​Over the past few years we've seen a concerted effort to change our society by the chipping away at the time-honored traditions, that had been handed down to us by our founding fathers since the beginning of our republic over 230 years ago.

Is this change, that is occurring now, for the good or for the bad? To some, our society needs change to keep abreast of the changing views and times, while to others, it is a step back by worsening our manner of dealing with each other. To me, it seems that the “change” people are slowly winning the battle, but, in the end, it is our society that will forever lose the war if they succeed.

This change is not happening overnight, but it is a process of little by little, drip by drip, a change here and a change there, and before we know it, our country will have been “changed” without us even being aware of it and whether or not we like the change or not, but we will
be stuck with it.

Under attack by the “change” people are staples like our Constitution, traditional marriage, drug use, sexual orientation in the military, the intrusion of the government into every aspect of our lives, the dialogue between competing differing political factions which has become very strident and vicious, and the rise of that insidious social disease of “political correctness”. These attacks seem to be emanating mostly from the liberal-left part of the political landscape. This also seems to correspond with the pronouncement by Obama, during the
campaign of 2008, that he was going to bring about the “total transformation of America” whether we wanted it or not, because he and his erstwhile Marxist/Socialist friends (a/k/a Progressives) knew what was best for the country.

As the late former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan once coined the phrase “defining deviancy down” (which signified that the public is being cajoled into tolerating the intolerable), some of our public officials are openly antagonistic toward our countries local law enforcement agencies (mainly the police and I.C.E.), religions (ex. the recent flap over government mandates for contraception and abortion and Christian values as exemplified by V-P Pence), some are against our enforcement of our immigration laws, some want to legalize drugs, and some encourage public disruptions like the Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, ANTIFA mobs, and the mobs in Ferguson, Berkeley and Baltimore. In addition, there is a big push by liberal activist groups to promote the homosexual lifestyle in general, and same sex marriage in particular (sometimes referred to as the “Gay Mafia”). If you voice an opinion against any of those radical changes you will be labeled a racist, a Fascist (Nazi), a homophobe, a bigot, and any other vile epithet these loons will conjure up to try to shut you up. They really, in their heart, want to get rid of the 1st Amendment (along with the 2nd Amendment).

When President Obama was inaugurated in 2009 and during his presidency, he said he was going to be a “uniter” not a “divider”, but ever since that time we, as a nation, have become more polarized on many of the “hot button” issues of our time. Instead of calming the storm of disagreement, he and the anti-Trump fanatics, including the main stream media, have made the atmosphere more hostile and divisive than ever before by stoking the flames of “class warfare” by demonizing the so-called “rich” and people with a conservative philosophy. This was the major theme of the recent election and aftermath by the Democrats and the anti-Trumpers (including some establishment Republicans). The Democrats in both 2016 and 2018 were not able to champion their record of achievements because there wasn't any to speak of, so the policy of the “politics of personal destruction” was instituted to stir the pot of personal turmoil. This was right out of the Saul Alinsky playbook, “Rules for Radicals”, which Obama used as a textbook when he taught constitutional law as a lecturer at the Univ. of Chicago and when Hillary wrote her college thesis on the life of Saul Alinsky. The Democrats seem to have adopted those tactics of Alinsky as they unmercifully savage President Trump on an almost daily basis. Since Obama's 8 years in office and the present “resistance movement” against Trump since his election, the war on our culture has been sped up as more and more radicals have been elected to office under the Democrat banner.

That's why this past election and the presidential election of 2020, is so important to the survival of our culture and of our country. Let's hope we can survive the next two years. We must challenge the radical left policies and tactics of Pelosi and Schumer and the Progressive
movement, and not give up, the future of our children and grandchildren are at stake as well as that of our country.

Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmann

To listen to the Democrats, the next worse thing to ISIS (and to some, climate change), and the terrorist Muslims in Syria and Iraq, and Afghanistan, are the wealthy individuals in the United States of America. They keep harping on the erroneous fact that that the rich don't pay their “fair share” in paying income taxes and that they are greedy besides, and have become rich on the backs of the poor. Is it true that the rich don't pay their “fair share” of income taxes?

