How Did Businesses Manage To Turn A Profit Operating Honestly & Safely Before They Got Breaks From Republicans?

Probe Set Into U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Installation of Faulty Pumps in New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina



Another 'sweetheart' deal, this time with cronies of Jeb Bush.

The AP reports:

Government Accountability Office investigators are meeting with Army Corps of Engineers officials to ask questions about drainage pumps that were installed before last year's hurricane season even though they apparently were defective.

The pumps were produced by a Florida company under a $26.6 million contract awarded after Hurricane Katrina. They provide flood protection by draining water from this city that is largely below sea level.

An engineer for the Corps working on the pumps project warned in a spring 2006 memo that the machinery had problems that likely would keep them from performing under hurricane conditions.

Last year was a mild hurricane season, so the pumps were not tested in an emergency scenario.

Anu Mittal, the GAO's director for water resources, said a large team of investigators has been assembled to "expeditiously" satisfy a request by U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu.

Landrieu, D-La., has asked the GAO to investigate if there was improper influence in the way the pumps contract was awarded and handled. She also wants to know what danger the pumps posed to New Orleans, and the Corps' rationale for installing them.

Mittal said the GAO is considering Landrieu's questions and will prepare a report.

Since the memo was disclosed two weeks ago the Corps has insisted that the pumps would have worked if they had been pressed into service last year and that the city was never in danger of flooding.

Just peachy.

According to another AP report, the Corps defends its decision to install the faulty pumps, intending to fix them while they were in place because, "some pumping capacity is better than none."

The Corps also defended the manufacturer of the pumps, Moving Water Industries, Corp., for the poor quality of their product because "they were under time pressure." Since installation, the pumps have been pulled out and overhauled ("excessive vibration"), while the Corps tries to get the pumps to work properly for other problems which have included overheated engines, broken hoses and blown gaskets.

The company that manufactures these pumps is owned by Floridian J. David Eller and his sons. Jeb Bush was a parter of Eller's in a business venture ('Bush-El') to market Moving Water Industries' pumps.

In a case that is still pending, the U.S. Department of Justice brought charges against 'Moving Waters Industries' in 2002 for fraud, for helping Nigeria get $74 million in U.S. taxpayer-backed loans so that Nigeria could purchase pumps (deemed unnecessary) at inflated prices.

Bush Family Lining Up Behind Mitt Romney's Campaign

With the Christian Right’s dream candidate, Jeb Bush, seemingly serious about not running, who is the Bush family putting their time and money on?

At Newsweek, Eleanor Clift reports:

Watching the Republican candidates elbowing each other for position on the right is a classic Washington spectator sport. Nobody quite measures up, and they all look a little craven trying. The prize they’re seeking: the evangelical vote, which is crucial to success in the GOP primaries. Republicans can’t win the White House without them, and social conservatives so far have been lukewarm toward everybody in the field.

There’s one politician the Christian right could get excited about: John Ellis (Jeb) Bush. But he’s not running—surely in part because the Bush brand has been so badly tarnished by the Iraq misadventure. A handoff from brother George would have been easy—if only the president had stayed focused on finding Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan rather than rushing off to invade Iraq. But for his brother’s mess, Jeb would be a formidable candidate.

He’s still a likely contender at some point—maybe even as a vice presidential pick in ’08. He can raise money, he has a Mexican-born wife who could help with California, and he can deliver Florida. The restoration is premised on the Republican nominee needing the credibility with the religious right that Jeb could bring. The Bush family seems to be moving its chips to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Several of Jeb’s gubernatorial staffers have signed on with Romney, and Jeb’s sister, Doro Bush Koch, is cohosting a fund-raiser for him. Mom and Dad are reportedly telling friends he’s a fine man and the class act in the race. With front runner John McCain faltering and Rudy Giuliani an unlikely fit with Republican primary voters, Romney looks like the Bush Dynasty’s best bet.

Jeb’s ambition, his intellect and his tenacity have not dimmed. Combine these personal characteristics with his ability to raise money and you’ve got a potent political force, says S.V. Dáte, the Tallahassee bureau chief for the Palm Beach Post and author of “Jeb: America’s Next Bush.” The book is not particularly flattering. Dáte says Bush governed with the openness and transparency of the Politburo; that his tax cuts went to the top 4.7 percent of Floridians and that he created the lowest number of jobs of any governor since 1970. Despite that record, polls show a consistent high regard for him, especially among social conservatives who remember his tireless efforts to sustain Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged woman whose survival in a vegetative state—in the face of her husband’s efforts to end life supports because of the grim prognosis—became a cause célèbre for the religious right.

The younger Bush was the one the family thought would become president, but that calculus went out the window when Jeb lost his initial bid for governor in Florida, and George was elected in Texas. Dáte says he wonders what would have happened if both brothers had won that year. George is seven years older but is otherwise out-classed by Jeb, the intellect of the family and, at 6 feet 4, a significant physical presence. Would they have run against each other in the primary? Would there have been a playoff game of horseshoes?

In Washington on a promotional tour, Dáte took questions at Politics & Prose, a bookstore in northwest Washington, where key chains counting down the hours, the minutes and the seconds left in Bush’s term sold out over the holidays. Dáte began with the top five e-mails he got in response to an article he wrote for The Washington Post speculating what a Jeb Bush presidency would be like in its seventh year, if the family plan had worked like it was supposed to. Many readers thought he was endorsing Jeb because he said that the younger brother wouldn’t have screwed up hurricane relief. Dáte believes Jeb would have followed the same siren song of the neocons into war. But once in Iraq, “Jeb would have been less prone to botch the job through inattention and cronyism,” Dáte says.

