The Patriot Post Digest 7-29-2015

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The Patriot Post Digest 7-29-2015
From The Federalist Patriot
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Daily Digest

Jul. 29, 2015

THE FOUNDATION

“Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence.” —Alexander Hamilton, Pacificus, No. 6, 1793

TOP RIGHT HOOKS

Gun Salesman in Chief Raises Firearm Production by 140%1

Barack Obama is proud of his numerous “accomplishments,” but on the issue of gun control, his success rate is admittedly off target. “The one area that I feel that I’ve been most frustrated and most stymied … is the fact that the United States is the one advanced nation on earth in which we do not have sufficient, common-sense gun safety laws,” he lamented last week — a reality made more bitter by the fact Democrats strategically, and unsuccessfully, blame every nefarious shooter’s behavior on the weapons used to inflict harm. Their continuous gratuitous assault on the Second Amendment has America’s gun owners equally if not more frustrated. A new report by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has found, “Under President Obama, gun production has spiked 140 percent to 10.8 million firearms in 2013, the most recent year for which data is available,” The Hill reported. If the Left’s goal is to reverse gun figures in America, it’s utterly failing. Erich Pratt, a spokesperson with Gun Owners of America, quips, “The ATF report confirms what we already know, that Barack Obama deserves the ‘Gun Salesman of the Decade’ award. People have been rushing to buy firearms because they’re afraid that Obama will take away their Second Amendment rights.” And for good reason. The administration is attempting to prohibit Social Security recipients2 from owning firearms if they are judged mentally incompetent. “This amounts to the largest gun grab in American history,” according to the National Rifle Association. In his final 18 months, Obama will do all he can to ensure his legacy won’t go down as a gun salesman but as a gun confiscator. And that’s all the more reason to remain vigilant.

EPA Extends Deadline on Clean Power Plan3

The Environmental Protection Agency is beginning to realize that it might be asking a bit too much from the American economy. Sources at the EPA have told The Washington Post4 that it is extending the deadline for when coal plants must reduce their greenhouse gas output. The EPA has yet to release the final version of the regulation, but it said coal plants have until 2022 instead of 2020 to conform to the gospel of green and avoid too much stress on the electrical grid. By ceding ground, the EPA admits the Clean Power Plan demanded too much. On a related note, the new ozone standards that the EPA is working on would set the standards so low on the naturally occurring gas that Yosemite National Park and the Grand Canyon5 would be in violation, according to the National Association of Manufacturers. Things have gone too far when an agency supposedly established to protect the environment finds nature in violation of its decrees.

Obama Spends $6M to Fly Air Force One to Africa6

In the age of sequestered military spending — reduced forces, grounded Thunderbirds, Blue Angels stripped of their wings and even blockaded memorials — Barack Obama thinks nothing of pulling nearly $6 million from the Air Force budget to fund the 29-hour Air Force One flight to and from Kenya and Ethiopia. Presidential trips abroad are classified information, and no one quite knows how much Obama spent on this trip to visit his extended family and attend the 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Summit. When he visited Africa in 20137, the trip cost an estimated $100 million. Typically, presidents spend more time abroad in their second term. Currently, Obama is not the executive with the most frequent flyer miles — that platinum membership belongs to Bill Clinton — but Obama is close. Michael Tasselmyer, policy analyst at the National Taxpayers Union Foundation, wrote8, “The last official accounting of any Presidential travel was conducted over a decade ago in GAO’s 1999 report on President Clinton’s trips to Africa, Chile, and China. … There are understandable security considerations to keep in mind, but until more information is made available, there can be no public debate on the costs and benefits of international travel.” It’s not so much the travel money, it’s the priorities.

FEATURED RIGHT ANALYSIS
Olympic Size Price Tag Too Much for Boston9

By Nate Jackson

Everybody loves the Olympics, right? The grit, the feats, the glory, the decathlon champ who later decides he’s a woman10. All kidding aside, every two years (summer and winter, respectively), the world gathers its best athletes to compete for sport and national pride. But is it worth the price of admission?

Boston and the International Olympics Committee (IOC) came to an agreement of sorts: No, it isn’t worth the enormous cost for Boston to host the 2024 Olympic Games.

It’s revealing that both parties agreed because neither wanted to be liable for the inevitable cost overruns. Boston Mayor Martin Walsh refused to sign a host city contract with the United States Olympic Committee that would put Boston’s taxpayers on the hook for the extra costs (i.e., absolving the IOC), so the committee cut Boston out of the running. Walsh said, “This is me letting the taxpayers of Boston know … that I will not sign a document that puts one dollar of taxpayers' money on the line for one penny of overruns for the Olympics.”

Walsh is right in a sense; the spectacle of the Olympics is an expensive façade, and there are always cost overruns. Cities and countries spend billions of dollars updating or building infrastructure, with the accompanying traffic delays and detours for citizens, all for two weeks of glory on the world stage. That isn’t to say those two weeks aren’t really fun and glorious…

As a side note, this phenomenon is certainly not limited to the Olympics. American taxpayers fork over billions of dollars in what are essentially subsidies to our own major national sports. For example, the National Football League, a “nonprofit” until it dropped the charade in April, has secured billions for stadiums around the country, which are then replaced a couple of decades later when they’re deemed “outdated.”

The last time the summer Olympics were held in the U.S. was 1996 in Atlanta. But what of the Olympic venues in Atlanta today? Turner Field, formerly known as Olympic Stadium, is home to Major League Baseball’s Braves, but it will be demolished when the team moves in 2017 to another venue built with $450 million in taxpayer money in suburban Cobb County. And Turner Field is the only Olympic venue in Georgia’s biggest city still in operation. So much for the “investment” in 1996.

What about more recent years? Mark Alexander described his first-hand experience at the 2008 Beijing Olympics11, which cost China $40 billion:

“China put on its best face, rather like a movie set. Beijing’s new airport is among the world’s finest. Every main Olympic thoroughfare was newly paved, signed, landscaped and lighted. Even the primary rural routes outside the city had makeovers, with fresh paint and greenery covering 100 feet on either side of those roads. Beyond that makeup, however, was the dirt and dilapidation that makes up most of China’s rural areas.