Free Republic

What is this horrid government shutdown I keep reading about? It isn’t for Federal employees, since the House passed legislation paying all non-essential Federal employees that were furloughed for their missed time. (If President Obama signs it, that is). Stated differently. Non-essential Federal employees received a taxpayer-funded vacation. The government shutdown is a way for the Administration and Senate to punish Americans for Republicans not rubber-stamping the funding of Obamacare. At least the Administration should exempt everyone or no one. John Nolte has created a list of unnecessary shutdowns. 1. Treatments for Children Suffering From Cancer – The GOP have...

Signs like this are being posted by union thugs. Government workers are instructed to "make life as difficult for people as we can" and these signs are used to assign the blame. What is the correct message that should be on the sign? If you are going to one of these Unnecessary Shutdown sites, please consider posting the corrected signage. The "official" signs appear to be durable materials and have official logos and department letterhead. If there is not a thug around, you might tape your message onto the sign under their letterhead. Remember, almost everything you do in life...

700,000 people a day would have been visiting the parks and that the surrounding areas are losing $76 million in visitor spending per day. The park service said it is losing $450,000 per day in revenue from entrance fees and other in-park expenditures, such as campground fees and boat rentals.

As of writing this article, Americans have endured more than a week of government “shutdown,” with no end in sight. Despite House Republicans sending several budget proposals to the Senate, President Barack Obama and his Senate Water Carrier, Harry Reid, continue to dig in their heels; refusing to even consider negotiating an end to the slowdown. The contrasts with the last government “shutdown,” nearly a generation ago, are dramatic. I was a member of Congress during the winter of 1995/1996, the most recent government prior “shutdown.” That historic budget battle was no less tense or divided than the current one....

National Park Service officials cited the government shutdown as the reason for ordering an elderly Nevada couple out of their home, which sits on federal land. "Unfortunately overnight stays are not permitted until a budget is passed and the park can reopen," an NPS spokesman explained to KTNV. Ralph and Joyce Spencer, aged 80 and 77, respectively, own their home, but the government owns the land on which it sits. "I had to be sure and get his walker and his scooter that he has to go in," Joyce Spencer told the local news outlet. "We're not hurt in any...

There will be some that may take exception to the tone this post will strike, but this is something that needs to be said. Have you ever witnessed a single politician with the ingrained pettiness we are seeing displayed from the White House. I have always felt whomever held the Office of President of the United States deserved respect. If for nothing else, for simply holding the highest office in our country. Even with Barack Obama, I have tried to show a modicum of respect for the office. That is no longer the case and my feeling has been brought...

Aggressive actions and double standards used by the National Park Service are vindictive and designed to inflict maximum inconvenience and fear among visitors, say Republican lawmakers whose efforts to reopen the parks are gridlocked by Senate Democrats. World War II veterans were blocked by barricades and armed guards from paying tribute at their memorial last week. However, the national mall where the memorial is located was opened Tuesday to allow hundreds of illegal immigrants to stage a protest demanding amnesty. ... the administration has closed the Mall and memorials to some groups and not others, giving preferential treatment under the...

  Why would the president of the United States try to purposely hurt the American people? Well, in 2013 this is done in order to score political points and force the opposition in to doing what you want them to do. A few days ago, an angry Park Service ranger publicly admitted that he and his fellow rangers have been ordered to “make life as difficult for people as we can” during this government shutdown. That Park Service ranger would never have received such an order unless it came from the very top. Apparently the Obama administration plans to cause as...

“We are a nation that has a government—not the other way around.”—Ronald Reagan The conduct of the National Park Service over the last week might be the biggest scandal of the Obama administration. This is an expansive claim, of course. Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the IRS, the NSA, the HHS mandate​—​this is an administration that has not lacked for appalling abuses of power. And we still have three years to go.Even so, consider the actions of the National Park Service since the government shutdown began. People first noticed what the NPS was up to when the World War II...

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...

