Obama Finally Calls Terror Attacks Terror

Obama Finally Calls Terror Attacks Terror
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
September 21, 2012

So it only took the Obama administration 10 days to figure out what anyone with a beating heart and a pulse already knew: that the assault on the American embassy in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, was a terrorist attack.

Hello? McFly? Anyone home?

Upon hearing of the terrorist attack on the embassy where radical Muslim extremists murdered Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Air Force veteran Sean Smith and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, Obama was reticent to call the attacks a coordinated terrorist effort.

First there was the apology from Obama for an anti-Muslim film produced by an independent source that, as it turned out had nothing to do with the attack on the US embassy in Cairo, Egypt, also a September 11 terror strike perpetrated by radical Muslim extremists.

Then Obama expressed shock that such attacks would take place. Look at a calendar, Mr. Obama – it’s September 11. If you are shocked perhaps you should stay in Washington, attend your intelligence hearings once in a while and you wouldn’t be shocked by an attack that was practically telegraphed.

Prior to the terrorist assaults on the embassies in Benghazi and Cairo, Obama had only attended 47 percent of his own intelligence hearings. But that was overlooked by a liberal media so entrenched in the world of getting Obama reelected. Instead, the media focused its attention on GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, who immediately called the uprisings at the embassies what they were – terrorist attacks. However, for his accuracy, criticism of Obama for coming late to the realization, and his presidential behavior, Romney was vilified by a media that continues to present one-sided, biased reports masquerading as real news.

US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice also refused to acknowledge the obvious, instead calling the terrorist attacks “spontaneous, not premeditated.” How obtuse can this administration be?

US Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) said “the Obama administration is finally waking up to the reality that the attack on the US consulate in Libya was a terrorist attack to coincide with 9/11.”

“This was not a coincidence that it happened on the anniversary of September 11, that there are people out there who want to kill Americans and we have to confront our enemies. That’s what this administration is never willing to do,” said Ros-Lehtinen, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. (www.newsmax.com)

While the administration continued burying its head in the sand, suggesting there was no evidence these were terrorist attacks, US Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) said “based on the briefings that I have had, I come to the opposite conclusion. I just don’t think people come to protests equipped with RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and other heavy weapons.” (www.theadvertiser.com)

Taking it one step further, US Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) simply called Obama “dead wrong.”

Obama has all but abdicated his role as Commander in Chief in favor of becoming Entertainer in Chief – spending his time with rapper Jay Z, singer Beyoncé and appearing on David Letterman’s late night talk show instead of doing his job in Washington, DC, or meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who was once again shunned by Obama. Obama continues to fiddle while American embassies burn.

In fact, where was Obama on September 11 and 12? Campaigning and fund-raising in Nevada and Colorado instead of returning to the White House immediately upon learning of the terrorist strikes. Obama continues to operate sans a sense of urgency.

The United States has a so-called leader who, upon taking office, declared that change would come to the Middle East, the Arab world and the Muslim world. Is this the change Obama meant? Attacks on US embassies or on Americans directly in Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Morocco, Sudan, Tunisia, and Yemen within the last two weeks are probably not what Obama bargained for during his naïve claims.

It is clear Obama is over his head in the White House, and no amount of posturing, placating or appeasing will change the climate overseas. Appeasement didn’t work in 1938 for British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, and it is not working in 2012 for Barack Obama.

Change is what is needed, and hopefully it will come November 6 when Obama is fired from his first real job and replaced with Mitt Romney who will take the job of president of the United States seriously.

May the deaths of the ambassador and his colleagues not have been in vain and may their memories always be for a Blessing.

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

Not One Thin Dime - Enough is Enough

"Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others." -- Alexander Hamilton

Not One Thin Dime – Enough is Enough

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
September 16, 2012

The Arab Spring has clearly morphed into the winter of our discontent.

This is not going to be a political screed as both major parties are complicit here. Both the Democrats and the Republicans continue doling out money like Halloween treats to countries far and wide who neither appreciate the assistance nor defend to their own people the veracity of its importance.

If the past week of tragedy, terror, and tumult in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, and Bangladesh have not driven home the message that no amount of money or foreign aid will appease the savages that run amok in the name of a faith that, to all evidence, is clearly no religion of peace, then it is time to raise the financial and cultural white flags.

For all his insanity and inanities over the years, US Rep. Ron Paul (?-TX) actually got this one correct: make foreign countries earn the generous largesse provided by the United States. All countries should start at zero dollars and let them make their case before Congress and the State Department for any aid they think they deserve.

Paul is not alone as Texas Governor Rick Perry often said during his failed campaign to secure the GOP nod, “My foreign aid budget… is gonna start at zero dollars.” (Bloomberg Businessweek, Dec. 5-12, 2011, p. 42)

One would think members of Congress would be tripping all over themselves for the chance to sponsor such budget cutting legislation, especially when it would not involve eliminating any precious entitlements of which Democrats are so fond, or any Republican-sponsored tax cuts.

Use Ross Perot-style charts if it will help, but make no mistake, reprobate nations will not see one thin dime of American dollars, nor will nations that support those rogue miscreants. Nor should they. They don’t like the United States and they are not going to like the United States just because they are given financial aid. Or worse, military aid that such nations ultimately turn against their donors. Is the US buying intelligence? If so, how reliable could the intelligence be when soldiers trained by the US become insurgents, turning those weapons against those who trained those troops?

