TX Dems Need Lesson in Real Sacrifice
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
July 19, 2021

I recently penned a column denouncing the calling of the wayward Texas Democrats “brave, courageous and making sacrifices.” They are and have done none of those things in abandoning their sworn duties as well as the constituents they are duty bound to represent.

These indolent Texas Democrats have made unconscionable claims that the bill to protect the rights of voters is racist, an attack on democracy, and even a return to the days of Jim Crow prior to the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. Those claims, many made  by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris should be viewed as an affront to all those men, women, and children who endured true struggle, made enormous sacrifices, some even the ultimate sacrifice of life and limb. Texas SB-7 pertaining to election integrity and security makes it easier to vote and harder to cheat by streamlining several aspects of the state’s voting laws. 

In order to ensure election integrity, voters are required to provide photo identification, exhibit signature verification, a chain of custody and a paper receipt will be provided to voters, voter rolls will be updated prior to every election, and partisan witnesses from the several parties will observe the vote count. There is nothing racist, discriminatory, or disenfranchising about SB-7. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton made it perfectly clear that any Texas citizen of voting age would be given an ID - gratis - if unable to afford one.

No polling places are permitted in a tent or parking garage; drive-through voting is not curbside voting, which is allowed for those unable to enter their polling station. While curbside voting is limited ostensibly to the disabled, drive-through voting would require many more poll workers and poll watchers.

When requesting a ballot by mail, it must contain the voter’s signature and identification number. If the voter does not have a driver’s licence, the last four digits of the Social Security number will be just as acceptable. Mass mailing of ballots to entire populations is out - voters must request their own ballot. This absolutely will diminish fraudulent votes from being cast. Ballot harvesting is also not permitted and its ban will have similar results as individual ballot requests. It is also a felony to pay for votes.

Voting hours are expanded in the two week lead up to Election Day - mandated for 12 hours per day in counties with populations greater than 30,000 citizens, an improvement from those with more than 100,000 citizens. Polls can be open for any 12 consecutive hour period between 6 AM and 9 PM, and companies are required to allow workers early dismissal on Election Day. (Quite frankly, a uniform 6 AM to 8 PM for all polling locations should be the rule.)

Poll watchers cannot be kicked out of polling stations and poll workers must be able to see the actual vote counting. Cities with populations greater than 100,000 must provide live streaming of the vote counting in polling stations. Additionally, all votes must have a paper trail and an online tracker for mail-in ballots and applications. New machines with this capability will be installed by 2026.

Polling locales are based upon the numbers of registered voters in a given county. The counties set the locations, which are supposed to be convenient for the voters - such as on public transit routes and accessibility for the disabled. The Democrats complained about this particular item because they claim there are fewer polling stations in poor and minority communities. They should work harder to register more voters.

No legal voter is being denied their right to vote. No legal voter is being disenfranchised.

Did any of the runaway Democrats from Texas get their heads bashed in the way the late Georgia Congressman John Lewis was attacked? Or any other of the other hundreds of marchers on that “Bloody Sunday,” March 7, 1965 who were attacked, beaten, and imprisoned? They were marching and fighting for real, genuine voting rights, a bill that would be enacted later that year upon the signature of President Lyndon Johnson.

And how obtuse is Biden, making outlandish claims that voter ID laws in places like Texas and Georgia are “literally like the Civil War.” Really? The bloodiest war ever fought on American soil, seeing the deaths of greater than 600,000 Americans - that is not as bad as asking legally registered voters to show identification proving they are who they say they are? In fact, the most recent claims of voter intimidation were during the 2016 presidential election in Philadelphia when the New Black Panther Party attempted to frighten white voters away from their polling stations.

Andersonville, Antietam, Fort Sumter, Gettysburg, Vicksburg. Were those bloodiest of battles less destructive, less painful in terms of loss, than the content of the voter integrity bill in Texas? How about the sacrifice made by the 54th Massachusetts Infantry - an all Black regiment? Led by white commanders who lost their lives alongside their own troops, the 54th lost 281 of its 600 men in battle at Fort Wagner, SC. This spurred more than 100,000 Black men to volunteer with the Union Army. Was their sacrifice of lesser significance than the voting rights bills in Texas and Georgia? 

