Sloppy Oversite Hurts the Teaching of U.S. History in Virginia

Talking Points Memo and the Washington Post covered a story today about how the elementary history textbook Our America had many errors in it and according to some of the reviewers should be removed immediately from students. Some of these issues involve African Americans fighting for the South during the civil war, the United States entered World War I in 1916, and the first Europeans to explore the continent wore full suits of armor. All of these items are untrue. One historian, Mary Miley Theobald quoted in the Washington Post,  "Any literate person could have opened that book and immediately found a mistake."

Now a question that needed to be asked is how did these textbooks get into the hands of Virginia school children? In Virginia all text books have to go through a set of standards called Standards of Learning. The Standards of Learning are a set of standards indented to give students a full academic experience. These standards are good I have read all of the Third Grade History and Social Science  Standards and United States History to 1865 and they are legitimate. The United States History to 1865 standards reads like a college syllabus. So we can conclude that the standards did not create the problem.

The main problem that occurred came from the elementary textbooks to fulfill the Third Grade History and Social Science Standards. As the Washington Post article points out that all elementary school books are reviewed by elementary school teachers before entering into the class room. With some of the worst errors such as African Americans fighting for the South should have been spotted by the review committee or someone in the Virginia Department of Education. I just read the Wikiapedia article on African Americans in the Civil War and their article stated African Americans did not fight for the South. Simple fact checking should have found that error. The Virginia Department of Education should have had a historian of some degree, a Graduate TA, RA, a Professor, or a member of the Virginia Historical Society, double check the books. They did not and now some Virginia schools are stuck with an inadequate textbook.

Now though we cannot place all the blame on the Virginia Department of Education or the elementary teachers that reviewed the book. The publisher should also have to take the blame Five Ponds Press out of Weston Conn. They are the ones who published the textbooks in question. There are many flaws in their production of the material. A historian did not write the textbooks a random author with no historical authority wrote them. The book was not vetted by an independent historian validating that the text was factual and properly covered the material. An independent historian should have reviewed the text for quality and accuracy. If that did happen, most of these mistakes would have been caught.
As a historian having the facts is a important part of understanding history. Without those false narratives can be created and dueling views of the world can be promoted.  These ideas can be taken to the extreme and create an alternate view  of reality and create hate or misunderstanding that can be used to move an agenda. When history is used to move an agenda, it is more like propaganda than history. It is important for all parties in the production of any historical textbooks to go through them like a fine comb to find all the inaccurate claims.  If everyone works hard together, we as a society can produce texts that we can be proud of and teach our children an accurate version of history.

DADT Repeals Passed in the Senate 65-31

At 3 P.M. EST today the Senate passed the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell by a vote 65-31. Senator John Ensign from Nevada and Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina. This was increase of two Republican votes from the cloture vote. Now the bill will go to President Obama for his signature, which will happen since it was part Obama's goals told during his 2010 State of the Union. Below is the Democrat response to this historic day.

DADT Passes Major Senate Hurdle Thanks to Six Republicans

Today the Don't Ask Don't Tell leaped over the final major hurdle to passage. It passed a cloture vote today with a 63 to 33 in favor of moving the bill to vote. Six Republicans Scott Brown (R-MA), Susan Collins (R-ME), Olympia Snowe (R-ME), George Voinovich (R-OH), Mark Kirk (R-IL), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) voted in favor of the bill. This allows the bill to have an up or down vote. The possible vote will happen as early as 3pm today. After that it goes to the President for his signature, and after his signature he will implement the repeal. This is a great day to be an American.

Below is a link to CSPAN-2 so if anyone is interested they can watch the Senate proceedings.

Watch the Debate on CSPAN-2

A Conservative Activist Judge Strikes at Healthcare Reform

On Monday Judge Henry Hudson ruled in favor of  Virginia's Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli by agreeing that the Individual Mandate was Unconstitutional. This is an interesting ruling since two other judges have already dismissed the claims. His argument was that the Individual Mandate went passed what was intended in the Commerce Clause.  This ruling is pretty radical on all fronts. Not even conservative lawyer thought it was possible for this denial. George Washington University Law Professor Orin Kerr from the Volokh Conspiracy, claims that, "Given that existing Supreme Court caselaw gives the federal government a fairly straightforward argument in support of the mandate under the Necessary and Proper clause, Judge Hudson’s error leads him to assume away as a matter of “logic” what is the major question in the case." The statement by Kerr argues that with prior caselaw argues that if the Commerce Clause does not cover a law, that the Necessary and Proper Clause usually covers most laws of that magnitude.

