Is there irony in Whittington being head of the FUNERAL Commission?

[FormerRepublican]

I think Cheney's office was hoping the story wouldn't get out, and that's why they delayed reporting it. Hoping it would be a local story only. Too bad, sometimes the truth gets out...

[Road Scholar]

1. Maybe Cheney promised it to somebody else. lol

[rfranklin]

2. Remember Funeralgate down in Texas...

I think that Joe Allbaugh (Mr. FEMA)was involved in that one too. Anyone know if Whittington was involved?

[yellowdogmi]

3. I think you are right.

But I am also searching my memory for a name of a funeral company that had alot to do with * getting selected in the first place. I know it is in a book somewhere. Seems like the name is anderson or something close to that. Sorry not trying to steal a thread. Hoping I might jog someones memory. Wondering about connections. Was this a warning?

[cosmicdot]

4. Kenyon International aka SCI ??

Allbaugh was around when Funeralgate was a problem for Smirk ... as was AG Gonzales ...
Allbaugh was at FEMA ... it's really a small world .. Harry Whittington took over being head of the Texas Funeral Service in 1999, "Funeralgate" ... note that Texas Atty General was John Cornyn ... interesting that he is now a US Senator ...

SEPTEMBER 3, 1999 "It's been a tumultuous week for the Texas Funeral Service Commission. On Monday, Travis County District Court Judge John Dietz ruled that Gov. George W. Bush won't have to testify in
Eliza May's whistle-blower lawsuit against the agency. On Tuesday, the old TFSC board was dismissed. On Wednesday, the new board, headed by Austin lawyer Harry Whittington, took over the struggling agency. The moves are the latest developments in the ongoing drama surrounding the funeral regulatory agency. And while the new board should bring some stability to the tiny agency, the biggest development in the funeral scandal came when Dietz, a Democrat, ruled that lawyers for May, the former executive director of the TFSC, did not prove that Bush has "unique and superior
knowledge" of the facts in the case. The ruling came after an all-day hearing rich in hyperbole."

Texas Attorney General John Cornyn, who appeared in court on the governor's behalf, told the court during his opening argument that "the eyes of the world are on Texas and this court to see if Texas believes in frontier justice or in the rule of law." ~snip~
http://makeashorterlink.com/?N27F520AC



Corpse-Abusing Company Gets FEMA Contract
FuneralGate
By JASON LEOPOLD

A funeral services company which recently learned that one of its subsidiaries is negotiating a lucrative contract with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to remove dead bodies in areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, paid $100 million to settle a class-action lawsuit several years ago alleging the company desecrated thousands of corpses, and dumped bodies into mass graves.

Moreover, the company paid $200,000 to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that sought to expose that two members of the Texas funeral commission, the agency which regulates the funeral industry, were actually employees of the company they were supposed to monitor--an obvious conflict-of-interest.

In the civil matter, which took place at two Jewish cemeteries in Florida, the plaintiff's attorney said that SCI secretly broke into and opened burial vaults and dumped remains in a wooded area where the remains may have been consumed by wild animals.

Additionally, SCI buried "remains in locations other than those purchased by plaintiffs; crushing burial vaults in order to make room for other vaults; burying remains on top of the other rather than side-by-side; secretly digging up and removing remains; secretly burying remains head-to-foot rather than side-by-side; secretly mixing body parts and remains from different individuals; secretly allowing plots owned by one part to be occupied by a different person; secretly selling plots in rows where there were more graves assigned than the rows could accommodate; secretly allowed graves to encroach on other plots; secretly sold plots so narrow that the plots could not accommodate standard burial vaults; secretly participated in the desecration of gravesites and markers and failed to exercise reasonable care in handling the plaintiff's loved ones remains."

~snip~

http://www.counterpunch.org/leopold09152005.html

Firms with Bush-Cheney Ties Clinching Katrina Deals

Published on Monday, September 12, 2005 by USA Today
Firms with Bush-Cheney Ties Clinching Katrina Deals


At least two major corporate clients of lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, President Bush's former campaign manager and a former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have already been tapped to start recovery work along the battered Gulf Coast.

~snip~


http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0912-08.htm