Easy, stick your head in the sand. The LA Times provides some contemporary examples based on a TPMmuckracker review:

For instance, there was this. Problem: In 2005, a congressionally mandated annual State Department report on international terrorism showed that terrorism worldwide was on the rise. Solution: The administration announced that future editions of the report no longer would include statistics on international terrorism. See? Presto! Just like that, the problem went away.

And then there was this. Problem: In 2004, data released by the Department of Education showed that public charter schools, promoted by the administration as a solution to public school woes, were lagging regular public schools in performance. Solution: The administration decided to stop collecting data on charter school performance.

And this. Problem: Environmentalists complained that administration land-use plans for our national parks and forests could have long-term negative effects on the environment. Solution: The administration decided it no longer would conduct environmental impact studies to assess the potential consequences of its land-use plans.

Just think how it worked for Enron, the company Bush held up in his 1999 campaign as the kind of “CEO style” of leadership he would bring to the office. Oh, yeah, the intimate connection to Enron has disappeared too…

As a “Bush Pioneer” in the run-up to the 2000 presidential election, Lay was a key member of the Bush campaign’s fund-raising inner circle. Under Lay’s leadership, Enron ultimately gave Bush $550,025, making the corporation the Texan’s No. 1 career patron at the time the 2000 election campaign began, according to the Center for Public Integrity. Lay personally pumped almost $400,000 into Republican hard- and soft-money funds, while Enron slipped another $1.5 million into the GOP’s soft-money cesspool.

But that was just the beginning. Lay sent a letter to Enron executives urging them to contribute to Bush’s campaign. More than 100 of them — including Skilling, a major Bush giver since 1993, when he cut his first $5,000 check to GW’s gubernatorial campaign — did just that. Dozens of spouses wrote, including “homemaker” and frequent $10,000 donor Linda Lay, gave as well, making the Enron “family” a prime source of the money that gave Bush his early advantage over Republican rivals such as Arizona Senator John McCain.

All told, it is estimated that, over the years prior the company’s bankruptcy, Lay, his company and its employees contributed close to $2 million to fund George W. Bush’s political rise.

Lay found other ways to help, as well. He put Enron’s corporate jets at the disposal of the Bush campaign in 2000. He kicked in $5,000 to pay for the Florida recount fight, while a top Enron “consultant,” former Secretary of State James A. Baker III, ran the Republican’s recount effort. He even paid for his own bookkeeping, chipping in $1,000 to help the Bush-Cheney campaign comply with campaign-finance laws. And Lay and Enron gave $300,000 to underwrite the Bush-Cheney inauguration festivities in 2001.

See how easy it can be? It’s like it never happened.

I recently wrote about how destabilization has created a growing soldier of fortune industry (some call it the “security industry”) in the Middle East. That was based on the need by oil companies to protect their pipelines when no capable conventional force is available (or such a use might be too politically controversial). Now there is more news from the Sydney Morning Herald on a more personal level:

A former Australian soldier and a New Zealander have been arrested in Lebanon on accusations they’re part of a mercenary squad that seized the two daughters of Canadian Melissa Hawach from her estranged Australian husband north of Beirut.

[…]

Lebanese police claim all five men are ex-commandos who had staked out the girls’ father, Joseph Hawach, for several days before launching the daring raid.

Police say Pemberton arrived in Lebanon after receiving an email asking him to find and seize the girls for a fee. Corrigan arrived on December 9.

I suppose this sort of incident will be more and more likely as mercenaries flock to troubled regions on behalf of troubled leaders on special missions for whomever is the highest bidder.

It all reminds me of the 1960s UN struggle in the Republic of the Congo when ill-equipped international volunteer forces were sent to impose international orders against a (Belgian) seasoned group of Korean War veterans turned mercenaries. And even after these mercenaries were forced out of the Congo they apparently moved on to other jobs around the world, eventually ending up as honorary guests (long arm of state intelligence services) in some countries. I think reviewing this sort of stuff is all now starting to be referred to International Security studies, although it was still referred to as International History or International Relations when I was a student.

On a side note, it’s curious that the Rainbox-Six theory that Tom Clancy popularized in 1998 did not include agents from Australia or New Zealand:

…we must face the fact that there remain many experienced and trained international terrorists still roaming the world, some with lingering contacts with national intelligence agencies – plus the fact that some nations, while not desirous of a direct confrontation with American or other Western nations, could still make use of the remaining terrorist “free agents” for more narrow political goals.

Perhaps Tom didn’t factor in the more narrow personal goals or did not consider them serious enough threats to people living in American or other Western nations.

Is this the Macaca incident part deux? Virginia Representative Virgil H. Goode Jr. has opened his mouth and stuffed his foot firmly inside. How much more un-American can you be than to issue this kind of warning?

I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped.

His website gives details on how to contact him directly to complain. Or perhaps you might want to point out the real threat to the nation’s values are the closed-minded intolerant folks and lying cheats who try and find scapegoats.

If Goode needs to bellyache, perhaps he could highlight the defeat of men like Congressman Don Sherwood this past November:

A Republican congressman accused of abusing his ex-mistress agreed to pay her about $500,000 (€390,000) in a settlement last year that contained a powerful incentive for her to keep quiet until after election day, a person familiar with the terms of the deal told The Associated Press.