“We’re losing soldiers in Afghanistan to rogue forces – this is what Israel goes through every day,” said Douglas Brinkley, Rice University professor and presidential historian. “We cannot count on host countries protecting our property,” said Brinkley. “We have to do it ourselves.” (American embassies overseas are American property.)

Sanctions certainly have not worked against countries like Iran, as they continue to press forward with their nuclear warfare designs in an effort to fulfill their promise of eradicating Israel from the map.

There is a “moment of truth coming on Iran,” said Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT). The Middle East wants US leadership and the US must show strength and leadership, Lieberman continued, adding that “we either accept a nuclear Iran or act militarily. We have to deal with Iran in a very tough way.”

It is not only foolish to capitulate, hand-wring, supplicate, or genuflect to and before people who neither like nor respect the United States, it has proven deadly, witness the murder of an American ambassador and three of his colleagues this week alone.

Appeasement did not work for British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in 1938 with Hitler, and today the United States is dealing with an enemy with more patience, more people (over one billion), better intelligence, technology, and firepower than the Nazis could ever have fathomed.

This is not the Cold War fought against the former Soviet Union, flexing muscles and backing down a la the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 because the United States was dealing with an enemy who also wanted to live. That was a battle for spheres of influence between capitalism and democracy versus communism – a battle of differing political and economic philosophies. The Domino Theory was all the rage.

Such politics and economics are subject to metamorphosis over time. How many strident communist nations still exist? Cuba? Angola? North Korea? Anyone looking to move to any of those despotic locales anytime soon? Even China is moving, ever so slowly, toward a pseudo-capitalism. The United States does business with Vietnam these days, which, while objectionable, is a matter for another column.

Today’s “dominos” will not be bought off with aid – financial, military or otherwise.

Eradicating this problem is simple. Pull all American servicemen and women from these rogue nations. Encourage all students and tourists to return home to the United States as quickly as possible. Advise American citizens not to visit or conduct business with rogue nations or the nations supporting the enemies of the United States. Hit them where they will feel it – in their economies. Yes, that includes any oil producing countries as well. Further, freeze any governmental assets miscreant countries have in the United States.

The current war, and it is a war, has been waged by a group of savage fanatics and zealots blindly following religious dicta and dogma commanding its adherents to kill so-called infidels such as Jews and Christians, commanding that female adulterers be put to death, commanding that homosexuals be put to death, that converts away from this venal faith be put to death. Their treatment of women is abominable at best.

The savages who make headlines on a daily basis burning American flags, attacking embassies, murdering innocent Americans, chanting death to Israel, death to America, are now clamoring “Obama, Obama, there are still a billion Osamas.” (www.drudge.com)

Terrorists only understand fear and violence, and they should be met with the same if not worse. They kill four Americans, the US strikes back by killing 4,000 of their people. This may sound harsh to American sensibilities and the media would lose their minds over such a plan of attack, but fire must be fought with fire as the alternatives have proven a catastrophic failure.

Terrorists need only be accurate once. “Our vigilance has to be every day,” said Brinkley.

In order to be acutely vigilant, the United States needs deft leadership and the mechanisms in which to defend the nation and its people both at home and abroad.

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

Peace through Strength? Not on Obama's Watch

Peace through Strength? Not on Obama’s Watch
Commentary by Sanford D. Horn
September 12, 2012

Continuing its weak and embarrassing dogma of apology and supplication, the Obama administration has once again proven feckless in its ability to properly handle a crisis – this time a foreign policy crisis that saw two embassies attacked and four Americans murdered, including one ambassador.

And yet, while bereft of any cogent demonstration of strength or backbone, it was Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney who was assailed by the so-called mainstream media for being too quick to condemn and criticize.

A little seen video, with no link to the American government, containing ridicule of Islam’s prophet Mohammad was the impetus to the violence and murders that occurred in Egypt and Libya.

That the carnage took place on September 11 is certainly no coincidence – adding to the angst of the commemoration of the most horrific day of terror on American soil in 2001 when the World Trade Center twin towers were destroyed, the Pentagon in Arlington, VA attacked, and a plane diverted from Washington to crash in a field in Shanksville, PA, where roughly 3,000 innocents were murdered. Yet, Obama called the attacks “shocking.”

While the mocking of any legitimate religious figure is inappropriate and distasteful, there is still a little something called the First Amendment to the United States Constitution providing that: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…” This amendment was not defended or supported by the Obama administration in the language used by the American embassy in Cairo.

The initial statement from the embassy condemned “the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims, as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions.”

As violence erupted at the American embassy in Cairo, radical Muslims tore down, shredded and burned the American flag, replacing it with the black banner representing Muslim extremism. This included chants of “Obama, we are here to sacrifice for Osama.” This was followed by statements from the embassy supporting the previous call to not offend the religious sensibilities of Muslims, all the while; Muslims are attacking the American embassy.

Over in Benghazi, Libya, the American embassy was also invaded by radical Muslims who murdered US Ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens, 52, a native of California and a 20-plus year Foreign Service veteran, along with three other Americans.

