Lost in the Bush E-mail Flap

My conservative friends roundly defend President Bush's right to keep his e-mails confidential. The rationale given most often is for national security. They paint anyone not agreeing with them, liberals and independents, as being "for the terrorists". In their mind, it's better e-mails are lost than get in the hands of evil doers. I disagree with this as a blanket statement. I think the public has the right to know anything about White House e-mails regarding the Executive's response to Hurricane Katrina.

The missing two year period includes Hurricane Katrina. Congress already tried to get e-mails on Bush's slothful response. The first excuse given by White House lawyers, "There are too many of them (71 million)." When Congress narrowed it down to electronic communications between Frances Townsend, Homeland Security Adviser, and Andy Card, Chief of Staff, attorneys invoked the now hauntingly familiar, executive privilege.

Well, it turns out Congress had it wrong. They needed any communication from junior staffer Joe Hagin, not Frances "fresh from vacation and headed to Saudi Arabia" Townsend. How many days does it take to fly to Saudi Arabia? How long does it take to freshen up and make oneself presentable? Fran presented a letter from President Bush to the Saudi monarch on September 5th, 2005. Hospital patients were still being evacuated on September 3rd.

After Frances got back, she whitewashed the White House disaster response. Her Feb. 2006 Lessons Learned report became the next phase in the Bush disaster. It omitted the hospital with the largest number of patient deaths. Carlyle's LifeCare lost 24 patients in the storm. Did Fran send or receive any e-mails from her friends at Carlyle, LifeCare, Tenet Healthcare, or their hired lobbyist guns? Those are the ones I want to see.

How would viewing communications between Joe, Fran, Andy, and other leaders open up secrets terrorists could then use against us? Terror existed in our homeland in dead, steamy toxic hospitals.

Bush's Katrina analysis meekly offered the unprecedented disaster defense, a few hero stories and exhorted we must do better next time. It never stated who was responsible for hospital patient evacuations, nor did it analyze how those parties performed. This is odd as news footage showed President Bush asking Michael Brown about hospital patients the day Katrina struck.

What's now clear is the White House was AWOL on Katrina. Bush-Crawford, Cheney-Wyoming, Card-Maine, Condi-NYC and Fran were all on vacation as the hurricane approached. Press Secretary Scott McClellan noted Joe Hagin to be the White House man in charge for Katrina. After landfall, no one stepped forward as the official point person. Homeland Security Adviser Fran was dispatched to Saudi Arabia.

Maybe my conservative friends are right. If the White House e-mails come out, they could well show the terrorists that nobody was in charge. The problem is Americans suffered and died. It didn't happen at the hands of those who hate us, but from the inattention of those charged with protecting the homeland. That's why the e-mails on Katrina need to come out.

They could explain much, even put into context the feds approval of Carlyle's purchase of huge nursing home provider ManorCare. One might expect failing 24 hospital patients in a time of disaster to get deep scrutiny. Yet, this fact didn't receive the slightest sunshine during the review process.  ManorCare might have been the final icing on Fran's federal cake.

February 2006, Bush's Lessons Learned report omits Carlyle affiliate LifeCare's 24 (later determined to be 25) patient deaths in their New Orleans hospital (one of twenty one facilities). Report is authored by Frances Townsend.

November 2007, Fran tenders her resignation, citing her desire to do global risk management for a large bank or financial services firm.

December 2007, Bush administration approves Carlyle's purchase of ManorCare with over 500 facilities, mostly nursing homes.

January 2008, Fran leaves office "unscathed" after complaining of the constant threat of subpoenas and predicting al Qaeda will do something around the 2008 election. Mrs. Townsend hires Bob Barnett, attorney to advise her on her career moves. Mr. Barnett's bio highlights his A list clients, which includes senior members of the Carlyle Group.

It's almost February. How soon will the world find out where Fran Townsend lands in a global risk management role? Certainly she helped Carlyle manage their risks. After buying ManorCare, the huge private equity underwriter closed on a chain of Japanese nursing homes. They purchased the land and buildings of Bon Sejour Grand's resident paid nursing homes. With the Japanese attention to detail and quality, Fran's omission may have been Carlyle's good fortune. Will they reciprocate?