Now the question that should be asked if a Conservative Lawyer like Kerr argued that Hudson made a mistake in his ruling, why did Hudson make this ruling? Talking Points Memo via Gawker  found information that Hudson had ties to  Campaign Solutions (a Conservative Public Relations Firm) that helped Congressional Republicans fight the Healthcare bill. Notable Congressional Republicans that used Campaign Solutions were future House Speaker John Boehner, Michelle Bachmann, John McCain, and Virginia's Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli.  John Boehner and Michelle Bachmann were extremely against the Healthcare bill, and Ken Cuccinelli from the state side has been leading a crusade against the Healthcare bill.  Overall Hudson was profiting from the idea of being against the Healthcare bill.

Now here comes the legal problem that arises from Hudson's ruling. We are not going to get into the specifics of the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause, because that is extremely higher than our pay grade, but we will look at if Judge Hudson should have recused himself  from this case. Reason's for recusing yourself from a case mainly are based if it is thought that the judge may show impropriety to a certain issue. What sort of impropriety should you avoid? The Federal Judicial Center has a list of the five basic canons that every judge should abide by. They are listed below.
The Code of Conduct for Judicial Employees provides as follows:

Canon 1: A judicial employee should uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary and of the judicial employee’s office.

Canon 2: A judicial employee should avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities.

Canon 3: A judicial employee should adhere to appropriate standards in performing the duties of the office.

Canon 4: In engaging in outside activities, a judicial employee should avoid the risk of conflict with official duties, should avoid the appearance of impropriety, and should comply with disclosure requirements.

Canon 5: A judicial employee should refrain from inappropriate political activity

From my reading of the Canons, I can tell there are three Canon's that Judge Hudson broke. It would be Canon 2, Canon 4, and Canon 5. Canon 2 was broken by Hudson when he took a case knowing that he had financial ties to the outcome of this case. Canon 4 was broken when he received his share of the profits from Campaign Solutions, a PR firm helping Republicans to stop healthcare reform, and did not see that as a conflict of interest and did not recuse himself from the case. Canon 5 is more difficult to argue, but if you look at a line taken from Judge Hudson's memoir and quoted in the Virginia Lawyer Weekly December 3, 2007 issue you find the evidence to support this claim. Hudson is quoted in saying,
 

“Campaigning for a federal judgeship is almost as challenging as running for political office,” he writes. “Rather than court voters, aspirants solicit endorsements from influential political activists with close ties to the senators, particularly the activists who raise the big money.


“That is where 20 years of active service to the Republican party, and helping in the various campaigns of each senator, paid dividends and gave me the edge[.]”

This a clear argument that Hudson thinks being a judge is just as important of a job dictating legislative policy similar to a Congressional Representative. That train of thought breaks Canon 5.

Overall, Judge Hudson overstepped his bounds as a judge. He did not give an impartial ruling, or recuse himself from the case because of the huge conflict of interest he had with the case. Also, he did not take into account of the other rulings by the other Federal judges who already ruled against the plaintiffs, which upheld the current healthcare law. To say the actions by Judge Hudson were based on legal scholarship is wrong when some of the best conservative legal minds disagreed with him. Only one logical conclusion can be made that his ruling was a pure political ruling. Judge Hudson did not look at past caselaw, but decided to blaze a new trail with his legal decision.

 

Bernie Sanders the One Man Filibuster

Today Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is filibustering the Obama Tax Compromise on the floor of the Senate today. This is the exciting to see an actual filibuster and not a threat of a filibuster. I hope this challenge by Senator Sanders wakes up the American People and Congress to not pass this Compromise. For your enjoyment here is the link.

http://www.c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN2.aspx/

Updated
Senator Sanders filibuster lasted 8 1/2 hours. He ended it at about 6:30 EST. I am still looking for a video of the whole thing, but here are the first twelve minutes of it from his website.




