Lugar Lebensraum Law Needed

Lugar Lebensraum Law Needed
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
March 28, 2012

Hoosier or not, Senator Richard Lugar has admirably represented the citizens of Indiana in the nation’s Upper House since taking the oath of office in 1977, and once again faces the voters seeking a seventh six-year term.

Hoosier or not? How is that even a question? When people think of Indiana, they think of basketball, the Indianapolis 500 and Dick Lugar.

Not so fast, folks. The Marion County Election Board in a strict party line 2-1 vote on March 15, determined that the Lugars, both the Senator and his wife Charlene, are not eligible to vote in the precinct using their former address on Highwoods Court from the time when Dick Lugar was elected to the United States Senate. This was initially reported in the Indianapolis Star (www.indystar.com).

The back story is that upon taking office in the nation’s capital, the Lugars sold their home on Indianapolis’ Westside and have lived in their McLean, VA house ever since. While most elected senators and congressmen have a local residence in the state they represent as well as in the DC area, Lugar’s lone real estate connection to Indiana is a Marion County farm. The farm, located in Decatur Township is owned by Lugar and his siblings, but tenants are renting the house on the property.

However, the Highwoods Court address is still listed on the Lugars’ driver’s licenses and they continue to vote in the precinct where the home they no longer own is located.

The state constitution actually permits those people representing Indiana to retain such a residency while absent from the state. The Star editorial of March 16 called the residency issue “nonsense,” as Lugar is a native Hoosier who served on the Indianapolis school board and was elected mayor of the city prior to ascending to the United States Senate.

What is not nonsense is that any resident of Indiana, public or private, should be allowed to declare a residency that truly is not their home. That smacks of voter fraud all day long. Someone else owns and lives in the Highwoods Court home formerly owned by the Lugars. How can they claim it is their legal residency and vote under that address?

Consistency is needed between the Indiana Election Commission that allows Lugar to seek reelection and the Marion County Election Board that has denied the Lugars the right to vote in the former home precinct.

The Lugar Lebensraum Law ought to be passed declaring it illegal for any person to claim residency on a property they do not own or rent. Furthermore, candidacy for public office should be denied to anyone not a legal resident of the state of Indiana. It would seem to be common sense, but then again…

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.

This column appeared on: http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-indianapolis/sanford-horn

Obama Should Do His Own Homework

Obama Should Do His Own Homework
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
March 22, 2012

Coming to a public school near you – your children are enlisted as political operatives?

Be careful, parents, if you are not paying attention to the curriculum and the assignments thrust upon your children in their social studies or American history classes, the continued far-left indoctrination will march on unfettered.

Although the case of Liberty Middle School teacher Michael Denman occurred in Fairfax County, Virginia, it is not unimaginable that such a situation couldn’t occur in your local school district whether in a red or a blue state.

Denman ordered his eighth grade students, typically ages 13 to 14, to research the Republican candidates running for president, determine what their weak spots are, and write a report detailing how best those weaknesses could be exploited by the Obama reelection campaign, as initially reported in The Daily Caller. http://dailycaller.com/2012/03/22/va-middle-schoolers-assigned-to-do-oppo-research-on-gop-candidates/

While there was no debate over that aspect of the assignment, there was conflict concerning whether or not the students were required to submit their findings to the Obama reelection campaign committee. The class assignment called for such a submission, while Fairfax County Public Schools spokesman John Torre said sending the report of the GOP candidates’ vulnerabilities was not required.

Unfortunately, there was no condemnation of the nature of the assignment in the first place coming from Torre, nor was there any disciplinary action meted out against Denman for such a clearly one-sided assignment.

Denman’s attempt to take advantage of his position of authority over impressionable youths with an assignment of unmistakable bias is part of what is wrong with the public schools today. In fact, by having his students research one side of the aisle, Denman, a civics honor’s teacher at Liberty Middle School, has gone contrary to the school’s name as such an assignment limits people’s liberty.

Research is certainly a productive teaching tool for students. However, vet all the candidates; hold a school assembly with students debating the issues while representing the candidates. Decorate the school with posters and banners, then, hold a mock primary in the spring and a mock general election in the fall. Having taught socials studies and American history, these are successful, hands-on teaching tools.

Let this be a teachable moment for Mr. Denman, who should face some measure of discipline. Other teachers have been punished for lesser offenses.

