The Further Pillage of New Orleans: Shady Bush Cronies Sold Us Faulty Pumps
By Susie Madrak Tuesday Aug 25, 2009 6:00pmThis USAToday piece leaves out an important piece of the puzzle here. The company who sold the pumps was closely tied to the Bush family, at one time even employing Jeb Bush:
WASHINGTON — Huge flood-control pumps installed in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina don't protect the city adequately and the Army Corps of Engineers could have saved $430 million in replacement costs by buying proven equipment, a federal investigation finds.
The investigation by the federal Office of Special Counsel finds there was "little logical justification" for the corps' decision to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the "untested" hydraulic pumps, which are meant to empty millions of gallons of water from the below-sea-level city during storm-related floods.
Nope, no "logical" justification. Just political! From March 2007:
Meanwhile, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., asked the Government Accountability Office on Thursday to investigate the Corps and the contract it entered into with Moving Water Industries Corp.
MWI is owned by J. David Eller and his sons. Eller was once a business partner of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in a venture called Bush-El that marketed MWI pumps.
But wait, it gets even worse:
In 2002, the U.S. Justice Department amended its suit against Eller, alleging that he twice flew suitcases of cash to offshore tax havens to hide his assets, the St. Petersburg Times reported. The DOJ also claimed that MWI improperly used more than a third of a $74.3-million U.S. loan to pay a Nigerian agent for the company. In turn, that agent and other company officials paid Nigerian government officials involved in buying MWI's pumps, the lawsuit alleges. MWI denies the charges.
According to the paper:
Between 1985 and 1993, the government says, Eller flew on his company plane to the Bahamas and to Grand Cayman, once with a "large suitcase filled with currency" and once with a "large duffel bag or suitcase filled with currency." At both places, a chauffeured limousine whisked him and the money away. Eller told his pilot he was "moving his assets out of the United States," the lawsuit contends, calling it an effort to shield the money from creditors.
Eller's lawyer, William Scherer, said the flights never occurred and neither Eller nor MWI has accounts in either country.
The lawsuit by the George W. Bush Justice Department suggests no wrongdoing by Jeb Bush, who from 1988 to 1994 worked with Eller marketing MWI pumps to foreign countries, including Nigeria.
Indeed, the amended complaint omits allegations of influence-peddling by MWI -- including Eller's bringing Jeb Bush into the pump business -- leveled in the whistle-blower's recently unsealed lawsuit. That lawsuit prompted the federal investigation.
This begs a couple of questions: Why was a company under DOJ investigation for such serious charges given a major federal contract for New Orleans reconstruction in the first place? And why is the DOJ suit against MWI still unresolved after so many years?
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But Bill Clinton got a blowjob and lied about it!!
"And why is the DOJ suit against MWI still unresolved after so many years?"
GW Bush just so happens to have a collection of empty duffel bags at the ole' crooked ranch. They are stacked up in the closet with his collection of empty Enron suit cases.
Does that tell you something??
"This begs a couple of questions: Why was a company under DOJ investigation for such serious charges given a major federal contract for New Orleans reconstruction in the first place? And why is the DOJ suit against MWI still unresolved after so many years?"
just one answer--the criminal bush family.
They screw up everything they can in favor for private interests and when they lose office. "Government is the problem.. look at the wake of destruction we caused."
One thing I've yet to find a logical reason for.. why did the GOP find it proper to give tax cuts for sending jobs overseas. THEY ALREADY SAVE TONS DOING SO!
The corruption just keeps bubbling to the surface.
Those Bushes must be made of fucking teflon or something . Nothing sticks to them. Jeb helps Chimp steal Florida in 2000 and walks. Then Chimp turns everything he touches to shit for 8 years and nuttin happens again. But then again , its not like they were having a little consensual nookie on the side or anything. Important to note that Marvin Bush was head of the company that provided security at the WTC too. Probably all just a big co inky dink. yep yep
it would be an easier task to find 'legal & compassionate' events in the Bush administration...would certainly be a quick study!
I once read if you can live with putting off cleaning your house for a year, then it won't get any dirtier and you won't EVER need to clean it.
I think there must be some political corollary. It got to the point where the Bush years could get no dirtier. We grew accustomed and learned to live with it.
They tried to kill a beautiful city and began feeding off the flesh while New Orleans is still fighting for life. Just add the rigged bids to the huge pile of corruption that defined eight years of #$%^&%^#^&^*()!
These pumps have been in the news since they were purchased. You can keep printing this story every day and nothing will ever come of it.
if it meant they could get an exclusive contract to market and distribute the Soylent Green.
Actually, it would be pretty interesting to see how many registered Republicans line up for public option health care should it pass. My guess is almost all of them since hey, fuck principles if they can save a buck.
DOJ also claimed that MWI improperly used more than a third of a $74.3-million U.S. loan to pay a Nigerian agent for the company.
Did the agent send them an e-mail with the subject line "ATTENTION MOST URGENT MATTER PLEASE" asking for their help in moving $3 billion in oil revenues out of the country?
He is also a pioneer of PNAC:
Signatories to Statement of Principles
Elliott Abrams[5]
Gary Bauer[5]
William J. Bennett[5]
John Ellis "Jeb" Bush[5]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PNAC#Persons_ass...