We at the Common Civic Good would like to personally thank Bernie Sanders the Senator from Vermont for fighting for the working people of America.
 
Below here are the links to Senator Sanders website and his Youtube page.
 
http://sanders.senate.gov/
http://www.youtube.com/user/SenatorSanders

Congress in Defiance: Congressional Democrats and Republicans Saying No to the Obama Tax Plan

Two days ago, the Obama Administration presented a bipartisan plan to stop the gridlock on the Bush-era Tax Cuts and created a tax compromise with Congressional Republicans. This compromise; would extend all of the Bush-era Tax Cuts for all income levels for two years, index the alternative minimum tax for inflation, drop the estate tax down from 45 percent to 35 percent on all income above five million dollars, an extension of Unemployment Benefits for all that apply, a payroll tax holiday of 2 percent, an extension of all tax credits, would allow businesses to write off their capital improvements, and also allow business to keep a research and development tax credit. Overall, with this plan, everyone wins, but this does not help the country to become more fiscally responsible, help the people in the greatest need.


The cost of this plan would be 990 billion dollars. That is 171 billion more than the Stimulus spending in back in 2009. Republicans back then and during the 2010 general election argued that the Stimulus spending was a waste of taxpayer money. In article published in August of this year at the Brookings Institute Senior Fellow Gary Burtless argued, "there are many indications that these policies have been successful in achieving
their intended goals." The tax compromise though, does not look like a policy that will help all Americans.

Today in the Huffington Post Jason Linkins reports that wage earners that make between 20,000 and 40,000 dollars will see an increase in their taxes due to the reduction of available tax credits for that income bracket. While the richest people get the greatest benefit. For example, the richest Americans will benefit from the tax cut, the estate tax, and benefit from the payroll tax holiday. Granted the poorer Americans will receive the payroll tax holiday, but their benefit from the tax holiday is smaller than the lost tax credits.

Overall, the Obama Tax Compromise should not be passed. Obama administration made the best compromise possible with Congressional Republicans, but the problem is that the rich get richer while the poor become the pawns for the powerful. Obama promised during the 2008 election that he would not extend the Bush-era Tax Cuts for the wealthiest. This compromise breaks that promise and should not be supported by Congressional Democrats.

It would be for the best for Congress to reject this plan, because what the nation will give up will hurt us in the end. Example this plan increases the deficit by 990 billion dollars over two years. This plan is supported by Republican leadership, which argued that by electing them they would help cut the deficit. This plan does not do that. If Republicans are serious about deficit reduction, they need to vote against the plan.

Compromise is a great item and should have been used more often during the 111th Congress. Unfortunately, though, this is not one of those times. A new plan needs to put on the drawing board that limits the impact on the deficit, but does the greatest Common Civic Good.

House Democrats Finally Showing Some Backbone

Today the leadership of the House Democrats announced that they will proceed with a vote on extending the Bush-era tax cuts for wage earners that make less than 250,000 dollars. This is a major step forward made by the Democrats. Instead  allowing the cuts to expire or having the Republicans bully them into extending the cuts for all wage earners, they finally showed some backbone. They are following through with the President's promise to only extend the cuts to people making 250,000 dollars of less.

The problem that arises from this move by the House Democrats is that Republican Minority Mitch McConnell (Ky)  stated that that Republicans in the Senate will not take up any legislation unless all of the Bush-era tax cuts are extended for all wage earners. This means that the tax cut extension to the middle class will be delayed or will possibly not get passed. With the Senate bogged down with the possible incoming battle on who will have their tax rate extended, the outlook of other possible legislation passing  through the Senate during lame duck session is minimal. The problem with this is that many things that the American people want are stuck in the Senate.

For success in the lame duck session both houses of Congress need to go to work and stop playing political games. Political games will not lead to success in passing any legislation that will help the American people. Overall, Senate Republicans need to learn that they need to compromise instead of playing hard ball.