Stuff And Nonsense

Stuff and Nonsense from the political theater that is barry's shutdown. You've probably seen most of these, but there likely will be a few that are new to you (my favorite is the mom revolt against the closing of 'Turtle Park').

These stories came out in dribs and drabs. This is a long post, and a far from all-inclusive list of the gestapo-like tactics employed by obama and his goons. But when you see all of this at once it really drives home the petty and vindictive nature of the obama administration.

Runner fined $100 at Valley Forge amid shutdown

A marathoner says he was fined $100 for running in Valley Forge National Historical Park during the government shutdown.

John Bell, 56, said he parked his car on Sunday in a remote parking lot, not one blocked by a barrier. Bell, of Chadds Ford, said two rangers were waiting with their car lights flashing when he returned.

Bell said he plans to fight the ticket in federal court. He said he saw many other runners and bikers in the park.

Maine’s Acadia National Park had trouble keeping visitors out during the shutdown and was issuing fines to campers, bikers and hikers. On Saturday, 16 hikers hopped a gate to gain entry to Utah’s closed Zion National Park to protest the shutdown.

FAA Halts All Aircraft Sales

... planemakers, brokers and owners of airplanes can’t complete sales of aircraft because of the closure of a key federal office.

The shutdown is also affecting maintenance and repair facilities and other aviation-related businesses. And those in the aviation industry say the effects will get more painful with each passing day.

Sales of aircraft can’t close because aircraft registrations can no longer be obtained through the Federal Aviation Administration’s Aircraft Registry Branch in Oklahoma City. With the partial shutdown of the FAA, the registry office is closed.

The closure is unprecedented, according to GAMA officials. In previous shutdowns, the registry office was considered an essential function and remained open.

Corporation for Public Broadcasting got $445 million on first day of government shutdown

Funding for clinical cancer trials and other life-saving research under the National Institutes of Health was cut off in response to the government slimdown, but it looks like the cookie monster will still be knee-deep in chocolate chips (or is it carrots now?)

According to the Daily Treasury Statement and first reported by CNS News, the administration dished out $445 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) on the first day of the slimdown, which means funds for the likes of PBS Newshour, NPR and “Sesame Street” are being spent before cancer research.

Obama Forces Couple, 80 and 77 Years Old, From Their Home

Joyce Spencer is 77-years-old and her husband Ralph is 80. They’ve been spending most of their time in the family ice cream store since going home isn’t an option.

The Spencers never expected to be forced out of their Lake Mead home, which they’ve owned since the 70s, but on Thursday, a park ranger said they had 24 hours to get out.

The Stewart’s Point home sits on federal land, so even though the Spencers own their cabin outright, they’re not allowed in until the government reopens.

obama yields to Big Oil

Last week, we learned that the National Park Service is ordering privately run businesses that operate on federal land — from inns, to restaurants, private camp grounds, and even marinas — to close up shop until the government shutdown ends.  Park Rangers have even gone so far as to physically block and patrol entrances to private concessions to make sure not a single, errant customer steps foot on the premises.

But you know what else operates on federally owned land?  A sizable portion of U.S. oil and gas production.  And, yet, those commercial concerns have not been similarly and summarily halted.

"Let's Move" Trumps Amber Alert

Over the weekend, the FBI took its Amber Alert missing child website offline, blaming the shutdown. At the same time, First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” web site stayed up and running.

Amber Alert is back online, after the closure of the site generated negative publicity.

Scenic Overlooks? Really?

... overlooks  are "unmanned places where motorists can pull in, park for a couple minutes, look around, maybe snap a photo, and then move on with their day. There are no amenities. It’s just a small parking lot."

According to a spokeswoman, any area that falls under NPS jurisdiction is subject to these rules because "Congress has not appropriated any funds to the NPS, the agency can’t maintain the areas, collect trash or sweep road debris."

One wonders how they managed the last time the government shut down, and the parks remained open. Did the trash and road debris become an overwhelming problem --- or more likely did the lack of maintenance actually make very little difference?

Website Foolishness

Federal agencies created new websites to tell visitors that they don’t have enough funding to run their old websites.

Angry moms launch full-scale assault to reopen D.C. turtle park.

According to sources, angry moms near the Eastern Market are of Washington, D.C. have been diligently tearing down barriers erected by the National Park Service around Marion Park, or the turtle park as it is commonly referred to because of the fake turtles that children like to play on.

Sources said that the park was blocked off by park officials, but the source suspected that neighborhood moms have been taking down barriers to the park so their children could play there. In response, park officials keep erecting new ones, which the moms promptly tear down.

The park is extremely small and sort of seems pointless to block off.

Not closing parks near Democratic senators’ houses.

Sources tell TheDCNF that Lincoln Park in D.C., which maintained by the NPS, was not closed down, nor were any signs put up that indicated it was closed due to the government shutdown. According to the same source, it’s close to the homes of “quite a few” Democratic senators, and the source has previously seen Montana Democratic Sen. Max Baucus walking in the park.

