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Bush - Brown and 2004 election

Doc

Bottoms Up
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
Got this via email from a friend. It sounds so outragous, can it really be true?

Departments

Election 2004

FEMA Chief Brown Paid Millions in False Claims to Help Bush Win Fla. Votes

by Jason Leopold

September 19, 2005

Michael Brown, the embattled head of the Federal Emergency Management

Agency, approved payments in excess of $31 million in taxpayer money to

thousands of Florida residents who were unaffected by Hurricane Frances and

three other hurricanes last year in an effort to help President Bush win a

majority of votes in that state during his reelection campaign, according to

published reports.

"Some Homeland Security sources said FEMA's efforts to distribute funds

quickly after Frances and three other hurricanes that hit the key political

battleground state of Florida in a six-week period last fall were undertaken

with a keen awareness of the looming presidential elections," according to a

May 19 Washington Post story.

Homeland Security sources told the Post that after the hurricanes that Brown

"and his allies [recommended] him to succeed Tom Ridge as Homeland Security

secretary because of their claim that he helped deliver Florida to President

Bush by efficiently responding to the Florida hurricanes."

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel uncovered emails from Florida Gov. Jeb Bush

that confirmed those allegations and directly implicated Brown as playing

politics at the expense of hurricane victims.

"As the second hurricane in less than a month bore down on Florida last

fall, a federal [FEMA] consultant predicted a "huge mess" that could reflect

poorly on President Bush and suggested that his re-election staff be brought

in to minimize any political liability, records show," the Sentinel reported

in a March 23 story.

"Two weeks later, a Florida official summarizing the hurricane response

wrote that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was handing out housing

assistance "to everyone who needs it without asking for much information of

any kind."

The records the Sentinel obtained were contained in hundreds of pages of

Gov. Jeb Bush's storm-related e-mails the paper received from the governor’s

office under the threat of a lawsuit.

The explosive charges of mismanagement of disaster relief funds made against

Brown and FEMA were confirmed earlier this year following a four-month

investigation by Richard Skinner, the Department of Homeland Security’s

inspector general. Skinner looked into media reports alleging that residents

of Miami-Dade were receiving windfall payments from FEMA to cover losses

from Hurricane Frances they never incurred.

Hurricane Frances hit Hutchinson Island, Fla., about 100 miles north of Dade

County, on Sept. 5. Miami-Dade officials described damage there from heavy

rain and winds of up to 45 mph as ''minimal,'' according to the Post.

Indeed. A May 14 story in the Sun-Sentinel said: "Miami-Dade County

residents collected Hurricane Frances aid for belongings they didn't own,

temporary housing they never requested and cars worth far less than the

government paid, according to a federal audit that questions millions in

storm payouts.

Responding to those allegations, Brown held a news conference Jan. 11

blaming the overpayments on a "computer glitch" and said the disbursements

were far less than the $31 million that was cited in news reports and

involved 3,500 people. Moreover, to silence his critics who said that

Hurricane Frances barely touched down in Miami-Dade, Brown cited a report by

the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to prove that there

were legitimate hurricane conditions there and as a result that a bulk of

the payments was legitimate.

But according to the Sun-Sentinel, NOAA had refuted the weather maps Brown

claimed to have obtained from them. That report prompted Congressman Robert

Wexler to send off a scathing letter to President Bush calling for Brown’s

resignation.

Bush rebuffed Wexler. However, the DHS’ inspector general launched a probe

to determine how widespread the problems were involving overpayments to

Miami-Dade residents. In May, the inspector general released his report.

What he found was damning.

"The review found waste and poor controls in every level of the Federal

Emergency Management Agency's assistance program and challenges the

designation of Miami-Dade as a disaster area when the county "did not incur

any hurricane force winds, tornados or other adverse weather conditions that

would cause widespread damage."

In identifying one of the overpayments, the inspector general’s report said

FEMA paid $10 million to replace hundreds of household items even though

only a bed was reported to be damaged, the inspector general’s report said.