“We are facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. That’s not hyperbole,” Biden said during a speech on July 13 at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. Has Biden forgotten about the assassinations of presidents Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, William McKinley, and John Kennedy? How about the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 or the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001? Does he even know the definition of hyperbole?

How Biden can have the unmitigated audacity to call the newly amended and improved voting laws in Texas and Georgia, “Jim Crow 2.0,” and “Jim Crow on steroids,” is the antithesis of sanity. He also said “The 21st Century Jim Crow assault is real,” at the same July 13 speech. Perhaps Biden, in his advancing senility, forgot what really occurred during the evil era of Jim Crow. Such as no Blacks voting in entire counties of the Deep South, or Blacks being given virtually impossible literacy tests - interpreting parts of a state’s constitution to the satisfaction of the county clerk or other official who denied those citizens their 15th Amendment right to vote on a racist whim; or being given the ridiculous task of counting the bubbles in a bar of soap or leaves on a tree. Not to mention the egregious poll taxes preventing Blacks from voting, which came to an end upon the ratification of the 24th Amendment on January 23, 1964. 

Some who don’t understand the history of the United States consider this country to be evil because change was not revolutionary, but instead evolutionary, and label the United States as perpetually and systemically racist. A systemically racist country does not elect and reelect a Black president, elect a woman of color vice president, have many Black men and women appointed to high governmental positions by white presidents both Democrat and Republican, and have Black athletes and entertainers revered by millions of white fans.

If anyone is attempting to dismantle the voting processes and system it is Biden, Harris, and their ilk in attempting to federalize all elections - a clear violation of the 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution. 

By tightening some of the previously loose policies, less voter fraud should occur, it should be easier to vote, and harder to cheat. The Democrat legislators fleeing Texas and their elected responsibilities are not brave in the least. They are afraid they will lose power with better, more streamlined voting policies. This is not a GOP power grab as they are already in the majority in Texas. The Democrats are hypocrites for wanting to end the filibuster on the federal level, but on the state level they want to avoid their responsibilities while still being remunerated as they hide out in Washington, DC.

According to the Dallas Morning News of July 14, Texas legislators are paid $7,200 per year ($600 per month) as well as a per diem of $221 for each of the 140 days of the legislative session, held every other year, for a total of $38,140. The runaway Democrats should be required to return their salary and per diem for every day they remain absent from the ongoing legislative session. This most assuredly is not sacrifice. Genuine sacrifice was made by Black soldiers fighting one war overseas, then returning to fight another war at home. Real sacrifice was made by Martin Luther King, Jr., John Lewis, Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, Jackie Robinson, and Clarence Thomas. As for the Texas Democrats, theirs is the act of spoiled obsequious weasels, cowards, and malcontents. The voters of Texas best remember this come next Election Day and send those Democrats packing for a permanent vacation away from Austin.

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

Hypocrite Holder Still Hopelessly Clueless

Hypocrite Holder Still Hopelessly Clueless
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
July 12, 2012

Is it the collective sanity of the thinking American that is at question? Or does Eric Holder, the feckless attorney general of the United States simply does not have a grip on reality?

Is it racist when asked to produce a photo ID prior to boarding an airplane?

Is it racist when asked to produce a photo ID when purchasing alcohol? Tobacco? Firearms?

Is it racist when asked to produce a photo ID when writing a check? Making a bank deposit? Using a credit card?

Is it racist when asked to produce a photo ID when applying for a driver’s license? A library card?

Is it racist when asked to produce a photo ID when visiting a medical office for the first time as part of the paperwork regimen?

Is it racist when asked to produce a photo ID when entering a government building?

Is it racist when asked to produce a photo ID when applying for or signing a mortgage application?

Is it racist when asked to produce a photo ID when filling out the paperwork upon starting new employment?

Is it racist when asked to produce a photo ID when collecting lottery or casino winnings?

Is it racist when asked to produce a photo ID when registering for college as a freshman or transfer?

Is it racist when asked to produce a photo ID when picking up a package at the post office or UPS?

Is it racist when asked to produce a photo ID when claiming a prize at an events’ drawing?

Is it racist when asked to produce a photo ID when checking into a hotel, convention hall or other event with a roster of attendees?