As former Democratic candidate for president, Al Smith ( in 1928) once said, “Let's look at the record”. According to the 2014 (which is still valid today) non-partisan Tax Foundation report, the top 1% earns 19% of the gross national income and pays 38% of all federal taxes. The top 5% earns 34% and pays 59%. The top 10% earns 45% and pays 71%. The bottom 50% pays just 3% of federal tax. If that isn't “soaking the rich”, I don't know what is? Shouldn't everyone have a dog in the fight by paying something to the government?

It is true that during the 8 years of the Obama Administration, the rich had gotten richer and the poor and middle-class had remained stagnant or had lost income, mainly due to the run-up of the stock market, which the rich were heavily invested in. The spending policies and the regulatory policies of the Obama Administration, and the low interest rates of the Federal Reserve, had also contributed to this income gap. The only economically sound way to have stopped this difference in income differential was to get the economy stimulated with policies that would encourage entrepreneurship so that we could produce more jobs, and in return generate more tax revenue to the federal treasury, so that we could reduce the burden of taxation on the upper and middle-class taxpayers. The policies of the Obama Administration did not work for most people, and change was needed (not the hope and change “snake oil” promoted by Obama) to get us back on the right economic track. President Donald Trump, before and after his election, proposed a reform of our tax system to make it easier for people to pay their taxes and to reduce the rates that all taxpayers were paying. Those reforms were passed and signed by Trump, and our economy has responded upward as was predicted. Obama said it wouldn't happen. Egg on his face. 

But, with the inexperience of former President Obama in economics, and his lack of sound fiscal and administrative knowledge, he seemed to have had a “tin ear” as to what was needed to get our economy booming again. The voters had the chance in 2016 to elect a real “money man” of fiscal integrity in Donald Trump, and they voted him president. Much to the chagrin and dismay of the political establishment of both the Democrats and the Republicans. That was the forerunner of the “total resistance”, these past two years, by the Democrats and the “never-Trumpers”.

The semi-Marxist/Socialist plan, espoused by President Obama (and the Democrats), did not get us out of our stagnating economy during his 8 years in office. He preached “income redistribution” by blaming the wealthy of not doing their “fair share” to contribute to the government's revenue. Without the wealthy class paying the vast majority of the income taxes, we'd be in a much greater financial bind than we are in right now, approaching $22 trillion in debt. Even the “evil” Koch Bros., as the Democrats like to call them, have a company that employs over 67,000 workers at better than average wages, yet they are vilified as being un-American by the Democrats, and some have even claimed that they should be jailed for being so “rich”. What, for being successful and wealthy? Are the Democrats that out of touch with reality or what? Even today, the newly elected self-proclaimed socialist, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, has proposed raising the income tax rate on wealthy people to 70%, as she follows the dictates of her tutor, Bernie Sanders, another born-again socialist. It looks like both of them missed the Economics 101 class in college.

We need many more Koch Bros., and other millionaires and billionaires, in order to keep our economy moving upward like it is now going. The Democrats and the Liberals should stop demonizing the wealth creators for purely partisan political purposes. They are the job creators. Remember, most all of us were never hired by a poor person. The old adage that “one should not bite the hand that feeds you”, certainly applies in this case.

So, the answer to this editorial's headline is - YES - the rich do pay their “fair share” and we do need more people to get a well paying jobs so that we can continue get out of the economic malaise that the Obama Administration had kept us in for 8 years. We should all strive to become millionaires and billionaires, as it would be good for our country and to the entire world. Instead of “sharing the wealth” by taking from the rich and giving to the poor (the Robin Hood syndrome) in the form of handouts and financial government “goodies”, in order to gain votes by the recipients of those “goodies” at election time, we should be promoting the “sharing the opportunity” for all to succeed and achieve financial success. That's the American way. A hand up instead of a handout is what will make America great again. The economic policies of President Trump, during his first two years in office, the GDP averaged between 3% and 4% as compared with the GDP under Obama, that averaged less than 2% during all of his 8 years. All have benefited under the Trump economic policies and that includes the middle-class as well as the wealthy, who are still paying 70% of all income taxes, while over 45% pay no income taxes at all.

Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmann

To listen to the Democrats (or is it now Progressives), you'd think that money grows on trees. Free this, free that, and you have the platform of the Democrats/Socialists. Money is no object to them if it means generating votes. It's “deja vu” Robin Hood all over again.

