TUES OCT. 23: FEMA IS HERE!
Tues | Oct 23 Welcome to hell. Yes, another day, another fire as about one million people are displaced and an area roughly the size of Rhode Island is scorched. Just as predictable as the wind fanning the flames has been the reaction of some of the nation to our [...]

Only the boss gets to lie
Hopefully, this is the last time I’ll have to write about John “Pat” Philbin, the FEMA official who, after helping fake a FEMA press conference, appeared on the verge of promotion to head of public affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Yesterday morning, Philbin’s dishonest rise [...]

Emergency agency issues fake apology for fake news conference
Paul Brennan has blogged extensively (here and here) about last week’s press conference in which FEMA employees played the roles of reporters asking questions about the agency’s handling of the California wildfires. Today, in yet another press conference, Homeland Security boss Michael Chertoff called FEMA’s fake news [...]

Failing upward, a core Bush value
Right on the heels of the Bush administration making disapproving noises about FEMA’s phony press conference comes news that one of the officials responsible for it has, instead of being fired, gotten a new job– head of public affairs at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. So congratulations [...]

A postmodern press conference
One of the “lessons of Katrina” FEMA learned was how to handle hard questions: don’t let anyone ask them. That’s why the press conference FEMA’s deputy administrator staged  Tuesday was heavy on staged, and light on press. All the questioners in that TV production were FEMA employees. Actual reporters were allowed to [...]

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You know, I woke up today and I was worried. I saw the pictures of fires threatening or destroying homes, heard that one million people had been forced to flee their homes and that an area roughly the size of Rhode Island had been scorched. Yes, I will admit, I was concerned. And then, it [...]

Ready for more Heck
Marx says somewhere that Hegel says somewhere that all great historical events happen twice– the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Who knew that Michael Brown was such a fan of 19th century German philosophy? Brown, whose leadership at FEMA did so much to turn Hurricane Katrina [...]