While the administration continued its cow-towing to the attacking and murdering Muslims, GOP nominee Romney rightfully criticized Obama’s weakness and condemned the attacks on the embassy as well as the murders of Ambassador Stevens and the other three Americans.

Romney exhibited strength and presidential acumen in his condemnation of the attacks on the two embassies, the murder of four American citizens, and the fact that embassy security is the responsibility of the host country, who clearly failed to do their jobs.

To be fair, Obama absolutely condemned the attacks and declared his desire to work with the Libyan government to bring the killers to justice. That’s a nice idea, Mr. Obama, but what government? Libya, since the ousting of Moammar Gaddafi, has been a virtual anarchist state.

Making matters worse was after the initial embassy statement, the Obama administration tried to disavow itself from the apology/condemnation of free speech rights, and then hours later, the State Department supported those very words.

Instead of condemning the Obama administration, the media went after Romney during his comments for jumping the gun in his condemnation of Obama for his continued weakness and capitulation to enemies of the American people.

Romney expressed condolences to the Stevens’ family as well as the families of the other murdered diplomats. After calling the attacks “disgraceful, outrageous and disgusting,” Romney maintained his criticism of Obama.

“I think it is a terrible course for America to issue an apology for our values. An apology for America’s values is never the right course,” said Romney, adding that Obama’s foreign policy has been a “hit-or-miss approach” lacking consistency.

Romney continued by mentioning the three “fundamental branches” of his foreign policy: confidence in the cause with no apologies for American values; clarity in the purpose; and resolve in the might of the United States – that hopefully it is needed rarely, but when it is necessary, to be swift and use overwhelming force in the clarity of the mission.

The Obama administration more and more resembles that of the failed term of Jimmy Carter – weak economy, high unemployment and a lack of respect abroad. This, sadly, is reminiscent of the Iranian hostage crisis which put the final nail into the coffin of the Carter reelection bid in 1980.

It was no accident that on the day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated those very hostages were on their way home. Peace through strength was the Reagan mantra, and it worked. It restored America’s rightful place in the global community, brought confidence back home to American citizens and began to right the ship of state.

Mitt Romney may not be Ronald Reagan, but he certainly exhibited Reagan-esque qualities that will help turn around a floundering economy, restore confidence in the business community and lead through strength on the foreign stage.

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.

Why Islam is Winning

Why Islam is Winning

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

February 26, 2012

A Koran is burned; Muslims murder American servicemen and Barack Hussein Obama can’t apologize fast enough.

Mohammad is depicted in cartoons; fatwas are placed on the heads of the artists. In fact a fatwa is still on the head of British-Indian author Salman Rushdie for his late 1980s tome The Satanic Verses. There is a fatwa on the life of outspoken Dutch politician Geert Wilders as well as Muslim human rights activist Raheel Raza.

Muslim taxicab drivers at the Minneapolis airport refuse passengers carrying alcohol and/or dogs – aside from minor objections and little said in the lame-stream-media, no problem. Additionally, Muslim demands for footbaths at various public facilities, including airports, are also granted at taxpayer expense.

A Muslim convert to Christianity is sentenced to death in Iran, not just for the conversion but for his becoming a Christian pastor as well. Youcef Nadarkhani faces execution without warning.

A Muslim teacher sues to get leave for her pilgrimage to Mecca. Although the leave is denied on the grounds that her absence would create an undue hardship on her employer, she resigned her position. In fact the lawsuit on behalf of Safoorah Khan, a middle school math teacher in the Chicago suburb of Berkeley, was orchestrated by Obama’s chosen Attorney General Eric Holder.

Demands on behalf of Muslim students attending Catholic University in Washington, DC to have crucifixes removed are made. No student claimed to be a part of this complaint made by John F. Banzhaf, III, a public interest law professor at nearby George Washington University, but the complaint itself is demonstrative of the ongoing path by Muslims to impose their beliefs on the world, often under the threat of death.

More and more outcries coming from liberals and feminists supporting a people who would deny them rights. Women not permitted to vote or drive in Saudi Arabia, single women required to have male chaperones in many Muslim countries, pre-marital sex as grounds for execution as is marital infidelity by women are part of a people that liberals and feminists are supporting. Were Christians or Jews enforcing such restrictions on women, there would be protests in the streets.

The left also complains that it is wrong to profile Muslims as well as calling Islam a religion of peace on par with Christianity and Judaism, when in fact the Koran implicitly calls for the extermination of “infidels,” – non-Muslims. What religion of peace accepts the rape of children and honor killings?

How then is Islam winning?

They remain true to their faith – even the outlandish and outrageous tenets.

Consider the same liberals and leftists and their fervent attack not just on Christianity, but all things religious. There is more secularism in the United States, Canada, Europe and Western Civilization as a whole. Meanwhile, Muslims are infiltrating countries like England, France and Germany rioting and demanding those countries’ centuries old customs be changed to meet Muslim edicts.

Perhaps a case can even be made that Jewish secularism in 1930s Germany contributed to the Holocaust. Consider the Jewish people living in a nation seemingly educated and cultured as Germany. The Jewish people were, certainly in the major cities, integrated and assimilated in many ways and they considered themselves proud German citizens, veterans of the Great War, who had rights and would be protected.

