Thursday, January 15, 2009

Frances Townsend to Testify before Senate


Frances Townsend will testify before a key Senate committee. Will Senators ask Mrs. Townsend why she omitted the hospital with the highest death toll after Hurricane Katrina? Memorial Medical Center and it's 34 patient deaths warranted not one mention in her 400 page Lessons Learned report.

Memorial is owned by Tenet Health, a for-profit hospital company. They rented a floor to LifeCare, a long term acute care hospital company. LifeCare lost 24 of the facility's 34 patients post landfall. The Carlyle Group purchased LifeCare in early August, weeks before Katrina sideswiped New Orleans.

While George W. Bush insists he wasn't slow in saving people, Memorial patients lingered in hellish toxic soup for up to five days. Fran Townsend, Homeland Security Adviser, flew to Saudi Arabia rather than help manage the disaster.

Will Senators ask Fran if she omitted Memorial to help the President's corporate friends? George W. served on the Board of Carlyle affiliate CaterAir in the early 1990's. Jeb Bush landed a cushy spot on the Tenet Board approximately a year after Fran's paltry investigation and whitewash report. It pays $37,000 a day.

My hopes were dashed when I saw Fran will testify to bolster Attorney General Eric Holder's nomination. That "Just Us" top job has standards? Scarecrow Gonzales didn't have a brain, at least a memory.

The Bush team's incompetence fractal can be seen in Fran's Hurricane Katrina Lessons Learned Report. Congress consistently let Republicans off the hook. They asked for e-mails between Andy Card & Frances Townsend, but they were part of the millions lost in the ether of internets tubes.

Testify Fran, testify! Preferably under oath. We need Senators capable of asking questions that deserve an answer.

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