Indoctrination in the public schools, which happens far too often, typically goes unchecked. Share an opinion if students ask, but clearly state that is precisely what it is – an opinion that does not require agreement. This is a cautionary tale for teachers and schools across the fruited plain.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.

This column appeared on: http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-indianapolis/sanford-horn

Fed Gov't Taking Food From Needy

Fed Gov’t Taking Food From Needy
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
March 18, 2012

Last week the federal government once again overreacted, stretching its hand far beyond where it ought, punishing American citizens in need at a time when need is at its height since the Great Depression.

While the state of the economy continues slumping, and people are in dire need of food, the Obama administration is pulling the plug on federal aid to Community Provisions in Seymour in Southern Indiana’s Jackson County simply because the director, Paul Brock asks clients if they wish to pray with him.

Brock said he does not require anyone to pray with him in order to receive the food they need in such trying times. Yet, Brock indicated that many who arrive at the pantry do, in fact, pray with him simply because of the predicament in which they find themselves – unemployed, underemployed, homeless or simply unable to provide for their family this week and they believe in a higher power.

Because clientele are not required to pray with Brock or any other Community Provisions’ personnel, there is no violation of the national Emergency Food Assistance Program (EFAP) that avers “no political, religious, or any other non-related activity can be conducted as a condition of, or in conjunction with, receiving commodities or prepared meals.”

This is an operation, the food pantry, attempting to do more with less, for more people who have less, and in a manner affording people a sense of respect. People can certainly use more prayer, but if they opt out, there is no denial of supplies or an effort to cajole those who do not wish to, or have time to pray with Brock.

Yet, in a child-like manner, the federal government is taking its food from Community Provisions to be distributed via three other agencies in Jackson County. However, the food could be returned to Community Provisions, the local operation working with Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, the administrators of the federal program in the Hoosier State, should Brock cease from his prayer inquiries. Brock said he will continue to ask people if they wish to pray with him and good for him and those who will take comfort from the gesture of faith.

If the federal government took less from hard working Americans, they could get out of the state food pantry business and local Indianans, who will have more of their own money, could fund the food pantries in their own state.

The federal government, in its anti-religious bent has improperly interpreted the EFAP adding insult to an already injured group of struggling Americans simply attempting to provide for their family with a modicum of dignity.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.

This column appeared on: http://www.examiner.com/conservative-in-indianapolis/sanford-horn

Voter ID V. Genocide: UN's Quandary

Voter ID V. Genocide: UN’s Quandary
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
March 14, 2012

If this doesn’t drive you to the brink of insanity, nothing will. The voter identification laws of Texas and South Carolina rejected by the United States Justice Department will next be presented before the United Nations.

Activists opposed to voter ID requirements are taking their case to the world body on the grounds of human rights violations. The Human Rights Council will hear this in Geneva as an issue of minority rights with a presentation to be made by a representative of the NAACP, who claims the voter ID laws are discriminatory and will lead to voter suppression. Supporters of the ID laws believe, and correctly so, that voter fraud will be prevented.

Two Americans will testify at the hearing. One woman from Virginia, convicted of drug offenses, believes she will be denied the right to vote. This is a non-starter as felony convictions are a legal and automatic loss of voter rights. And the Commonwealth is not at issue here.

The other American, a student attending Texas Christian University claims his right to vote will be denied as his only forms of identification consist of his TCU student ID as well as an out of state driver’s license. This doesn’t pass the smell test either as the student is mobile enough to be able to procure a state ID, especially in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, a major metropolis. Besides, shouldn’t an out of state driver’s license preclude the TCU student from voting in a Texas election? Otherwise, get a Texas license or vote absentee in the state where you are registered.

This is an absolute absurdity that American voter ID laws constitute a violation of minority rights and an even bigger absurdity that the United Nations, a traditionally anti-American body, would hear such a case. Serious human rights violations are being committed in China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sierra Leone, Syria, Uganda, and countless other rogue nations where thousands of innocent men, women and children are systematically being used as slave labor, the victims of physical torture and mutilation, starvation, child trafficking, rape and outright slaughter.

