SERIOUSLY? National Park Service spitefully removes handles from water fountains

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Until very recently, the National Park Service was one of the least-loathed government agencies in the country. Now, with orders from on high to keep the public from visiting beloved parks and monuments the agency is developing a poor reputation. 

Park rangers have very diverse jobs, providing everything from policing to the janitorial duties required to keep public parks and memorials open, safe and enjoyable. However, they have recently been compared to the Gestapo (hyperbole) as they actively  work to keep people from enjoying public spaces.

According to a report in the Newburyport Daily News, tourists at Yellowstone National Park were actually detained under armed guard and locked in their hotels when the government shutdown started on October 1st. The paper explained that foreign tourists with poor English skills actually thought they were under arrest because of their harsh treatment. 

When the tourists were allowed to leave by bus, they were forbidden to stop anywhere during the 2.5 hour drive out of the park, not even at public restrooms along the way. 

In other places, park rangers have issued tickets to people who have ignored signs and barricades and threatened others with arrest. 

At Mount Vernon, the  privately-owned and managed historic home of George and Martha Washington, NPS authorities erected barricades to keep people from parking at the site. The site is privately owned and funded, but the NPS technically co-owns part of the parking lot and a bus turnaround. Of course, since it is a parking lot, it requires no maintenance. Nonetheless, the NPS is spending more money and resources keeping people out of such places than it would spend by simply allowing the public to use them. 

Republicans contend that the NPS, which is part of the executive branch, is under orders to make life difficult for would-be parkgoers as part of a broader political plan by the Obama administration to turn public opinion against Republicans.  Both parties blame the other for the shutdown and so far appear unwilling to negotiate. 

Via: Catholic Online

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We’re not gonna take it! Americans use 1st Amendment to storm shutdown barriers

Taking their lead from the veterans who first pushed through the barricades to visit the World War II Memorial, Americans nationwide are defying the federal government shutdown, tossing aside traffic cones and toppling wooden fences to get to national parks and other federal lands that the administration has deemed out of bounds.

As the shutdown hits the middle of its second week, civil disobedience has become a sensation. Some proudly post online photos of themselves overcoming the government’s obstacles, and others use more subtle ways to make their point.

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PHOTOS: Civil disobedience: Angry Americans flout shutdown rules

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In Arizona, one road-stop inn is quietly giving visitors directions on how to use Forest Service roads to get a glimpse of the Grand Canyon, a national park that has been shut down.

In Washington, D.C., a South Carolina man said he has spent the past week picking up trash around the shuttered Lincoln Memorial, taking the place of National Park Service employees who have been furloughed.

In Massachusetts, Minuteman National Park is closed, but that hasn’t stopped the leaf-peepers from crossing the barricades to watch as autumn blooms in the Northeast.

Via: Washington Times

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Congressmen Demand Answers from National Park Service

Congressman Bill Huizenga (R., Mich.) sent a letter to the National Park Service (NPS) on Wednesday demanding answers to the agency’s “dubious” handling of the government shutdown.

Ninety-three additional members of Congress have signed onto the letter sent to NPS Director Jonathan B. Jarvis questioning if politics is involved in the closings of the World War II Memorial,privately owned parks, and other sites across the nation.

“The National Park Service continues to act in an arbitrary and punitive manner to exclude veterans from memorials built in their honor and the American people from many of our country’s national treasures,” said Rep. Huizenga, in a statement.  “I have serious questions about the tactics and decisions being implemented by the National Park Service and clearly many of my colleagues do as well.”

“Director Jarvis cannot simply make up the rules as he goes along, which is one of the major reasons my colleagues and I sent this letter requesting concrete and definitive answers,” he said.

The letter asks Jarvis to explain the barricades erected to block out veterans from the World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War memorials, all of which are open-air sites.

The World War II Memorial, in particular, has been the subject of controversy since the government shutdown on Oct. 1, with the NPS attempting to block veterans who fought in the conflict and had traveled across the country to see the site.

Rep. Huizenga, whose father is a disabled WWII veteran, has visited the memorial several times during the shutdown to help constituents gain access.

Via: WFB

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Shutdown Showdown: SF’s Cliff House Defies Obama Admin, Reopens — and Is Forced to Close AGAIN

The saga of San Francisco’s Cliff House took a series of dramatic turns this week as the owners engaged in a political and legal duel with the federal government.

As we reported last Thursday, the historic Cliff House restaurant — a privately owned profitable business which sits on land controlled by the National Park Service — was suddenly ordered to close by the Obama administration on October 3.

