A pleasant surprise in Bollinger County

One of the more pleasant surprises I've had in recent years was at the end of a 45-minute drive to Marble Hill to tour the Mayfield Cultural Center and the attached "Dinosaur Museum."

I've noticed events scheduled there for years and my wife, Wendy, and I set out one recent Saturday morning to what turned out to be an enjoyable experience, which I recommend.

They have a cafe open Wednesday to Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. (Call 573-238-8515 to confirm).

The food was good -- served by a hometown friendly staff.

Currently there is a gift and jewelry display that is exceptional.

But the real surprise was the "Dinosaur Museum." The cleanliness of the carpeted rooms with a separate room for some of artist Tom Runnels' metal sculptures and drawings made the trip memorable.

Additional Indian memorabilia and conservation displays made the pleasant drive through the rolling hills of Bollinger County worth our time.

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Birthright citizenship facts

• At least 400,000 babies are born in the United States every year to illegal immigrants. Over 10 years that adds up to about 4 million people gaining citizenship by birth.
• All of these babies are U.S. Citizens.
• The hospital bills for these births are almost always paid by U.S. taxpayers.
• While illegal immigrants themselves do not qualify for welfare, they can obtain Medicaid and food stamps on behalf of their U.S.-born children. Findings of one study show that "nationwide, 40 percent of illegal alien-headed households receive some type of welfare."
• No European country grants birthright citizenship. Britain and Australia ended it in the 1980s. Ireland and New Zealand ended it in the last few years.
• A booming birth tourism industry has sprung up, with fees up to $60,000. In 2012, about 10,000 Chinese women came to the U.S. to give birth, according to Chinese government sources.

Source: The Heritage Foundation

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Many would be surprised to learn that a border security fence or wall was not already in the Republican platform. After all, President George W. Bush signed the Secure Fence Act, which Congress passed in 2006 with the support of many Democrats including then-Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

In the 10 years since Bush signed that law in a staged photo-op, the government has actually built only 36 miles of secure double fencing instead of the 700 miles authorized by that bipartisan, high-profile law. As a result, our southern border is penetrated daily by wave after wave of drug smuggling, human trafficking, people with incurable or infectious diseases such as the Zika virus, and even Muslims and Chinese people who somehow made their way to Mexico.

Excerpt from "The Phyllis Schlafly Report"

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Good Quotations by Famous People

• "The full use of your powers along lines of excellence." -- definition of "happiness" by John F. Kennedy (1917-1963)
• "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." -- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)
• "Whether you think that you can, or that you can't, you are usually right." -- Henry Ford (1863-1947)
• "Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws." -- Plato (427-347 B.C.)
• "The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it." -- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
• "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." -- Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

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Covering Up the $1.3 Billion Payoff to Iran

The details of how the administration did this are being treated like a state secret. The topic erupted at the State Department's daily briefing on Tuesday and Wednesday. That was after Claudia Rosett reported in the New York Sun that the administration made 13 transfers of $99,999,999.99 each.

Those payments add up to 13 cents shy of $1.3 billion. They were made Jan. 19, two days after President Obama announced he'd cut a deal with the mullahs for $1.7 billion to avoid an adverse judgment at a court in The Hague.

We know, thanks to the Wall Street Journal, that $400 million of that was made in foreign currency, loaded on wooden pallets and delivered in a special cargo plane and functioned as a ransom payment to the mullahs, who had been holding a group of Americans hostage.

The remaining $1.3 billion only started to come into focus when Rosett discovered the 13 transfers totaling $1.3 billion on a Treasury Department website related to the judgment fund.

She sees no other explanation than that the payments, which went from Treasury on behalf of the State Department, were to cover the Iran

settlement.

-- Seth Lipsky, New York Post

Gary Rust is chairman of the board of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian, as well as a member of the editorial board.