Is there anyone reading this who has not suffered such an indignity? That someone should deign to quantify who is standing before him or her in any of the above circumstances and others not listed?

Yet, according to Holder, the attorney general refusing to prosecute members of the New Black Panther party for voter intimidation in Philadelphia in 2008, it is racist to expect voters to identify themselves at polling places making it akin to a poll tax, and an indignity to ones self-esteem.

It is Holder who is the racist for assuming blacks and Hispanics are unable to procure a photo ID. Really? Are all blacks and Hispanics so destitute and without means they are unable to find the means with which to identify themselves prior to casting a vote, one the most basic tenets of being an American? Sounds terribly stereotypical, pandering and a lowering of the bar.

That Holder has lowered the bar is in itself racist. As a supporter of affirmative action, Holder should know how racist that is – an admission that those groups being given an edge simply because of their race because they can’t accomplish – fill in the blank – earning admission into college, garnering employment, etc. on their own merits.

When states like Florida, Georgia and Texas, among others are advertising ways in which legally qualified voters are able to procure a standard government ID gratis, how can that be compared to a poll tax? There have even been mobile units willing to go to the voters themselves if they do not have the means with which to get to the ID producer. Securing a customary form of identification has never been easier, and yet, Holder continues to trumpet from the rooftops that to require a voter ID is a form of voter suppression by the GOP in an effort to steal elections.

Quite the opposite is true. Republicans supporting voter ID laws across the country are attempting to ensure that only legally qualified voting citizens are afforded the privilege of casting their ballot on Election Day. It is Holder and those who support his illogical notion that are willfully creating a circumstance by which illegals, the dead and those who simply have no right to vote in a particular polling location are enabled to do just that, That is voter fraud, pure and simple. That is Holder and his minions attempting to steal elections.

And by the way, those members of the press who covered Holder’s recent speaking engagements were denied admission without producing a federally issued photo ID. Further demonstrating his hypocrisy, attendees at his NAACP speech in Houston were also required to provide a photo ID, this in a state where Holder is fighting against Texas law requiring photo ID at polling places.

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

Pelosi Insanely Links Fast & Furious with Voter Suppression

Pelosi Insanely Links Fast & Furious with Voter Suppression
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
June 21, 2012

US Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s cheese has finally slipped off its cracker. Her elevator is officially not rising to the top floor. She is without a doubt one taco shy of a full combination plate.

To understand what brought on this barrage of “platitudes” toward Pelosi, all one need do is listen to the absolutely convoluted speech she gave on Thursday in response to the decision made Wednesday by the Congressional Oversight and Government Reform Committee to charge Attorney General Eric Holder with contempt of Congress.

“They [the Republicans] are going after Eric Holder because he is trying to overturn voter suppression in the states. This is the plan,” said Pelosi, the House Minority Leader.

In continuing with what she called a “theory,” Pelosi made the illogical and emotional leap from a legitimate charge against a stonewalling Holder, who refuses to provide a congressional committee with the necessary documents to investigate the Fast and Furious gun scandal, to the accusation that the GOP is hell bent on stifling the vote of liberals and minorities.

“These very same people are holding him in contempt are part of a nationwide scheme to suppress the vote. They are closely allied with those who are suffocating the system – unlimited special interests – secret money – and they are poisoning the debate. This is no accident. This is their plan,” said Pelosi in a rambling finger-pointing screed.

US Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) called Pelosi’s comments “beneath the office of Congress,” and “mind-numbingly stupid.”

There must be a separation between Holder’s involvement in the Fast and Furious scandal cover-up and the Holder that is attempting to prevent states from performing their duties of purging their voter rolls of those who should not be permitted to vote. In both cases Holder is wrong. Both cases are supremely significant, but the two are unrelated.

The case before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee pertains to the Fast and Furious gun scandal that put thousands of guns in the hands of Mexicans – criminals, drug dealers and cartel leaders and other miscreant thugs – from the United States government. Both AG Holder and Barack Obama claimed no knowledge of such a transaction. Holder continued his denials when questioned about who did have such knowledge, who did allow for such a criminal operation to occur. Taking a page out of the Bill Clinton playbook, Holder continued to deny, deny, deny.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is chaired by US Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA). His repeated pressing for the thousands upon thousands of documents related to Fast and Furious were arrogantly rejected time and again by Holder, who not only owes answers to the committee, the American people, but to Josephine and Ken Terry.

