Our children are our future

[Horse with no Name]

While looking for a particular item, I stumbled upon this item written by a High School student in her school newspaper. I am even more proud that this is a kid that lives in East Texas.:applause:
I am not publishing her name--because I don't want her attacked by freepers.

Oct. 14, 2005 Cat’s Tale 3

A Culture of Cronyism by XXXXXXXX
Let me start this column with a disclosure. I am a Democrat. Not only am I a Democrat, I am a very liberal Democrat. I worked for the John Kerry campaign in 2004, and have long been a critic of President Bush’s policies and actions. But even to me, a critic of all things right-wing and conservative, these past few weeks have been especially ugly for the Republicans on Capitol Hill. There’s a growing list of scandals that the Republican party is facing:

• House Majority Leader Tom Delay has now been indicted twice for money laundering, and campaign finance fraud. This is probably the most well known of the ethics scandals. Delay has long been known as the “Hammer” for his forceful and controlling tactics. He has kept the Republicans in the House under his thumb.

• A federal grand jury in Washington is looking into the role of Karl Rove, President Bush’s longtime top political adviser and current White House deputy chief of staff, in the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s name.

• The cronyism allegations that Democrats would like to make stick to Republicans got a boost when Michael Brown quit under fire as director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency during the Hurricane Katrina response effort. While Brown was at FEMA, five of the top eight officials there were political appointees with little to no experience in emergency management. The four others are still on the job.

• The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking at Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist’s sale of his shares just before a sharp decline in the price of the stock in the company. Tennessee’s Frist, like the other Republicans under scrutiny, insists he has done nothing wrong.

• Abramoff is at the center of an ongoing investigation that, to date, has produced a six-count federal fraud and conspiracy indictment against him tied to his participation in the purchase of Florida casino boats in 2000. Abramoff, who has boasted of his ties to GOP and administration officials, has plead-

ed innocent. The fact that President Bush was elected in 2000 on a promise to return honor to the White House after the “morally bankrupt” Clinton administration makes what is happening now all the more ironic. But the scandals, the cronyism, and the simple fact that President Bush is not listening to the opinions of the citizens at all are not truly that shocking to people that have been closely following the Bush administration. President Bush does not have to listen to anyone. He is not up for reelection, and he is not being forced to compromise with anyone, because his party is controlling Washington. The fact that compromise is not necessary is clear when you look at some of the policies that the Bush administration is supporting, or not supporting as the case may be. After all , 66% of people support an immediate withdrawal of some troops from Iraq, which President Bush has said unequivocally will not happen. 73% of the American people say that they support cutting some of the $186 million dollars we spend every day in Iraq to pay for hurricane relief, which President Bush has also said we will not do. I’m sure as you read this you are

thinking that I am just another Democrat, whining about policies because it is not my party enacting them. I assure you this is not the case though. I truly believe that the only effective government is an ethical one. The only way the people of America will believe in what our government promises, and will want to participate in that government is by being able to trust the people who are working on their behalf.

President Bush and Rep. Tom Delay have a close personal relationship.

Dictionary.com says that favoritism is a display of partiality toward a favored person or group. Have you ever noticed this sort of behavior shown to certain people around school, your work or any other place? Just the other day I was walking down the hall to another room to pick up a paper I had just printed. On my way, I saw about three or four other people in the hall and I also saw a staff member patrolling the hall. I was watching the staff member approach every student in the hallway and ask him or her if they had a hall pass. As he approached me I was thinking, “I know that I don’t have a pass, what is going to happen to me?” As I approached, indeed I was asked if I had a pass. I said no and that I was just going to pick up a printout. I was O.K.’d and sent on my way. I picked up the printout and as I was on my way back to class, I noticed that the hallway was still under patrol. Before I made it to my class, a Senior football player rounded the corner. I slowed down thinking that he would be stopped too because there were no visible signs of a hall pass. The two of them made eye contact and the ques-

tion was popped, “Hey, how are you doing?” Student: “Pretty good, how about you?” I know what you’re thinking, “Why wasn’t the football player asked for a hall pass?” The only reason that I can give you is that the guy was a football player. And even though I hate to say it (well actually I don’t), we all know that some athletes get the “special treatment”. It seems like football is dominating the majority of the school and sometimes even the town. Every Monday at school, the most talked about subject is the football game played the past Friday. On Fridays, some football players think that they should be exempt from working because they have to play later in the evening. I’m not saying that all of the players are like this by any means. But there is always that handful of kids that get the attention. Shouldn’t academics be more important than any type of sports? I’m not exactly sure why anyone, especially athletes, would get special treatment of any kind. But it happens, and there’s not much we can do to stop it.