Mark Steyn: Park Service Paramilitaries

By: Mark Steyn (National Review Online)

If a government shuts down in the forest and nobody hears it, that’s the sound of liberty dying. The so-called shutdown is, as noted last week, mostly baloney: Eighty-three percent of the supposedly defunded government is carrying on as usual, impervious to whatever restraints the people’s representatives might wish to impose, and the 800,000 soi-disant “non-essential” workers have been assured that, as soon as the government is once again lawfully funded, they will be paid in full for all the days they’ve had at home.

But the one place where a full-scale shutdown is being enforced is in America’s alleged “National Park Service,” a term of art that covers everything from canyons and glaciers to war memorials and historic taverns. The NPS has spent the last two weeks behaving as the paramilitary wing of the DNC, expending more resources in trying to close down open-air, unfenced areas than it would normally do in keeping them open.

It began with the war memorials on the National Mall — that’s to say, stone monuments on pieces of grass under blue sky. It’s the equivalent of my New Hampshire town government shutting down and deciding therefore to ring the Civil War statue on the village common with yellow police tape and barricades.

Still, the NPS could at least argue that these monuments were within their jurisdiction — although they shouldn’t be. Not content with that, the NPS shock troops then moved on to insisting that privately run sites such as the Claude Moore Colonial Farm and privately owned sites such as Mount Vernon were also required to shut. When the Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway declined to comply with the government’s order to close (an entirely illegal order, by the way), the “shut down” Park Service sent armed agents and vehicles to blockade the hotel’s driveway.

Even then, the problem with a lot of America’s scenic wonders is that, although they sit on National Park Service land, they’re visible from some distance. So, in South Dakota, having closed Mount Rushmore the NPS storm troopers additionally attempted to close the view of Mount Rushmore — that’s to say a stretch of the highway, where the shoulder widens and you can pull over and admire the stony visages of America’s presidents.

Maybe it’s time to blow up Washington, Jefferson & Co. and replace them with a giant, granite sign rising into the heavens bearing the chiseled inscription “DON’T EVEN THINK OF PARKING DOWN THERE.”

Via: NRO

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Obama’s panic button still not working

When Marxists are rummaging in the bottom of their bag of tricks to drive the masses to panic, it’s only commonsense that you do the exact opposite.

It must be frustrating for a president waiting five long years for folk to panic when they are clearly standing their ground on not giving him his way.

It’s a frustration that’s so easy to read in consideration of yesterday’s Immigration Rally held at the closed National Mall, where lawmakers arrived in golf carts to hear a Nancy Pelosi speech. Halloween costumes were the only thing missing.

Right now the government shutdown/slimdown is a public exercise in pulling-the-wings-off-flies,  with a look-how-much-pain-I-can-so-easily-inflict-upon-the-plebes kind of showcasing.  But the only one really panicking is Obama witnessed in the outrageous lies dropped in yesterday’s presser.

Everyone but the gullible low-information voters knows that this is a cat and mouse game that must end one way or the other on or before October 17 when Obama’s threatening to default.

In putting all of his raw power out on public display during the current partial government slowdown, Obama could be basting the fatted calf for the Grand Finale called Imposition of Martial Law.

But even then, it’s highly unlikely that the masses will topple lemming-like into Obama’s go-into-panic-mode-on-order trap.

Notice how plain common sense and human ingenuity are trumping painful measures trotted out by a painted-in-a-corner, overreaching administration?  When barricades were put up at the World War II memorial, vets coming from great distances to see them, merely moved them away. 

Via: Canada Free Press

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DEM CONGRESSMEN, AMNESTY ACTIVISTS ARRESTED IN IMMIGRATION PROTEST

Democratic Reps. Charles Rangel, Luis Gutierrez, Keith Ellison, Joseph Crowley, Al Green, and John Lewis, along with several other pro-amnesty activists, union members, and other left-wing protesters, got themselves arrested on purpose on Tuesday afternoon in a statement made in support of comprehensive immigration reform.

Only a few hundred demonstrators participated in the part of the rally that led to the arrests, while several thousand rallied on the National Mall earlier in the day.

