


The First Amendment to our Constitution was proposed by the 1788 Virginia ratification convention during its narrow 89 to 79 vote to ratify the Constitution. Virginia's resolution held that the free exercise of religion, right to assembly and free speech could not be canceled, abridged or restrained. These Madisonian principles were eventually ratified by the states on March 1, 1792.

The favorite leftist tool for the attack on our nation's founding is that slavery was sanctioned. They argue that the founders disregarded the promises of our Declaration of Independence “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Frederic Bastiat, a French economist and member of the French National Assembly, lived from 1801 to 1850. He had great admiration for our country, except for our two faults -- slavery and tariffs. He said: “Look at the United States. There is no country in the world where the law is kept more within its proper domain: the protection of every person's liberty and property.” If Bastiat were alive today, he would not have that same level of admiration. The U.S. has become what he fought against for most of his short life.

Democratic socialist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, seeking to represent New York's 14th Congressional District, has called for the abolition of the Electoral College. Her argument came on the heels of the Senate's confirming Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. She was lamenting the fact that Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, nominated by George W. Bush, and Justices Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, nominated by Donald Trump, were court appointments made by presidents who lost the popular vote but won the Electoral College vote.


Once again, MSNBC prominently featured former Obama administration official Jeremy Bash as a nonpartisan intelligence analyst with an appearance on Wednesday’s The 11th Hour. Host Brian Williams swooned over Bash as an “institutionalist” while Bash warned that the Trump-Russia story “is a huge crisis” threatening “our Madisonian system of checks and balances.”

What would the Founders think of presumptive President-elect Donald Trump’s electoral vote victory, earned in the face of a popular vote loss? Hint: It’s not what many media commentators would have you believe. We can find a small clue to the Founders’ feelings in something Benjamin Franklin said as he left the Constitutional Convention. As delegates departed from the old Pennsylvania State House, a Philadelphia matron saw Franklin and called out: “Doctor, what have we got, a Republic or a Monarchy?” Franklin’s response was quick and memorable: “A Republic, if you can keep it.”


In a commentary masquerading as a news brief, CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley took multiple shots at Indiana and its Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) on Tuesday by complaining about the bill’s length and indirectly using the First Amendment to support opponents of the law: “We may have found the reason for all this confusion.” He complained it contains “eleven paragraphs, 62 lines, and 832 words” and then thumbed his nose at lawmakers by saying that “James Madison did more in 16 words” in writing the First Amendment.