First came the Nuremburg Laws of 1935 then Kristallnacht in 1938. But what was the reaction to the burning of synagogues, Torah scrolls, other religious items, the rounding up of innocent Jews in the streets, the looting of Jewish-owned stores and businesses? German Jews did not riot in the streets or murder random Germans. (Perhaps they should have.) No; they were too civilized and believed in the rule of law – much to their chagrin and ultimate fate. Nothing of the kind has been imposed upon Muslims.

All this about a people persecuted, hunted, rounded up and slaughtered simply for their faith. Muslims are not enduring Nazi-style attacks; instead they are perpetrating such assaults.

Should religious Christians and Jews respond to Muslim insurgencies both physical and cultural in kind? While some would say yes, I say a stepped up vigilance is imperative. Greater security measures, increased profiling and more restrictions of residents of Muslim countries from entering the United States – for any reason is mandatory. How many student visas have been violated by so-called students overstaying, and then disappearing into the wind, only to crop up later in “sleeper cells?”

How many Fort Hoods are necessary before we get the message? Are there fanatics in other religions? Of course there are. But let’s stop carting out Timothy McVeigh as a counter each and every time violence at the hands of Muslims occurs.

Stop listening to the Rosie O’ Donnells of the world who bellow that radical Christianity is worse than radical Islam. The radical Islam practiced in Ahmadinejad’s Iran would have O’ Donnell murdered for being a lesbian. I don’t hear threats on her life from devout Christians or Orthodox Jews. They may not approve of her lifestyle; some may even protest, but there’s no Christian fatwa on O’ Donnell’s head.

A lack of religiosity and faith as well as a tremendous increase in secularism in the United States and Western Civilization as a whole, now make many people uncomfortable in religious environs or with the public profession of one’s faith. People of faith are mocked – look at how the so-called mainstream media treats men like Tim Tebow, quarterback of the Denver Broncos; Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks and presidential candidate Rick Santorum (R-PA). They are often excoriated for the pronouncement of their faith. I would rather surround myself with men like them than people the likes of Casey Anthony, Robert Blake and George Soros.

I have often been told that the only reason Christian conservatives love and support Israel is to convert the Jews. The problem with that notion is that Jewish people of faith and conviction as Jews would never fall prey to such possibilities. For the record, no Christian conservative has ever tried to lure me away from my faith. Quite frankly, religious Jews have more in common with those very Christian conservatives who love and support Israel than with secular Jews.

Secularism and liberalism removed prayer from school, put condoms in schools, and saw an increase in campus violence. Secularists and liberals are demanding the removal of “under G-d” from the Pledge of Allegiance as well as the Ten Commandments from public display.

Secularism, liberalism, and atheism are what are allowing Islam a clear path on which to march forward toward their unholy victory. The time is now to say NO MORE and return to the churches and synagogues and reclaim our peace loving G-d.

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

Ode on a Grecian Future

Ode on a Grecian Future

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

February 24, 2012

With apologies to English Romantic poet John Keats (1795-1821) for bastardizing his Grecian Urn title, the United States economy will resemble Greece more and more due to soaring gasoline prices and the arrogance and stubbornness of one Barack Hussein Obama.

For Obama to declare in a speech this week that there is “no silver bullet” answer or cure to what ails this nation on the energy front is myopically disingenuous. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the deal for the XL Keystone pipeline “a no brainer.” Yet, Obama, deeply entrenched in the pockets of the extreme environmentalists, unilaterally rejected the plan that would have brought thousands of shovel ready jobs to the United States, more domestic oil and an opportunity to tell the Saudis no thank you to any more of their oil. And no more bowing to Saudi princes and emirs.

Ultimately, it will be the price of gas that will drive this economy – pun intended.

Not to get mired in the weeds of statistics, but they do tell part of the story. When Obama was inaugurated in 2009, the national average cost for a gallon of gas was $1.83. On February 23, 2012 that average reached $3.61 and a day later it hit $3.65, with no ceiling in sight.

Twenty states are above the national average: Alaska, California, Connecticut, Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia. The average price per gallon in those states is $3.79 with 54 percent of the US population residing there. The five states being hit the hardest are Connecticut at $3.90, New York at $3.91, Alaska at $4.05, California at $4.20 and Hawaii at $4.28.

Since last year each driver has spent $840 more to fill their tanks than the year before. That’s $230 billion in disposable income lost. That’s vacations cancelled, stretching last year’s school wardrobe another year, postponing purchasing that new car or other big ticket items, dining out less frequently, buying fewer gifts at Christmas and Chanukah time and even stretching the supermarket dollars farther.

With the aforementioned purchases moving to the back burner for an undetermined amount of time, consider what millions and millions of Americans making those same decisions will do to the economy out of dire necessity. Production drops, thus raising unemployment in both manufacturing and sales. Increased unemployment puts increased demands on the government coffers for unemployment benefits, thus the need for government to derive other sources of revenue. Government revenue comes from the taxes paid by the workers of America. With less revenue entering the government coffers and more needing to be paid out, as well as covering the already committed for expenditures, the debt rises higher and higher.

