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Rand Paul: "Goons" blocked WWII Memorial
Politico ^ | October 2, 2013 | Lucy McCalmont

Posted on 10/02/2013 6:55:34 AM PDT by Biggirl

Sen. Rand Paul blasted the federal government for trying to block World War II vets from visiting their memorial, saying “some idiot in government sent goons out there to set up barricades.” “If Harry Reid and the President want to keep the parks closed — I mean did you read the story today? Some idiot in government sent goons out there to set up barricades, so they couldn’t see the monument. 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,” Rand (R-Ky.) said Tuesday on Fox News’s “Hannity.”

(Excerpt) Read more at politico.com ...


TOPICS: Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS: goons; govtshutdown; paul; ww2; wwii; wwiimemorial; wwiivets
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The Obama White House And The Dems are sure acting like "goons".
1 posted on 10/02/2013 6:55:34 AM PDT by Biggirl
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To: Biggirl

thugs

dim wits


2 posted on 10/02/2013 6:57:16 AM PDT by yldstrk (My heroes have always been cowboys)
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To: Biggirl
Just following orders...

3 posted on 10/02/2013 6:58:13 AM PDT by Paine in the Neck (Is John's moustache long enough YET?)
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To: Biggirl

THIS is a great media issue for the whole ‘slowdown/shutdown’ fiasco.

Government blocking aging vets from visiting a memorial so the PR movement can score a win.

Why aren’t volunteers manning ALL of the national monuments and parks? They’d do it but for some government union wanting the do-nothing jobs.

WW2 vets in wheelchairs being arrested for visiting THEIR memorial is precisely the image the MSM would be forced to cover and perfectly sums up Washington.


4 posted on 10/02/2013 6:58:45 AM PDT by TigerClaws
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To: Biggirl

This is the petty stuff normally reserved for local school boards who can’t pass a funding referendum. They do whatever they can to make things as painful as possible for decent citizens. It’s their way of getting both publicity and revenge.


5 posted on 10/02/2013 6:58:47 AM PDT by Senator_Blutarski
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To: Paine in the Neck

SHUT UP I answer back!


6 posted on 10/02/2013 6:58:56 AM PDT by Biggirl (“Go, do not be afraid, and serve”-Pope Francis)
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To: Biggirl
Yesterday's MSM reportage made it seem as though the republicans erected the barriers & the park service pulled them down to admit the vets.

I don't think they'll be able to keep up the charade if more vets arrive to visit their monument.

7 posted on 10/02/2013 7:00:12 AM PDT by skeeter
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To: Biggirl

This is the only card that Obama can play now - make the public feel as much pain as possible, so they’ll want government back.

The worst thing for Obama is if the public doesn’t feel much impact from the shutdown, then they might realize how much they can do without it, and might actually get the idea of cutting some of it back.

If that ever occurs, the Democratic Party - whose whole premise is based on big-government-dependency - is dead.

Ergo, the clumsy maximum-pain strategy. Will the public be fooled?


8 posted on 10/02/2013 7:03:29 AM PDT by canuck_conservative
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To: Biggirl
"Some idiot in government sent.... "

LOL, you gotta love straight talk like this...

9 posted on 10/02/2013 7:06:58 AM PDT by Paradox (Unexpected things coming for the next few years.)
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To: Biggirl

It was Obama’s public liaison office of which Valerie Jarrett is head. Go figure. Obama has sent more people to shut out WW2 vets than he did people to rescue our men in Benghazi!

May Obama and his minions all rot in hell!


10 posted on 10/02/2013 7:07:42 AM PDT by penelopesire (TIME FOR OBAMA TO ANSWER FOR BENGHAZI UNDER OATH!!)
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To: All
AMERICAN PRESIDENTS IN UNIFORM


11 posted on 10/02/2013 7:08:00 AM PDT by Liz
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To: Biggirl

Disgusting dems.


12 posted on 10/02/2013 7:09:16 AM PDT by Pajamajan (Pray for our nation. Thank the Lord for everything you have. Don't wait. Do it today.)
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To: Biggirl

Thank you Senator Paul


13 posted on 10/02/2013 7:09:58 AM PDT by rrrod (at home in Medellin Colombia)
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To: All
Ronald Reagan---Remarks on the 40th Anniversary of D-Day
delivered 6 June 1984 in Pointe Du Hoc, Normandy, France

We're here to mark that day in history when the Allied armies joined in battle to reclaim this continent to liberty. For four long years, much of Europe had been under a terrible shadow. Free nations had fallen, Jews cried out in the camps, millions cried out for liberation. Europe was enslaved and the world prayed for its rescue. Here, in Normandy, the rescue began. Here, the Allies stood and fought against tyranny, in a giant undertaking unparalleled in human history.

We stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but forty years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, two hundred and twenty-five Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs.

Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here, and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs, shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb.

They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing. Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only ninety could still bear arms.

And behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. And these are the heroes who helped end a war. Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life and left the vivid air signed with your honor."

I think I know what you may be thinking right now -- thinking "we were just part of a bigger effort; everyone was brave that day." Well everyone was. Do you remember the story of Bill Millin of the 51st Highlanders? Forty years ago today, British troops were pinned down near a bridge, waiting desperately for help. Suddenly, they heard the sound of bagpipes, and some thought they were dreaming. Well, they weren't. They looked up and saw Bill Millin with his bagpipes, leading the reinforcements and ignoring the smack of the bullets into the ground around him.

