Feeding at the trough that used to be New Orleans

[Rspaight]

First Draft has links to reports that Blackwater is providing mercenaries ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hsecurity professionals to the disaster zone. Blackwater, you may recall, previously raked it in sending armed civilians to Iraq to fill the holes left by the "lean" military deployment.

In addition, of course, Halliburton is hard at work rebuilding the petroinfrastructure.

And then there's this...

FEMA mortuary move irritates volunteer
Saturday, September 10, 2005
By Clint Confehr

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has a hired contractor to provide services that a local mortician says have been available from volunteers through the National Funeral Directors Association.

"Volunteers would have gone at no charge," said Dan Buckner, co-owner and manager of Gowen-Smith Chapel. "Now, they'll have this job done by people who will be paid. That kind of irks me."

Buckner was on stand-by to go to Louisiana or Mississippi in the wake of Hurricane Katrina since hundreds of bodies have yet to be recovered, identified and handled with respect as they're moved to their final resting place.

His partner, Gary Hicks of Paducah, Ky., went on Monday to Biloxi, Miss. -- instead of Gulfport as Buckner had believed previously -- to serve with the Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMort) and Buckner has relayed Hicks' report of a top-end, total estimate from officials saying up to 40,000 deaths were feared because of Katrina.

Buckner stands by that figure as a potential total death toll in two states. However, far fewer than 10,000 bodies have been found in New Orleans, a number issued as a warning by Mayor Ray Nagin. Death toll numbers combined from various news reports didn't exceed 1,000 last week, but one mortuary set up for the catastrophe can deal with more than 5,000.

"The company that FEMA has chosen to outsource the recovery work in Louisiana is Kenyon, a worldwide disaster management company, wholly owned subsidiary of Service Corporation International," according to the NFDA.

SCI, of Houston, Texas, provides funeral, cremation and cemetery services in North America and Reuters reported Kenyon International Emergency Services spokesman Jay Kirsch said it was sending 50 workers to the area struck by Katrina to help recover the bodies of those killed by the hurricane.

Kenyon specializes in providing disaster mortuary services. PRNewswire reported the 75-year-old company deployed a mobile morgue and a large response team following the tsunami that washed ashore at Phuket, Thailand.

"Kenyon asked us to share the names and phone numbers of NFDA members and funeral directors who are interested in a paid three-week employment situation," the NFDA told its members. "If you have already volunteered with NFDA, we'd like to let you know about this paid option to help."

Buckner reacted, "There's no telling how many dollars they'll spend on that contract."

Asked for the dollar amount of the contract, SCI spokesman Gregory Bolton referred questions to Kenyon spokesmen.

Kenyon spokesman Bill Berry said he didn't have a cost figure for work in Louisiana, but added that Kenyon has had a FEMA contract since 1997, was activated after 9-11, is working in Louisiana only so far, and isn't recovering bodies.

"We're receiving," Berry said. "We take them to a DMort ... with refrigerated facilities and then go through the morgue process."

He would "not discuss the personnel matter" of pay, except to say, "We pay a competitive fee. The market place determines that.

"Don't visualize that we're getting behind," Berry said of Kenyon work receiving bodies.

He declined to state a death toll.

NFDA said that during the Labor Day weekend and a couple of days thereafter, the association had "been in constant contact with FEMA, DMort and Louisiana and Mississippi funeral directors associations. NFDA is proud of the good work our state associations are doing during this time of crisis ...

"We share their frustrations regarding the difficulties of working with the agencies involved with orchestrating a massive, cooperative disaster management effort," NFDA said.

FEMA Director Michael Brown was removed from his role managing Hurricane Katrina relief efforts on Friday, the Associated Press reported.

Brown was being sent back to Washington from Baton Rouge, where he was the primary official overseeing the federal government's response to the disaster, according to the AP. Brown was replaced by Coast Guard Vice Adm. Thad W. Allen, who was overseeing New Orleans relief and rescue efforts.

Meanwhile, the NFDA told its members if they replied to its announcement, then their names would be forwarded to Kenyon for paid positions in Louisiana.

"I'm not interested in going under those conditions," Buckner said.

[Patrick M]

"The company that FEMA has chosen to outsource the recovery work in Louisiana is Kenyon, a worldwide disaster management company, wholly owned subsidiary of Service Corporation International," according to the NFDA.

SCI, of Houston, Texas, provides funeral, cremation and cemetery services in North America and Reuters reported Kenyon International Emergency Services spokesman Jay Kirsch said it was sending 50 workers to the area struck by Katrina to help recover the bodies of those killed by the hurricane.

Now where have I heard of SCI before? Let me think...

Bush named as defendant

The funeral home regulator's suit "has no merit," Bush's spokesman says.

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By Robert Bryce

Last summer, a judge here ruled that George W. Bush did not have to testify in a whistle-blower lawsuit brought by a woman who regulated the state's funeral homes. But now that Bush is a defendant in that same lawsuit, he may have difficulty staying out of the courthouse.

