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Thursday, October 10, 2013 The Obama Blockade Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog In the spring of ’48, the collision of wills between the free world and the red slave empire of the east came to a head in Berlin. The Communist strategy had been to push forward, to violate the spirit of the agreements and then the letter of the agreements while always claiming to be the aggrieved party. The Allies had treated the Soviet Union as if it were a credible partner that wanted to work together with them on rebuilding Europe. The Soviet Union...

Could this be the end of Monument Syndrome? Across the country, ordinary Americans are rising up in revolt against the old Washington tactic of closing public parks and memorials during selective government "shutdowns" to score political points. Tax-paying tourists are tossing off the orange traffic cones and "Barrycades." Enough is enough. The movement started with waves of World War II veterans who flew to D.C. last week as part of the Honor Flight Network. (The nonprofit group brings our surviving heroes to visit the memorials that honor their service and sacrifice.) The vets and volunteers breached the fences last...

“I am now occupying the building at this time.” And with that one decision – restaurant owner Glenn Helseth joined the ranks of Americans who’ve decided to defy the strong-arm tactics of the National Park Service. For the past 11 years Helseth and his wife have operated the Carrot Tree Kitchens Restaurant inside the historic Cole Digges House in Yorktown, Va. At least 20 of Helseth's longtime employees are facing unemployment. They can’t make rent and some are faced with choosing between buying food or buying medicine. The National Park Service owns and operates the building. So when the government...

Thousands of people found themselves inside a national park when the government shutdown went into effect. Pat Vaillancourt and her tour group "which included senior citizen visitors from Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States, were locked in Yellowstone National Park hotel under armed guard." The seniors were treated harshly by armed park employees until they were able to leave according to Vaillancourt. Once they began the journey out of the park, "the bus was not allowed to halt at all along the 2.5-hour trip out of the park, not even to stop at private bathrooms that were open along...

"And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, 'Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death.'" (Exodus 19:12) Mount Rushmore has become Mount Sinai. Lord Obama has declared it. Even though the partial "government shutdown" affects only a small percentage of federal spending, and the Chief Executive has the discretion to manage and adjust and prioritize accordingly, the Offended One is determined to make the "shutown" as visible and as miserable as possible, so that he can blame the eeevil...

TwitchyTeam ✔@TwitchyTeam 'Catch us if you can': Gettysburg visitors defy #SpiteHouse cones and Barrycades [pics] http://bit.ly/16uZYVr

Many laughed thinking it was silly. Well, it has indeed come to pass Rushmore blockage stirs anger in S.D. - Blocking access to trails and programs at South Dakota’s most popular attraction was one thing, but state officials didn’t expect Congress’ budget stalemate to shut down a view of Mount Rushmore. The National Park Service placed cones along highway viewing areas outside Mount Rushmore this week, barring visitors from pulling over and taking pictures of the famed monument.

NEWBURYPORT — Pat Vaillancourt went on a trip last week that was intended to showcase some of America’s greatest treasures. Instead, the Salisbury resident said she and others on her tour bus witnessed an ugly spectacle that made her embarrassed, angry and heartbroken for her country.... For many hours her tour group, which included senior citizen visitors from Japan, Australia, Canada and the United States, were locked in a Yellowstone National Park hotel under armed guard.

October 6, 2013 #SpiteHouse: President Stompy Foot sparks new name for White House [Photoshops] by Twitchy Staff Dead-on. As Twitchy reported, citizens can see 2014 from the petulant president’s Barry-cades. His vindictive and teen drama queen behavior has inspired a Barry-cades definition at Urban Dictionary.Twitter users have had it with the president’s spiteful snit fits.

The Greatest Generation came through again. Faced with a weak, childish and irresponsible tyranny, with some of them in wheelchairs, the old soldiers went over Obama’s Barrycades with the easy nonchalance of people who have been there before. It was a group of Mississippi gulf-coast World War II veterans, outraged by administration contempt on closing the World War II monument, who were flown up via the Honor Flight Network, a private organization that they say was “created solely to honor America's veterans for all their sacrifices. We transport our heroes to Washington, D.C. to visit and reflect at their...

We need to join the chorus of Americans who are proudly defying the O`Bozo assclown circus and it`s Barrycades. If you know of a park that was closed but has been "liberated" by peaceful citizen`s action such as tape or snow fencing cut down, Barrycades moved, or cones removed, please post a thread about it.