The current debt in the United States is above $15 trillion and is projected to reach $16.4 trillion by Election Day. The per capita debt for every man, woman and child in the United States is currently $44,215 and will reach $75,000 by 2020, should Obama’s budget become law, according to Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL), the ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee and supported by Matt McCall, president of the Penn Financial Group, LLC. Sessions also attributes his numbers to the IMF.

Consider the riots in Greece and the civil unrest in many other European countries tethered to the EU and the stumbling Euro, which never should have been implemented in the first place. Per capita debt in Spain is $18,395; in Portugal it is $19,989; in France it is $33,491; in Greece it is $38,937; in Italy it is $40,475 and in Ireland it is $43,887 – all lower than the US figure.

With $4 a gallon of gas inevitable and $5 a distinct possibility by mid-summer, think about what you won’t be able to do with the additional money going into your tanks and not into the aforementioned purchases. Daydream about the rounds of golf you won’t play or the swim club your family won’t join, or the summer camps your children won’t go to or the baseball games you won’t attend. Think about the sweaty house you will endure because the cost of energy to air condition your home will also skyrocket.

While doing those things and sweating through the stifling heat this summer, remember as you watch the Democrat and Republican conventions who to thank – the party rejecting XL Keystone or the party clamoring for domestic drilling to end our reliance upon unfriendly nations for their oil. End our reliance upon those nations and cripple their economies at the same time.

There is enough oil domestically via the XL Keystone pipeline, ANWR, the Gulf of Mexico and the shale in the Rockies and Pennsylvania to sustain the United States for what experts say should be centuries. While drilling at home, continued research and development should be conducted to provide wind, solar and bio-fuel energy at competitive prices, without government investment and side by side with gas and oil.

                                                                                                       

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

Dismiss Defense Dunce Panetta

Dismiss Defense Dunce Panetta

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

February 3, 2012

United States Defense Secretary Leon Panetta must be fired sooner rather than later. Immediately would be best because he has no sense of history, forgetting the World War II adage “Loose lips sink ships.”

Panetta’s loose lips regarding Israel’s potential military strategy begs the question, with friends like him, who needs enemies? Who the hell does he think he is divulging Israel’s or any other country’s plans?

Panetta’s gaping hole between his lips should sink his own ship. Keep in mind, however, that Panetta is merely a symptom of a wider pandemic of disrespect and a lack of support by this administration toward its only reliable Middle East ally.

Clearly Obama and his cohorts are attempting to sabotage Israel’s safety and security. But this should not come as a surprise since not only has Obama not visited Israel during his term in office, but during the 2008 campaign, in a debate with now Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Obama said he would sit down with Iran’s despotic dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The issue at hand here is Panetta telling the world that Israel may launch military operations against the Islamic Republic of Iran within the next two to three months for the purposes of destroying any possibility of the belligerent nation acquiring nuclear weapons. Discussing any country’s military plans is counterproductive and potentially deleterious to the success of such a mission.

Potential Israeli operations are not without solid reasoning. Aside from the oft-repeated desires of Iran’s Ahmadinejad that Israel should be wiped off the map, the Islamic country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said “Israel is a cancerous tumor that should be cut and will be cut.”

Obama and Panetta have “cautioned the Israelis that the US opposes an attack, believing that it would derail an increasingly successful economic sanctions program,” said Panetta.

Success? Panetta and Obama must be using a newfangled dictionary. “Sanctions will not have any impact on our determination to continue our nuclear course,” said Khamenei.

And beware of China, who has long opposed sanctions against Iran. German Chancellor Angela Merkel who has strongly attempted to impress upon China the need to have them persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear program.

Who are Obama and Panetta to tell Israel how to or even if it should defend herself? Do they want Israel to be a sitting duck waiting for Iran to produce the enriched uranium needed for a nuclear weapon? By continuing to enrich its already stockpiled uranium, Iran could produce four atomic bombs, the first inside of a year, according to Major General Aviv Koch Avi, Israel’s Military Intelligence chief.

Just how obtuse is the Obama administration? Iran has been transparent in its thoughts and plans. Israel must be wiped off the map. Israel is a cancer. Do these notions sound remotely complimentary or desirous of a nation seeking the road toward peace and coexistence? Of course not! Yet Obama and Panetta would have Israel turn the other cheek and await a disastrous fate at the hand of part of the Axis of Evil.

And at what cost?

After attacking and potentially destroying Israel, Iran has set its sights on the United States and Western Civilization as a whole in its attempt to establish a global caliphate.

Iran again threatens to block shipping from the Strait of Hormuz. The United States must not blink first. A Hormuz blockade will hurt Iran before it hurts the United States if the US has the smarts to rethink the XL Keystone pipeline deal with Canada and drill domestically for oil as well as fraking for shale.

Israel should do to Iran what she did to Iraq in 1981. It would be a gift to humanity for which she will never be thanked. So in advance, toda raba, Israel.

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

Beyond Brinksmanship with Iran

Beyond Brinksmanship with Iran

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

January 6, 2012

“Bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb, bomb, Iran,” famously chanted Arizona Republican Senator John McCain during his fateful 2008 presidential campaign to the tune of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann.”