Look around you, two of our most populous states (California and New York) are losing population, mainly among the taxpaying upper and middle-class, and are absorbing poor, uneducated, non-taxpaying people to replace them (including illegal aliens). Notwithstanding their economic woes, these states and cities are proposing free healthcare for all (including to illegal aliens), free college tuition, and a mandated $15 minimum wage. When asked how they will pay for it, they say it is not a problem, and that the “rich” will pay for it. It seems that the new Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, the Mayor of New York City, Bill DeBlasio, and the Governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, have taken the mantle of Robin Hood and have
taken it to the extreme.

With the less than adequate results from the ill-conceived Obamacare, these three “illiberal” advocates, by offering freebies to the masses, are running their states into bankruptcy, and are emerging as the face of the modern Democrat Party. Most all of the states and cities who are financial “basket cases” are run by the Democrats. Runaway public worker pensions, granted as political payback to the unions, have most of these governors and mayors scrambling to generate revenue to meet these outrageous agreements that they had given to their public employees. When many state and city retirees make upper six-figure pensions, you know that bankruptcy is in the future of these states and cities, yet the voters continue to elect the same people who have gotten them into this mess. As H.L. Menken once said, “Never underestimate the intelligence of the American people”. Touche.

The answer by some of the newly elected politicians, representing the far-left, is to propose raising the taxes on the “rich” (the very entrepreneurs and business men/women who supply the jobs). Little do they realize that by over taxing the rich, they still will not be able to meet their financial obligations. Then, as it has happened in the past, those feckless politicians will have to after the middle-income people and tax them to get the funds for their retirees and the overly generous welfare programs they have instituted. It is in the middle-class where the money is, not in the over-taxed wealthy class (the top 10% of all taxpayers pay 70% of the income taxes now). When this happens, as in New York and California, the taxpaying citizens vote with their feet and move to tax-friendlier states and cities, and who fills their places in those states and cities, poor and non-taxpaying citizens and illegal aliens. That's why two of the no income tax states of Florida and Texas are booming (by the way both states are run by
Republicans).

The prevalence of people praising the economic tenets of socialism, which is promoted in our schools and colleges (and by socialists Sen. Bernie Sanders and that airhead , Rep.Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), are aiding in this problem by filling the heads of these young people with erroneous economic information. These feckless politicians, who only want power and will do anything to get elected or re-elected, will promise the naive ill-informed voters, freebies from the public treasury so they will be able to “suckle on the teat of Uncle Sam” in exchange for their vote. The old expression that “there's no such thing as a free lunch” certainly applies here.

​Robin Hood was a mythical character from the past, who took from the rich to give to the poor, let's hope, that mindset, doesn't become the way of the future in the U.S.A. We don't want to become the next Venezuela or Cuba.

Conservative commentary by Chuck Lehmann

‎In order for you to put idiots in office, you'll need a supply of idiots to vote them in. Sadly, the new face of the Democratic party seems to have a cache of them being used successfully, considering how many we have representing us in Washington. A degree in logic isn't needed to understand what is going on that caused the partial shutdown of government.

The other day, I witnessed a kitchen helper trying to empty a wide mouth container of its contents into a narrow necked receptacle. The contents spewed all over the floor. When handed a funnel, this inept worker was able to fill it with nary a loss of a drop.

Our southern border is like that wide mouth container, uncontrollable. A substantial barrier will act like that funnel, directing the flow in a controllable manner, able to filter undesirables.

The stalemate is due to too many insincere individuals who falsely want a secured border while advocating open borders, claiming diversity is good. Diversity is good only when it adds to, not swallows our American and Judeo/Christian values. A large portion of today's so called emigrants are not the same as the ones, like my parents and yours, who passed through the gates of Ellis Island. Many do not want to assimilate into our culture, but demand we accept and adopt theirs. They suck up whatever they can get right away before they will give anything in return, except their middle finger. Many want in to do us harm; 1993 World Trade Center bombing, 9/11, Boston Marathon bombing, etc. and many that have been thwarted.

The President stayed in town over the holiday, waiting to have dialogue with any Democrat, with no avail to get 800,000 government workers back to work, while the Left, left on vacation. Then went to Puerto Rico to be entertained by a hundred 
 lobbyists. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is trying to divert the President from advising the country the "State of the Nation" and shutting the door on 'Angel Mothers" who lost their children to illegal intruders before trying to hop on a plane for a week of P.R. and photo ops while the idle government workers are wondering how they will pay the rent or feed their family without a paycheck.
​
 You don't leave the roast in the oven to go do something else.

Conservative Commentary by George Giftos​