founding fathers

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House Dems Issue Report on 'the Gravest Dangers'

Democrats zero in on their target: President Trump

(Newser) - Previewing potential articles of impeachment, the House Democrats on Saturday issued a lengthy report drawing on the Founding Fathers to lay out the legal argument over the case against President Trump's actions toward Ukraine, the AP reports. The House Judiciary Committee findings don't make formal charges against Trump,...

6 Hairs in Library Book Came From Famous Head

That would be George Washington

(Newser) - You don't expect a hair-raising discovery to come from a book of population estimates for the American colonies, especially one with the boring title of "Gaines Universal Register or American and British Kalendar for the Year 1793." Yet buried in the volume kept on a library shelf...

This 1815 Jefferson Letter Could Be Yours

If you have $325K to spare

(Newser) - Hidden in the box of heirlooms were four sheets of paper, on which the writer threatened "eternal war" with England, compared the War of 1812 to the American Revolution, and lamented the downfall of Napoleon. Now, the 1815 letter written by Thomas Jefferson to then-US Ambassador to France, William...

Monroe's Humble Home Maybe Not So Humble

What we thought was his home may have been merely a guest house

(Newser) - History doesn't change. But our depth of knowledge and understanding of it certainly does. Case in point: the Virginia home of founding father James Monroe. People have long believed that the fifth US president lived in a modest, two-bedroom house at Highland, his homestead from 1799 to 1823 located...

School Slammed for Using 'Tea Party' History Books

Charter school is pushing religious propaganda, group says

(Newser) - Reigniting the church-and-state debate, a group in Washington is criticizing a charter school for teaching history with books embraced by the tea party movement, the Arizona Republic reports. Americans United for Separation of Church and State says the Heritage Academy in Mesa, Arizona, shouldn't be using two books by...

America Is Home to 1,513 George Washingtons

But he's not even close to claiming top spot for most popular founding father name

(Newser) - George Washington, America's first president, can claim 1,513 namesakes alive in the US today, according to a new WhitePages analysis , but that actually ranks fourth on the list of most popular Founding Father names. Second president John Adams tops the list with 9,893, while Revolutionary War financier...

It Might Be Time to Ditch 'Checks and Balances'
It Might Be Time to Ditch 'Checks and Balances'
OPINION
Dec 19, 2013 1:24 PM CST

It Might Be Time to Ditch 'Checks and Balances'

Peter Aldhous: Otherwise, don't expect DC's gridlock to change

(Newser) - The political gridlock in DC can't seem to get much worse, and public opinion polls about Congress can't get much lower. At Medium , Peter Aldhous runs through the usual explanations—partisan media outlets, campaign donations run amok, gerrymandering, to name a few—but he thinks those fed up...

Why Hot Dogs Are an All-American Food
Why Hot Dogs Are an All-American Food
OPINION
Jul 4, 2013 1:26 PM CDT

Why Hot Dogs Are an All-American Food

Bruce Kraig argues that the founders would have loved these things

(Newser) - Fact: The Founding Fathers did not eat hot dogs. They didn't exist at the time, and besides, "food connoisseurs Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin would have considered hot dogs to be the lowest of foods," writes culinary historian Bruce Kraig in the LA Times . But Kraig nonetheless...

The American Revolution Was a Failure

Historian Paul Pirie argues that the Founders fell short of their aims

(Newser) - Americans adore their revolution, but former historian Paul Pirie doesn't think it was terribly successful—at least not if you judge it against countries like Canada (from whence Pirie hails) that kept their monarchies, or by its own stated goal of advancing life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness....

White House to Texas: No, You Can't Secede

Texas, 7 other states told they're staying in the union

(Newser) - White House to Texas: You're staying in America. The Obama administration has officially rejected a petition signed by more than 125,000 people demanding that the Lone Star State be allowed to leave the union, the Houston Chronicle reports. Similar petitions from Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, North Carolina, South...

Do We Really Need the Constitution?
 Do We Really Need 
 the Constitution? 
OPINION
Dec 31, 2012 12:29 PM CST

Do We Really Need the Constitution?

Louis Seidman: Why should long-dead white men be calling the shots?