Nearly four years later we can look back on that infamous flub and realize that was one of the few correct notions made by McCain during his lackluster run for the White House. Now, in 2012, we are on the precipice of an armed conflict with Iran, either directly or via surrogates such as Israel, who has as much, if not more, at stake in preventing a nuclear Iran from coming to fruition.

In fact, based upon the timidity of this administration to deal with Iran appropriately, it may very well fall upon the narrow shores, but strong shoulders, of the only true ally the United States has in the Middle East. Israel may need to step up to the plate and do to Iran what it did in 1982 to Iraq and eradicate its nuclear capabilities sooner, rather than later.

Iran, under the despotic Ahmadinejad regime, has already declared its intentions when, not if, it attains a nuclear weapon: wipe Israel off the map. This is a task at which the Iranians are feverishly working to accomplish every single day. Should Israel fall, civilization as a whole will begin to tumble like a series of impotent dominos.

“An Iranian nuclear weapon is a mortal threat to the US,” said GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich. “Anyone who says to you they won’t use it is out of touch with reality. I think we have a huge interest in not allowing them to get a nuclear weapon,” continued the former House Speaker.

Iran has already threatened a blockade at the Strait of Hormuz as a response to potential sanctions against the Islamic nation. Sadly, sanctions have not worked in the past as Iran has thumbed its nose at the US as well as shunned the United Nations, proving its uselessness as an international body.

The Strait of Hormuz connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman to the Arabian Sea through which 15.5 million barrels of oil flow daily or 17 percent of the world’s oil. This is deemed the most important oil supply check point in the world.

Iran’s threats and posturing is yet another reason for oil independence. Projects such as the Keystone XL Pipeline, drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Reserve), as well as fracking in the shale in Pennsylvania and the Rocky Mountains would render Iran’s bullying or even an actual blockade moot. It would cost Iran billions of dollars.

An economically crippled Iran could very well lead to the necessary regime change, perhaps without firing a single shot. A destabilized Iran would lead to civil unrest and ultimate ouster of Ahmadinejad. As it stands, most Iranians under 40 years of age are against the current oppressive regime.

The move toward oil/energy independence is clearly win-win for both the United States and Canada. Additionally, conducting more business with our neighbor to the north, Canada, is also positive – as the Keystone XL Pipeline would originate in Hardisty, Alberta.

Furthermore, another move to make Iran irrelevant would be to cultivate a stronger oil relationship with our neighbor to the south, Mexico. A couple of important goals could be accomplished here. The US agrees to purchase more oil from Mexico while the aforementioned projects are underway in the United States. But hinging on that deal with Mexico would be the requirement that the increased jobs in Mexico go to Mexicans illegally in the United States. So many illegal immigrants from Mexico claim they snuck into the US by necessity for work. So again, a win-win for both the United States and Mexico.

There is no time to waste either on becoming energy independent in the United States or in curtailing Iran’s efforts to alter the state of civilization and humanity as we know it. As Ronald Reagan said in his successful 1980 presidential campaign, “the time is now.”

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

Al-Awlaki Treason Deserved Death

Al-Awlaki Treason Deserved Death

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

October 1, 2011

There should be no question regarding the justifiability of the killing of American-born terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki on September 30. Like a feral animal needing to be put down, al-Awlaki was a scourge upon humanity and just another casualty in the War on Terror.

While the ACLU and the like of US Rep. Ron Paul (L-TX) are bemoaning the so-called assassination of al-Awlaki, remember this was an American born terrorist who died in a drone attack on the field of battle on the Yemen-Saudi border.

A home grown terrorist born in New Mexico with degrees from Colorado State University and San Diego State University, al-Awlaki had long since renounced the nation of his birth. His death is seen as the most important Al Qaeda “get” since Osama bin Laden in May of this year.

Al-Awlaki masterminded and incited the Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, who on November 5, 2009 murdered 13 of his fellow troops. Credit al-Awlaki for inciting the attempted airplane attack on December 25, 2009 by underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as well as the attempted bombing of Times Square in New York City by Faisal Shahzad on May 1, 2010.

As an American citizen, the killing of al-Awlaki is more than justified. He waged war against the United States, thus committing treason, punishable by death. He took up arms against the United States as an enemy combatant as well as inciting and masterminding others to do likewise in the name of bringing America and Western Civilization to their collective knees.

Here’s an insidious thought or theory. Numerous key, high ranking terrorist kills gives Obama something on which to hang his foreign policy hat – this in spite of his sheer hypocrisy according to former Vice President Dick Cheney – during the reelection campaign. Cheney correctly noted that as a US Senator and candidate for president, Obama virulently opposed this sort of action during the Bush administration. These military successes could vault Obama back into the White House for another four years. Then, Obama can continue to destroy the United States with his odious and failed economic policies paving the way for socialism and a Muslim victory.

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

Veto Palestinian Homeland

Veto Palestinian Homeland

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

September 19, 2011

There have been myriad on-line petitions asking signatories to demand the United Nations deny granting statehood status to the so-called Palestinian people. I have not signed a single one of them.