Then on Monday, October 7, with little fanfare, Cliff House’s owners Dan and Mary Hountalas decided to defy the government’s closure order and instead re-open for business, to the delight of the hundreds of tourists and locals who dine there every day. When word leaked out that the Cliff House had re-opened, the local National Park Service office consulted with Washington, D.C., and then issued a second (and apparently firmer) order to the owners to re-close the restaurant; the owners were then forced to unwillingly comply for a second time last night at midnight:

The famed Cliff House restaurant has been forced to shut its doors for the remainder of the federal government shutdown, after it defied orders by reopening earlier this week.

Diners who learned of the new closure were none too happy, to say the least:

“That’s outrageous! Are you serious?” Hubbard said as she walked out of the restaurant, the sunset glazing the windows behind her. “It is very stupid! Why are people deprived of a job? Why do the rest of us have to stop enjoying the parks?”

Hubbard wasn’t alone in her outrage at missing out on the $10 endive salad or the $27 mahi mahi.

“You’re kidding me,” said Ken Evans, who was visiting from Visalia and stopped by the Cliff House to take in the view. “You know what, I would stay open if I were them. You can’t close these things down.”

Via: PJ Tatler
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Occupy America! Park Visitors Storm the Barrycades by Michelle Malkin

Could this be the end of Monument Syndrome? Across the country, ordinary Americans are rising up in revolt against the old Washington tactic of closing public parks and memorials during selective government "shutdowns" to score political points. Tax-paying tourists are tossing off the orange traffic cones and "Barrycades." Enough is enough.

The movement started with waves of World War II veterans who flew to D.C. last week as part of the Honor Flight Network. (The nonprofit group brings our surviving heroes to visit the memorials that honor their service and sacrifice.) The vets and volunteers breached the fences last week, exposing the tone-deaf tactics of President Obama's Spite House. Honor Flight visits continue this week, and more vets vowed to defy the cynical closures.

They are not alone. At Gettysburg National Military Park, tourists broke through barriers and posed for pictures on the battlefields with notes reading, "Catch us if you can." One visitor reported that motorists formed impromptu caravans as rangers chased them. "Strength in numbers," they tweeted.

At Mount Rushmore and in the Badlands of South Dakota, families barreled over hazard cones. Their photos went viral on Facebook. In Wisconsin, GOP Gov. Scott Walker defied the National Park Service and opened state parks that Obama-crats wanted closed because they receive some federal dollars. At the Mingo National Wildlife Refuge in southeast Missouri, a group of 20 protesters defied threats of arrest to enter the park.

Via: Townhall

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Park rangers accused of ‘Gestapo tactics’ to enforce shutdown

A guide who led a tour group through Yellowstone as the government shutdown began accused the National Park Service of “Gestapo tactics” in trying to prevent the visitors from viewing any of the park’s sites.

Tour director Gordon Hodgson told the Livingston Enterprise, a Montana newspaper, that park rangers allowed the group to stay at a lodge for the 48 hours they were allotted under shutdown rules, but refused to let them do anything else in the park — including walk on the boardwalk paths outside the lodge or visit any of the park’s geysers.

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At one point he tried to take his tour out and pulled over to let them photograph bison, but a park ranger pulled up and ordered them to get back on the bus, telling them they could be charged with trespassing.

“She told me you need to return to your hotel and stay there,” Hodgsontold the Livington Enterprise. “This is just Gestapo tactics. We paid a lot to get in. All these people wanted to do was take some pictures.”

The Obama administration’s decision to close down national parks amid the shutdown has produced a feverish debate in Washington, where lawmakers are demanding an investigation, and around the country, where defying the park shutdown has become an act of civil disobedience for many.

The administration has made some exceptions. An immigrant-rights rally was allowed to take place on the National Mall in Washington on Tuesday, despite it being park property that is supposed to be closed to the public.

Via: Washington Times

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NPS Threatened WWII Vets With Arrest But Now Opens Mall For Union Bosses’ Immigration Rally During #Shutdown

Updated.

It truly seemed like we’re living in a world dictated to us by Lilliputian bureaucrats when a group of World War II veterans were threatened with arrest for having the temerity last week to visit the World War II Memorial during the government shutdown.

Now, however, said Lilliputian bureaucrats who attempted to block America’s octogenarian war heroes last week are showing their two-faced true colors by opening the National Mall Tuesday to union bosses holding an immigrant rights rally.