While Lincoln Park remains seemingly open for Baucus and other senators to go for a walk, national parks all across Montana have been closed down and thousands of tourists have been turned away.

The NPS did not respond to TheDCNF’s request for comment, probably because no one is working in their press office.

Now contrast that with the following.

Bus-loads of WWII veterans were forced to storm their own monument after it was blocked off by the National Park Service. A group of lawmakers led by Mississippi Republican Rep. Steven Palazzo pushed aside the park rangers’ barriers and allowed veterans to get into the memorial.

“Some idiot in government sent goons out there to set up barricades so they couldn’t see the monument. People had to spend hours setting up barricades where there are never barricades to prevent people from seeing the World War II monument because they’re trying to play a charade,” Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul said...

Shutdown spreads to beaches of Normandy

Tourists traveling to Omaha Beach to pay their respects to the 9,387 military dead at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial will find it closed, a victim of the U.S. government’s partial shutdown.

The site overlooking the D-Day invasion beaches is one of 24 U.S. military cemeteries overseas that have closed to visitors since Monday. Ten more cemeteries in France, as well as others in various European countries as well as Mexico, Panama, Tunisia and the Philippines, will remain closed for the duration of the shutdown.

'Gestapo' tactics meet senior citizens at Yellowstone

Pat Vaillancourt went on a trip last week that was intended to showcase some of America’s greatest treasures.

Instead, the Salisbury resident said she and others on her tour bus witnessed an ugly spectacle that made her embarrassed, angry and heartbroken for her country.

Vaillancourt was one of thousands of people who found themselves in a national park as the federal government shutdown went into effect on Oct. 1. For many hours her tour group, which included senior citizen visitors from Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States, were locked in a Yellowstone National Park hotel under armed guard.

The tourists were treated harshly by armed park employees, she said, so much so that some of the foreign tourists with limited English skills thought they were under arrest.

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.

The children live in the eastern Tennessee community of Top of the World – serviced by School Bus 49. Normally, the bus travels along the Foothills Parkway. Other roads leading to the isolated mountain community are impassible by bus.

“It’s dangerous,” said Nancy Kemp, the spokesperson for Blount County Schools.”It’s very curvy and straight up the mountain. It’s just not a safe route.”

One local resident told Knoxville television station WBIR that the alternative roads are “white knuckle routes.”

The closure caught locals by surprise and left the school district scrambling to alert parents that they would need to find a way to get their kids back home. And until the partial government shutdown ends, school buses will not run. That means parents will have to transport their children to and from school using treacherous “white knuckle routes.”

And so long as the shutdown is in effect – that means no fishing, hiking, horse-back riding, or camping inside the park.

“That’s a slap in the face to the American people,” Mitchell said. “They should have never, ever let this happen.”

One of the areas shut down is the popular Cades Cove – an old community that was donated by local residents to the federal government some 75 years ago, the mayor said.

“Hundreds of families gave up that land, packed up their stuff and moved out to give the country that park,” he said. ‘Now, they’re watching the government shut the gate on it.”

Even more insulting is the National Park Service won’t allow family members to visit old grave sites.

“Some of them have family members buried there,” the mayor said. “And they go and visit every week at the churches still in the cove. They are not able to do that.”

It’s gotten to the point where Mayor Mitchell said Americans are ready to start fighting back.
“It’s almost like they are pushing to see how far they can push before the American people say enough is enough,” he said.

obama Closes Ocean

The Obama administration has closed off parts of the ocean around Florida to public access as part of the government shutdown...

Priests threatened with arrest if they minister to military during shutdown

In a stunning development, some military priests are facing arrest if they celebrate mass or practice their faith on military bases during the federal government shutdown.

“With the government shutdown, many [government service] and contract priests who minister to Catholics on military bases worldwide are not permitted to work – not even to volunteer,” wrote John Schlageter, the general counsel for the Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, in an op-ed this week. “During the shutdown, it is illegal for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so."

More shutdown nonsense here.

On the bright side, it's beginning to look like the American people are getting fed up with the tin horn dictators little temper tantrum. Acts of defiance are springing up across the country, prompted by the WWII vet's storming of the barricades at the World War II Memorial.

As the U.S. government shutdown enters its second week, squeezed businessmen, exasperated citizens and even a few fed-up politicians have joined forces across the United States in acts of defiance large and small.

From re-opening monuments and scaling park barricades to hiring lawyers, individuals and institutions have stopped waiting for the House Republicans and the White House to end the feud that has tied up many government services.

Who knows? With any luck these little sparks will ignite a giant conflagration that reduces the obama administration and the overreaching federal government to an impotent heap of ashes.

Hey, a guy can dream...

(H/T The Whited Sepulchre)