the real story. Deakins revealed that Brown "was an 'assistant to the city manager' from 1977 to 1980, not a manager himself, and had no authority over other employees. 'The assistant is more like an intern,' she told TIME. 'Department heads did not report to him.'" It's just one of several fabrications Brown has made about his professional experience.
BROWN FALSELY CLAIMS HE WAS NAMED "OUTSTANDING PROFESSOR": In a profile on Findlaw.com, Brown claims he was named "Outstanding Political Science Professor, Central State University." Charles Johnson, a member of the university's public relations office, said Brown "wasn't a professor here, he was only a student here." (Johnson added, "'He may have been an adjunct instructor' ... but that title is very different from that of 'professor.'") Johnson said the chair of the Political Science Department at CSU was not aware of the "Outstanding Political Science Professor" award.
BROWN FALSELY CLAIMS HE'S A DIRECTOR AT A NURSING HOME: On his Findlaw.com profile, Brown "states that from 1983 to the present he has been director of the Oklahoma Christian Home, a nursing home in Edmond." An administrator at the home told Time that Brown is "not a person that anyone here is familiar with." The nursing home doesn't have a board of directors anymore and when it did, no one remembers Brown being on it. According to a veteran employee Brown "was never director here, was never on the board of directors, was never executive director. He was never here in any capacity. I never heard his name mentioned here."
BROWN'S CONDUCT MAY JEOPARDIZE HIS LAW LICENSE: Brown is a member of the Oklahoma State Bar. According to the "Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct," conduct involving "dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation" is a violation constituting "professional misconduct." Oklahoma state law specifies that "any lawyer violating these Rules of Professional Conduct shall be subject to discipline." Discipline includes "disbarment, suspension of a respondent from the practice of law for a definite term ... public censure or private reprimand." Note to other members of the Oklahoma State Bar: According to Rule 8.3 of the Oklahoma Rules of Professional Conduct, "A lawyer having knowledge that another lawyer has committed a violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct that raises a substantial question as to that lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness as a lawyer in other respects, shall inform the appropriate professional authority."
INCOMPETENCE AT FEMA RUNS DEEP: The Washington Post reports that "[f]ive of eight top Federal Emergency Management Agency officials came to their posts with virtually no experience in handling disasters." The top three officials -- Brown, Chief of Staff Patrick J. Rhode and Deputy Chief of Staff Brooks D. Altshuler -- "arrived with ties to President Bush's 2000 campaign or to the White House advance operation." Because of high turnover in recent years, "nine of 10 regional directors are working in an acting capacity." The result: "[E]xperts inside and out of government said a 'brain drain' of experienced disaster hands throughout the agency, hastened in part by the appointment of leaders without backgrounds in emergency management, has weakened the agency's ability to respond to natural disasters."
KATRINA
Bush's Poor Managerial Record
The fallout of Hurricane Katrina has served as yet another example of the poor leadership and faulty management Americans have witnessed from the Bush administration over the past five and a half years. According to a CBS News poll, 58 percent of Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of Katrina; only 38 percent approve. A Pew Research Center poll showed Bush's approval ratings slipping to the lowest levels of his presidency, with only 40 percent giving Bush a favorable evaluation. "The CBS survey found that almost half the country has little or no confidence in Bush's ability to handle a crisis." The Financial Times writes that a majority of Americans are questioning Bush's leadership skills, and with good reason. After years of witnessing repeated high-profile, mismanaged failures from the administration, the American public is seeing the Katrina catastrophe as just the latest example.
9/11 FAILURES SIMILAR TO THOSE IN KATRINA: The former chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Gov. Thomas Kean, said, "The same mistakes made on 9/11 were made over again, in some cases worse.... Those are system-wide failures that can be fixed and should have been fixed right away." Despite Bush's pledge that he would not "forget the lessons of 9/11, September 2001," Kean and former co-chairman, Rep. Lee Hamilton, cited parallels between Katrina and 9/11, such as emergency communications problems and a failure to target resources at communities facing the greatest risk. As the anniversary of 9/11 approaches this weekend, Kean warned that changes in leadership need to be made. "There was nobody in charge.... There have got to be clear lines of authority because if there isn't somebody in charge, it costs lives."
RECONSTRUCTION OF IRAQ HAS BEEN POORLY MANAGED: Yesterday, the top U.S. official in charge of auditing Iraq reconstruction funds said extra funding will be needed to finish key Iraqi reconstruction projects because the U.S. has spent more money than expected on security. Shortly after the invasion of Iraq occurred, U.S. Agency for International Development Director Andrew Natsios said only $1.7 billion would be needed to reconstruct Iraq. Paul Wolfowitz claimed that Iraqi oil money would be able to pay for the country's own reconstruction. The Bush administration then doled out high-dollar reconstruction contracts to close allies and lobbyists until the deteriorating security situation drove away many of the contractors. The Bush administration continued to bungle the reconstruction effort by not spending the appropriated funds at a time when the security situation was becoming more and more untenable. The latest announcement that more money will be needed is the fallout of a poorly managed effort by the administration to reconstruct Iraq.