Several immigrant groups, as well as the AFL-CIO and SEIU will be hosting Camino Americano: March for Immigrant Dignity and Respect on Tuesday–merely a week after the National Parks Service initially refused to allow World War II veterans’ visit to the World War Memorial.

Although the NPS retroactively gave the vets access to the memorial, it wasn’t until after vets and several members of Congress pushed the barricades aside under the watchful gaze of the National Park Police.

Via: Red State

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Signs say National Mall closed, but immigration reform rally is a go

Even though isolated barricades with "closed" signs remained on the National Mall on Tuesday, the setup for the immigration reform rally said otherwise.

A giant stage with lights and an "Immigration Reform Now" banner was set up in the center of the mall, along with three large portable screens.

On one side of the mall, more than 100 porta potties were set up for protesters who will attend the rally today.

As several groups of musicians performed sound checks, a lone National Park Service employee arrived to survey the scene, but referred me to the Park Service communications office and left when I asked her why she was called into work today.

As the Washington Examiner reported Monday, rally organizers said that they would be allowed by the NPS to carry out their protest under their First Amendment rights.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Starnes: 'All About Power And Leverage' -- Feds Shut Down Major Roadway, Block Access To Graveyard

Folks who live in the Great Smoky Mountains have just about reached their breaking point with the federal government.

“It’s almost like they are pushing to see how far they can push before the American people say enough is enough,” said Ed Mitchell, the mayor of Blount County, Tenn. “We were founded on a declaration of independence. And they are about to push the people to the line again.”

Nearly a third of Blount County is inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. So when the federal government shut down the park, it also shut down one of the area’s chief sources of revenue.

The National Park Service also closed the Foothills Parkway, a major thoroughfare in the county. The closure came without warning and left the local school district scrambling to get children back to their homes.

Via: Fox News

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Obama OKs illegals’ march on Mall, still blocks Americans

The National Park Service is allowing an Oct. 8 pro-immigration rally on the national mall, even as it posts pickets and barriers to bar Americans from visiting their open-air memorials.

“They’re going to be allowed to go [ahead] because it is a First Amendment activity,” Shannon Maurer, a spokeswoman for the “March for Immigrant Dignity and Respect,” told The Daily Caller.

“They allowed us to have it because it is part of the First Amendment of the constitution,” said Susana Flores, a spokeswoman for CASA in Action, which is organizing the rally. ”We’re going to have a stage and microphones,” plus a stand for TV cameras, she said.

The mall is currently marked as closed, and law enforcement officials have have been deployed to picket open-air monuments to keep Americans off their own land.

Critics quickly pounced on what they see as special treatment for the administration’s allies.

“What this means is that the administration is sending a clear message that it’s OK to barricade elderly veterans out of their memorials, but illegal immigrants have to be accommodated no matter what,” Mark Krikorian, director of the anti-immigration Center for Immigration Studies, told The Daily Caller.

“It’s hard to justify closing off open areas [such as the World War II memorial], but to allow a major setup with equipment, electronics and security in a closed area is a little outrageous,” said Krikorian.

Administration officials say a rewrite of the nation’s immigration laws remains a very high priority. Analysts say a pending Senate bill would double immigration and allow 33 million immigrants into the country during the next decade.

Via: The Daily Caller

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Lawmakers probe reports of property owners kicked off federal land amid partial shutdown

Republican lawmakers plan to investigate mounting reports that federal officials are kicking families out of their homes and shuttering private businesses because they sit on federal parkland -- describing the spectacle as an over-the-top response to the partial government shutdown. 

"We are receiving a lot of reports" of businesses being shut down, said Mallory Micetich, spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee. 

She confirmed the committee is investigating these reports, as part of a widening probe into the National Park Service's response to the partial government suspension. 

Micetich cited as one example a privately run inn along the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. 

The innkeeper tried, unsuccessfully, to repel federal efforts to shut down his business, the Pisgah Inn, last week. 

Owner Bruce O'Connell told FoxNews.com on Monday that rangers are still outside his business, blocking the entrance to the parking lot. As of late Monday morning, he said there were three cars and five rangers stationed outside. 

Via: Fox News

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FEDS TRY TO CLOSE THE OCEAN BECAUSE OF SHUTDOWN

Just before the weekend, the National Park Service informed charter boat captains in Florida that the Florida Bay was "closed" due to the shutdown. Until government funding is restored, the fishing boats are prohibited from taking anglers into 1,100 square-miles of open ocean. Fishing is also prohibited at Biscayne National Park during the shutdown. 