Where is the UN when a 16-year-old Moroccan girl commits suicide after her RAPIST is allowed to marry her in order to escape a prison term and to preserve the reputation of the victim’s family? Amina Filali opted to down rat poison than suffer the inhumanity of living a life, if one could call it that, with the piece of detritus that stole her virtue and innocence, raping Filali when she was but 15-years-old. It is simply unconscionable that women can be treated with such disregard to force upon them such permanent pain and suffering, both physically and psychologically.

Where is the UN when a Ugandan cult leader, Joseph Kony, head of the so-called Lord’s Resistance Army has been on a systematic reign of terror abducting children to become forced sex slaves and child soldiers? Since his despotic reign began in 1986 roughly 66,000 children have been used as soldiers, many ordered to kill their own parents and other family members. Indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2005, Kony remains at large, described by many as impossible to see as the wind.

Where has the UN been during the years of rebels butchering, maiming and severing the limbs of children during the ongoing blood diamond atrocities?

To make this all the more tragically laughable, is that the UN Human Rights Council includes the likes of such benevolent nations as communist China, Fidel Castro’s communist Cuba, Kuwait and Qatar, which only allowed women to vote in 2005 and 2003 respectively, and Saudi Arabia which won’t grant woman suffrage until 2015. In fact women still are not permitted to drive in Saudi Arabia.

Yes, by all means, this council should hear how the United States is suppressing the black and Hispanic votes because of the torturous, demeaning and life threatening demands of – wait for it – showing a state approved photo identification card.

This is simply a ploy by the Obama administration and the Democrats to paint Republicans as vote suppressors, when in reality they are attempting to ensure the sanctity of every registered voter’s vote and the integrity of all elections. Part of the proof comes from the state of Georgia which endeavored to provide mobile voter registration and provide state ID free of charge, and that was also decried by opponents of voter ID laws as discriminatory.

And why is it, I ask rhetorically, just the liberals and Democrats that oppose voter ID laws, while conservatives and Republicans support them? Is it possible only the GOP supports clean elections that give all voters the confidence that when they vote, those votes will count under a system of integrity sans voter fraud?

Thirty-one states already have voter ID laws and they are not designed to disenfranchise any voter that is legitimately registered. ANY account of voter fraud is one too many. And since Saudi Arabia sits on this Human Rights Council, it is imperative to disclose that although women are not permitted to vote, ALL males 18 years and older are required to obtain the state identification card.

And while the UN feels compelled to scrutinize over American voter ID laws, where were they in 2008 when the New Black Panther Party was busy committing voter intimidation with night sticks and bully clubs in Philadelphia? For that matter, where was Attorney General Eric Holder?

This UN circus is just that, and really, has no bearing on the legal system in the United States. Holder, however, is our problem and is without a doubt one of the most incompetent attorney generals in American history. While Obama will never ask for Holder’s resignation, he should have the smarts to know when he is sinking in the quicksand. And therein lies the problem – the lack of smarts to know what is in the best interest of the United States. The United Nations should be booted out of the country, relocate to Paris and begin anew sans les Etats Unis.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.

Holder Messed With Texas

Holder Messed With Texas
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
March 13, 2012

Betraying an oft used slogan in the Lone Star State, once the battle cry against littering, “Don’t Mess With Texas,” US Attorney General Eric Holder and his Justice Department struck down the Texas voter identification law requiring all citizens to produce a photo ID prior to casting a ballot.

To paraphrase the late, great President Ronald Reagan, here we go again, as my December 25, 2011 column “A Picture Worth A Thousand Votes,” discusses the feeblemindedness of the federal government thwarting states from “imposing” photo identification requirements upon its citizens in an attempt to cull voter fraud. (www.sanfordspeaksout.blogspot.com)

Texas Governor Rick Perry rightfully called the Obama Justice Department’s decision an “overreach,” as it said the state failed to prove the ID law is not intentionally discriminatory toward Hispanic voters. How does one prove a negative, or in this case, a double negative?

"Texas has a responsibility to ensure elections are fair, beyond reproach and accurately reflect the will of voters. The DOJ has no valid reason for rejecting this important law, which requires nothing more extensive than the type of photo identification necessary to receive a library card or board an airplane. Their denial is yet another example of the Obama administration's continuing and pervasive federal overreach," Perry said.