When and how did the National Park Service become “the shock troops of the punitive bureaucracy”? The Park Service appears to be closing streets on mere whim and caprice. The rangers even closed the parking lot at Mount Vernon, where the plantation home of George Washington is a favorite tourist destination. That was after they barred the new World War II Memorial on the Mall to veterans of World War II. But the government does not own Mount Vernon; it is privately owned by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association. The ladies bought it years ago to preserve it as a...

National Park Service rangers are being ordered to “make life difficult” during the government shutdown, according to the Washington Times. After the shutdown began, park police have been barring tourists from a number of popular attractions nationwide, including the WWII memorial. Even privately-owned landmarks, such as Mount Vernon, are being told by the National Park Service to close their doors. The Times reported: The Park Service appears to be closing streets on mere whim and caprice. The rangers even closed the parking lot at Mount Vernon, where the plantation home of George Washington is a favorite tourist destination. That was...

I really wanted to go shooting this morning, at the very nice Uchee Shooting Range at the Tuskeegee National Forest near Auburn, Alabama. I have some new .223 loads I am just dying to try out. But no. King Barry has decreed that there will be no recreating, and has erected his Barrycades, along with His Royal Decree. The roads in the Tuskeegee National Forest were open, as reported in the MSM, so I assumed the shooting range would be. I stopped by the Torch85 Truck Stop, as was my custom, to pay my $3 Federal User Fee and get...

Veterans from every branch of the military have a message for our government. The message will be delivered in person at 9 a.m. on Sunday, Oct. 13, in Washington, D.C. and at war memorials all across the nation. The Million Vet March on the Memorials is a grassroots movement started by five military brats, a term used to describe children of military members, to honor the nation's veterans.

Check out this video of tourists in D.C. storming past the barricades to see the Lincoln Memorial. Video By KLTV.com

The US government has been shut down several times. What makes this shutdown different is that Barack Obama spent taxpayer dollars to erect barricades at national monuments to keep the American public out. He wants Americans to know who the boss is. Today several hundred Americans stormed the barricades at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin announced that she will travel to Washington, D.C. on Sunday to support and honor the veterans who will be arriving for the "Million Vet March" on the memorials. Speaking at a rally for New Jersey Republican Senate candidate Steve Lonegan along with Mark Levin on Saturday, Palin denounced the Obama administration for dishonoring veterans by barricading the World War II Memorial during the federal government shutdown. She said it was "heart-wrenching," "atrocious," and "not right."

The U.S. government has shut down. Sadly, so have most of its websites. No astronomy picture of the day at NASA.gov. No food pyramid guide at USDA.gov. No scanned images of old-timey baseball cards at LOC.gov. That's the bad news. Now here's the good news: There are two easy methods to try accessing shut-down government sites. Your first option is Google's (or some other search engine's) "Cached" feature. Enter your keywords, hit search, then look for a tiny green arrow next to the URL of the government-hosted search result that you're interested in. Click the arrow to open a menu,...

Taking their lead from the veterans who first pushed through the barricades to visit the World War II Memorial, Americans nationwide are defying the federal government shutdown, tossing aside traffic cones and toppling wooden fences to get to national parks and other federal lands that the administration has deemed out of bounds.As the shutdown hits the middle of its second week, civil disobedience has become a sensation. Some proudly post online photos of themselves overcoming the government’s obstacles, and others use more subtle ways to make their point.In Arizona, one road-stop inn is quietly giving visitors directions on how to...

On Thursday, the Pisgah Inn, which holds a concession on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Asheville, North Carolina, announced that it would defy the National Park Service’s order to close up, and would open doors for business on Friday. On Friday morning, NPS rangers showed up, lights swirling, to close down the business and turn away its customers, supposedly thanks to the government shutdown. Pisgah Inn receives no federal money, and according to owner Bruce O’Connell, who spoke exclusively to Breitbart News, “All we do is pay the government money. We don’t take anything from them.” It is located on...