Congressman Don Sherwood is locked in a tight re-election race against a Democratic opponent who has seized on the four-term congressman’s relationship with the woman. Republicans are struggling to hold onto power in Congress in the Nov. 7 elections, and President George W. Bush recently campaigned for Sherwood.

Sherwood, a 65-year-old married father of three who is considered a family-values conservative, had one of the safest seats in Congress until Cynthia Ore sued him in June 2005, alleging he physically abused her throughout their five-year affair.

Or is Goode afraid to take a stand against lying, cheating and manipulative members of government for fear of having a platform that is too controversial?

If he wants to come to terms with the true threats to his nation’s values, like George Allen, perhaps he should first take a long hard look in the mirror. I mean when it comes to someone who calls upon “tradition” do you really want Goode as a leader? Consider this analysis of Goode’s loyalties:

This is no story of a man without a party, a representative as solid as a rock in an ever-changing political world. Virgil Goode is a turncoat, plain and simple — he’s available to the highest bidder.

And then, in August of this year, the heat headed towards Goode based on some rather shady financial dealings:

Mitchell Wade is giving Jack Abramoff a run for his money in the headlines department. Wade, he of the Duke Cunningham bribery scandal, has also had questionable dealings with Reps. Katherine Harris (R-FL) and Virgil Goode (R-VA). It’s Goode that we’re concerned with now.

Company of Cunningham and Harris? Interesting. I also can’t help but notice he has been rated as a 100% regressive unAmerican by the Vote Record and Cosponsorship site. It is not hard to understand why, if you read some of the details:

Regressive, destructive, and downright unAmerican actions Rep. Goode has taken that contribute to a RCS of 100:

[…]

The way that U.S. citizenship works is pretty simple when you get down to it: if you are born in this country, you are a citizen. Leave it to Representative Virgil Goode to come up with a way to change that. Representative Goode has thrown support behind H.R. 698, which would deny citizenship to American-born babies if their parents aren’t themselves citizens. Such a change would move us toward the German model of citizenship, in which families who have lived in Germany for generations were denied citizenship because they lacked the so-called “virtue” of a German bloodline.

Even more bizarrely under this bill, if a baby is born in America of a father who is a citizen and a mother who is not, the baby is denied American citizenship if the father and mother are not married. Yes, you are reading that right — the Republicans even want to deny babies citizenship when the father is himself a citizen. How extreme. How xenophobic. How simply unacceptable.

Ouch. And a little more research found that the co-sponsor of this bill explained himself this way:

“If you’re coming here illegally, you shouldn’t be benefiting from it,” [co-sponsor, Rep. Gary Miller, R-CA] said. “If I rob a bank, and left some money to my kids, should they be allowed to keep it?”

Fitting analogy from someone who serves on the House Financial Services Committee. Too bad he’s so incredibly off-base with his analysis, and also too bad he’s being accused of using his office for personal profit. It will be a real shame for his children and his children’s children if he is convicted. Maybe these new allegations will slow him down a bit before he proposes that Homeland Security scan records for criminal activity in your family going back two generations and then penalize the entire family for the crime? Imagine what happens when your grandparent can’t find (or never had!) a birth certificate or immigration papers? Sorry, your entire family will have to leave the country now. And then maybe he’ll just advocate that the US create an official profile for suspicious or “potentially illegal” people and come up with a “solution”….

Incidentally, Miller used to run the G. Miller Development company in the 1970s. Wonder how many people with foreign ancestry he relied upon in Whittier, CA (Los Angeles) to get his career started? And I am absolutely sure he does not count people who lived in the area prior to its annexation by America as “native”.

Major ancestry groups reported by Whittier residents include:
· Mexican – 46%
· German – 8%
· English – 7%
· Other Hispanic or Latino – 7%
· Irish – 6%
· Italian – 4%
· French (except Basque) – 2%
· Central American: – 2%
· Scottish – 2%
· American Indian tribes, specified – 1%
· Black or African American – 1%
· Dutch – 1%
· Polish – 1%
· Japanese – 1%
· Filipino – 1%
· Swedish – 1%
· Norwegian – 1%
· Scotch-Irish – 1%
· Russian – 1%
· Armenian – 1%
· Chinese, except Taiwanese – 1%
· Salvadoran – 1%
· Spanish – 1%
· Danish – 1%
· South American – 1%
· European – 1%

Nonetheless, I have to ask who traditionally lived there?

Inhabited by indigenous people for millennia, California was first colonized by the Spanish in 1769, and after Mexican independence in 1821, continued as part of Mexico. Following a brief period as the independent California Republic in 1846, California was annexed by the United States that same year, and was admitted to the Union as the thirty-first state on September 9, 1850.

Ok, anyone who can not prove their Mexican/Spanish/indigenous descent, Congressman Miller and Goode say that your non-traditional “Bear Flagger” ancestors did bad things (like illegally settling the area and starting a revolt and secession movement — robbing Mexico of the territory) so you have to leave now. Hmmm, any chance Miller will follow his own advice and leave California? But who would allow such a staunch opponent of immigration to immigrate?