Monuments and memorials remained open during previous shutdown

[txradioguy]

Although President Obama claims that he can’t avoid shutting down public sites and monuments, war memorials were in fact kept open during the 1995/1996 government shutdowns.  The administration’s decision to barricade the Lincoln Memorial marks the first time in its history the memorial has been totally off limits to visitors during a shutdown.
 
The administration has also balked at efforts by non-governmental groups to maintain access to public sites.
 
But during the Clinton-era shutdown, World War II veterans kept the Pearl Harbor memorial open.

“Despite the federal government shutdown and an unrepaired sign that reads ‘Arizona Memorial closed,’ tourists are still getting expert commentary about the World War II memorial at Pearl Harbor,” wrote the Associated Press on January 1, 1996.
 
“It’s our way of helping to preserve the history of this place,” Bob Kinzler, president of the Aloha Chapter of the Pearl Harbor Survivors, told the AP.
 
Barricades went up in national parks across Washington, D.C. Wednesday, including the Lincoln Memorial. This, too, was unprecedented.

It is not clear how much taxpayer money the Obama administration is paying to ensure that government sites and services remain shuttered to taxpayers. Popular Washington spots such as the World War II memorial are now guarded by more security personnel than they are during normal operations, while federal employees have been dispatched to put up barricades on capital bike paths and other public grounds that are not usually patrolled at all.
 
Obama’s team has also been caught deliberately punishing World War II veterans trying to visit their own memorial, with one administration official telling a veteran’s supporter, “It’s a government shutdown, what do you expect?”
 
The American people are currently paying for eight mounted cops to keep people out of the World War II memorial.
 
Daniel Burnett, a volunteer with Honor Flight, sent The Daily Caller FOAIed documents showing how much the Park Service is spending on the mounted police. To house, feed, and care for the horses it costs more than $41,000 year. Park police starting salary is $52,020, according to their website.
 
Another unprecedented aspect of the current shutdown is that the president has until Wednesday evening refused any discussions with the opposition leadership. In 1995 and 1996 President Bill Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich negotiated vigorously and struck several  compromises, such as 75-percent funding plan that lasted more than a month


 http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/02/monuments-and-memorials-remained-open-during-previous-shutdown/#ixzz2gf8QZC9S

[thundley4]

http://nypost.com/2013/10/02/govt-shutdown-spreads-to-beaches-of-normandy/

PARIS — Tourists travelling 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 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.
The cemeteries are maintained by the American Battle Monuments Commission, set up after the First World War. Nearly 125,000 U.S. servicemen and women are buried at its cemeteries, and an additional 94,000 are commemorated on tablets of the missing.

[J P Sousa]

Obama will still be able to go golfing.

Troops Forage for Food While Golfers Play On in Shutdown



http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-10-03/troops-forage-for-food-while-golfers-play-on-in-shutdown.html

[marv]

Barrycades go up at privately owned Mt. Vernon!

http://www.infowars.com/barrycades-government-tries-to-shut-down-privately-owned-mount-vernon/

(snip)

The National Park Service erected barricades to shut down parking lots surrounding Mount Vernon despite the fact that the tourist destination is privately owned, another example of how the feds are deliberately worsening the government shut down.

Mount Vernon is the former plantation of George Washington and is owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association, which doesn’t receive any government funding. The attraction’s official website reads, “NO SHUTDOWN HERE – The Federal government may be shut down, but Washington’s home remains open. Mount Vernon has remained a private non-profit for more than 150 years.”

(snip)

- Numerous hiking and biking trails throughout the greater DC region, despite requiring zero immediate maintenance or patrols, have been closed down. Irate citizens are merely flouting the law and using them anyway.

- The NPS has stationed officers along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal that runs 184 miles from Washington, D.C. to Cumberland, Maryland to make sure nobody uses the bike paths. It would have required less manpower to keep this trail open. The handles on all the well pumps have also been removed.

- The feds also shut down a tiny park in which children play on fake turtles, prompting angry mothers to remove the barriers, only to see them put back up. “The park is extremely small and sort of seems pointless to block off,” reports the Daily Caller.

- Lincoln Park in DC, which is known to be used by several Democratic Senators, was not shut down, but numerous national parks across Montana were closed.

- The most widely reported case occurred at the World War II memorial in DC, where the NPS tried to prevent veterans from seeing the monument by erecting barriers and even threatening vets with arrest. The veterans stormed through the barricades anyway. “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,” Senator Rand Paul told Fox News.

Senior Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee are considering opening up an investigation into where the Obama administration directly ordered the “outrageous” closure of the memorial as part of a ploy to “make the current lapse in appropriations as conspicuous and painful to the public as possible,” according to the letter from chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash., and subcommittee chairman Rob Bishop, R-Utah.

(snip)

[J P Sousa]

If I can't get my way, I'll shut down the government.