Thread: SHUTDOWN: TAKE A HIKE, WAR HEROES, WE’VE GOT AN IMMIGRATION RALLY TO HOLD

SHUTDOWN THEATER: TAKE A HIKE, WAR HEROES, WE’VE GOT AN IMMIGRATION RALLY TO HOLD



By: John Hayward
10/8/2013 09:25 AM

World War II veterans were confronted with Obama’s Park Service shock troops and Barry-cades, kept away from their open-air, generally non-supervised memorial because the poor widdle shut-down federal government supposedly just couldn’t afford to let people view a monument to the heroes who destroyed the Axis.
Vietnam veterans got the bum’s rush from their memorial, which requires even less active supervision than the World War II site, seeing as how it’s a wall. There was plenty of manpower available to eject the heroes of Vietnam when they moved the Barry-cades to pay their respects.
You’re not even supposed to look at Mount Rushmore during Barack Obama’s temper tantrum. You can have it back when you give him the money he wants, America, but not a moment before.
But an “immigration rally” gets red-carpet service, as the ostensibly closed National Mall is thrown wide open for an event sponsored by union bosses with powerful Democrat Party connections. Supposedly this is all justified by deference to the First Amendment rights of the demonstrators, although I recall hearing that said about the World War II veterans as well… right before the barricades around their memorial were wired shut. This would be a great moment for a pro-life group to organize a quick rally on the Mall and see what sort of response they get from the directors of Shutdown Theater.
From the Washington Examiner:

A planned immigration reform rally will take place on the National Mall on Tuesday even though the site is closed due to the government shutdown.
Organizers for the “Camino Americano: March for Immigration Reform” were spotted Monday setting up a stage and equipment on the National Mall for the rally which will take place on Tuesday.
A few scattered barriers around the park have signs informing visitors that the area is closed as a result of the government shutdown.

It’s a sign of fading union power that Barack Obama wasn’t on hand to personally move the Barry-cades aside. But Nancy Pelosi will be there, along with the colorful Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ). ”The event is hosted by several immigration activist groups, together with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO.”
The Daily Caller hears the sound of critics pouncing:

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.

Where they’ll soon join the rest of America in collecting unemployment checks and staring at ObamaCare error messages. This bloated, incompetent federal government is helpless before the challenge of creating jobs and providing services for the existing population. A tidal wave of 33 million new citizens is not the ideal input for such a grievously broken system.
But Democrats are pretty sure they know where the newcomers will stand on any future government shutdowns or debt ceiling debates, and that’s really all that matters. The government will never be “shut down” enough to keep the Ruling Class from moving forward on its immigration obsession, and there are some constituencies President Obama will never use as props in Shutdown Theater.
On the other hand, today’s rally might prove to involve a lot of political cost for Democrats with relatively little gain. Turnout has not been stellar at similar recent events, and the optics of split-screens comparing the immigration rally to barricaded memorials should be brutal. Let’s see how many of our fair-minded and impartial media organizations think to provide such an obvious comparison.
In other Shutdown Theater news, the famed Cliff House restaurants in San Francisco have been closed, even though they rank among the most lucrative eating establishments in the city, and other nearby eateries on federal land are allowed to remain open. Inside Scoop SF notes that “during the hiatus, servers and cooks will not get paid,” but managers and receptionists will. So the managers and receptionists are still technically “at work,” even though there are no customers, and no one to cook for them? Your government at work!
And that’s how Obama treats people he likes. He’s not at all fond of the folks in the Great Smoky Mountains, and it’s looking mutual after Shutdown Theater left school children stranded, forcing parents to use dangerous roads to get them home. The local government offered to take over management of federal park lands at no cost to Washington, for the duration of the shutdown, but the Obama Administration didn’t even dignify the offer with a reply. From Todd Starnes at Fox News:

“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.”

Take that, teabaggers! ”That’s a slap in the face to the American people. They should never, ever let this happen,” said Mitchell. Well, submit to Obama’s demands and you won’t have to get slapped any more, Mr. Mayor.
Speaking of those scarce federal resources during the grueling, unspeakable, civilization-threatening Rethuglican shutdown, there were plenty of officers on hand to nab a teabagging jogger who dared to defy our Dear Leader by running through the Valley Forge National Historical Park – an act of defiance that will cost him a $100 fine, as chronicled by the Associated Press:

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.

The spirit of Valley Forge lives on through acts of defiance across the fruited plain:

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.

How is a domineering central planner supposed to run our lives amid all this disobedience? Keep aiming to misbehave, Americans. It runs in your blood.
Update: Reports of citizen defiance in Gettysburg, where the “shut down” government somehow found money to unleash “droves” of park rangers to keep people away… and plucky citizens waving “catch us if you can” notes gave them a merry chase. Plenty of photos at Twitchy.com, including a fine local inn that deserves a tip of the ol’ tricorner hat:

Update: Here’s the scene at the National Mall, as our cash-strapped, paralyzed federal government – which can’t afford to let people stroll through an open-air memorial, or drive their kids to school through a park – prepares for the big immigration rally today:

Update: Obama’s shock troops go gangsta on senior citizens at Yellowstone, leaving tourist Pat Vaillancourt shaken by “an ugly spectacle that made her embarrassed, angry, and heartbroken for her country,” according to the Eagle-Tribune:

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.
When finally allowed to leave, the bus was not allowed to halt at all along the 2.5-hour trip out of the park, not even to stop at private bathrooms that were open along the route.
“We’ve become a country of fear, guns and control,” said Vaillancourt, who grew up in Lawrence. “It was like they brought out the armed forces. Nobody was saying, ‘we’re sorry,’ it was all like — ” as she clenched her fist and banged it against her forearm.

The image of foreign tourists assuming they were under arrest in Barack Obama’s authoritarian police state is an image that should linger long after the shutdown drama is over. At one point, they stopped the bus to photograph a herd of bison, and an armed park ranger shooed them back on the bus, ordering them not to “recreate” in a tone that “became very aggressive.” You may not gaze upon King Barack’s bison until you have paid the tribute he demands, peasants!
Update: Patriots storm the Barry-cades in the Great Smoky Mountains, and cheerfully photograph their defiance. Maybe those kids won’t have to take dangerous routes home from school after all. Tough break, President Obama!


Update: Meanwhile, back at the immigration rally in DC… check out all those “essential” government personnel! But remember, there’s not a single soul to spare for keeping our public memorials open.

Update: The bleak reality of the federal shutdown is made clear, as the anguished immigration demonstrators huddle before their… Jumbotrons.



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http://www.humanevents.com/2013/10/0...rally-to-hold/

NBC: Police Remove Vietnam War Veterans at Memorial Wall

12:50 PM, Oct 5, 2013 • By JOHN MCCORMACK





Via William Jacobson, NBC's affiliate in Washington, D.C. reports that police ordered tourists and Vietnam war veterans who were visiting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall to leave the memorial at one point on Friday.

After one group of veterans went around the barricade, "the park ranger told them the wall was closed," NBC's Mark Seagraves reported. "Later another group of vets showed up and moved the barricades. At that point, the memorial filled with vets and tourists. That's when police came and moved everyone out."
The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall is a black granite outdoor wall on which the names of the 58,272 service members who died or were unaccounted for during the Vietnam war are inscribed.
It takes more manpower and costs the government more money to close down an outdoor wall than to let people walk past it and pay their respects.
The Obama administration has been very selective in devoting resources to shutting down memorials.



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