Where the bodies are buried

In this bed, it's getting hard to tell who is giving the fleas to whom. From Sisyphus Shrugged by way of Suburban Guerilla:

Newsrack points out that not only are the press being blocked from watching the gathering of the dead from Katrina, the job has been outsourced by FEMA (although after they awarded the job Governor Bianco ended up having to pay for it, because FEMA doesn't do the contract thing so good) to Kenyon International Emergency Services, a subsidiary of Service Corp. International (SCI).

This explains how SCI found itself in a position to "win" this contract.

April 18, 2000:

Gov. George W. Bush has been named a defendant in a lawsuit brought by the fired head of the Texas Funeral Service Commission. She accuses him of impeding an investigation of a company that had given him campaign contributions.

Eliza May alleges she lost her job over an investigation of Houston-based Service Corporation International (SCI). She filed her wrongful termination lawsuit last year and amended it on Monday to include Bush.

The lawsuit accuses the Republican presidential candidate of conspiring to interfere with the agency's 1998 investigation of the company.

"Defendant Bush directed, approved of, ratified, condoned and/or knowingly permitted his staff to intervene improperly" in the investigation, the lawsuit alleges.

SCI, one of the world's largest funeral home and cemetery operators, is headed by Bush family friend Robert Waltrip, who contributed $45,000 to Bush's gubernatorial campaigns, according to the lawsuit.

Waltrip also served as a trustee for the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library in College Station and donated more than $100,000 through his company toward construction.

May was investigating possible violations of funeral home regulations, including whether SCI was using unlicensed embalmers. The funeral home board's complaint review committee voted to assess more than 20 of SCI's affiliated funeral homes fines totaling $450,000.

She was fired after Waltrip met with Bush's top aide Joe Allbaugh, to complain about the agency's investigation of his company.

You remember Joe Allbaugh -- he was the head of FEMA before Brownie took over. See how neatly it all comes together?

By the way, that suit was settled in 2002 for $210,000 -- $155,000 from the state of Texas (be sure to thank the president, Texas) and $55,000 from SCI.

Speaking of lawsuits that didn't exactly go SCI's way, the corporation sued Darryl Roberts in 1997 for his book "Profits of Death: An Insider Exposes the Death Care Industries" and amended the suit after Roberts appeared on the February 1, 1998 edition of "60 Minutes," in a segment titled "The High Costs of Dying." From romingerlegal.com:

In the suit, SCI and Waltrip alleged that Roberts and his publisher defamed them claiming they falsely accused Waltrip of stating that it was his goal to turn SCI into "the True Value Hardware of the funeral-service industry." "The quote," said Roberts, "was taken directly from an article that appeared in Business Week in its August 25, 1986 issue."

After Roberts' 1998 appearance on 60 Minutes, SCI and Waltrip filed a motion to amend their original lawsuit to include allegedly libelous statements made by Roberts on the show. Among the statements challenged were the comment that "conglomerates come into town (and) raise prices fairly quickly," and an alleged implication that SCI businesses charge $800 for opening and closing a grave when their costs are only $50.

A federal judge dismissed all of SCI's defamation charges and SCI dropped the suit.

Here's a little task-specific background on the corporation the government selected to restore dignity to the people killed by Hurricane Katrina.

April 18, 2002:

About 20 Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents arrived at Menorah Gardens Cemetery with a sealed warrant and began digging, agency spokeswoman Paige Paterson said. She declined to say what the agents were seeking.

Attorney Neal Hirschfeld, who has filed a class-action suit lawsuit against Menorah Gardens, said former gravediggers have told investigators that body parts were strewn in the area.

"They're definitely looking for human remains," he said.

The cemetery is accused of jamming corpses together in unmarked graves, removing bodies and otherwise creating space to allow more burial plots to be sold.

Don Mathis, spokesman for Service Corporation International, which owns Menorah Gardens, said the company was cooperating with the search. The firm's Web site identifies SCI as "the world's largest provider of funeral and cemetery services," with operations in 11 countries.

Boy, if that were true, it would certainly make the administration look bad -- I mean the president being so tight with such ghouls, and the ghouls being awarded a government contract for which they seem uniquely morally unqualified. Well, it is true. Here's what happened next.

May 22, 2003:

TALLAHASSEE – Attorney General Charlie Crist, Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher and Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Tim Moore jointly announced the filing of four felony criminal charges, and the financial imposition of a $1 million fine as part of a restitution and remedial action plan that could reach $14 million. These actions stem from the mishandling of burials at Palm Beach County and Broward County cemeteries owned and operated by Service Corporation International (SCI) of Houston, Texas, and subsidiary SCI Funeral Services of Florida, Inc.

Following a year-long Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation, Jeffrey Frucht, SCI Florida Area Vice-President, along with SCI Houston and SCI Florida, were charged with incompetence and misconduct in failing to manage Menorah Gardens and the other cemetery. Robert McKay, SCI Florida Superintendent, and SCI Florida were charged with two counts of failure to obtain authority to disinter the remains of Col. Hyman Cohen and Harold Wells. Some of their remains were recovered by FDLE investigators near a wooded area, removed from the burial sites. (DNA tests confirmed that the remains found in the woods were Cohen’s -- Dr. S)

Additionally, SCI has agreed to provide up to $14 million in damages, penalties and refunds.

“FDLE’s year-long investigation into Menorah Gardens and its parent company has discovered some serious and disturbing actions by the managers and executives of these companies,” said FDLE Commissioner Tim Moore. “The families of the deceased have been put through terrible turmoil and it is our hope that they can now finally get some closure.”

Dec. 2, 2003:

Broward Circuit Judge J. Leonard Fleet on Monday refused to dismiss charges against Houston-based Service Corporation International, the world’s largest funeral services company.
Judge Fleet rejected a dismissal request from defense attorneys who claimed that any wrongdoing was done by local managers without the knowledge or consent of Houston corporate managers.

Hmm, blame local officials and claim that remote overseers are blameless. We've seen that strategy again recently, haven't we? The administration didn't invent the strategy, just perfected it. But there's more:

December 3, 2003:

Attorneys representing thousands of people in a class action lawsuit against the operator of two troubled Menorah Gardens cemeteries in Broward and Palm Beach counties reached a $100 million settlement in the case late Tuesday.

The settlement does not include a case pending against SCI in Palm Beach County, in which about 60 families are suing over burial problems. (That suit, which eventually included 72 families, was settled in October 2004 -- Dr. S)

SCI and its Florida subsidiary are each charged with two third-degree felonies for being negligent and incompetent in the operation of the cemeteries. SCI Florida's vice president, Jeffrey Frucht, 44, faces those same charges. A former Menorah Gardens grounds supervisor in Palm Beach County has pleaded guilty to exhuming two bodies without seeking relatives' permission.

What makes matters worse, if that's still possible, is that FEMA hired these scumbags after rejecting offers from National Funeral Directors Association volunteers to do the work free. Why take volunteers when you can allow a crony to fatten up on taxpayer money? Republicans are soooooooooooo fiscally responsible, aren't they?

By the way, how does paying cronies instead of using volunteers impact Bush's promise to halve the federal defict by 2009?