The Supreme Court ruling denying whistle-blower rights for government employees is a wrong decision. Generally I like laws that limit lawsuits because I believe there are way too many frivolous lawsuits in our country. But to say that if you work for the government you have no right to reveal official misconduct is absurd. This sounds more like the laws of China or Iran. If the Chinese government was to fire one of its official for exposing international violations in the government, wouldn't western countries cry foul?

Whistle-blower rights are even more important for government employees than private employees. If a company do something illegal or unethical, it is likely that eventually this will catch up to it. Whistle-blowers are important in cases like Enron but even if there was no whistle-blowers I think sooner or later the fraud would have been exposed and the company would have gone down. But with frauds in government this can go on much longer without a whistle-blower from the inside. For example, who on the outside can monitor a crooked police department? As it is with the so-called code of silence, it is difficult to get rid of bad cops. We cannot get rid of a police department by dumping its stocks as we can do to a bad company. Many more lives are at stake when a government agency can operate with impugnity. With this ruling by the Supreme Court, who will be brave enough to say "the emperor has no clothes"?

It is nice that the Democrats and Republicans in the House are agreeing on something. Unfortunately, the thing they agree on is that the Justice department acted illegally in confiscating records from the office of Congressman William Jefferson. I am no Constitution scholar but I assume the judge who ordered the warrant knows something about the law. I don't see how this has anything to do with the separation of powers between the branches of government. By using this technicality it appears that the Congress want to be treated differently than ordinary Americans when they are accused of a crime. This is amazingly insensitve and stupid in view of the recent allegation of bribery scandals involving Congressmen.

Now Bush is getting himself involve by sealing the documents seized while the Justice department and Congress negotiate. The Attorney General and FBI directors are hinting that they may resign if the President forces them to return the documents. I will give the Republicans some credit for not making this a partisan issue. Nevertheless, for a party that takes pride in their law and order agenda, I would expect that they treat government officials at least as harsh as the average citizen accused of crimes. Having monitored people's phone conversations without warrants, now Bush is worried that a document seizure backed by a warrant is against the law? My conclusion? There are more people in our government who are worried that their documents will be subpoenaed soon and they are afraid that if they don't answer the subpoena quick enough, their documents will also be seized. This may not be the right conclusion but I believe it is closer to the truth than the theory that Hastert and Pelosi are doing this for principle. Who knows where Abramhoff will lead us to?

A judge in California placed an injunction against the California High School Exit Exam. The judge cited the unequal education system leading to a higher proportion of minority and poor students failing the exam. While economics and the school one attends would have a significant impact on one's performance on standardized tests, there is really no excuse for failing this exam. The standards of this exam is extremely low. The math portion is at 8th grade level and the English part tests at 10th grade level. You only need a 55% to pass the math section and 60% to pass the English part. Starting from 10th grade a student has two chances to pass the test each year. So essentially one has 6 chances to pass with a D- or F+ on tests that are two to four year levels below what a graduating senior should know. Not only that, the test was suppose to have been implented for the class of 2004 but was pushed back to this year for political reasons. There was plenty of time for the schools and students to prepare for this and yet over 10% of the senior students in the state have yet to pass the exam. Somehow these students have been passed by the school to the 12th grade despite not really having learned at the high school level. No wonder the high school diploma is becoming worthless.

It is true that some of the students do not pass the exam are disadvantaged by the fact that they are immigrants and thus are behind in English. From previous blogs you know that I am for immigrant rights. I am, however, a firm believer that you need to play the cards that you were dealt. Immigrants, of all people, should understand this. Just because you are disadvantaged it doesn't give you an excuse not to succeed. Non-English speaking immigrants from various countries in our history have overcame disadvantages and became successful. I believe that the immigrants today have the same ability to succeed and will not make our country poorer as some conservatives claim. However, if there is one thing that will make immigrants unsuccessful, it would be because liberals making excuses on behalf of immigrants. This lawsuit is an example of this. The liberals supported two Hispanic students from Richmond, claiming being disadvantaged on this test. The students should have been held accountable for their failure to learn the material. Over the long run this type of excuses will make immigrants less competitve.

Our public school systems are graduating students who cannot function in society. Recently a business employer wrote to our local newspaper complaining about the quality of high school graduates in the area. Not surprisingly, several teachers and school administrators wrote in to protest. My experience has been the same as the employer writer. The majority of high school graduates who apply for a job in my office cannot convert inches to feet or ounces to pounds. Do you think that would be true of high school graduates in China and India? We need to hold students, parents and schools accountable for such failures. This exit exam is just a minimum standard which they should meet.