Before anyone become apoplectic in a knee-jerk reaction that I, a strong, lifelong supporter of Israel, would support such a lugubrious notion of granting any sense of legitimacy to a group who continues to have as part of its charter the ultimate destruction of the State of Israel, one must understand the fatal flaw of the petitions.

The petitions call for a two-state solution with a Palestinian homeland side by side with Israel upon a change in the Palestinian Authority charter as well as a recognition of the Jewish state and its right to exist.

This is a flawed process as it is rewarding the bad behavior of the so-called Palestinian people – decades of terror/homicide attacks and bombings on innocent Israeli men, women and children. And I say so-called Palestinian people as what exists are generations of refugees rejected by nearly two dozen Arab nations who could easily have absorbed these people years ago and avoided the constant bloodshed that has existed between the attackers and the attacked.

Historically speaking, the so-called Palestinian people should be calling Jordan their home. And it begs the question, if 22 nations have rejected their Arab brethren, why should tiny Israel, roughly the size of New Jersey, be responsible for giving a home to people hell bent on the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people?

The United Nations, already an irrelevant body for years, will no doubt attempt, to the best of its so-called powers, grant statehood to the so-called Palestinian people later this week. The Obama administration, via Secretary of State Hillary Clinton MUST use its veto via the Security Council to prevent this from occurring.

This upcoming vote clearly is a hand-wringer for Obama personally, as has been evidenced by his support of a Palestinian homeland and his vile treatment of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. On the one hand, Obama, who already has a fractious relationship with Israel and American Jewish voters, needs to display some backbone and instruct Secretary Clinton to cast a veto. Yet, he personally would like to do just the opposite – and this is what Jewish voters MUST remember come November 2012.

Should the unthinkable occur, and the so-called Palestinian people be granted this undeserved homeland, the United States should immediately rescind the roughly $500 million in aid given to them. Why the so-called Palestinians are given one red cent of American tax-paying dollars in the first place is unconscionable.

Additionally, the United States should not just leave the UN, it should boot the entire insignificant organization out of this country, demand all debts be paid under the penalty of withholding additional aid to any nation failing to acquiesce. Obama claims he is seeking cost-cutting ideas. The United States provides roughly 25 percent of the funding that keeps the typically anti-American United Nations afloat. There are 193 member nations. All things being equal, and Obama is a major advocate of spreading the wealth around, the United States financial obligation should be around one half of one percent, not the backbreaking 25 percent it kicks in at present.

The League of Nations failed and the time has come to say adios, sayonara, ciao, viszlat, zai jian, yasou, totsiens, aloha and shalom to the United Nations. Buh-bye.

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

To Protect and Defend

To Protect and Defend

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

April 7, 2010

Article II, Section I of the Constitution of the United States of America requires the President swear an oath of office that includes the words to “protect and defend” that very document.

Upon the administration of said oath, that president becomes Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. United States military officers in turn swear an oath that includes the words, “I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

This administration, under the auspices of Barack Obama is about to enter into an unholy alliance with the world, with few exceptions, declaring the United States will not take up and use nuclear weapons against any nation that does not already posses them. Apparently Iran and North Korea are the exceptions to this insidious decision.

How obtuse can this so-called leader be? This is not a game of HORSE Obama is playing on the White House basketball court where he can “spot” his opponent the “H” and “O” simply because he is an inferior player. War is war and is designed to annihilate ones enemies in an effort to permanently end their enmity or prevent them from being able to destroy our way of life.

Obama’s pronouncement is disgraceful and there is no doubt that former President Harry Truman is spinning in his grave like a dreidel at Chanukah. G-d bless the memory of Harry Truman, a Democrat, who had to make two of the most difficult decisions in American History by dropping not one, but two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II in victory against Japan. Japan initially attacked the United States with the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, officially drawing this nation into the war.

Conventional and historical wisdom denotes that had the United States not used the most stringent of its armaments – the atomic bomb – in order to vanquish our enemy, the potential loss of American life could have reached a devastating and unthinkable one million combat personnel. Should atomic weaponry not have been employed simply because Japan had not yet procured the equalizing technology? Should LeBron James sit out against the hapless Washington Wizards in an effort for the Cleveland Cavaliers to level the playing field?

That extremely faulty logic is not just insipid, but dangerous, and this kind of handcuffing of the United States military could be deemed an act of treason perpetrated by the Commander in Chief for not being prepared to advance the course of a conflict with the maximum capabilities available. Should the most damaging and deleterious of our military capabilities not be used should the United States come under an attack by a non-nuclear nation who instead opts for chemical or biological weapons?

Obama has demonstrated his inability to lead having given free passes to both North Korea and Iran by his lack of sanctions against those rogue nations. Concurrently, Obama has taken to berating and chastising Israel, our closest ally in the Middle East, simply for building houses for their own citizenry.

As Commander in Chief, Obama has the obligation to enter into a potential war with as much fervent zealousness as can be delivered. To do otherwise or consider doing otherwise would put the national security of the United States in a vulnerable position, weaken our defenses, and could be characterized as treason, or at the very least, impeachable.

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

Obama Announces Surrender Date

Obama Announces Surrender Date

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

February 27, 2009

Moments ago, while speaking at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Barack Obama announce that on “August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end.” He further said that by that date in 2011 all troops will be gone from this troubled nation.

