Presidential Disaster Relief Cronyism

Captain Skippy points us to this at Sysiphus Shrugged:

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 SCI.

This SCI

AUSTIN – A former state funeral home regulator who said she was wrongfully fired for investigating a large funeral home chain operated by a longtime family friend ofGeorge W. Bush has settled her 2-year-old whistleblower lawsuit for $210,000.

The state will pay Eliza May and her lawyers $155,000 and Houston-based Service Corp. International will pay $55,000, said sources familiar with the agreement.

Ms. May contended in her lawsuit that she was fired in 1999 as executive director of the Texas Funeral Service Commission after SCI Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Robert Waltrip met with Joe Allbaugh, a top aide to Mr. Bush while he was governor, to complain about the agency's investigation of the company's homes.

After the investigation, fines totaling about $450,000 were assessed against more than 20 of SCI's affiliated funeral homes for using unlicensed embalmers. SCI has appealed, and a state hearings officer is expected to rule soon on the case.

Neither SCI, Mr. Bush nor any of the other defendants admit wrongdoing under the terms of the settlement. Attorney General John Cornyn, who was also named as a defendant as a result of a legal opinion he wrote that was favorable to SCI, represented the state in the case.