On Friday, attorneys representing former Texas Funeral Service Commission executive director Eliza May added Bush as a defendant in the lawsuit she filed 13 months ago. The lawsuit alleges that May was fired by the state in February 1999 because she "repeatedly and in good faith reported violations of the law" allegedly committed by funeral homes owned by Houston's Service Corporation International, the world's largest funeral company. The suit, which originally named the funeral agency, SCI and SCI CEO Robert Waltrip as defendants, was changed to include Bush because May's attorneys allege the governor has not been forthcoming about his knowledge of the matter.

The amended lawsuit claims Bush "knowingly permitted his staff to intervene improperly" in the investigation of SCI by the state funeral agency. The suit also claims his actions are an abuse of power and were designed to "subvert the lawful conduct of public officials in the performance of their official duties."

Some background: Although May's lawsuit deals with a number of legal issues, it is, at root, about alleged influence buying. The suit claims Bush and a handful of state legislators sprang to SCI's defense because the funeral company gave tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions to the politicians. The suit makes much of the connections between Bush and Waltrip, who has known the Bushes for three decades. SCI's political action committee gave Bush $35,000 for his 1998 campaign and Waltrip gave Bush $10,000 for his 1994 race. Waltrip also serves as a trustee for former President George Bush's presidential library and SCI gave more than $100,000 toward the construction of the library. Given those connections, the lawsuit claims that any suggestion that Bush would not have intervened on Waltrip's behalf is "highly unlikely on its face."

While Waltrip's connections to Bush are many, May's attorneys will also face charges that the suit is politically driven. One of May's lawyers, Charles Herring Jr., is the former chairman of the Travis County Democratic Party. May has been active in Democratic politics on the city and state level for more than a decade. From 1994 to 1996 she served on the state Democratic Executive Committee and from 1996 to 1998 she was treasurer for the Texas Democratic Party.

Last August, Texas Attorney General John Cornyn, a Republican and a close Bush ally, argued that May's deposition was being "sought purely for purposes of harassment." Bush has repeatedly called May's lawsuit "frivolous." During a press conference last summer, he said, "This is a frivolous lawsuit; this is politics."

May's lawyers have already failed once in their efforts to force Bush to testify. Last July, the lawyers subpoenaed Bush. In early August, Bush issued an affidavit that said he had no "personal knowledge" of the issues surrounding the investigation into SCI and that he had no "conversations with SCI officials, agents or representatives" about the state's investigation.

Shortly after the affidavit was issued, May's attorneys filed a motion in Travis County District Court claiming Bush was in contempt of court because his claim that he had "no conversations" was contradicted by SCI's own lobbyist, Johnnie B. Rogers. The longtime Austin lobbyist told reporters that he was in the office of Joe Allbaugh, Bush's chief of staff (and current campaign manager) on April 15, 1998, when Bush stopped by for a brief chat with Rogers and Waltrip, who had gone to Allbaugh's office to complain about May's investigation. Bush's claim of "no conversation" was also later contradicted by Bush himself in a press conference, and by Bush's press secretary, Linda Edwards, who acknowledged that the governor had an "exchange" with Waltrip during his April 15 visit to the governor's office.

On Aug. 31, Travis County District Court Judge John Dietz, a Democrat, ruled that May's attorneys had not presented enough evidence to compel Bush to testify in the case. He did not rule on the motion to have Bush held in contempt. In his ruling, Dietz said May's attorneys did not show Bush has "unique and superior knowledge" of the facts in May's lawsuit. Texas case law requires that before plaintiffs are allowed to depose heads of corporations and other entities -- including, presumably, governors -- they must show that person has information not available from others.

But now that Bush is an actual defendant, he may not be able to fend off efforts to get his testimony. A likely scenario: Cornyn will try to delay any testimony by Bush for as long as possible. Even if a district court judge rules against Bush, Cornyn could appeal the ruling all the way to the Texas Supreme Court, where all nine justices are Republicans. But by the time it gets there, Nov. 7 will probably have come and gone.

The Bush campaign press office refused to comment on the lawsuit and referred calls to Michael Jones, Bush's press spokesman in the Texas capital. Jones said his office had not received a copy of the lawsuit, but said the "groundless suit involves the same old claims already rejected by the court last year when an earlier unjustified deposition was sought. As it pertains to the governor, this feeble claim has no merit."
salon.com | April 18, 2000



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About the writer
Robert Bryce is a staff writer for the Austin Chronicle.

[Rspaight]

Nice catch.

Of course, if it were Clinton, that would have been front-page news yesterday.

Ryan

[Patrick M]

The longtime Austin lobbyist told reporters that he was in the office of Joe Allbaugh, Bush's chief of staff (and current campaign manager) on April 15, 1998, when Bush stopped by for a brief chat with Rogers and Waltrip, who had gone to Allbaugh's office to complain about May's investigation.

http://www.fema.gov/about/allbaugh/index.shtm