Josephine and Ken Terry are the parents of the late Brian Terry, a heroic border agent murdered by guns linked to the Fast and Furious scandal in 2010. Two guns found at his body are linked to those firearms released into the hands of nefarious sources in the Obama administration’s Fast and Furious program. This administration is responsible for the murder of border agent Brian Terry.

“They’re lying and hiding it,” said Ken Terry, interviewed by Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

Compounding the scandal, Obama declared Executive Privilege, further impeding the Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s ability to collect the documents that Holder is obligated to present.

“The decision to invoke Executive Privilege is an admission that White House officials were involved in decisions that misled the Congress and have covered up the truth,” said Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH).

Meanwhile, the flip side of the Pelosi ramblings and illogical accusations, claim it is the GOP that is attempting to suppress votes by performing legal operations of purging the rolls. It is not, as Pelosi said, “suffocating the system,” to ensure voter fairness by preventing illegals from casting votes that would dilute the power of votes cast by citizens. Nor is it “a nationwide scheme to suppress the vote” when certain states are purging the names of the deceased to ensure their names are not used by people committing voter fraud by casting a ballot in those names.

It is neither a scheme to suppress the vote nor a plan to suffocate the system to require ALL voters to present a photo ID at the polling places – something Holder has been fighting calling such a requirement racist.

This is simply a scheme by the Obama administration to deflect from the disastrous economy, high rates of unemployment, high misery index, ever-rising gas prices and an unwillingness to do what is right by the American people.

The Fast and Furious scandal and subsequent cover-up is making Watergate look like child’s play and the “third rate burglary” as had been described as for the past 40 years. Watergate was wrong; but nobody died.

Clearly, there is blood on the hands of the Obama administration. Where is the openness and transparency promised by Obama ad nauseum?

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

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.

A Picture Worth A Thousand Votes

A Picture Worth A Thousand Votes

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

December 25, 2011

Gin and tonic, please.

Certainly, sir. May I see your ID please?

That’s it! Call Jesse; call the ACLU – you’re a racist!

Are you as incredulous reading this as I was writing it? I certainly hope so.

Asking someone to produce an item that identifies him/herself as who he/she claims to be is neither racist, nor disenfranchising as Attorney General Eric Holder would have the nation believe as he attempts to eliminate any form of identification standards for potential voters.

As responsible American citizens we are asked to show proof of age and/or identity when purchasing alcohol, cigarettes, lottery tickets, real estate, automobiles, checking in at an airport or hotel, gaining admittance into secure locations, when writing checks and even when using a credit card at times. Do I understand correctly, that no one without an ID does any of the above? Or drives? Or has a bank account? Wow, what cloistered little lives they must lead.

Why when asked to produce a valid photo ID at the ballot box, do some people go completely apoplectic?

For those American citizens for whom voting is that important, and it should be that important, and who do not possess a valid photo ID – get one. Yes, it is that simple. Holder is using cost as an excuse why the old, young, and minorities would be disenfranchised by the heinous requirement of an identification card. But that excuse is disingenuous at best as the state of South Carolina, whose voter ID law Holder just struck down on Friday, December 23, will provide said identification gratis to its Palmetto State citizens.

The State of Georgia attempted to do likewise, yet the ACLU still objected, calling the voter ID a racist attempt to disenfranchise minorities who could not get to the ID producing locales. Georgia then offered to go to the voters who were unable to make the allegedly arduous trek to procure their own ID card.

States could establish mobile ID producing units and send them to bars, liquor stores, kiosks at shopping malls, airports and anywhere else ID may be required to provide them for those who claim the cost to get them would be too prohibitive or that they could not travel to get them for the same reason. (Once those without ID get them, I’d like to see the voter turnout statistics as compared with the rest of the voting populous.)

And what will Holder’s next complaint be once the ID-less become identifiable? The old, young and minorities are being disenfranchised because they can’t afford to take the time from their low-paying job to go and cast their ballot? Or perhaps those same groups can’t go vote because they can’t afford to take the bus, taxicab or other paid mode of transportation? There will always be something about which to complain. But while thousands of people behaved with violence and mob-like mentality last week for the opportunity to spend $180 on a pair of sneakers, how many of those very people will be in line to vote on Election Day?

