Free Republic

The House Oversight Committee wants to find out why the Park Service behaved so bizarrely. ... Representative Trey Gowdy of South Carolina, a former prosecutor, almost drove National Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis into incoherence with his relentless questioning. Gowdy wanted to know why Jarvis had allowed “pot-smoking” Occupy Wall Street protesters to camp overnight illegally in Washington’s McPherson Square park for 100 days, yet put up barricades to keep veterans out of war memorials on the first day of the shutdown. By not issuing a single citation to the Occupy campers, Gowdy argued, the Park Service was treating them...

The Department of the Interior knew beforehand that two groups of aging veterans would be visiting the World War II Memorial as the partial government shutdown began on Oct. 1 but decided to barricade the site anyway, according to e-mails obtained by National Review Online. The newly released public records also show National Park Service employees busily monitoring the news for any bad publicity and making shutdown exceptions for their co-workers. On Sept. 30, staff from the offices of Senator Tom Harkin (D., Iowa) and Representative Steven Palazzo (R., Miss.) contacted the Department of the Interior’s Office of Congressional Affairs,...

On June 24, National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis asked park superintendents to work with their partners and bookstore operators to voluntarily withdraw from sale items that solely depict a Confederate flag. The National Park Service press release can be found here. "We strive to tell the complete story of America," National Park Service Director Jonathan B. Jarvis said of the agency's reputation for telling difficult parts of our history. "All sales items in parks are evaluated based on educational value and their connection to the park. Any stand-alone depictions of Confederate flags have no place in park stores."...

The National Park Service’s closure of the World War II and other memorials violates rules requiring them to stay open, 93 House members charge in a letter to the agency. Led by Michigan Republican Rep. Bill Huizenga, they claim that Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis is simply making up closure rules to punish the public during the government shut down and they question the costs of the random closures in Washington where not all memorials are being closed. "The National Park Service continues to act in an arbitrary and punitive manner to exclude veterans from memorials built in their honor...

Jonathan (Jon) B. Jarvis officially became the 18th Director of the National Park Service on October 2, 2009. [appointed by Barack 0bama] A career ranger of the National Park Service, who began his career in 1976 as a seasonal interpreter in Washington, D.C., Jarvis takes the helm of an agency that preserves and manages some of the most treasured landscapes and valued cultural icons in this nation.

Whatever the perceived shortcomings of Ted Cruz and his hardy band of stalwarts, they've performed a remarkable public service by highlighting the fate that awaits all who rub wrongly the translucently thin skin of King Barack the Petulant. The Spartans may have had their shields, Native Americans their tomahawks and arrows, the Samurai may have wielded his sword with all the deadly grace of a tiger in mid-attack, but pound for pound, nothing comes close to the audacious stupidity of "Barrycades" and people in pointy little Smokey the Bear hats, poised to protect America's monuments from law-abiding citizens Welcome to...