House Republican Promises can be Tracked

Now that the Republicans have control of the House of Representative, it should be our job to know their agenda and how they are going to implement it. Now instead of reading the Pledge to America, we have found all fifty promises on on PolitiFact.com from the St. Petersburg Times. I hope you all look at this link and then call your congressional representative if you agree or disagree with the Republicans plan. It should be an interesting two years. Enjoy!

Death of Bees:An Obvious Sign of Global Warming and the Over Use of Pesticides?

Yesterday The Guardian reported that a study from the University of Illinois that found out that the bee population in the United States dropped 96%. This is not shocking back in 2006 scientists started finding out about colony-collapse disorder. Colony-collapse disorder happens when the bees contract a virus and then die suddenly. This shocked many scientists, but what colony-collapse disorder would hurt the most is the U.S. farming industry which uses bees for pollination 90% of all crops. The economic impact of these crops not being produced would cause a loss of 15 billion dollars in the U.S. farm industry. 

According to the University of Illinois study they argue that two reasons why bees are dying off lack of genetic diversity and pesticides. The lack of genetic diversity comes from the inability of bees to move from hive to hive, or not being able to start new hives. As most high school biology classes teach their students, lack of diversity hurts a species population. When species diversity is non-existent, genetic mutations happens and usually these mutations have negative consequences to that species.

In addition to lack of genetic diversity the increased use of pesticides by agricultural industries and the public sector exploit this problem and cause an even faster decline in the bee population. Since bees are unable to adapt to the new climate reality and their range is limited, pesticides are affecting bees more. This is not good because most agricultural seeds are developed to resist most herbicides and pesticides, but the bees have not adapted and have became victims.

What we can do to help the bees are very obvious. If we cut our CO2 output, we can help the bees. By cutting our CO2 output slows the climate change and will give the bees a fighting chance. Another item that can be done is not use pesticides on your yards. There are natural pesticide alternatives that can be used that would have the same effect as the chemicals pesticides, but they would better for the environment. Another way to help the bees is to have more bee habitat. By making a bee habitat will allow the bees to move around, will allow them to intermingle with the other bee populations in the area. It is important that we will make sure this insect survives.

Overall, climate change and pesticides affect bees. The increase of CO2 in the climate with the warming temperatures have caused the decrease of the bee population. With the heavy use of pesticides in the United States, has not helped the bees survive.  We could be seeing the effects mentioned in Rachel Carlson's Silent Spring. We need to work together to make sure that the bees will not become extinct.

New Year New Technology for the Blog!

For some of our regular readers will see changes in the Common Civic Good. We have added another writer to the blog, we are now have a facebook page Common Civic Good, and we have opened up a Twitter account to be more mobile and to highlight some of our new stories. The goal of this is to allow our articles to reach the most people we possibly can. By using this technology we hope that we can move information faster and create connections with our audience to make the blog better.

If you have any ideas that you would like to see the blog do or any story ideas please tell us. We would love comments and we hope next year we will have more social interaction.

Thank you for reading and have a Happy New Year from the Common Civic Good.

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.