Distorted use of raw data

The US Department of Interior’s OIA’s premature use of raw census data designed to embarrass the local government consistently reflects its never ending agenda as an adolescent adversary of these isles. At the same time, it boasts of its willful violation of its fiduciary responsibility as a law enforcement agency purposely fanning confusion and flushing US mainland taxpayers hard earned money down the tube.

Consider for a moment what the actual figure of local unemployment would be if its (OIA’s) agenda to close down the garment industry succeeds. We won’t be discussing a 16 percent local unemployment rate, but more like 40-60 percent. How ironic too that as the lead federal agency charged with the fiduciary responsibility to help the NMI “attain a progressively higher standard of living”, it chooses to do the exact opposite by turning itself into a fulltime adversary.

Its agenda illegally supplants an authority solely reserved for the US Congress in policymaking. That it chooses to violate the spirit and letter of the Covenant in this regard confirms its obvious lack of competency to finding industry substitutes to revive growth, wealth and jobs creation. It chooses to don the role of a disgruntled critic rather than a real partner in the collective efforts of the NMI at wealth and jobs creation. Its seeming battle cry is sink the NMI at all cost.

Apparently, OIA has opted to bury its head in the sand by its adolescent recommendation that the NMI be denied grant funds in order to help out our southern neighbor deal with FASayers. What about federal obligations on FASayers residing in the NMI? Isn’t the NMI equally entitled to these funds given the unilateral decision by Interior to allow free migration of our friends from the freely associated states?

The NMI is quite fortunate that the issue isn’t related to a critical medical situation as a patient in the ICU. In other words, OIA–as our doctor–would have prescribed all the wrong and lethal medicine to kill the patient rather than help him return to normal health. Yet, this nurse’s assistant talks like an MD (Dr. Voodoo) forgetting that we know that it knows not, therefore, all the empty posturing and consistent failure for over 37 years to help these isles attain economic self-support.

At best, OIA has royally avoided and violated its fiduciary responsibility. Thus, the persistent efforts at waving a paper tiger convinced that island governments will never catch-up with its exhausted antics. Well, we’re equally determined to make a difference with or without Interior’s OIA. We’ve done it for over 20 years now. So why should it matter that we listen to its ruinous agenda?

Frankly, it’s an agency that openly violates the specific requirement of the Covenant Agreement that it helps these islands “attain a progressively higher standard of living” as part of the greater American Economic Community. Its use of raw census data is at best, distorted and irresponsible. At worse, it still confuses its role as a law enforcement agency.