The Park Service will also have rangers on duty to police the ban... of access to an ocean. The government will probably use more personnel and spend more resources to attempt to close the ocean, than it would in its normal course of business. 

This is governing by temper-tantrum. It is on par with the government's ham-fisted attempts to close the DC WWII Memorial, an open-air public monument that is normally accessible 24 hours a day. By accessible I mean, you walk up to it. When you have finished reflecting, you then walk away from it. 

At least that Memorial is an actual structure, with some kind of perimeter that can be fenced off. Florida Bay is the ocean. How, pray tell, do you "close" 1,100 square miles of ocean? Why would one even need to do so?

Apparently, according to an anonymous Park Service ranger, “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.” 

Centuries ago, King Canute famously failed to command the ocean tide to stop. His display was actually a means to educate his subjects on the limits of royal power. Today, however, our President actually believes he has the power to control the oceans. 

Via: Breitbart

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Scott Walker REFUSED to close parks despite order by feds…

Now I like this gutsy move by Scott Walker. 

This is awesome:

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s administration defied the federal government by refusing to close popular state properties at the behest of the National Park Service.

The park service ordered state officials to close the northern unit of the Kettle Moraine, Devil’s Lake, and Interstate state parks and the state-owned portion of the Horicon Marsh, but state authorities rebuffed the request because the lion’s share of the funding came from state, not federal coffers.

Instead, the state’s Department of Natural Resources “issued a statement saying all state parks, trails and other recreational properties were open and not affected by the federal government’s budget problems.”

Walker blamed both Republicans and Democrats for current fighting in Washington, perhaps leaving the door open for a run for the presidency as a centrist in 2016.

Via: The Right Scoop

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MORE SHUTDOWN THEATER, COMING TO YOU VIA ARMED FORCES RADIO

Barack Obama’s not just keeping elderly World War II veterans away from their memorial.  He’s keeping current military forces away from their football and baseball games, too.  ”Due to the government shutdown, the Defense Department can only provide limited overseas television, radio, print, and web services,” the Armed Forces Network website announced.

But rest assured there’s money to keep Camp David – the presidential retreat Obama usually disdains in favor of more expensive remote destinations, although he says he frequently shoots skeet there – up and running, according to the Washington Examiner.

Meanwhile, that World War II memorial is blocked off with even more barricades… and now they’re wired shut.  Vice President Joe Biden offered personal thanks to the Park Service employee who stood her ground against the veterans.  Suffer the wrath of an aroused bureaucracy, war heroes!

Shutdown Theater takes to the seas in Florida, as Obama’s troops in the National Park Service informed charter fishing boats “they are not permitted to take clients fishing in Florida Bay until the feds get back to work,” according to the Miami Herald.  “That means that more than 1,100 square miles of prime fishing is off limits, between the southern tip of the mainland to the Keys, until further notice.”  The ban also extends to tour guides.  No paddling until Obama gets his money!  Doubtless the Administration will hire as many people as it takes to enforce the “shutdown.

Via: Human Events

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Blue Ridge hotel defies Park Service shutdown

The Pisgah Inn, a private hotel that holds a concession on the Blue Ridge Parkway, has become a national sensation as it defies “intimidation” and a National Park Service order to close its doors.

After a tumultuous few days, inn owner Bruce O'Connell told The Washington Times on Friday morning that he had just reopened his doors for customers, despite the park service telling him he had to shut down. He says he’s essentially private property, on a road that’s still open, and uses no government personnel, so he sees no reason to quit operating.

“I’m questioning their authority to shut me,” Mr. O'Connell said.

The National Park Service is involved in several high-profile battles during the shutdown, including having barricaded open-air monuments and memorials in Washington. Veterans busted through barricades at the National World War II Memorial earlier this week, gaining national attention.

But the Park Service closures extend throughout the country, shuttering parks — and many of the private businesses that run concessions in them, such as City Tavern in Philadelphia, and Nauset Knoll Motor Lodge on Cape Cod.

Pisgah Inn, which Mr. O'Connell described as one of the last mom-and-pop places along the Blue Ridge, is just southwest of Asheville, N.C. And while most national parks are closed, the Park Service has deemed the Blue Ridge Parkway a thoroughfare and has left it open.

Mr. O'Connell said since the road is open, and he uses no federal personnel — even his fire and police services would come from town — he isn’t drawing on federal resources and sees no reason he should have to shut down.

Via: Washington Times

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