Only those seeking to defraud the system and thus the republican process of legally electing representatives would object to a voter ID requirement. Without voter ID laws firmly ensconced someone else could claim to be you or me and thus disenfranchise us by stealing our precious votes – and those votes are indeed precious.

Demanding that a potential voter properly identify him/herself is not a suppression of voters’ rights, but instead a protection of voters’ rights and the suppression of potential voter fraud. The Wisconsin ACLU claimed voters’ 14^th Amendment rights are violated and a “severe burden” (WI ACLU) is placed upon them in spite of a Supreme Court April 2008 ruling that states can require voters to produce photo ID without violating their Constitutional rights.

The law “is amply justified by the valid interest in protecting ‘the integrity and reliability of the electoral process,’” wrote now retired Justice John Paul Stevens for the six to three majority in the 2008 ruling. Stevens, a typically reliable liberal, was joined by associate justices Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice John Roberts, all conservatives, save for Kennedy a moderate swing voter. Backers of the decision said it was vital to squelch voter fraud.

Those opposing the High Court ruling were traditional liberal associate justices Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the now retired David Souter. ACLU legal director Ken Falk said such voter ID laws tend to inhibit voting yet could produce no supporting evidence.

“We cannot conclude that the statute imposes ‘excessively burdensome requirements’ on any class of voters,” continued Stevens in his opinion for the majority.

“The universally applicable requirements of Indiana voter-identification law are eminently reasonable. The burden of acquiring, possessing and showing a free photo identification is simply not severe, because it does not ‘even represent a significant increase over the usual burdens of voting,’” wrote Justice Scalia, also for the majority.

Now there is a corrupt Justice Department led by an incompetent attorney general – see also the Fast and Furious scandal Holder claims to know nothing about – who wants to eradicate all voter identification laws because of the potential inconvenience it might impose on some old, young and minority voters. This is the same AG and Justice Department that ignored the New Black Panther Party blatant and overt voter intimidation activities in Philadelphia on Election Day 2008.

Not only does Holder need to resign, but perhaps face charges for fraud, perjury and corrupt practices. But more importantly, while Holder is merely a symptom, it is vital that all 50 states in the Union ensure their 10^th Amendment rights to create laws that the federal government does not create and protect the rights of all legal voting American citizens by requiring them to properly identify themselves prior to casting their all-important ballot on each and every election day.

Voter fraud comes at a cost of up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine, which should be upheld to the maximum in order to send a message that voting is a privilege and shall not be infringed upon by miscreants who would steal an election that could not otherwise be won.

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

Voting is for Citizens, Mr. Mayor

Voting is for Citizens, Mr. Mayor

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

December 21, 2011

In what should be as big an insult and affront to every American voter and legal immigrant, as one can muster, New Haven, CT Mayor John DeStefano, Jr. is calling for illegals to have the right to vote in municipal elections.

Sounds like a cry for help or a reason for recall – either way, DeStefano, a Democrat, should be out on his tuchus. Demonstrative of his complete bastardization of the laws of this country, DeStefano likened the “plight” of illegals to that of blacks and women prior to their legal enfranchisement in 1870 and 1920 respectively, thanks to the 15^th and 19^th amendments to the United States Constitution. What a slap in the face of the formerly disenfranchised who, as legal citizens, struggled for years to achieve suffrage. Frederick Douglass and Susan B. Anthony must be apoplectic from the great beyond spinning in their graves like dreidels at Chanukah.

DeStefano said the definition of what it means to be a citizen has changed over time. Seems a citizen is person who pledges allegiance not just to a land, but its laws, rules, concepts, values and is legal recognized by the government. The first act committed by an illegal alien upon invading our borders was to break the law – certainly not the sign of a good citizen.

New Haven, already a sanctuary city, shields a population of roughly 12,000 illegals. This in a city that cast fewer than 15,000 votes in its last mayoral election out of the approximately 64,000 registered voters (New Haven Register) and boasts a population of over 123,000 (city-data.com).