Thomas Perez, head of the Justice Department’s civil rights division claims the reason for the rejected photo ID law is attributed to supposedly 11 percent of Texas’ Hispanic voting population lacks a state-issued form of identification. It is not discriminatory to expect people to identify themselves as qualified registered voters in order to cast a ballot. The Supreme Court said as much in a 2008 case involving the State of Indiana. That case, Crawford v. Marion County Election Board was decided by a 6-3 margin with Justice John Paul Stevens, one of the High Court’s most liberal jurists, authoring the majority opinion.

Texas follows South Carolina as two states to have voter ID laws struck down by the Obama administration’s Justice Department – the first time such actions have been taken in more than 20 years.

This is a Justice Department not only rife with corruption that turns a blind eye away from voter fraud, but has an incompetent leader encouraging such vicissitudes to become pandemic in an insidious effort bordering on anarchy.

I don’t think it is at all hyperbolic to suggest that not combating voter fraud borders on anarchy. After all, if left unchecked all anyone need do is arrive at the polling places, demand to vote, cry racism when denied, and the Justice Department jumps to their rescue. Oh, wait, that already happens.

When photo identification is required in so many aspects of one’s life – boarding an airplane, opening a bank account, cashing a check, when using a credit card, renting a vehicle, driving that vehicle, redeeming the winnings of a lottery ticket, gambling at a casino, filing a W-4 for employment, renting an apartment, buying a house, as well as purchasing alcohol, tobacco, firearms and even Sudafed, why are the rules so lax when it comes to one of the most sacrosanct activities an American can perform – casting his or her vote in determining who will lead the greatest nation on earth?

There is nothing unfair about expecting ALL legally registered voters to identify themselves. It is for the protection of the voter to ensure that no one else steals their identity or their vote. It is by design to uphold the integrity of not just a single election, but the confidence of voters that all elections will be decided fairly by those people legally qualified to participate in the electoral process. Somehow the Obama administration, which continues to use the United States Constitution like a roll of Charmin®, has lost sight of that simple, yet vital concept.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.

The War on Women

The War on Women

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
March 9, 2012

Democratic National Chairman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is right.

Now before you all think I am suffering from a mild stroke and get all apoplectic, I will explain myself.

Wasserman-Schultz, also a Florida Congresswoman is right when she recently said there is a war on women.

Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, Laura Ingraham, Star Parker, Ann Coulter, and countless other conservative women have been the victims of so-called comedian Bill Maher’s and commentator Ed Schultz’s repeated filthy and unconscionable verbal invective. In the case of Schultz, he called commentator and author Ingraham a “right wing slut,” on more than one occasion in 2011 on the air, but did apologize.

In the case of Maher, who hosts a program on HBO, his use of words so vile, decorum prohibits their mention in this column, to describe former Alaska Governor Palin and Minnesota Congressman Bachmann are not just disrespectful to women holding elected office, but any woman. Maher is a classless, tasteless misogynist.

Yet, when conservative women are viciously maligned, where is the NOW (National Organization of Women) gang? Where is Gloria Steinem? Where is Gloria Allred? Hell while we’re at it, where is Gloria Estefan for that matter.

Sadly, Allred is taking up for contraception poster girl Sandra Fluke. Allred is a hypocrite with a law degree; a hired gun hell bent on bringing down radio personality Rush Limbaugh for calling Fluke a slut and a prostitute. In fact, Allred wants Limbaugh prosecuted. For what? Name calling? What is this – third grade?

Where was Allred when Maher called Palin a c*nt? Where was Allred when David Letterman told a disgusting joke about a baseball player impregnating one of Palin’s daughters during the seventh inning stretch? Where was Allred when Schultz called Ingraham a “right wing slut?”

Where were any of the liberal women in Congress when Palin and Bachmann were being excoriated by so-called comedians and even national magazines? (Don’t think folks forgot about the horrid cover photo used by Newsweek during Bachmann’s bid for the GOP nomination.) Where was Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-TX) or Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)? Or Wasserman-Schultz, for that matter, she of the “war on women” cries? Hmm? I hear the crickets chirping loud and clear.

It seems perfectly okie-dokie for liberals of all stripes to bash conservative women from here to Oxnard, but G-d forbid a negative word is uttered about a liberal woman, there’s hell to pay, jobs to be lost, lawsuits to be brought, and genitalia to be severed. Women’s organizations are pathetically silent when conservative women are lambasted, lampooned and lasciviously leered at, but those same groups are the first to defend their injured sisters at the drop of a hat.

