​Now that the Left and the media have aggressively exploited the latest teen-age fit concerning relinquishing their Second Amendment right, can we get back to some rational discussions concerning the matter, or even better, stop talking about guns at all?
 
I am referring to the recent protest supposedly put together by the five youngsters who survived that horrific Parkland FL school shooting. In my humble opinion, that whole Washington extravaganza, and subsequent “world-wide” marches seemed very well organized for children. Anybody wonder how they all could afford to go to Washington – who paid for that? Who paid for that giant stage and big sound system? Shouldn’t the media have tried to follow the money for all that?
 
Conversely, the media didn’t cover much about the people that marched in favor of keeping their Second Amendment rights the same day. Didn’t know about those marches? You wouldn’t have found much about this on “main-stream” media outlets, as it doesn’t seem to fit their agenda. If you dig deep enough into the internet you will find out about the other marchers.
 
I’ll bet you didn’t see any of the kids from Great Mills High in Maryland participating in the march on Washington, or anywhere else for gun control. If you missed the point – they were the unfortunate kids who also had a deranged young man show up with a gun at their school.
 
The MD shooter was upset about an ex-girlfriend. While I don’t know the details of that relationship, I do know I was on the wrong end of many a break-up from a young lady, so I am somewhat familiar with those emotions. I was heart-broken but never to the extent to execute one of them. Sadly, I am led to believe this is what some of our children consider justice in this day and age where morality and discipline have been replaced with complete societal breakdowns. The apt term is moral decay.
 
Anyway, the shooter got his shots off, injured one and sadly murdered his ex-girlfriend. Before he could do any more carnage, he was met by a brave school resource officer, Blaine Gaskill, who promptly shot the kid dead. The whole affair was over in 5 minutes. And we won’t have the cost of trial, therapy, housing, and feeding the perpetrator for the rest of his life.
 
So, let’s compare the two shootings, as they happened so close together chronologically. One deranged individual goes into a FL school, who has no officer brave enough to enter into a fray - or a whole department in the case of Broward county - and seventeen kids get murdered. And then a few days later a shooter goes into a Maryland school and is shot dead by a valiant officer before the spurned young man could kill more than one person. Just asking, but is there nothing to be learned from this?
Shortly after that, Texas had six bombings at the hands of another disturbed individual. People were killed and maimed. But there were no marches or stories to outlaw bombs. Wait, aren’t bombs already illegal?  How might that apply to confiscating guns?
 
On average, about 28 people per day are killed by drunk drivers. No march on Washington or breaking news reports by the bubble-headed-bleach-blondes to take away our automobiles. Hundreds of thousands of people are maimed and killed each year by drivers who are texting, mostly kids, yet there is no movement to take away cell phones. Maybe a law should be passed to disallow children cell phones until they turn 25. How would the Parkland activists react if we adults took away your cell phone for the next 7-8 years? 
 
Why are people so passionate about giving up their Constitutional rights? Here we have a whole generation of kids who weren’t taught history and civics to the degree they should have, and don’t realize that guns are to keep the government from taking away the rest of our rights, a recurring theme throughout history. The kids are then used as pawns by the Left to push forth their agenda of denying millions of us our rights. Hitler did that too. And the media becomes an amplifier big enough to make a rock band envious so as to push that same agenda. 
 
Science has proven that a child’s brain in not fully developed until around the age of 25 years old. (Well, in my case my wife says it was closer to 40) But the point is, why are we even listening to children ranting about things of which they do not have the wisdom and knowledge of most adults?
 
Yes, those kids experienced a horrible shooting - and I haven’t - but that doesn’t make them any more informed about what the ultimate solution might be. There are people under 25 that have been to fight in the Middle East wars, but nobody is asking them how to win the war either.
 
But have you ever asked yourself, why is the media fanning this anti-gun agenda while mostly hiding the opposition, and to what aim? This concerns the hell out of me.  
 

I'm certainly no accountant, but in my opinion the new Omnibus Funding bill in a word is…ludicrous. At best, it is illogical. At worst, outrageous. Those three terms were the most descriptive that could be utilized without using R-rated adjectives to emphasize my intent any further.
 
The fact that President Trump, as well as anyone in the House or Senate, signed it before they read all 2,232 pages tells you it won’t be good for the country. By country, I mean us tax-paying schmucks. Remember Pelosi's infamous Obamacare comment - "we need to pass this bill so we can find out what's in it?" How'd that work out for most everybody?
 
Congress waited until 24 hours before a government shutdown - again - to push this colossal pork-laden $1.3 trillion boondoggle down the throats of tax payers, then fled town for the weekend. The president signed it in order to a) fund our military OR b) to keep the government running, whichever highlight reel you saw.
 