NBC's Washington, D.C. affiliate reports 200 were arrested on scene while a couple hundred activists cheered the demonstrators on from the sidewalks on both sides of First Street between Maryland Avenue Southwest and Pennsylvania Avenue Northwest. Officers broke out barricades to keep activists on the sidewalk, as AFL-CIO and other union organizers wearing orange vests with their organizations’ namesakes emblazoned on the back organized the crowd. 

Those lining the streets would cheer and chant things like “Yes we can!” and “Si Se Puede!” whenever another person volunteered to be arrested and whenever they were taken in groups into police transport units to be taken to the authorities for processing.

Via: Breitbart

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Pelosi exults amid cheers from Latino illegals

Rep. Nancy Pelosi cheerfully led Spanish-language chants of “Si se puede” — or “Yes we can” — at a rally Tuesday for amnesty and immigration, but turnout for the event at the National Mall was far below the organizers’ predictions of 100,000 attendees.

The barriers at the event were set to accommodate 35,000 people, but less than half the area was occupied. Loudspeakers and a large display screen at the rear of the area were almost devoid of listeners or viewers.

The rally was held on public land during a widely hyped government shutdown that has seen the Obama administration rigidly shut tourists, property owners and even World War II veterans out of federally controlled areas. (Related: Obama OKs illegals’ march on Mall, still blocks Americans)

The disappointing turnout, and the poor turnout at a series of Oct. 5 events, will reduce lobbyists’ pressure on the GOP leadership to back a major rewrite of the immigration law, said Mark Krikorian, director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

Progressives and business leaders, such as Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, are working hand-in-glove to pressure the GOP to pass an immigration rewrite. The Senate rewrite, passed in July, would provide an amnesty for 11 million workers, double legal immigration to 2 million per year, and double the number of resident non-agriculture guest-workers above 1.5 million.

Their strategy calls for unions to “rally illegals in the street, and business lobbyists behind closed doors will use the [GOP’s] fear of those demonstrations to get their corporate welfare,” Krikorian told The Daily Caller.

“But if the street demonstrations don’t pan out, that weakens the message of the business lobby,” he said.

Via: The Daily Caller
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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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Desperate Dems Hide Behind Big Bird

by Michelle Malkin
Creators Syndicate
Copyright 2012

Mitt Romney sure ruffled a lot of feathers over his proposal to eliminate taxpayer funding for government-sponsored TV. As soon as the GOP presidential candidate singled out PBS for cuts during the presidential debate in Denver, the hysterical squawking commenced.

Left-leaning celebrities immediately erupted on Twitter. “WOW!!! No PBS!! WTF how about cutting congress’s stuff leave big bird alone,” Whoopi Goldberg fumed. “Mitt is smirky, sweaty, indignant and smug with an unsettling hint of hysteria. And he wants to kill BIG BIRD,” actress Olivia Wilde despaired. “Who picks on Big Bird!!! #bulliesthatswho,” actress Taraji Henson chimed in.

Social media activists called for a Million Muppet March on the National Mall to “show your support for Big Bird, Muppets, PBS and all that is good.” The grammar-challenged operatives of George Soros-funded Media Matters for America lectured “right-wing media” to be “more concerned with Americans having jobs insteading (sic) of obsessing whether or not Big Bird has one.”

Indignant PBS, which employs not-so-neutral debate moderator Jim Lehrer, issued a statement decrying Romney’s failure to “understand the value the American people place on public broadcasting and the outstanding return on investment the system delivers to our nation.” And President Obama, awakened from his beatdown-induced stupor, scurried the next morning to the safe confines of a campaign rally to mock Romney for “getting tough on Big Bird.”

The kiddie character kerfuffle is a manufactured flap that may play well to liberals in Hollywood and Washington. But beyond the borders of La-La Land, desperate Democrats who cling childishly to archaic federal subsidies look like cartoonish buffoons. Let’s face it: The Save Big Bird brigade is comically out of touch with 21st-century realities.

Via: Michelle Malkin

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