Update 11-24-10:  The Obama administration released e-mails regarding the BP oil spew, Obama's Katrina.  The Bush administration classified Fran's August/September 2005 e-mails.  They won't be released

Update 6-11-12:  The Obama administration refused to release 21 documents regarding the BP oil spew.  The list of documents included e-mails.

Do Answers Lie Levels Below the Decider?

Having tried for nearly two years to get questions answered about the White House Lessons Learned report on Hurricane Katrina, I realize I might have set my sights too high in expecting George W. Bush, Frances Townsend, or any of my elected officials to respond to my numerous inquiries.

It turns out the big dogs were on vacation for Katrina, George Bush, Andrew Card, Condi Rice, and Fran Townsend. The man in charge was Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin, at least Scotty McClellan said so.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, Joe Hagin has been very involved in it, and Joe Hagin updated the President earlier this morning on the latest in terms of the assessments that are being made and the response efforts. We have search and rescue teams deployed. We have ongoing efforts to make sure assistance is getting to those in need.

But in terms of the White House interagency task force, that's being led by our domestic policy council. And in terms of -- you know, Joe Hagin has really been a point person in terms of overseeing efforts from the White House.

I hadn't thought to write Joe with my questions. I've sent them to just about everyone else, but to the guy in charge! It turns out Fran was on her way to Saudi Arabia to hand deliver a message to the monarchy about the crisis. Just after the last hospital patient was pulled from a steaming toxic soup, Fran landed in the Middle East. It's hard to coordinate federal recovery efforts as Homeland Security Adviser from a plane over the Atlantic or Mediterranean. But Joe had it all under control. And Fran knew first hand about the President's hard work.

"I reject outright any suggestion that President Bush was anything less than fully involved."

So Joe Hagin, here are my questions:

1) Why did Frances Townsend omit any mention of the hospital with the largest patient death toll from her Lessons Learned report? The Carlyle Group's LifeCare Hospitals must be pleased about this omission as they enter 24 potential wrongful death lawsuits.

2) Did Tenet Healthcare or LifeCare lobbyists approach the White House, requesting their firms be left out of the investigation? They invested $1.8 million in lobbyist for 2005-2006, the period of the storm and report creation.

3) Did the White House get my e-mails in the aftermath of the storm? As someone who evacuated a Texas Gulf Coast hospital before then record strength Hurricane Gilbert, I knew the potential for thousands of patients to remain stuck in dead hospitals. Having worked in a 725 bed dead, river flooded Virginia hospital, I know how quickly they can become death traps. Did my dozens of e-mails get lost later, along with the 5-10 million missing e-mails from October 2003 to October 2005? If you need mine, I still have copies.

Write me back, Joe. No one else wants to answer my questions. And since you were the man in charge, maybe I've finally gotten to the right place.

Bush Lied

From CNN’s Jack Cafferty. President Bush and top administration officials publicly made 935 false statements about the risk posed by Iraq in the two years following 9/11 according to a study done by two nonprofit journalism groups.

The study found President Bush led the pack with 260 lies, but he wasn’t alone. Other officials listed include: Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, among others.

The study points to at least 532 times where officials said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to get them or had links to al Qaeda. They say the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.”

Here’s my question to you: What do you make of a study that shows President Bush and his top aides made 935 false statements about the threat from Iraq in the two years after 9/11?

SOD's response: No surprise. Anyone paying attention to Bush’s wooden rhetoric knows it’s peppered with distortions and nose growing falsehoods. It’s the famous Bush reality of which his advisors speak. Condi Rice is in Switzerland, telling the World Economic Forum about “American realism.” My guess is the audience simply wants her and her boss to just go away. But that could just be projection, otherwise known as my reality…

(Published here, but still awaiting CNN's approval some 18 hours later.)

Adults Acutely Feel U.S. Health Care's Non-System

The Centers for Disease Control published extremely low vaccination rates for adults despite widespread public attention the last few years for shots that prevent three diseases, shingles, whooping cough and cervical cancer.

Only about 2 percent of Americans ages 60 and older received a vaccine against shingles in its first year of sales.

About 2 percent of adults ages 18 to 64 got a booster shot against whooping cough in the two years since it hit the market. The force from coughing associated with this disease is strong enough to break a rib. (What do you see on that x-ray, Mr. President?)

About 10 percent of women ages 18 to 26 have received at least one dose of a three-shot series that protects against the human papillomavirus, or HPV, that causes cervical cancer.