Lord Lovat was with him -- Lord Lovat of Scotland, who calmly announced when he got to the bridge, "Sorry, I'm a few minutes late," as if he'd been delayed by a traffic jam, when in truth he'd just come from the bloody fighting on Sword Beach, which he and his men had just taken.

There was the impossible valor of the Poles, who threw themselves between the enemy and the rest of Europe as the invasion took hold; and the unsurpassed courage of the Canadians who had already seen the horrors of war on this coast. They knew what awaited them there, but they would not be deterred. And once they hit Juno Beach, they never looked back.

All of these men were part of a roll call of honor with names that spoke of a pride as bright as the colors they bore; The Royal Winnipeg Rifles, Poland's 24th Lancers, the Royal Scots' Fusiliers, the Screaming Eagles, the Yeomen of England's armored divisions, the forces of Free France, the Coast Guard's "Matchbox Fleet," and you, the American Rangers.

Forty summers have passed since the battle that you fought here. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet you risked everything here.

Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here?

We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief. It was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead, or on the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

The Americans who fought here that morning knew word of the invasion was spreading through the darkness back home. They fought -- or felt in their hearts, though they couldn't know in fact, that in Georgia they were filling the churches at 4:00 am. In Kansas they were kneeling on their porches and praying. And in Philadelphia they were ringing the Liberty Bell.

Something else helped the men of D-day; their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, when Colonel Wolverton asked his parachute troops to kneel with him in prayer, he told them: "Do not bow your heads, but look up so you can see God and ask His blessing in what we're about to do." Also, that night, General Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee." These are the things that impelled them; these are the things that shaped the unity of the Allies.

When the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new peace to be assured. These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell here. They rebuilt a new Europe together. There was first a great reconciliation among those who had been enemies, all of whom had suffered so greatly. The United States did its part, creating the Marshall Plan to help rebuild our allies and our former enemies. The Marshall Plan led to the Atlantic alliance -- a great alliance that serves to this day as our shield for freedom, for prosperity, and for peace.

In spite of our great efforts and successes, not all that followed the end of the war was happy or planned. Some liberated countries were lost. The great sadness of this loss echoes down to our own time in the streets of Warsaw, Prague, and East Berlin. The Soviet troops that came to the center of this continent did not leave when peace came.

They're still there, uninvited, unwanted, unyielding, almost forty years after the war. Because of this, allied forces still stand on this continent. Today, as forty years ago, our armies are here for only one purpose: to protect and defend democracy. The only territories we hold are memorials like this one and graveyards where our heroes rest.

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two world wars. It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent. But we try always to be prepared for peace, prepared to deter aggression, prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms, and yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation.

In truth, there is no reconciliation we would welcome more than a reconciliation with the Soviet Union, so, together, we can lessen the risks of war, now and forever.

It's fitting to remember here the great losses also suffered by the Russian people during World War II. Twenty million perished, a terrible price that testifies to all the world the necessity of ending war.

I tell you from my heart that we in the United States do not want war. We want to wipe from the face of the earth the terrible weapons that man now has in his hands. And I tell you, we are ready to seize that beachhead. We look for some sign from the Soviet Union that they are willing to move forward, that they share our desire and love for peace, and that they will give up the ways of conquest. There must be a changing there that will allow us to turn our hope into action.

We will pray forever that someday that changing will come. But for now, particularly today, it is good and fitting to renew our commitment to each other, to our freedom, and to the alliance that protects it.

We're bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We're bound by reality. The strength of America's allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe's democracies. We were with you then; we're with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

Strengthened by their courage and heartened by their valor and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all.

14 posted on 10/02/2013 7:10:45 AM PDT by Liz
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To: Biggirl

I would ask any Freepers who may have an outdoor federal memorial which was closed down by these nasty little minded people and do exactly what the WWII vets did.

It is OUR property. There is no security issue as those monuments are left in the open 24/7/365.

This administration is once again, just like sequestration, sending us to bed without dinner because we did not agree.


15 posted on 10/02/2013 7:12:41 AM PDT by Wurlitzer (Nothing says "ignorance" like Islam! 969)
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To: Biggirl

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/10/01/vets-knock-down-barriers-to-gain-entry-to-wwii-memorial-during-shutdown/


16 posted on 10/02/2013 7:13:02 AM PDT by yldstrk (My heroes have always been cowboys)
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To: penelopesire
It was Obama’s public liaison office of which Valerie Jarrett is head. Go figure.

Well... she did warn us.


17 posted on 10/02/2013 7:16:17 AM PDT by UCANSEE2 (The monsters are due on Maple Street)
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To: Biggirl

IF they can afford to pay people to block a memorial, they cn afford people to give the tour for the WWII vets. This is a small-minded man’s way to stamp his foot at the opposition.


18 posted on 10/02/2013 7:18:29 AM PDT by AD from SpringBay (http://jonah2eight.blogspot.com/)
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To: Biggirl

Have the OBayMe Goons locked Arlington National Cemetery as well??

This will backfire on the Dictator and his Gestapo in Congress, wanna bet?


19 posted on 10/02/2013 7:19:59 AM PDT by ExTexasRedhead
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To: canuck_conservative

Will the public be fooled?

********
It usually is. :)


20 posted on 10/02/2013 7:23:17 AM PDT by Starboard
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