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Banned
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Originally Posted by powerclown
You'll like this one, host.
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Today, the editors at the NYT are "appending" one of their articles detailing how lucrative Katrina rebuilding contracts are going to Bush cronies.
This was the original article, which had this to say about Bush Crony, Joe Allbaugh: Here is their backpedaling, updated "revision" of their above article:
So, Bravo to the NYT for calling out Allbaugh as a Bush crony. Job well done.
But wait! What is this?
The Head of the Shaw Group is who? Jim Bernard?
You mean, the same Jim Bernard who is, in fact, the Chairman of the Louisiana Democratic Party?
Democratic Cronyism. Who knew? |
Sorry, powerclown, that "Democratic Cronyism. Who knew?", 'dog"....won't hunt. Republicans control the federal executive branch, both houses of congress, and are responsible for all of the regulatory agency and cabinet level political appointments, and for the awarding of FEMA and Iraq "reconstruction" contracts, and there is this......
Quote:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/pr...106310,00.html
Sunday, Sep. 18, 2005
How to Spend (Almost) $1 Billion A Day
The President promises a massive rebuilding effort with no concrete numbers--and no tax cuts. While Congress grumbles about how to pay for it, the issue on the ground is: Who gets the cash?
By DANIEL EISENBERG
.........Most of the major Katrina contracts doled out so far have been for temporary housing, and they have gone, by and large, to companies with strong ties to the Bush Administration, including Bechtel, Fluor and <b>the Shaw Group, which recently built a helicopter pad for Vice President Dick Cheney's home in Washington. A $3 billion engineering-and-consulting behemoth that has equally close connections to the Louisiana Democratic Party, the Shaw Group, based in Baton Rouge, La., counts former Bush campaign manager Joe Allbaugh as one of its lobbyists in Washington and has scored two separate $100 million Katrina-related contracts--one to help the Army Corps of Engineers pump water out of New Orleans and another to help FEMA provide temporary housing. Soon after the deals were announced, Shaw's struggling stock soared from $16 to $24 a share</b>.................
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"Allbaugh and the companies deny he had anything to do with their contracts. "Anyone who says otherwise is making it up," Allbaugh told NEWSWEEK. (Allbaugh does, though, admit to contacting White House chief of staff Andrew Card to offer Katrina aid and to advising Shaw on how to set up its hurricane response team.) "
Quote:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9379239/
Cash and 'Cat 5' Chaos
The gold rush: Contractors and prospectors are flooding the Gulf Coast to grab their piece of the biggest reconstruction ever. If only FEMA could stop fumbling.
By Keith Naughton and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Sept. 26, 2005 issue
............After the deluge, the Gulf Coast is being overwhelmed again. But this time it's with waves of contractors, prospectors and speculators looking to cash in on what President Bush calls "one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen." The tsunami of spending, already budgeted at $62 billion, could top $200 billion—what the U.S. has spent in Iraq and Afghanistan. And then as now, those mopping up first are the politically well connected: Fluor, Bechtel and the Shaw Group, which each scored $100 million no-bid contracts before the flood waters began to recede. (Halliburton is benefiting from an existing $500 million contract to repair naval bases.) That has Democrats and Republicans howling over potential abuse. Even the president acknowledged the possibility of financial evil-doing when he dispatched inspectors to the Gulf Coast to monitor the money. That gesture, however, hasn't prevented accusations of cronyism, especially given that the president's former campaign manager Joe Allbaugh is a paid consultant to Shaw and Halliburton. Allbaugh and the companies deny he had anything to do with their contracts. "Anyone who says otherwise is making it up," Allbaugh told NEWSWEEK. (Allbaugh does, though, admit to contacting White House chief of staff Andrew Card to offer Katrina aid and to advising Shaw on how to set up its hurricane response team.) Adding to the controversy: The SEC is investigating Shaw for possible accounting irregularities, NEWSWEEK has learned. "Shaw has fully cooperated with the SEC," said company spokesman Chris Sammons. "There is no reason to believe that the informal inquiry will go further."....................