The AP report said the main barrier couldn't be cost as people got vaccinated at the following rates for much cheaper shots. Among people 65 or older, a high-risk age, CDC found only 69 percent get an annual flu shot; just 66 percent have had a one-time pneumonia vaccine; and 44 percent had received a tetanus shot in the past 10 years.

I don't know who does the math at the AP but a 2-10% rate for vaccines ranging from $150 to $300 is much lower than 44-69% coverage for the less expensive shots. My flu shot cost around $25 with my insurance paying not one dime. With 47 million uninsured Americans and two thirds of those meeting the President's definition of low income (less than 200% FPL), it's easy to see why so few people received the recommended shots. It's another tribute to the U.S.'s health care nonsystem.

Republican Foot Dragging on Healthcare for Kids

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said health care issues are divisive. Funny, I thought issues were issues. However, people's approach to them could be divisive. Take children's health insurance and taxing private equity fund mangers as recent examples.

Why won't Congress act to provide coverage for children as health insurance coverage becomes increasingly unaffordable for millions of working parents? Their "government run healthcare" rationale for denying expanded insurance doesn't bear out in reality. Most state CHIP plans are provided by private insurers. So what's the real reason?

It seems they don't want to ask others to pay their fair share, via taxes. Hospitals call the part of the bill not covered by insurance, patient responsibility. Instead of taxes, we should call our payments to the government, citizen's responsibility.

Who's not paying their fair share? Private equity managers pay 15% taxes on carried interest, vs. regular tax rates on income. While Congress debated this inequity, it choose to do nothing to correct the malformation in our tax code. Democrat Chuck Schumer helped block efforts to have rich PE managers pay their fair share.

An infamous private equity underwriter, The Carlyle Group, just announced the sale of affiliate CDM Resource Management for $655 million. The PEU purchased the company in May 2003 for $50 million, giving it a $605 million profit. Taxed at the old capital gains rate of 20%, Carlyle would pay $121 million to Uncle Sam. But with George W.'s lowering of the rate, the PEU will pay less than $91 million, an over $30 million savings. How many kids could be covered with those funds?

But will the Democrats really take on private equity? My Eight Ball just returned the verdict. Signs point to "no". The question is how long children will go without health coverage so the candidates can continue gorging at the campaign money trough?

State of the Same

It seems both political parties like to be seen with their high dollar supporters. Bob Johnson, BET founder, made the headlines recently with his dig on Barack Obama and subsequent apology. Bob attempted to support Hillary Clinton, but got carried away.

The news failed to mention billionaire Bob's joint venture deal with The Carlyle Group. It neglected to call him a "small business owner and community banker", like President George W. Bush did in fall of 2006.

Given his strong defense of Hillary, what is Mrs. Clinton's position on taxing private equity carried interest?

As for The Carlyle Group, co-founder David Rubenstein had to deal with protests during today's speech at Wharton. He defended allegations of layoffs at ManorCare by saying "we've only owned the company two weeks." Let's see what other healthcare companies had Carlyle owned two weeks when something catastrophic happened? That would be LifeCare, the hospital with the largest number of patient deaths from Hurricane Katrina.

David must be good at using that "only two week" excuse. One might expect failures at other Carlyle healthcare affiliates to be pertinent in considering future buyouts, but not in ManorCare's case. Even a reporter from the Toledo Blade said the 24 LifeCare deaths were out of bounds. The feds went 0 for 9 in responding to my concerns.

David's other defense was no one ever talks about the good private equity does, especially in growing jobs. The Private Equity Council is working hard to justify PEU managers keeping their preferred tax status on carried interest. They published a study showing the positive economic impact of private equity underwriters. Be sure to read the comment at the bottom of the Reuter's article on that very topic. So Mrs. Clinton, where do you stand on taxing carried interest as income?

You're Responsible for Your Own Violent Words

Oddly enough, I can no longer post soapbox commentaries on Congress.org under President Bush. Despite being a loyal multi-year purchaser of space under his name, I've been cut off. I can still post commentaries under my Congressional representatives, but access to George W.'s space has been rescinded. Darn, I wanted to add another post about The Carlyle Group's purchase of ManorCare. I'll have to post on the New York Time's Dealbook and Forbes instead.