FROM THE ARCHIVE

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In The Hoop
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 2002

Welcome to In The Hoop, Indianz.Com's occasional column about assorted Indian issues.

A Man of the People
That Don Young. To prove he's just like every one else, he doesn't use his Congressional card as identification.

So when the Republican from Alaska was recently searched while waiting for a flight from Anchorage to Fairbanks, it was something he just had to talk about. "There I was with my boots off and my belt buckle off," he said of the experience, as reported by The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

Ever the politician, Young -- who has elevated himself to Diva status a number of times, most recently with his request for numerous perks to run the House Resources Committee again -- used the situation to his advantage. Upon boarding the plane, he was reported to have said he was "a man of the people," causing his fellow passengers to erupt in applause, the paper reported.

Wonder if he flashed them his Congressional ID?

We See You Michael Anderson
The General Accounting Office recently conducted a government-wide survey of political appointees whose jobs have been conveniently "converted" to other positions just so they can keep working for the federal government.

According to the report, there were 100 such changes. But some were singled out as fishy, including nine cases that "create concern about whether the individuals received an unfair advantage or unauthorized preferences in the merit system," the GAO wrote. An additional eight persons were transferred "noncompetitively" to other jobs near the beginning of the Bush administration.

But lest you think this practice was rampant at the Department of Interior, which critics allege was run more like a political action committee during the Clinton years than the truly efficient agency that it is, only five appointees were converted, the GAO said, including one who was allowed to provide input into for a position he was later selected for. The Department of Justice, on the other hand, saw 24 changes, the audit said, showing that it is the true bastion of fairness an equality.

What High Unemployment Rate?
The Bush administration, it appears, has found a way to erase the fact that unemployment on reservations hovers around 43 percent. How? Get rid of the report which documents this statistic.

In a Federal Register notice published on April 1, Assistant Secretary Neal McCaleb approved another one of those "document collection" requests. This time, it affects the biennial survey of the labor force in Indian Country, which is the best indicator of tribal enrollment, reservation population and unemployment out there.

Of course the notice McCaleb signed doesn't say the report will go away. But unless enough comments are submitted by May 1, it certainly looks like it might get the ax.

In Your Hoop
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