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Quote:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...702385_pf.html
washingtonpost.com
Former FEMA Chief Is at Work on Gulf Coast
Lobbyist Allbaugh Gives Clients Help
By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 8, 2005; A27
During his two years as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency during President Bush's first term, Joe M. Allbaugh traveled to Louisiana for a series of disasters, from tropical storms Allison and Isidore to Hurricane Lili.
<b>Yesterday, Allbaugh, now head of his own Washington lobbying and consulting firm, was in Baton Rouge, La., helping his clients get business from perhaps the worst natural disaster in the nation's history.</b>
Allbaugh said he was there "just trying to lend my shoulder to the wheel, trying to coordinate some private-sector support that the government always asks for." In the case of one client, UltraStrip Systems Inc., a Florida company, Allbaugh said he persuaded "them down here" to present the case for a water filtration system.
"I'll tell them, 'Here are the list of entities [that might buy the system] that are in town, here is where they are -- go to it.' "
Allbaugh said he advises clients on how to present their product or service to government agencies. "I tell them how to best craft their pitch, to craft their technical expertise so everybody knows exactly what they do."
He does not personally approach any government agencies about contracts, he said. "I don't do government contracts," Allbaugh asserted in a telephone interview.
After leaving FEMA in March 2003, Allbaugh, who managed the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign, founded Allbaugh Co., a lobbying-consulting firm with many clients in the disaster-relief business.
<b>Among those clients are: the KBR division of Haliburton; TruePosition, a manufacturer of wireless location products, services and devices; the Shaw Group,</b> a provider of engineering, design, construction, and maintenance services to government and the private sector; and UltraStrip, which is marketing the first water filtration system approved by the Environmental Protection Agency.
The firm's Web site quotes Allbaugh: "I carry pictures of close friends who died in the September 11th terrorist attacks as a constant reminder of what we lost that day. It's my personal commitment to always honor their memory by working to protect this nation. I'm dedicated to helping private industry meet the homeland security challenge."
The company, according to the Web site, "develops integrated business management campaigns that create new opportunities, expand competitive advantage and guide our clients through the federal procurement process."
In Baton Rouge, Allbaugh may run into another former FEMA director, James Lee Witt, who served in the Clinton administration and has been hired by Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) as a consultant.
In 2001, Witt founded James Lee Witt Associates, a crisis- and emergency-management consulting firm in Washington. Its clients include Nextel Communications, Whelen Engineering Co. Inc., and the Harris Corp.
"Being able to arrange an audience with influential decision makers at the highest levels is the stock in trade in Washington and a privilege James Lee Witt and his team are proud to have and one not taken for granted," the Witt firm boasts on its Web site.
Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the creation of the Homeland Security Department,<b> disaster relief has become big business in Washington. On the U.S. Senate lobby-registration site, there are roughly 240 businesses and lobbyists seeking to influence contracting and policies related to disaster relief. Few of them, however, have Allbaugh's experience or can advertise their close connections to Bush..............</b>
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powerclown, aren't you wavering in your support of Bush and his administration's policies and performance, even a little, at this point? This time, it is different....the deficit spending, the pre-emptive war that has tanked Bush's approval ratings, the hubris...lack of accountability due to the intentional lapse of the special prosecutor statute, that used to be the legal mechanism to "hound" Nixon, Reagan, and lastly, Clinton......no ability by any federal democratic party affiliated legislator to hold an investigative hearing without permission....which definitely won't be forthcoiming, from any republican congressional or senate committee or sub-committee chariman. Your president has got it all, powerclown, from the standpoint of political power, and observe what he has done with it, with us, with our financial security, with the people of NOLA, with the people of Iraq, with career CIA staffers, and perhaps, saddest, with and two our own troops. Lindie England got a three year prison sentence today, and we just passed 1900 dead troops in Iraq.
I work hard here to seem like I know what I'm talking about, powerclown. You keep me "on my toes" with your posts. I just want to know if any development or political poll result ever causes your support of Bush and his republican legislative majority leaders, to waiver.
Last edited by host; 09-27-2005 at 10:57 PM..
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