PRESCRIPTION DRUG BILL ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF BUSH'S POOR MANAGEMENT: After initially ensuring the nation that its prescription drug bill would cost $400 billion, the administration's 2006 budget revealed that the cost will actually be $913 billion. With no guarantee that seniors will be afforded competitive drug prices, the plan may end up benefiting drug companies more than those who need it most. U.S. News reported, "White House officials are nervous that the elderly will be disappointed when they focus on the new Medicare prescription drug plan that the president is promoting."
BUSH REMAINS OUT-OF-TOUCH WITH THE PRIORITIES OF MOST AMERICANS: While Bush has dedicated most of his second-term agenda to privatizing Social Security, that plan now appears to be "off the radar." And despite the negative impact that Katrina recovery efforts will have on the nation's deficit, the White House and its right-wing allies have demonstrated a steadfast commitment to keeping tax cuts on the table. The recently passed energy bill, in the wake of Katrina, is demonstrating that it is of little help to Americans who are seeking relief at the gas pump. Most Americans believed the economy was heading in the wrong direction prior to Katrina -- now the need for better economic leadership is more pressing than ever.
Under the Radar
CORRUPTION -- TOM DELAY'S POLITICAL COMMITTEE INDICTED: A Texas grand jury has indicted Texans for a Republican Majority (TRM), the PAC formed by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX), on charges of taking illegal corporate money as DeLay helped Republicans win control of the Texas Legislature and Congress in 2002. Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle has also charged the Texas Business Association with four indictments for working with TRMPAC "in a complicated scheme to circumvent the election code by funneling massive amounts of secret corporate wealth into elections." While no charges have been leveled against the majority leader and his spokesman claims that he played only a "limited" role on the advisory board and at fundraising events, it may be just a matter of time and jurisdictional reshuffling before DeLay can delay no longer. TRMPAC documents show DeLay was indeed heavily associated with the organization, as the founder, adviser, and prominent fundraiser, staffing it with close allies (who are now being charged). TRMPAC has also awarded work contracts to DeLay's daughter, Dani DeLay Ferro.
PUBLIC OPINION -- AMERICANS ANGRY OVER WHITE HOUSE RESPONSE TO KATRINA: Thank goodness President Bush doesn't look at polls. An AP-Ipsos poll released today shows that almost two-thirds of Americans, 65 percent, "say the country is headed in the wrong direction — up from 59 percent last month." Only 39 percent approved of President Bush's job performance, the lowest rating since AP-Ipsos began measuring public approval of Bush in December 2003. President Bush also scored all-time low approval ratings (41 percent) in a Zogby poll released yesterday. The historic lows may a response to the public's frustration with the administration's response to Hurricane Katrina. Only 36 percent of respondents to the Zogby poll gave the president passing marks on his handling of the crisis. Additionally, according to a CBS News poll, Americans disapproved of his handling of the crisis 58-38 percent; more than two-thirds of respondents to a Pew Research Center survey said President Bush could have done more to assist the relief efforts.
POVERTY -- THIRD WORLD IN OUR OWN BACK YARD: "Parts of the United States are as poor as the Third World," according the United Nations Human Development Report released yesterday. The study "reveals that the infant mortality rate has been rising in the US for the past five years -- and is now the same as Malaysia," the UK Independent reports. "America's black children are twice as likely as whites to die before their first birthday." In "unusually outspoken language," the United Nations accuses the Bush administration of having "an overdeveloped military strategy and an under-developed strategy for human security," creating an "urgent need to develop a collective security framework that goes beyond military responses to terrorism." American Progress has produced such a strategy -- Integrated Power -- check it out here.
LABOR -- WHITE HOUSE USING KATRINA TO CUT WAGES: The Bush administration still has not learned one of the central lessons of Hurricane Katrina: Poverty and substandard wages hurt our nation. The 1931 Davis-Bacon Act requires federal contractors to pay at least the prevailing wages in the area where the work is being conducted. Bush has issued an executive order to suspend Davis-Bacon and allow federal contractors rebuilding after the hurricane to profit at the expense of their workers. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, notes that Bush is "using the devastation of Hurricane Katrina to cut the wages of people desperately trying to rebuild their lives and their communities."
GENOCIDE -- ONE YEAR LATER: One year ago today, the Bush administration declared that the horrors unfolding in Darfur -- the mass slaughters, forced displacement, and coordinated rape campaigns -- amounted to genocide. To mark the anniversary, faith and advocacy groups spoke out about the administration's attempts to help resolve the crisis: "It is time to move the Darfur genocide from a talking point to an action item. President Bush must put this issue on the top of his inbox," said Richard Cizik, vice president of government affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals. Experts believe the violence in Darfur has abated somewhat in recent months, though recent reports "have also indicated an increase in sexual assaults on women and girls in many of the camps where most of the African population in Darfur have been displaced."
CULTURALLY INSENSITIVE RIGHT-WING QUOTE OF THE DAY: Rep. Richard Baker (R-LA) of Baton Rouge overheard telling lobbyists: "We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."
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