Free Republic

It’s time to stop debating history and facts with people who only care about the exercise of raw political power.div class="article-content"> The news that the Biden administration planned to remove a statue of William Penn in a federal park in Philadelphia that commemorates the founding of Pennsylvania, and that the purpose of the removal was to “provide a more welcoming, accurate, and inclusive experience for visitors,” should at this point not come as a surprise.Once the removals and destruction of Confederate statues and memorials began a few years ago, it was inevitable that all historical figures from America’s past, even...

The National Park Service on Monday suddenly withdrew its plan to remove the statue of William Penn from the site of his home during a "rehabilitation" of Welcome Park in Philadelphia. NPS had opened a public comment period on Monday but by 6:30 p.m., it was closed. "The preliminary draft proposal, which was released prematurely and had not been subject to a complete internal agency review, is being retracted. No changes to the William Penn statue are planned," the NPS said in a statement. The NPS faced widespread backlash after announcing its plans to update the park to "provide a...

Independence National Historical Park has withdrawn the review of a draft proposal to rehabilitate Welcome Park and closed the public comment period, the National Park Service (NPS) said Monday. The preliminary draft proposal, which was released prematurely and had not been subject to a complete internal agency review, is being retracted. No changes to the William Penn statue are planned, according to the press release, which continued: “The National Park Service remains committed to rehabilitating Welcome Park as the nation prepares to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026. Upon completion of all the necessary internal...

Joe Biden's National Park Service under Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will remove the statue of William Penn from the park erected in 1982 to commemorate the 300th anniversary of his founding of the colony of Pennsylvania. The park is on the site of his original home in Philadelphia. The park, located in Philadelphia near the Delaware River at Sansom and Second Streets, will be "rehabilitated" and that proposal will include an "expanded interpretation of the Native American history of Philadelphia." The plan was "developed in consultations with the representatives of the indigenous nations of the Haudenosaunee, the Delaware Nation, Delaware...

Yellowstone today is on high alert for “touron” behavior, but in the Roaring ’20s it was an all-out petting zoo. Attractions included the popular feeding of the bears -- a nightly dinner show that became more popular than Old Faithful. Hardly a day has gone by this summer season where a tourist in Yellowstone National Park hasn’t been caught doing something illegal, dangerous, stupid — or all three. Facebook page Yellowstone National Park: Invasion of The Idiots! has become the TMZ of the NPS (National Park Service). Public shaming hasn’t seemed to slow offenders much. Healthy fines do not appear...

The National Park Service (NPS) is advising visitors to proceed with extra caution as two people were recently injured after interactions with wild bison at both Yellowstone National Park, and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. On Monday, a woman from Arizona was charged and gored by a bison at Yellowstone National Park. “The female was walking with another individual in a field in front of the Lake Lodge when they saw two bison," the NPS explained of the incident in a release the NPS shared. "Upon seeing them, the visitors turned to walk away from the bison. One of the bison...

School leaders in rural northwest Oregon are worried about big budget cuts. The Oregon Department of Forestry is working on a plan to protect habitats for endangered species across 640,000 acres of state forest. The loss of timber revenue will affect local schools. The Jewell School District expects to be the most heavily impacted because it gets almost all of its funding from timber revenue. It could see budget cuts of 40 percent. The Jewell School District has about 150 students and a budget of $5 million. District superintendent Cory Pederson estimates the cuts will bring his annual budget down...

asks are returning to the Skyline Drive. Citing high community transition rates of COVID-19 in and around the Shenandoah National Park, officials say they will follow National Park Service policy and CDC guidance by requiring face masks be worn in all Shenandoah National Park buildings. The ruling takes effect Monday, August 22, 2022. “We monitor local community levels and respond when transmission levels are high,” Park Superintendent Pat Kenney said. “The trigger to require masking is when the majority of the counties that the park resides in move into high transmission status.” The CDC community levels are released weekly and...

SNIP Major, the Biden’s 3-year-old adopted pet, has been in another biting incident requiring medical attention, CNN reports. The dog reportedly bit a National Park Service employee on the White House South Lawn Monday afternoon. “Yes, Major nipped someone on a walk,” first lady Jill Biden’s press secretary Michael LaRosa told CNN.

Malcolm X’s boyhood home in Boston was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The 2½-story house is the only surviving residence associated with the slain civil rights leader’s formative years in the city, according to Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin, who chairs the state historical commission that requested the designation. The home, which was originally built in 1874 and designated a city landmark in 1998, was officially listed on the federal register last month, the National Park Service that oversees the listing said this week. The former Malcolm Little was a teenager in the 1940s when he...

