We had a wonderful 4th of July Republican Style walking with our float in three 4th of July parades, Towanda, Downs and Chenoa. There were a great number of walkers and so many Republican candidates taking part, such as State Senator Sally Turner, State Senator Jason Barickman, State Rep Dan Caulkins and State Representative Tom Bennett. A special thanks to Brandon Hepner and Kevin Lower who helped with logistics, and a shout-out to all the volunteers that walked with our County GOP float, and other entries for Gubernatorial candidate Darren Bailey, US Senate candidate Kathy Salvi, Secretary of State Candidate Dan Brady, County Board Candidates Vicki Schultz, Jerry Klinkner, Jim Soeldner, Bill Friedrich and Ross Webb. Together we can restore our state and protect our county.

McLean County Republican party chairman has released a statement in the wake of the Chicago 4^th of July shootings

In 1972, Republican President Richard Nixon established a permanent national observance of Father's Day to be held on the third Sunday of June. We celebrate Father’s Day on June 19th this year. 

This national observance provides everyone with a reminder of the importance of fathers. It also serves as a reminder and an opportunity to acknowledge and thank fathers everywhere for their contributions to their families and society.

Fathers play critical roles in their families – motivator, enforcer, encourager, trainer, and counselor. There is no doubt that children who grow up without a fatherly presence in the home are significantly disadvantaged. We know that children who grow up with absentee fathers often are more likely to end up in poverty or drop out of school, become addicted to drugs, have a child out of wedlock, or end up in prison.

Men bring traits to the family that mothers sometimes do not or cannot. It is said that men are often more logical, analytical, and rational, and that women are more intuitive, holistic, creative, and integrative. By being good role models in cooperation with mothers, fathers help their children to reach their maximum potential. 

Father's Day allows children to express love, appreciation, and respect for their fathers and acknowledge their essential roles in their children's lives. Expressing these sentiments helps strengthen the father-child relationship regardless of the age of the father or child.

There are many other types of fathers as well. God the Father, Founding Fathers, and spiritual fathers all play a vital fatherly roles in our lives. This Father's Day, let us not forget to affirm the goodness that our fathers of every type have shown us.

Let us not forget come election time that the Republican Party supports policies that affirm all fathers’ roles in our families, our country, and even our faith life.

Perhaps lost in the commotion of modern times and too much media, National Flag Day is June 14 of every year since 1916, when it was authorized by President Woodrow Wilson. Flag Day is a time to pause and reflect on the cause of our American Flag, the union standard. There are some communities in the United States that have a parade and special commemoration ceremony for honor to the flag. It stands above all others as true for freedom and liberty all around the world. The first American flag was officially designed by Francis Hopkinson, a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, though Betsy Ross gets the traditional honor for her famed service in the American Revolution against the British. Betsy’s grandson, William Canby, in 1870 made declaration that she should not be memorialized as the originator, though she still is. Old Glory was created with future posterity and never-ending expansion of American land with 13 stripes alternating red and white plus a white star in a field of blue. The 13 stripes represent the first 13 states, and each star as one state, sewn into the field of blue, as These United States. Our American Flag and "The Star Spangled Banner," as national anthem, coupled together are the best representation for political freedom and liberty that the world has ever known. We should all be thankful Old Glory still waves O’er the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. And forever hoping she waves for our children’s children.

In the ides of war, we demand victory, and They deliver victory. In the ides of peace, we demand vigilance, and They remain vigilant. In the ides of death we demand sacrifice, and They give sacrifice. 

But who are they?

It is “They.” They that come from the farthest fields, the smallest towns, and the densest cities. They that have many colored faces and many toned voices. It is They whose hearts and bodies bear the burdens of our nation’s thoughts and other nations' perversions.

From our homeland’s shores to distant beaches. From the ships at moor to those in the breaches. Through trench and range, fighting for right and for change.

They are known and unknown, but They are the shoulders, the giants that we stand upon.

In this last Monday of May, on Memorial Day, we remember They.

Republican President Abraham Lincoln delivered one of the most eloquent speeches in U.S. history at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery on November 19, 1863. The Battle of Gettysburg was the battle that turned the tide during the American Civil War. This three-day battle was among the bloodiest in American history. Lincoln’s words will forever resound throughout history as perhaps the greatest tribute to Americans who “gave the last full measure of devotion,” so that all people might live free. Reflect on the following words of our most noble president – words that apply just as much today to our fallen heroes as they did 159 years ago.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live.

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.