Such a pronouncement only gives encouragement to those who seek to continue to destabilize an already shaky nation and region of the world. All they need do is wait out the departure of American servicemen and women who have served so admirably prior to renewing their acts of terror and carnage. While former President Bush’s “mission accomplished” was premature, so too is Obama’s announcement to let our strategy be known to our enemies.

Many United States military troops who have sacrificed so much to diminish the threat of insurgence, know first hand that the job is not yet complete. Yes, such an announcement could only have been made possible thanks to the success of Central Command Chief General David Petraeus, his strategy, and the surge itself. But, to announce a date certain of withdrawal is akin to surrender and could ultimately jeopardize the safety of the American men and women on the job in Iraq.

To end American military involvement in Iraq is one thing, but to announce the date raises a white flag and is analogous to telling thieves when one’s house will be empty as its occupants take a vacation. Prolonging American involvement in Iraq serves little benefit when its own people should have stepped up some time ago; however, it’s the so-called strategy that is debatable.

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

Where's Monty Hall?

Where’s Monty Hall?

Commentary by Sanford D. Horn

March 7, 2003

In an episode of the 1970s television program “The Odd Couple,” Felix Unger, portrayed by Tony Randall and Oscar Madison, played by Jack Klugman appeared on the then popular game show “Let’s Make A Deal,” in a horse costume.

Attempting to garner the host’s attention, Felix shouts out, “pick me Monty, pick me.”

Well, this is what’s happening on the global stage. Nations that ordinarily wouldn’t get a second look are trying to get the attention of the United States in order to make a deal with the most powerful country in the world. Nations like Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea and Pakistan want to know what they can get from the United States in exchange for support in the potential military conflict against Iraq.

The United States already looked behind Door Number One – Turkey, only to find an empty box when that country’s parliament voted on Saturday, March 1 to deny U.S. permission to use its bases. There was talk that the Turkish parliament might hold another vote and change its mind.

The initial deal offered by the U.S. to Turkey amounted to $26 billion in loans and support. The Monday after the rejection, the Turkish stock exchange took a 13 percent dive. Should Turkey wish to revisit the deal, the United States ought to offer half, if even that much to the majority Muslim nation straddling Europe and Asia.

To the other nations wanting the U.S. to cough up billions for its vote as members of the United Nations Security Council, they should get nothing. That they do not understand the moral imperative at stake here is unfortunate. To suggest that it is wrong for the U.S. to threaten a trade embargo against those nations not supporting the U.S. by calling it extortion, neither shall the United States be extorted in order to get permission from an organization so irrelevant that Saddam Hussein has thumbed his nose at it for a dozen years and counting.

Like a parent threatening to punish a child, “if you do that one more time…,” the United Nations has done likewise to Iraq, repeatedly, with the same result – no consequences for heinous actions.

Making matters worse, is that so-called allies of the United States, Belgium, France and Germany could have put up a unified front to force Hussein to back down. By opposing the U.S., Hussein has been emboldened; and even more so every time an American takes to the streets to protest its own government. Behind Door Number Two Monty reveals disloyalty to the United States.

(Sadly the American protesters are part of a dangerous group of people who blame America, their own country, for the evils in the world. This unfortunately is a growing trend permeated in the public schools of this country. A public school system where time-outs have replaced real punishment. A place where students are given good grades for their effort even when the effort comes up short and even passed on to the next grade so as not to damage the self-esteem. A place where competition is increasingly shunned, again for fear of damaging the all too fragile self-esteem.

Most recently, in the city of Oakland, California and in the state of Maine, anti-war ugliness has gone over the edge. In Oakland, teachers taught anti-war lessons without a voice from the other side. Speakers, paid for with citizens tax dollars were brought into schools to preach anti-war rhetoric. In Maine, teachers upped the ante by maligning students who have parents in the reserves called to active duty, as well as fulltime members of the U.S. armed forces.)

Granted the first amendment to the Constitution gives the protesters the right to do so, but they should listen to former Iraqi citizens now living in the U.S. either as American citizens or legal residents. Many have testified to the brutality under which Iraqis live. They have testified that Iraqi citizens are waiting for Americans and military partners like the British and Spanish to liberate Iraq.

Even Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy (D-MA), so vehemently opposed to the war, does not recognize that there are about 30 nations that will join American troops should war become necessary. On the Senate floor on Friday, March 07 he referred to potential military action by the United States as “unilateral.” Kennedy was more concerned about what the rest of the world would think about the U.S. than the importance of the mission, much akin to being worried about being popular than being right.

It’s better to be right than popular. World opinion does not begin and end with the French, Germans, Chinese and Russians. Twenty-three million Iraqis are counting upon the U.S. military and its partners to do what’s right.

When the war is over, American troops/advisors along with its military partners’ troops/advisors should keep enough people in Iraq to oversee the restructuring of its government as well as to ensure democratic elections take place. This is something of which even Jimmy Carter should approve. For their efforts, those nations should receive discounts on oil, beneficial to all involved, while those countries standing idly by, get nothing, are rebuked and condemned by the United Nations and play no role in the reorganization of the nation of Iraq. Hopefully when Door Number Three is opened Monty will find a free Iraq.

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