The catch, it’s only good until October and then we get to do it all over again. That's what passes for budgets now with the current occupants of our governing bodies. Wait to the last minute, threaten to shut down the government, and then absurdly throw in a mountain of pork on a bill that we can't afford. No mention made of cutting any existing programs as a normal business might do when in debt.
 
Speaking of can't afford:
 
A country that is $20+ trillion in debt, increased spending over one hundred billion dollars. Take that, you spoiled grandkids.
 
Under the guise of giving our soldiers a raise, the defense budget was increased $61 billion. I'm all for giving those guys a substantial pay increase, but it will be interesting to see how much actually makes its way down to JI Joe in this deal, as opposed to fancy new toys doled out by defense contractors sucking up to his favorite Congressman. Didn't see any mention about helping the Veterans Administration either. 
​
Another $528 million given to the tax-exempt - and very profitable - Planned Parenthood to keep the US in the baby-murdering business. As Ronald Reagan quipped, “I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born.”

The IRS was handed an additional $196 million bucks for a variety of different reasons, which included hiring more people. That's just what we need, more IRS employees to collect more money from us and to replace the likes of Lois Lerner. This would have been more palatable had we just gotten her pension repealed or Al Sharpton's back taxes collected. 

What we didn't get:
 
A wall on our southern border, as was promised by candidate Trump. (So much for walling off California) The $25 billion that was requested was reduced to $1.6 billion, but with strings attached as to where walls or fences could be built Most of the money is for replacement purposes.
 
A repeal or defunding of Obamacare, thus ensuring that medical insurance costs will continue to spiral upward.
 
Sanctuary cities defunded. This means we will continue to send money to the 400+ cities that ignore Federal law and harbor undocumented Democrats, and tax us for that privilege.
 
Well, we tax-paying schmucks might have won on one item. It seems New York and New Jersey would like us to fund a portion of the $13 billion Gateway project to connect the two states with an underwater tunnel which supposedly will improve congestion. This is a pet project of NY Senator, Chuck Schumer. So, naturally, in a game of political gamesmanship, President Trump got it removed from the pork-laden bill. Wonder why he was not able to be so resourceful about projects he promised, such as the Wall, Obamacare, of sanctuary cities? I'm asking for somebody else.
 
And finally, $174,000 was awarded to Emily Minerva. Ms. Minerva is an heir, and more likely the eldest daughter, to recently departed Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY). The 88-year-old Congresswoman had been in Congress for over 31 years and was still there at the time of her death, demonstrating again the hallowed halls of Congress have become retirement homes.
 
Anyway, it seems Congress has a "customary" process of approving a full year's salary to a spouse or estate when a veteran lawmaker passes away. Pretty magnanimous on the part of DC politicians to hand out a year's salary, OF OUR MONEY, to the estate of a Congressperson, particularly on top of all the other benefits they hand themselves at our expense.
 
Score another one for the Swamp and their ominous Omnibus bills.
 

Is there anything that exemplifies how upside down our nation is more than the existence of “sanctuary cities?”  According to Wikipedia a sanctuary city…” refers to municipal jurisdictions…that limit their cooperation with the national government's effort to enforce immigration law.”

“Limit their cooperation.” Let that sink in a bit. Existing Federal laws are in in place and there are Governors and Mayors ignoring, scoffing, and in the case of California, making it a crime to comply with Federal law. (Didn’t South Carolina try that back in the 1860’s, and how did that work out for us?)

To put this in perspective, what if we were to elect a Governor who made Illinois a Federal-income-tax-sanctuary state? No resident or business of Illinois has to pay any Federal income tax, just pay Illinois, because our Governor decreed it. We could then double the tax in Illinois and nobody would care. That would be a good way to make the state of Illinois fiscally healthy again.

Launched in collectivist Europe, the practice migrated here in the early 80’s, mostly by clergymen who had the genuine interests of a few people at heart. It was noble then, but left mostly unchecked, it has morphed into chaos. Yes, there are people with legitimate humanitarian issues, and there should be some sort of “sanctuary” for them. But there are not twelve and a half million people with “humanitarian” issues. Some of them are nothing more than common thieves, thugs, and/or freeloading off taxpayers. Don’t go there with the “Dreamers” excuse either – they had nearly twenty years to become a legal citizen.

Spare me the tears Liberals and Democratic politicians! You could care less about illegal immigrants. Ten, fifteen years ago you were all lined up screeching to keep them out because they were taking American jobs. YouTube is littered with speeches from top Dems railing against illegal immigration. Your one and only reason is to get them on the government teat and dependent on the Democratic party. It’s an insidious way to grab and keep power. The very existence of the Democratic party depends on them.