"Millions of individuals and households became eligible to apply for

[money], straining FEMA's limited inspection resources to verify damages and

making the program more susceptible to potential fraud, waste and abuse,"

the report states.

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the Homeland Security and

Governmental Affairs committee, said during a committee hearing in May that

Brown "approved massive payouts to replace thousands of televisions, air

conditioners, beds and other furniture, as well as a number of cars, without

receipts, or proof of ownership or damage, and based solely on verbal

statements by the residents, sometimes made in fleeting encounters at

fast-food restaurants."

"It was a pay first, ask questions later approach,'' Collins said. ''The

inspector general's report identifies a number of significant control

weaknesses that create a potential for widespread fraud, erroneous payments

and wasteful practices.''

But the most interesting charge against Brown is that he helped speed up

payments in Florida and purposely bypassed FEMA’s lengthy reviews process

for distributing funds in order to help Bush secure votes in the state

during last year’s presidential election.

Bob Hunter, director of insurance for the Consumer Federation of America,

who was a top federal flood insurance official in the 1970s and 1980s and a

Texas insurance commissioner in the 1990s, told the Post "that in the vast

majority of hurricanes, other than those in Florida in 2004, complaints are

rife that FEMA has vastly underpaid hurricane victims. The Frances

overpayments are questionable given the timing of the election and Florida's

importance as a battleground state."

FEMA consultant Glenn Garcelon actions certainly lends credibility to

questions raised by Hunter.

On Sept. 2, 2004, Garcelon, wrote a three-page memo titled "Hurricane

Frances -- Thoughts and Suggestions."

"The Republican National Convention was winding down, and President Bush had

only a slight lead in the polls against Democrat John Kerry," the Sentinel

reported in its March 23 story. "Winning Florida was key to the president's

re-election. FEMA should pay careful attention to how it is portrayed by the

public, Garcelon wrote in the memo, conveying "the team effort theme at

every opportunity" alongside state and local officials, the insurance and

construction industries, and relief agencies such as the Red Cross."

Gov. Bush received the memo Sept. 30, 2004 shortly before a swell of

payments made its way to residents in Miami-Dade who did not sustain damage

as a result of Hurricane Frances.

A couple of weeks before Gov. Bush received the memo from Garcelon, Orlando

J. Cabrera, executive director of the Florida Housing Finance Corp. and a

member of the governor's Hurricane Housing Work Group, said in a different

memo to Gov. Bush that FEMA was allocating short-term rental assistance to

"everyone who needs it, without asking for much information of any kind,"

the Sentinel reported.

In addition, "standard housing assistance," of up to $25,600, Cabrera wrote,

is "liberally provided without significant scrutiny of the request made

during the initial months; scrutiny increases remarkably and the package is

far more stringent after an unspecified time."

The DHS audit report found that, under Brown, FEMA erroneously distributed

to Miami-Dade residents:

* $8.2 million in rental assistance to 4,308 applicants in the county who

"did not indicate a need for shelter" when they registered for help. In 60

cases reviewed by auditors, inspectors deemed homes unsafe without

explanation, and applicants never moved out.

* $720,403 to 228 people for belongings based on their word alone.

* $192,592 for generators, air purifiers, wet/dry vacuum cleaners, chainsaws

and other items without proof that they were needed to deal with the

hurricane. Three applicants got generators for their homes, plus rental

assistance from FEMA to live somewhere else.

* $15,743 for three funerals without sufficient documentation that the

deaths were due to the hurricane.

* $46,464 to 64 residents for temporary housing even though they had

homeowners insurance. FEMA funds cannot be used when costs are covered by

insurance.

* $17,424 in rental assistance to 24 people who reported that their homes

were not damaged.

* $97,500 for 15 automobiles with a "blue book" value of $56,140. In

general, the report states that FEMA approved claims for damaged vehicles

without properly verifying that the losses were caused by the storm.