Many Americans crossed the barriers that were set this weekend by President Barack Obama’s deputies to block public access to the Potomac River from Virginia’s George Washington Memorial Parkway.In many quiet acts of civil disobedience, Americans removed car barriers and cut police tape, or walked across barriers after parking on grass verges or in adjacent suburbs.Once past the federal barriers, they were able to enjoy the bike paths, parkland and overlooks — on what singer Woody Guthrie described as “your land” — during the sunny, 80-degree weekend.Still, the Obama administration blocked easy access to the river for many Americans, except...

I posted a thread the other day about people in Ohio not letting the Barrycades stop them from enjoying the Cuyahoga Valley Ohio and Erie Canal Tow-Path bike trail. Well the people of Ohio have not given up, the plastic snow fence "Barrycades" are still downed and a limited number of people are enjoying their trail. Which begs asking: should more people in more states use such peaceful "citizens guerrilla" tactics as cutting and downing their local park`s Barrycades? I can`t answer that for you but this morning, I had a really nice early autumn hike along a lovely trail.

For much of this last week, according to the spokespeople for the National Park Service, the NPS has asserted that the White House specifically ordered that they barricade the open air memorial commemorating the sacrifice and service of the veterans of World War II. In multiple statements to the press NPS spokespeople made it clear that they were directly instructed by the White House specifically to shut the memorial that had previously never been closed. How do you close something that by design is intended to be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year?...

Remember when the media rushed to talk about transparency in the Barack Obama “Hope and Change” era? Good times, good times. Leonard Downie, who once worked as the executive editor of the Washington Post and wrote a novel about Washington corruption and the Iraq War, finds a bigger and non-fictional problem in the successor to George W. Bush. Downie gives the Post a preview of his report from the Committee to Protect Journalists which outlines the Obama war on reporters and their sources: “A memo went out from the chief of staff a year ago to White House employees and...

With the October 17 deadline to raise the debt limit rapidly approaching, President Obama is not specifically ruling out using the 14th Amendment to increase the nation's borrowing ability if the political impasse continues and Congress fails to do so, but says he does not expect the fight to get to that point. "I'm pretty willing to bet that there are enough votes in the House of Representatives right now to make sure that the United States doesn't end up being a deadbeat. The only thing that's preventing that from happening is Speaker Boehner calling the vote," the president told...

President Obama is taking a completely different tack in this year’s budget fight than in 2011, when talks with congressional leaders ended with him at a low point in his presidency. Administration officials and White House allies argue Obama learned from his mistakes in that round, and that this underscores his decision to not negotiate with Republicans over raising the debt ceiling and ending the government shutdown. “Nope, nope, nope,” one senior administration official said when asked if Obama would bend on the latest round of debt ceiling negotiations. “He’s not budging. Not this time.” “We took John Boehner at...

Lawyers and lobbyists are accusing regulatory agencies of unnecessarily blocking access to websites during the government shutdown. "I can't help wondering whether this is a political call," a Republican telecom lawyer said. "Is it really necessary to completely cut off Internet access?" Agencies including the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have entirely shut down their websites, preventing the public from accessing regulations, filings and other documents. .......It appears there is “some sort of coordinated action with many of the basic sites going dark,” Joe Hall, senior staff technologist at the Center for Democracy and Technology,...

Lawyers and lobbyists are accusing regulatory agencies of unnecessarily blocking access to websites during the government shutdown. "I can't help wondering whether this is a political call," a Republican telecom lawyer said. "Is it really necessary to completely cut off Internet access?" Agencies including the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have entirely shut down their websites, preventing the public from accessing regulations, filings and other documents. Congressional Republicans have accused the Obama administration of “maximizing the pain” of the shutdown to increase Democrats’ leverage in negotiations. “It's a source of enormous frustration for those who...

The US government shutdown enters its fifth day, a week after the horrific carnage by a mentally ill African-American man in which he kills a dozen people before he is cut down by police. An emotionally unstable African-American woman crashes a security fence near the White House and leads a hair-trigger alert cops on a high-speed car chase before she is mowed down by cops using overwhelming force. On Friday, another man, also African-American, pours gasoline on himself in front of the Capitol sets fire to himself in a rare attempt at self-immolation in the United States. It is not...