Don’t believe that, look what Rahm Emanuel is doing in Chicago. Mayor-One-Percent knows he can’t depend on black voters due to hiding the video of the Laquan McDonald shooting. His white voters are always split in voting. Legal Hispanic voters will be in favor of an Hispanic candidate. So, now Emanuel is attempting to create a whole new class of voter to allow him to keep his hands on the wheel of the biggest city of the most oppressive state in the union.

In a “hold my beer” performance, hen-pecked, Illinois’ RINO Governor got in on the act. Last August, Governor Rauner signed a bill that prohibited state and local police from arresting anyone solely due to their immigration status or due to federal detainers. This, from supposedly a Republican.

While Liberals are protecting people here unlawfully, illegals are inflicting carnage on actual US citizens. The news is full of cases where people are getting shot or run over by illegals. Many are just ignorant of law and order. The MS13 gang, illegals mostly from San Salvador, have virtually become public enemy number one (behind Nancy Pelosi) in the Trump Administration.

To make it worse, most illegal immigrants are taking advantage of the safety nets US citizen taxpayers subsidized to have in place for actual disadvantaged US citizens. According to the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR), the total government expenditures (education, welfare, medical, etc.) for illegal immigrants is nearly $135 billion per year. Tax-paying illegal immigrants paid in about $19 billion of that amount. So, it costs US citizens about $116 billion per year. Our share in nearly bankrupt Illinois is about $3.2 billion per year. Folks nearing governmental pension eligibility might want to consider that number on the next trip to the voting booth.

If a person is here illegally, they have committed a crime. It is illegal to be here without proper documentation. What is difficult to understand about that? If you don’t like it, change the law. Do US citizens get a “mulligan” also when it comes to crime? If we commit our first crime and get caught, can we just have a do-over? Can we just skip a year of paying taxes? How many people are rotting in prison (again, on our dime) because of the third-strike law? Where was their “mulligan?”

Ironically, as I finished writing this commentary, news came in that California just appointed an “undocumented” immigrant to a state board to advise on student aid. I guess this proves my original point about the nation being turned upside down.

​So, the question hanging out there to sanctuary supporters…why do you favor illegals over American citizens?
 

I recently listened to my first podcast while driving home from the airport. I knew about podcasts, but never took the time to listen, as most of it just did not look interesting enough to turn off the news or classic rock on XM.
 
As it turned out, Spotify happened to be featuring podcasts from Paul Harvey. I loved to listen or read Paul Harvey stories when I was younger and, had frankly forgotten about his eloquent homilies. i saw him speak twenty years ago, along with several other speakers of note, and found him to be my favorite of the day. Who could forget his “Now You Know the Rest of the Story” series? Check out the episode on Kris Kristofferson.
 
If you are not familiar with Paul Harvey…why the heck not? Just kidding, please, no more hateful letters like those from the Billy Graham commentary. By the way, Paul and Billy were very good friends.
 
Paul Harvey Aurandt had a daily radio program for 56 straight years, carried by 1,200 radio stations, 400 American Forces Network stations and 300 newspapers. Mr. Harvey passed away in February of 2009 at the age of 90. He took with him perhaps one of the most brilliant, insightful and iconic personalities of the 20th century. A conservative social commentator, arguably on par with the likes of Will Rogers (both born in OK) and Mark Twain, he penned classic narratives, delivering them in a positive and inspirational manner, with a voice that seemed as smooth as butter. His oratories were like sitting beside a warm fireside listening to a favorite uncle.
 
The podcast I happened to stumble upon was one never heard before, or at least remembered by me. Granted, my wife tells me I had Cheerios for breakfast this morning, but I swear it was oatmeal, so there might be a chance I heard Mr. Harvey’s tale years ago and just forgot. Fortunately, this time the podcast ended just before I got home to the computer.
 
Anyway, the 48-minute speech was given at Kansas State University in Manhattan Kansas (where I was born) in September of 2003. Entitled “Freedom with Responsibility,” his message of no self-government without self-discipline, is every bit as appropriate and powerful today as it was fifteen years ago. The speech was packed full of light humor and anecdotes that kept the crowd interested and wanting more while absorbing his stout message of self-discipline by those who would be self-governed. That means us, folks.
 
Ironically, he mentioned in that same speech years ago, (here I paraphrase), “…because there is anarchy in the brains of a few looney birds, who don’t deserve to be free… a government without self-discipline will threaten to take our guns away. And down that road whole nations slide from regulation to regimentation to tyranny. “
 
This podcast prompted me to dig a little deeper into the life of Paul Harvey. A Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient in 2005, he was passionate about American history and the Founding Fathers. Did you know his own father had been a police officer but was murdered…while off duty? Paul was only three-years-old at the time.
 