KNOXVILLE Tenn. – On December 7, 2020, Dusty William Oliver, 41, and Richard Graham, 49, both from Blaine, were sentenced by the Honorable Judge Thomas A. Varlan, in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Knoxville, for raping two men in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP).Oliver and Graham pleaded guilty to an indictment charging them with two counts of aggravated sexual abuse in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2241(a) and 2. Oliver was sentenced to 300 months in prison, followed by 15 years’ supervised release. Graham was sentenced to 230 months in prison,...

All in-park overnight lodging will be closed for incoming arrivals beginning on Monday, December 7, 2020 and will remain closed until further notice. All overnight camping within Yosemite National Park will be prohibited beginning on Monday, December 7, 2020 until further notice. This includes all park campgrounds, wilderness camping, and overnight use along climbing routes. Overnight backpacking trips into Yosemite’s wilderness will also be prohibited. All visitors planning trips to Yosemite are asked to be our partner in recreating responsibly. Yosemite National Park conducts hundreds of search and rescue missions each year, many of which could be avoided with visitors...

These awesome (and hilarious) posters teach us how to social distance inside national parks open to the public Don't forget to constantly wash your hands, of course. A little humor goes a long way, especially during these unprecedented times, and the National Parks Service seems not to have forgotten that. The service has released a few hilarious posters to teach folks how to properly behave while visiting each destination. Although, admittedly, most parks have stayed open throughout the pandemic, Americans seem to be more and more comfortable actually frequenting them in recent days—and what better way to remind them to...

April 17 (UPI) -- In one of the largest federal crackdowns on opioids yet, prosecutors said in an indictment Wednesday investigators uncovered a vast illegal prescription scheme in which physicians traded painkillers for sex and money. The federal indictment involves 350,000 illegal prescriptions in Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, Alabama and West Virginia. "That is the equivalent of one opioid dose for every man, woman and child in the five states in the region that we've been targeting," Brian Benczkowski, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department, told The Washington Post. "If these medical professionals behave like drug dealers, you can rest...

The National Park Service is exploring whether to require protest organizers to pay for the cost of providing law enforcement and other support services for demonstrations held in the nation’s capital. The proposed rule also could shrink a significant portion of the sidewalk outside the White House that is accessible to pedestrians, leaving a five-foot wide sliver. The public has until the close of Monday to comment on the proposal. More than 7,600 comments have been submitted so far, the vast majority in opposition, including many who consider it an effort by the Trump administration to deter some of the...

The head of the National Park Service (NPS) acknowledged to the Interior Department’s watchdog agency that he told a story and made a gesture that were inappropriate in an office hallway. But in a brief report issued Thursday, Interior’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) stopped short of labeling P. Daniel Smith’s actions “sexual harassment,” since the only witness to it said he was not offended and investigators found no other witnesses that the gesture was intended to be sexual. An anonymous employee told the OIG that she saw Smith in January in a hallway at NPS headquarters in Washington, D.C.,...

The “October 2011” movement organizer Dennis Trainor tells me that he believes capitalism is “homicidal” and that the U.S. needs a revolution. “This is not a reform movement,” he said. He is part of the illegal occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. The “October 2011” movement is not part of, but endorses the “Occupy Wall Street” movement that began several weeks ago. Although he describes himself as new to professional agitation, Trainor runs the “No Cure For That” website and served as a writer/media consultant for Dennis Kucinich’s 2008 presidential campaign. Kucinich is the Cleveland Democrat perhaps best known...

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office has called into question the state’s authority to grant permission to Tesla founder Elon Musk’s tunneling startup, The Boring Co., to build several miles of tunnels for his high-speed Hyperloop transportation system below the Baltimore-Washington Parkway. The State Highway Administration granted a conditional utility permit on Oct. 16 to allow The Boring Co. to begin building the tunnels, if the company supplies additional information about the project and it meets all necessary requirements. But the Hyperloop system “is not a utility under federal standards or SHA’s federally-approved utility accommodation policies,” Assistant Attorney General David Stamper...

Senators Challenge Secretary Zinke’s Decision to Increase Visitor Fees for Most Popular National Parks Proposed plan would more than triple entrance fees at Olympic National Park and Mount Rainier National ParkWASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and nine senators wrote to Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke calling into question the National Park Service’s proposal to triple national park entrance fees. In addition, the senators requested that Zinke provide Congress with the analysis and justification used to establish the proposed park entrance fee increases.“We are unable to see how doubling or tripling a park entrance fee...

The U.S. National Park Service almost spent nearly $100,000 of taxpayer dollars to honor the Black Panther Party, a group whose leadership killed law enforcement officers, and a group that the FBI acknowledged wanted to use violence and guerilla tactics to overthrow the United States Government.