(Newser) - A Constitutional scholar has an announcement to make: That old document is obsolete. "Our obsession with the Constitution has saddled us with a dysfunctional political system, kept us from debating the merits of divisive issues, and inflamed our public discourse," writes Louis Michael Seidman in the New York ...

Individual Mandate: OK With Founding Fathers

Founding Fathers may have liked ObamaCare: Einer Elhauge

(Newser) - Health insurance mandates—unconstitutional? That's what the opponents of ObamaCare are arguing , "but there’s a major problem with this line of argument: It just isn’t true," writes Einer Elhuage in The New Republic . In fact, the founding fathers passed more than one mandate in Congress...

Bachmann: Let's 'Look at' Minimum Wage

Republican hopeful maintains founding fathers fought slavery

(Newser) - Michele Bachmann still thinks minimum wage needs a review—and she says John Quincy Adams was a founding father. Noting that Politifact says she’s gotten more “facts” wrong than any other GOP hopeful, George Stephanopoulos asked her if she wanted to “clear up” some past comments, like...

Misquoting Founders Is a Political Epidemic

You can't believe all you read online

(Newser) - Between the current interest in America’s founders and a “willingness to believe” the Internet, political misquotes are flying these days, writes David A. Fahrenthold in the Washington Post . A look over the past two years of C-SPAN and the Congressional Record shows that politicians—including congressmen, senators, and...

Sorry, Tea Partiers, You Don't Get All the Founders

Washington, Hamilton would have hated you

(Newser) - The Tea Party loves to claim solidarity with the founding fathers, as though they’d all endorse the current Republican agenda. (Remember this craziness ?) Well, not so fast, says historian Ron Chernow. “The truth is that the disputatious founders—who were revolutionaries, not choir boys—seldom agreed about...

Wacky Tea Party Candidate Loses Ala. Runoff

No more 'founding father' call to arms

(Newser) - Decidedly odd Alabama Tea Party candidate Rick Barber has lost his bid for Congress even though his "aw-shucks racism and incoherent rantings" turned him into an internet sensation, notes Gawker. Barber lost the runoff election to his far more traditional GOP rival Martha Roby, who faces Dem Bobby Bright...

Founding Fathers 'Kick Brit Ass' In Rap
 Founding Fathers 
 'Kick Brit Ass' In Rap 
HAPPY FOURTH, FROM JIBJAB
Jul 4, 2010 11:01 AM CDT

Founding Fathers 'Kick Brit Ass' In Rap

Create your own version

(Newser) - For your Independence Day time-wasting pleasure—and "because it's time to kick some Brit ass"—JibJab has updated its Founding Fathers riff with a 2010 take. Check it out above, or make your own version here.

Newt Gingrich: How America became a 'secular-socialist machine'
 Why Obama's Our Most 
 Radical President 
Newt Gingrich
Apr 23, 2010 11:55 AM CDT

Why Obama's Our Most Radical President

Chief executive runs a 'secular-socialist machine' from White House

(Newser) - Newt Gingrich is defending—and, in fact, repeating—his assertion that President Obama is "the most radical president in American history." Only those in the "cultural elite" could possibly view his administration as moderate, he writes in the Washington Post . It is a "secular-socialist machine,"...

Glenn Beck Calls 'Bullcrap' on Sarah Palin

He doesn't let her equivocate while naming her favorite founding father

(Newser) - Glenn Beck called "Bullcrap" on Sarah Palin's first answer when he asked her to name her favorite founding father. He interjected with the comment when she responded, "Well, all of them, because they came collectively together with so much,” notes Talking Points Memo . She eventually settled on...

Counting Blacks as 3/5? OK by Glenn Beck
 Counting Blacks 
 as 3/5? OK by 
 Glenn Beck 
CONSTITUTION ACCORDING TO ...
Dec 15, 2009 9:13 PM CST

Counting Blacks as 3/5? OK by Glenn Beck

Founding Fathers had abolition in mind, says pundit

(Newser) - Glenn Beck today put his spin on a provision in the US Constitution that once counted slaves as three-fifths of a person, painting it as a tool by which Northern abolitionists meant eventually to outlaw the practice. An African-American caller took issue with Beck’s reliance on the founding fathers,...

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