---

Jason Leopold is the author of the explosive memoir, News Junkie, to be

released in the spring of 2006 by Process/Feral House Books. Visit Leopold's

website at www.jasonleopold.com for updates.



"Nearly all men can withstand adversity; if you want to test a man´s

character, give him power."

--Abraham Lincoln



 

Dargo

Like a bad penny...
GOLD Site Supporter
I have to admit, I didn't read all of your post (an attention span thing:eek: ), but I have several business associates in Louisiana and Mississippi. I know for a fact that homeless people there are showing up at auto dealerships with FEMA checks for $10,000 and are using those as down payments on new cars. Even without a job, lenders considered as "secondary" lenders are making them loans on new cars. Also, specifically in Louisiana, the weekly FEMA checks must come out on Thursdays. I'm told by one guy I know who owns a convenience store that he runs out of alcohol and tobbaco products those days and has a drawer full of FEMA checks.

I do not intend any political implication by my post, only an observation of what is currently going on in the hurricane affected areas.
 

OkeeDon

New member
It sounds so outragous, can it really be true?

Here's what I know is true. People in Dade and Broward Counties (Miami and Fort Lauderdale) were far outside the affected areas from Frances and Jean. The eye of those storms passed over my house, which is 120 miles North of Miami. The areas most affected (due to the circulation of the storms) were to the North of us, including Vero Beach and Melbourne, which is about 180 miles from Miami. The storms were not 120 miles in radius, nowhere near it. Palm Beach County, about 60 miles South of us, was affected in a relatively minor way. So, that part of the report is TRUE.

People in Dade and Broward Counties did receive at least $29 Million, and possibly the $31 Million mentioned in the report, from FEMA, for spurious damage claims. That part of the report is TRUE.

Chronologically, the storms and the payouts happened in September of 2004, and the election was in early November of 2004, so the possibility of the timing affecting the election is TRUE.

The two counties in question, Dade and Broward, are heavily Hispanic, especially of Cuban heritage, which group historically tends to vote for Republicans. Bush pretty much had that group sewed up. However, there is also a large African-American population in the two counties, which historically votes Democratic. Also, as in most large cities, the overall vote is historically Democratic, often strongly enough to swing the entire state. It would not take much of a swing among the poor, Black voters in Miami and Fort Lauderdale to change the entire balance.

Nearly 100% of the recipients of the bogus FEMA payments were poor, Black potential voters.

Gerorge W. Bush did win the State of Florida by a very narrow margin.

Now, all of those are facts; beyond that, you'll have to draw your own conclusions. The bogus payments were discovered and publicized by the Palm Beach Post newspaper, which historically leans to the left. Despite their political leanings, the payments were accurately documented and have since been acknowledged. After they were brought to light, there were several hearings, supported both by Republican and Democratic Representatives from Florida. There has been some attempts to get the money back from some of the most egregious claims; I have not followed the subsequent reports to see how successful they were, but I would assume most of the money was gone within moments of it having been received.

Was this a political move by FEMA, or mere incompetence and/or cooperation on the part of "friendly" FEMA agents? FEMA hired larged numbers of temporary workers after the storms to administrate the claims. The temporary workers are largely drawn from the pool of available workers. In an area like Miami or Fort Lauderdale, these workers could well have simply "favored" their friends. Their could even have been kickbacks; I haven't seen any evidence for or against.

If it was a political move, was Michael Brown involved? Frankly, I would doubt it -- from what I have seen, his incompetence and lack of ability was so overwhelming that I certainly would not have trusted him with knowledge of any such political implications. On the other hand, if I was Karl Rove, I would have deliberately chosen such a political hack so he would not have noticed or guessed at the way I was manipulating his office.

If true, did George Bush know or approve? See my comments above regarding Michael Brown.

So, in the final analysis, you'll have to draw your own conclusions. Obviously, Karl Rove isn't talking. In my world, nothing is beyond the evil genius of that behind-the-scenes manipulator, but your mileage may vary.
 
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