It was somewhat distressing to me personally to find out Mr. Harvey had been friends with the morally deficient tyrants, J. Edgar Hoover and Joe McCarthy. He later denied being “friends” with McCarthy but did whole-heartedly advocate the eradication of communism from America. The connection with Hoover however likely got him out of a major scrape in 1951 when he snuck into and was subsequently arrested at the Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont IL, just to prove and report on their lax security.
 
Other celebrated talks included, “So God Made a Farmer,” Hard Work,” and “Letter from God.” Perhaps his most famous oration though was given all the way back in 1965, a piece entitled, “If I Were the Devil.” It’s only three minutes long. If you are not familiar with this message, I urge you to listen and consider how foretelling those words are a half-century later in the society in which we now live. If you have heard this speech before, perhaps you might want to listen again. It can be found at the link below. 
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaGVCO6CByQ
 
In Robert McFadden’s obituary in the NY Times on Paul Harvey, it was pointed out that he advocated individualism, patriotism, and a love for God. He detested welfare frauds, big government, political bureaucrats, overly lenient parents, leftist radicals, and the moral decay of America. He was rightly concerned about the national debt and he supported the death penalty. 
 
Hey, my wife could save that obit and use it for mine!  
 

Reverend Billy Graham passed away February 21, in NC at the advanced age of 99. What passes for legitimate news sources these days carried the funeral coverage, particularly FOX, as if a president or a deity had passed. There was even a televised motorcade, reminiscent of Kennedy’s some 55 years ago.

​Having never been a fan of televangelism, I didn’t know much about Mr. Graham. I had heard wonderful stories about him, but something inside me kept gnawing at me that the television coverage seemed surreal.
 
Mr. Graham was then taken to the Capitol Rotunda so his body could lie in state, only the fourth “civilian” to be bestowed the honor. This action is what actually drew my attention and led me to do some background research on the man, and to dive deeper into why he was bestowed honors none of us will ever know.
 
As for the other three “civilians” who have lain in state, they were Rosa Parks and two Washington DC policemen killed in the line of duty. Really! If you think about it, are any of those individuals worthy of such a high honor? Rosa, but not Martin Luther Kings, Jr? Two policemen out of the thousands that have died in the line of duty? Billy Graham, instead of your personal clergyman? Seems those folks that received the honor did so at the behest of someone else’s personal politics…at our expense. (If you notice, “at our expense” is a recurring theme to my commentaries.)
 
Further investigation of Mr. Graham revealed that he was probably a decent man, at least spiritually. He was certainly a captivating individual. I think he probably believed passionately in what he preached, so it may not be polite to speak of the dead. However, there are some facts that should be considered.
 
With the possible exception of John Kennedy, as he was Roman Catholic, it seems that Mr. Graham was a personal friend to every renown politician. If you’ve been reading my columns, you probably figured out I’m not much of a fan of most DC politicians, and the fact that Mr. Graham hob-knobbed with them all, going all the way back to President Truman, sort of rubs me the wrong way. For the record, it was said President Johnson was his best friend, which I personally find odd from a “man of God,” given LBJ’s coarseness.
 
As said earlier, I am no fan of televangelists. But an argument could be made that Mr. Graham spawned that entire industry. Considering the average salary of men of the cloth to be around $45,000, combined with the words expressed by Jesus himself, “…it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God,” the enormous wealth of televangelists just doesn’t compute in my brain.
 
Mr. Graham was worth twenty-five-million dollars at the time of his passing. Probably a modest figure considering what it could have been. And that figure ranked him only eighth for wealth by televangelists. His wealth is dwarfed by other “men of God” such as the obscene $760 million net worth of Ken Copeland, $100 million of Pat Robertson, or the $40 million worth of Joel Osteen. I just can’t get the picture out of my head of elderly widowed ladies on fixed incomes sending their tithings to these men so that Mr. Osteen can live in a $10.5 million mansion and fly on a personal jet.
 
Have you ever heard of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association? Neither had I. For all practical purposes, it appears to be a great charitable foundation, and I mean it no disrespect with my commentary. Mr. Graham’s son, Reverend Franklin Graham, runs this organization. He also oversees another wonderful charity called Samaritan’s Purse. His combined salary for the two organizations exceeds one million per year. While not earth-shattering, doesn’t that figure just give you a queasy feeling?
 
My commentary today is not to besmirch the memory of Mr. Graham. It appears he was a charismatic and historical figure. But worthy of all the pomp and circumstance, news coverage, and to practically shut down Congress? I don’t understand why President Trump allowed this to happen. It has all the feel of Washington DC royalty, aka the Swamp, versus us…on our dime.
 
As I told my son when he went off to college, thus exposing him to the brazen liberalness that is a college professor, when they speak on political matters, always ask yourself, “yeah, but who is paying for it?”
 
Perhaps Billy Graham should have been buried simply, like the rest of us.