In the same team as Richard CHENEY.
an awful lot of
lobbyingbribes.Our tax dollars hard at work.... supporting wingnut welfare.
MONEY!
I thought this sounded familiar and sure enough this MWI and J. David Eller and the Nigerian deal were mentioned in Joe Conasan's book "Big Lies". Jeb and Neil and George and the whole Bush crime family are as corrupt as they come. It is well outlined in this book. I use it as a reference all the time. I highly recommend this book for it's information about how the Republicans operate.
Jeb, Neil, and George W. are just the tip of the iceberg that is the Bush Crime Family. Every brother, uncle, cousin, and mother's son of the Bush Cabal are evil, blood-sucking vampires, all the way back to Prescott Walker Bush. George H. W. Bush, who has been involved in every sort of criminal enterprise while in AND out of government, is the equivalent of a Mafia Don.
If there ever was a family that has had a greater negative impact upon the future well-being of this country, I am not aware of it -- LBJ, Nixon, and even Reagan were all pikers in comparison.
BTW, I agree with you wholeheartedly that Conasan's "Big Lies" is a great expose on the Bush Cabal. No doubt there will be more exposes to come, because there is just so much material, and the new Bush generations yet to come add more. What a totally fucked up, sociopathic family ...
still think that what the Bush cabal has done to this country is (in their minds) payback for Grandaddy Bush being prosecuted - and losing almost everything - for colluding with the Third Reich.
Some things will never change.
Rabble Rabble Rabble
we're almost used to being pillaged at this point.
that our "government" is completely out of control?
The American public largely is absolutely clueless as to what is happening to our country. These people must be educated and educated quickly. We do not have much more time before everything is all gone.
We should be happy they only stole $430 million. The Bushies like to go for billions and trillions.
But at least thes no-bid contracts are not socialism!
Whenever any turd gets turned over you will find the bushcheneyrove gangs handiwork. They will eventually be properly recognized by the oligarchs as the ones who allowed democracy to go down the crapper.
Me, I want a statue on the mall in washington, dc, of the helicopter crew who stopped the My Lai massacre dead in its tracks. I personally did not have the guts to even try and stop the three massacres of unarmed people which I saw in my "patriotic" tour to
Vietnam.
The oligarchs will eventually raise a statute to the three biggest traitors to american democracy - Bush, Cheney and Rove. Maybe throw in Rice, Gonzalez and Powell to show that all of their servants performed as expected even if they were miscolored.
1
...but Bush kept reducing their funding.
When Hurricane Katrina was heading toward New Orleans I went to the Corps of Engineers website just to poke around; I know they've suffered from bad management over the years (my brother is a civil engineer and said they're a joke). I was kind of surprised to see that they had been begging for increased funding for years. I'll include the URL and part of the text, which I saved in a Word doc, but if you go to that site now it appears for a couple of seconds and then redirects to a current page. If you're really quick, you can do a Shift+PrintScreen.
The Corps of Engineers Web site (http://www.mvn.usace.army.mil/pao/response/HU...), May 23, 2005:
"FY 2005 BUDGET/EFFORT. The President's budget for fiscal year 2005 was $3.9 million. Congress increased it to $5.5 million. This was insufficient to fund new construction contracts. Engineering design, and construction supervision and inspection efforts are also included. Seven contracts are being delayed due to lack of funds. [Goes into detail about various bridges, levees, etc.]
"FY 2006 BUDGET/EFFORT. The President's budget for fiscal year 2006 is $3.0 million. This will be insufficient to fund new construction contracts. We could spend $20 million if the funds were provided. These funds are necessary to maintain the project schedule and to meet our contractual and local sponsor commitments.
"IMPACTS OF BUDGET SHORTFALL. In Orleans Parish, two major pump stations are threatened by hurricane storm surges. Major contracts need to be awarded to provide fronting protection for them. Also, several levees have settled and need to be raised to provide the design protection. The current funding shortfalls in fiscal year 2005 and fiscal year 2006 will prevent the Corps from addressing these pressing needs."
And they just did some federal funded rebuild of a covered bridge down the road from me. The road is a dead end that goes to 1 or 2 houses. If I remember right it had a $1.4 million budget. Something is seriously wrong with this picture!
This family needs to face some serious legal charges. I shudder to think that President Obama said "No one is above the law" and promptly put bushco in its entirety above the law.
Change I can believe in?
Bah!!!!!
For a run down of the Corps efforts to ignore their own procedures (with pictures) up to summer of 2007 look here
http://fixthepumps.blogspot.com/
"This begs a couple of questions: Why was a company..."
Somebody tell the paper: it doesn't 'beg' the question. It raises or poses the question. 'Begs the question'--you keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
Beg the question is a logical fallacy (called "question-begging analogy"):
An analogical argument begs the question when the strength of the analogy depends upon some controversial point at issue.
Please read at www.fallacyfiles.org--I'm begging you.
ice
I remember correctly, the bid that went out in the rigged "competitive bidding" process was cut and pasted from the company's catalog, ensuring that they were the only company that could meet the required specifications.
Kind of like Halliburton and the Iraq war.
They ALL belong in prison!
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