“If you live here, you pay taxes here, and send your kids to school here, you should be able to vote,” said DeStefano, reelected in November to an unprecedented 10^th term as mayor. He further went on to say that undocumented residents deserve the same rights as other minorities. In 2007 the city provided illegals with municipal identification cards giving them access to banks and banking – under the auspices of the DeStefano regime.

How insanely obtuse is DeStefano? Does he not comprehend the rule of law? These roughly 12,000 illegals have invaded the United States. They have broken the law. And this clearly un-American mayor wants to reward miscreants and scofflaws with the privilege of the vote. I’m becoming more incensed reading each word as I write them. This is outrageous and should be an impeachable offense by DeStefano.

DeStefano absurdly suggested that there are 5,000 non-New Haven citizens at Yale University – but they are there legally. Where he was going with that nebulous thought?

Regardless of DeStefano’s convoluted desire, the Connecticut state legislature would have to approve such a scheme, and they do not reconvene until February. Additionally, Governor Dan Malloy (D) said he is “leery” of such a plan and unsure if he would sign it into law should it reach his desk.

New Haven is not the first municipality to attempt to undertake such a dissident and licentious plan to reward lawbreakers with privileges granted to law abiding citizens. San Francisco and Portland (OR) have also considered such egregious behavior in their own cities, but have not enacted such dubious legislation – yet.

Wise up Mayor DeStefano and any other municipal leader considering such vituperative action against the honest, law abiding, legally registered voters of your communities. Enacting such an anti-American plan could cost such municipalities federal dollars and even tourist dollars from real Americans who believe in the rule of law and not rewarding criminal behavior.

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

Pictures Worth A Thousand Votes

Pictures Worth A Thousand Votes

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

February 13, 2008

The night before Election Day a Republican and Democrat enter a bar – yes, together. Ordering adult beverages to celebrate ending a long, spirited campaign, the bartender requests identification.

The Democrat produces his photo-ID, but alas, the Republican has forgotten hers. The Republican is told she cannot be served. Upset, she says she understands.

The next morning, the pair meets to vote. They stood in line until their turns came. The Republican produced her voter identification card, affirmed her address and proceeded to the booth.

The Democrat had no identification allowing him to vote. He huffed and puffed like a petulant three-year-old demanding his right to vote. Is the underpaid election official supposed to allow someone who can’t produce identification to cast a ballot? How does he know the voter is who he claims to be? Perhaps the potential voter has moved and is attempting to vote in multiple precincts.

Issues like these involving potential election/voter fraud are the subjects of Crawford v. Marion County Election Board and Indiana Democratic Party v. Rokita before the United States Supreme Court.

The challengers, lead by the Indiana Democratic Party and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), aver that requiring citizens to produce voter identification is a hardship and design by the GOP to disenfranchise poor, elderly, disabled and urban voters who traditionally vote Democratic.

Democrats claim this is a political issue, Republicans and the majority of the panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 7^th Circuit don’t agree, calling this, a legal matter. While these cases involve the Hoosier State, make no mistake, the outcome will have lasting effects on election laws throughout the nation.

If someone lacks identification and is denied a purchase at a liquor store, why aren’t ACLU protesters picketing that establishment? If someone lacks identification and is denied purchase of a firearm, why aren’t ACLU protesters picketing that establishment? Because the Democrats, in league with the ACLU are concerned with simplifying voting and eventually enfranchise illegal immigrants.

Every voter should demand the strictest voter identification laws possible to maintain vote integrity. For every illegal vote cast, the value of legal votes is diminished even further.

Today, so few people are sans photo ID that such cases waste time and taxpayers dollars. The state of Georgia informed voters that mobile registration units would visit voters and provide them, gratis, the tools necessary to prevent disenfranchisement. The ACLU still objected.

There is nothing sinister about expecting people to arrive at polling places with  photo identification. It is needed to drink, which is a de facto government decree as the federal government mandated states raise drinking ages to 21 or lose federal funding for highways and roads. States quickly complied – as billions of dollars were at stake.

People’s priorities are warped regarding the necessity of identification. Precautions are taken ensuring the integrity of ballot boxes and voting machines. Shouldn’t it be likewise with the voters casting the very ballots determining who will lead the cities, counties, states and nation?

Sanford D. Horn is a writer and political consultant living in Alexandria, VA.