Liberals demand campaign contributions be returned when an off-color joke is told by a supporter of a GOP candidate for any office from dog catcher to president. However, where is the call from NOW to demand Barack Hussein Obama return the million dollars given his Super PAC? Forget about the fact that candidates are not supposed to be involved with the Super PACs. If Obama wanted to do the right thing, he would request the funds go back to Maher. If Maher wants to do some good with a million dollars, donate the money to women’s shelters that house women beaten and raped by men who think Maher’s misogynistic attempts at humor are amusing.

Former Obama campaign press secretary defended Maher, calling him a comedian, and therefore not subject to the same scrutiny as Limbaugh, who Burton labeled the de facto head of the GOP. Would Burton and all the silent liberals continue to carry Maher’s water if he decided to call conservative writers Star Parker and Angela McGlowan n*ggers, under the same guise as comedy? How fast do you think Maher would be jerked off HBO?

Where is the objection that Obama’s former Senior Advisor and current reelection campaign Communications Director David Axelrod will soon appear on Maher’s program?

Major credit does go to Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers, also a reporter for the Daily Beast. Powers, a liberal, blasted the double standard of defending liberal women all the while throwing conservative women to the wolves. She also took Maher to task as well and rightfully so, for being the pusillanimous piece of detritus that he is.

As for Wasserman-Schultz’s war, it really should be a war on the United States Constitution. That would be more accurate because of the claim that the war on women is all about men denying women the right to taxpayer funded contraceptives. Enter Fluke and her absurd claim that she and other Georgetown University female law students are paying $3,000 during their law school careers for contraception when it can easily be procured for $5 to $9 a month at various pharmacies.

The United States government does not have the right to dictate how an entity conducts its business, particularly a religious-based institution such as Georgetown University, a Jesuit school. Its teachings and laws prohibit the dissemination of contraceptives, something Fluke should have known prior to accepting admittance into the prestigious law school. This is not about contraceptives. This is, instead, about religious freedom and preventing government interference therein.

Wasserman-Schultz’s assertion that there is a war on women is correct with regards to conservative women. There is no war on women’s ability to attain contraceptives. There is, however, a war on both the United States Constitution and religion in this country. These are two wars we the people cannot afford to lose – ever. To lose either, is to lose America and all she stands for.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.

Robbing Peter to Pay Pablo

Robbing Peter to Pay Pablo  
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
March 7, 2012

From the sublime to the absurd, it’s no wonder this country is such dire straits. When it comes to prioritizing its expenditures, the United States has it ass-backwards and it is more than just embarrassing.

When taxpaying citizens in uniform have their medical benefits sliced and diced beyond recognition and are required to pay more for them, that is simply unconscionable if not downright criminal.

Hearing the father’s impassioned plea to GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on the Huckabee show about the required care his brain-damaged son needs since returning from combat in Afghanistan is merely one heartbreaking story out of myriad others that should not have to be told. It is an absolute disgrace that any member of the military or their family should have to beg or appear on national television hat in hand for services that should be a given simply because they have worn the uniform of their country  and put their lives on the line every day.

The flip side of this warped album is while the veterans are being treated shabbily and with utter disdain and disrespect by the Obama administration, illegal aliens are being treated to medical coverage not afforded American citizens as well as giving them tax credits they neither earned nor are entitled to receive.

Can anyone with a modicum of intelligence argue that people sneaking across the southern or northern borders into the United States without proper documentation or permission has broken the law. This should be a rhetorical question. Yet, with so many people – liberals who want to pad the voter rolls for the Democrats and even some conservatives who seek cheap labor, turning blind eyes to this pandemic, having millions of illegals in the United States has become a permanent problem with few in Washington, DC having guts enough to tackle it head on for risk of being called a racist or the bigger risk of their cushy-tushy job on Capitol Hill.

However, for the majority of folks outside of Washington, DC who understand what the word illegal means, we are beyond apoplectic over both the irresponsibility toward our men and women in uniform as well as the willingness to turn over billions of dollars in benefits to people who have no legal standing in the United States.

ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) confirmed, via Newsmax, that they are required to provide at taxpayer expense, abortions as well as hormone therapy for transgendered illegals – “services” not afforded at taxpayer expense to American citizens. Huh? Yes, you read that correctly.