The thought of another Bush headed for the presidency struck most readers as preposterous. “The single most idiotic article I’ve read in The Washington Post,” said one. “Is this column a humiliating payback for a lost wager?” asked another. “The Bush family (expletive deleted) the world. I have a Colorado spruce in my front yard smarter than you.”

But the author is undeterred by the skepticism. He says it is “inevitable” Jeb will run for president, though he admits ’08 is problematic. Still, if the troops start to come home by the end of this year and the president’s approval ratings start climbing, who knows? Dáte states in The Washington Post piece that John McCain swung by Tallahassee in December 2005 to sound Jeb out about the prospect of running with him, and adds that any Republican candidate would be foolish not to put Jeb on the shortlist. Evangelicals make up a quarter of the country, according to some estimates—and as much as 35 to 45 percent of Republican voters in some states. If anybody has a lock on them, it’s Jeb.

The actual campaign doesn't begin for a long time.

But for an election cycle to have begun so early, and to overheat this quickly, tells me that there are going to be several major shake-outs before the campaigns seriously get off the ground and under way. And two years is a very long time for a vice-president with heart problems and clots in his leg to resist subpoenas and investigations. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the Bush family has several contingency plans at the ready, one which calls for their hand-chosen heir (Romney) to replace an ailing (or deceased) Cheney just months before the election.



For that leg up, Romney might then turn around and tap Jeb Bush to run on the Republican ticket with him. It would be so typically 'Bush' to slide Jeb into national politics that way, given that he wouldn't have a chance in hell of getting into the oval office through the front door after the mess his brother has made of the world.

That's just one possibility out of many. Like I said, two years is an eternity in politics.

Former President Bush Weeps As He Alludes to 'Dirty Tricks' . . . .

. . . . And son Jeb's loss in the 1994 Governor's race in Florida.

It's called gall on his part, and 'compassion fatigue' on mine.

The AP reports:

Former President George H.W. Bush came here Monday to talk about leadership and opened his remarks with advice on working with rivals, being patient and building personal relationships.

He then broke down in tears mentioning his son, Gov. Jeb Bush, as an example of leadership and the way he handled losing the 1994 governor's race to popular incumbent Democrat Lawton Chiles. He vaguely referred to dirty tricks in the campaign.

"He didn't whine about it. He didn't complain," the former president said before choking up in front of lawmakers, Gov. Bush's top administrators and state workers gathered in the House chamber for the last of the governor's leadership forums.

As he tried to continue, he let out a sob and put a handkerchief to his face. When he spoke again, his words were broken up by pauses as he tried to regain composure.

In 1994, Jeb Bush appeared to be on his way to victory. The final debate between Chiles and Bush is largely seen as the turning point in the closest governor's race in state history. But just before the election, the Chiles campaign made 70,000 bogus phone calls to elderly voters claiming to be from independent groups. Callers portrayed Bush as a tax cheat and said his running mate, Tom Feeney, wanted to abolish Social Security and cut Medicare.

"A true measure of a man is how you handle victory and how you handle defeat, so in '94 Floridians chose to rehire the governor. They took note of a his worthy opponent, who showed with not only words but with actions what decency he had," Bush said before again sobbing.

After his defeat, Jeb Bush formed a group called Foundation for Florida's Future which promoted education policy. He also helped open a charter school in a poor Miami neighborhood, helped the state Republican Party organize a convention and straw poll to have sway in the 1996 presidential election and lobbied for education and campaign finance reform bills. Bush then won the first of his two terms in 1998.

"The moral of the story is to serve with honor and your governor has served with honor," the former president said.

"I'm the emotional one," Bush said later. "I don't enjoy breaking up, but when you talk about somebody you love, when you get older, you do it more."

The former president also answered questions for about a half hour.

When asked about the vision for his grandchildren, he said neither he nor his wife are pushing them toward politics or running for public office.

"But I hope that they will, I hope quite a few of them will," he said before pausing and joking about the current President Bush's daughters. "I'm not sure I'd count on the twins doing this — Jenna and Barbara — but they're full of life and they might."

Six years ago, when the twins were 19, they were charged with underage drinking in an Austin, Texas bar.

"They've calmed way down," their grandfather said. "They're doing great."

He also talked about his recent closeness to former President Clinton and some of the work they've done to help Hurricane Katrina and tsunami victims.

"I apologized to him in Philadelphia the other day. I said, 'Bill, I take it back. My dog Millie did not know more about foreign policy than you do.' And he was very understanding," Bush said before turning serious. "It isn't about politics, it's about trying to do something bigger than ourselves, trying to help people who are devastated and need our support."

He then recalled a political cartoon showing his son the president opposing gay marriage and then walking into a room and finding his father on a sofa with Clinton's arm around him, prompting him to shout, "Dad! What are you doing?"

"(Clinton) cut it out of the paper and said, 'Don't you think we ought to cool it George?"' Bush said.

And Bubba only lends the Bush family credibility with his embrace of Bush 41 as a "close friend."

While the old man engages in a little revisionist history in how long its been since he personally hurled political hatchets at Clinton or any Democrats, the fact is that Bush 41 is not retired from politics. He's not any kind of 'elder apolitical statesman' (the proper role Americans believe former presidents should fill). He's as active a political operative as any that have ever been in the business.