Obama’s Shutdown: Parks for Amnesty Activists Only

Posted By Matthew Vadum On October 8, 2013 @ 12:55 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 1 Comment

President Obama’s unprecedentedly vicious, carefully choreographed campaign of shutdown sadism is becoming even more thuggish as the fiscal 2014 budget dispute heads into its second week.

But the lawless Obama administration is granting an indulgence to its radical friends who support immigration amnesty and tearing down the nation’s borders.

As Charlie Spiering reports in the Washington Examiner, the Caudillo-in-Chief is allowing the “Camino Americano: March for Immigration Reform” rally to proceed on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., today even though signs inform visitors that the Mall is closed because of the federal government shutdown.

“About 30 members of Congress are expected to attend the rally, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J.,” Spiering writes. “The event is hosted by several immigration activist groups, together with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO.”

Acting on the authority of the Alinskyite Chicago thug temporarily occupying the White House, the jackbooted National Park Service told charter boat captains in Florida that 1,100 square miles of the Atlantic Ocean are “closed” because of the government shutdown. Until the shutdown ends, fishing boats are banned.

Under orders from Obama to generate maximum pain, federal law enforcement officers have also been blocking access to open-air national monuments such as Mount Rushmore, various war memorials, and taxpayer-supported public spaces across the nation. Veterans have been committing acts of civil disobedience by storming the “barrycades” that block public access to open-air war memorials.

The NPS has also shuttered privately owned restaurants, inns, and marinas around the country using paid armed guards while simultaneously maintaining it lacks the funding and labor force to do so. Some in Congress are demanding hearings on these Obama administration abuses.

In a particularly outrageous case that is the very definition of fascism, that is, private ownership under government control, 77-year-old Joyce Spencer and her 80-year-old husband Ralph were evicted from the home they own in Lake Mead, Nevada, that happens to sit on federal land. Heartless Obama bureaucrats said property owners there are allowed to visit their own property only to retrieve belongings.

“Unfortunately overnight stays are not permitted until a budget is passed and the park can reopen,” the NPS explained.

Over in the Left’s parallel universe, evil, intransigent Republicans are preventing President Obama from getting the public funds he needs to walk on water, heal the lame and sick, and provide nutritious school lunches for multitudes of needy children who can’t survive without the largesse of Uncle Sam. This is barely, of course, an exaggeration as leftists in the media and elsewhere keep churning out the kind of cartoonish propaganda we’ve come to expect from Third World socialist dictatorships.

But back in the real world, time marches on as infantile Democrats histrionically whine about imagined Republican obstructionism, all the while turning foot-stomping into an art.

With Mussolini-like resolve, President Obama continues to harangue House Republicans, robotically accusing them of refusing to hold votes or compromise on spending resolutions that could re-open shuttered portions of the government. In reality, a week after the new federal fiscal year began, only House Republicans have been holding votes or offering compromises to the other side.

It is the Senate, which is in the death grip of Obama’s fellow Democrats, that is refusing to act. As Obama tries to collapse the stock market, taunting investors by saying they “should be worried” about current budget negotiations, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) continues to function as brick wall. Reid is preventing senators from considering a slew of temporary funding measures approved by the House in the last few days that are aimed at re-opening parts of the federal government.

Public opinion polls, which, on complex public policy questions can be as scientific as soothsayers of antiquity reading bird entrails, nonetheless suggest the public isn’t buying the facile argument that the shutdown is entirely the handiwork of Republican lawmakers.

A Fox News poll unveiled Friday shows Democrats and GOPers sharing the blame for the shutdown. In the survey 25 percent of respondents blamed House Speaker John Boehner and 24 percent blamed Obama. According to Big Journalism’s John Nolte, this is “[m]ore proof this is not 1995. The GOP were losing 2-to-1 during that shutdown.”

A CNN poll from yesterday says 63 percent of Americans are angry at Republicans, while 57 percent are angry at Democrats. An ABC/Washington Post poll says 55 percent of registered voters disapprove of Obama’s handling of the shutdown, compared to 43 percent who approve of it.

President Obama is doing all these horrible, petty, irritating things like needlessly shutting down national parks in order to rankle voters in the hope they’ll blame Republicans for the ongoing government shutdown. Liberals, in typical fashion, predict apocalypse because of the shutdown.

The Obama approach is called the “Washington Monument Strategy.” The theory is that such minor annoyances amplify the consequences of budget cuts, or in this case, of the government shutdown. The goal is to force congressional Republicans to surrender their principles and agree to fund Obamacare — and in the process look wimpy and lose the support of their grassroots.

The Washington Monument Strategy easily fits into the world of community organizing.

Rules for Radicals author Saul Alinsky taught that the community organizer’s first job is “community disorganization” by which he meant the manufacture of crises designed to inflame the community. The organizer must “create the issues or problems.” He must “rub raw the resentments of the people of the community” and then direct its rage at specific targets and scapegoats, providing “a channel into which the people can angrily pour their frustrations.”

Obama is on a drive to turn America into a one-party state, so naturally his wrath is directed at Republicans. The GOP makes for an easy target because Obama knows the mainstream media won’t blame him for anything bad that happens no matter how painfully obvious his culpability may be.

Amazingly, the House Republicans, who have a record of caving in when Obama applies pressure, are holding firm and appear to be digging in for a prolonged fight.

Speaker Boehner actually accused Obama of playing games.

It’s a new day in America.

If you’d like to be on or off this Outdoors/Rural/wildlife/hunting/hiking/backpacking/National Parks/animals list please FR mail me. And ping me is you see articles of interest.

Haven't posted for this list for awhile, sorry, I'll correct that. This issue seems relevant, and I wanted to relate my experience.

jsanders2001: How heartless does one have to be to stoop this low?
Pentagon Leatherneck :There will be lasting harm to the NPS from the Obama pain strategy. The park rangers have literally become Obama’s brown shirts and the local communities will not forget...If you read the Coyote Blog, you’ll see that Warren Meyers’ company does exactly that for 100 state parks in the Southwest and he actually turns a profit back to the states.
listenhillary: How about a “private” park service? You already must pay to get in “our” national parks. Some are $12.00 to $15.00 last time I went.
Hoboken:This is intentional provocation by Obama

To Leatherneck, I wouldn't blame the rangers, I hope the attitude of most is what I'll post later. But listenhillary, Leatherneck is correct that there's already a great deal of "private" park activity, and it's being shut down. As to the fees, you're right, though $12-$15 sound like daily entry fees, pre campground or backcountry fees. I'll note that the PX at Andrews Air Force is shut down, are are the restaurants. But Barry's golf course remains open, the offered rationale that it's fee based. On that basis, parks should be open.

jsanders2001, as heartless as a community organizer confronting his enemies, in this case the citizens of the United States.

During one of the Clinton era shutdown I was on a week or 10 day long backpacking trip with my son in the southwest. Don't remember all the details, but the attitude of rangers was sad but positive. All told be to go where I want in the backcountry and on park land, not an issue as it is today. Major facilities, lodges and welcome centers were closed, but in one case a ranger told me where to park and how to access a preexisting cut in the fence around a ruin site. He was clear that it's documented it was damaged before I was there, and I've a right to be on park land. He may not have been completely correct, don't know, but it was a nice gesture I enjoyed.

Unlike Parks and Monuments, I don't remember any restrictions in National Forest land, which would be absurd. We were moving around every few days, I recall spending a nite or two in campgrounds which I certain weren't State Parks. Forest campgrounds must have been open.

But that was under Clinton, not a favorite of mine. But he wasn't attempting to extract the last ounce of pain from the citizenry for pleasure. Political gain, sure, he'd do that.

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