“The government will pay for an abortion in cases of rape or incest, or if the mother’s life is in danger,” according to the 2011 Operations Manual ICE Performance-Based National Detention Standards. Without meaning to sound insensitive, upon who is the onus of proof, to determine illegal alien was raped or the victim of incest? Just on their word? The word of a criminal who broke the law simply by setting foot on US soil?

The regulations also say that “transgender detainees who were already receiving hormone therapy when taken into ICE custody shall have continued access,” including “access to mental health care, and other transgender-related health care and medication based on medical need.”

This is sheer insanity! Upon capture and detention, all illegals should be photographed, fingerprinted, identified and returned to their country of origin never to be allowed legal entry into the United States. This is a no-brainer.

Another issue involving illegals stealing from American taxpayers upon who light must be shed is that of those paying zero dollars in taxes for jobs they have illegally, and yet are qualified to receive the Child Tax Credit - $1,800 per child, costing taxpayers $4.2 billion. This is beyond outrageous.

If a person is here in the United States illegally, how does this person garner employment? It is illegal for an illegal alien to have a job in the United States. Then, since the illegal alien has a job, there is a fiduciary responsibility called taxes, which are not paid. How does an illegal alien paying no taxes and having no Social Security number, qualify for a tax credit? The illegal alien can’t file an income tax form without a Social Security number.

What is also disturbing is that there are supporters who believe paying this tax credit to the illegals is not just acceptable, but appropriate in an effort to prevent them from living in poverty. They should not be living in the United States at all in the first place, let alone sucking off the government teat!

When and where will this all end? This is beyond the theater of the absurd. We are robbing Peter to pay Pablo when Pablo is here illegally and not entitled to anything. Meanwhile, Peter is risking his life wearing the uniform of his country, the United States, and being shunned upon his return stateside.

This nation has a moral responsibility to its soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines. They, Mr. Obama, have done more than their fair share. Do what’s right by them and stop encouraging more miscreant behavior by those with no right to be here in the United States.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.

Obama Wants To Be Judged By His Deeds

Obama Wants To Be Judged By His DeedsCommentary by Sanford D. Horn
March 4, 2012

Am I the only one who felt a little bit ill watching Barack Hussein Obama read his speech before AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) on Sunday, March 04? OK, a lot ill.

First Israeli President Shimon Peres applauded Obama in a speech that was akin to a big wet kiss on the mouth – and an open mouth at that. Yuck. Sorry for the visual, but it has to be said. Peres, a great Israeli patriot, who has seen his time come and go, extolled the virtues of Obama as if he were the savior of all things – much like Obama himself believes. Peres has been reading too many of Obama’s speeches.

Obama bloviated about how he has stood shoulder to shoulder unwaveringly with Israel more than any other American president and how he is looking forward to another pleasant meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While neither of which couldn’t be further from the truth, Obama was right about one thing. On more than one occasion Obama said man is to be judged by his deeds and not by his words. That is absolutely correct and worthy of review.

Obama’s relationship with Israel has been tepid at best, and that’s with much generosity. He has yet to visit Israel, while the first excursion to the Middle East was to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, June 3 and 4, 2009.

During the 2008 primary campaign Obama often said he would sit down with Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who repeatedly said it was the goal of the Islamic nation to wipe Israel from the map as well as deny the occurrence of the Holocaust. Where can one go from there when those are the hard and fast beliefs of a despot who is feverishly moving toward nuclear capabilities for the purpose of carrying out his promise?

While Obama has said he opposes a nuclear Iran, he also madly attempts to thwart Israel’s efforts to eradicate such a possibility as it did against Iraq in 1982. And while Obama turns a blind eye to a possible nuclear Iran, he is feverishly working to drastically reduce the nuclear capabilities of the United States from over 5,000 to fewer than 300. Apparently Obama did not learn from Ronald Reagan’s credo of peace through strength.

Nor does Obama have a sense of history, calling for Israel to return to their 1967 borders. This would have been certain suicide for the Jewish state as their enemies, by which they are surrounded, would be even closer still to the tiny nation, leaving its defenses even more tenuous. Does this sound like the suggestion of an ally and supporter?

On a more personal front, Obama’s relationship with Netanyahu has also been distant and difficult. From abandoning Netanyahu during a prior White House meeting to an open microphone conversation with French President Nicolas Sarkozy in November 2011 where Obama spoke shabbily of the Israeli Prime Minister.

Responding to Sarkozy calling Netanyahu a liar, Obama said “You’re fed up with him, but I have to deal with him even more often than you.” While supporting a Palestinian state, thus rewarding the continual bad behavior of terror, Obama has been hostile toward the United States’ only reliable ally in the region – Israel.

Sadly, judging by the fervor of the applause, having watched the Peres and Obama speeches from the annual AIPAC gathering on C-SPAN, it was painfully obvious that the audience gobbled up Obama’s disingenuous, tuchus-kissing words like lox and bagels following the Yom Kippur fast.

Pay attention to Obama’s deeds. He has not earned your vote this November. Please don’t blindly throw it away.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of a Happy Ending

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of a Happy Ending
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
March 4, 2012

The Declaration of Independence grants us, the American people, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” not life, liberty and the pursuit of a happy ending.

Thus should be the message Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke takes away from her testimony before Congress when she demanded that the government pay for her birth control in order to enjoy her more carnal pursuits.

The issue of contraception/birth control should be a non-starter in the grand scheme of campaign 2012. However, for Barack Hussein Obama, it is an excellent diversionary tactic to sidetrack the nation’s attention from his complete and utter incompetence in handling the affairs of state as apologizer in chief while continuing to run the economy into the ground.

Yet, because the issue of contraception has been Page One for weeks as an aspect of Obama-care and the mandate that forces American citizens to purchase a product, time must be wasted to remind people that they are not entitled to something simply because they claim they cannot afford it. Not to mention such a mandate violates the Commerce Clause – Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution.

Catholic institutions such as hospitals, charitable organizations and educational institutions, of which Georgetown University is one, have objected vehemently, with the support of patriots of other faiths, that forcing them to offer contraceptives as part of its healthcare insurance coverage violates church teachings. Of course it also violates the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Yet, there sat Fluke, a law student, age 30, seeking to have government force her university to violate its principles based upon the teachings of the church to which it adheres. Was Fluke not aware of the connection between her Jesuit university and the Catholic Church? If so, her request is disingenuous at best, and if this issue were that much of an imperative for her, she could most certainly gained admission into another law school. Georgetown is an excellent law school, after all.

Fluke further claimed she would spend $3,000 on contraceptives during her law school career – three years. At $1,000 per year Fluke is spending $83.33 per month. Apparently either Fluke is a poor shopper or an extremely active woman between the sheets. First issue first – Fluke’s ability to comparison shop. Condoms can be procured for less than $10 a box of a dozen or about $25 per month at a condom a day. She is in law school after all; does she study?

Having spoken with several women friends, they confirmed birth control costs at $16 a month at Costco and either $5 per month or $9 per quarter at Wal-Mart. Fluke cold also visit her local Planned Parenthood which would no doubt offer her a helpful discount. Not to mention, at most public institutions of higher learning, such as the University of Maryland, condoms can be garnered for free at its health center.

As for the second issue – that of Fluke’s potential promiscuity, not to pile on to Rush Limbaugh’s remarks calling Fluke a slut and a prostitute while asking for her to make sex tapes available for public purview in light of taxpayer funding of her sexual escapades, but he has a point, in spite of his apology for his overzealous speech. Limbaugh was wrong to call Fluke a slut – a slut gives it away, while Fluke is expecting, in her liberal sense of entitlement, for government to pay for her sexual activities. That in turn is the essence of prostitution. Limbaugh was also wrong and, quite frankly, creepy, to expect video of Fluke to be made public.

And while Limbaugh was opining on air, Obama, who apparently had nothing better to do than call Fluke and applaud her for standing strong and offering his support, thus sealing Fluke’s image as the national face of contraceptives. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney supported Obama’s call to Fluke explaining that it is wrong to publically attack private citizens, yet did not castigate his boss’s public criticism of the Koch brothers – David and Charles, also private citizens. Just another example of the Obama administration’s hypocrisy.

Regardless of who is standing on which side of this non-starter of an issue, it is wrong for Fluke to make demands of her university that go contrary to its beliefs. What next – will non-Mormons demand beer and coffee at Brigham Young University?

As a taxpayer, I should not be subjected to pay for Fluke’s or anyone else’s sexual proclivities. I know I’m not having the sex, but I sure feel like I’m getting screwed.

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and educator living in Westfield, IN.