Now gov’t trying to block people from looking at Mt. Rushmore (seriously)
Not satisfied shutting the monument even though the State offered to pay to keep it open, the feds placed cones to block viewing areas in the distance.
As bad as the Battle of the Barrycades is in Washington, D.C., forcing WWII Vets to have to push their way past barricades at the WWII Memorial, Lincoln Memorial, Vietnam Memorial, and Iwo Jima Memorial, what the feds did at Mount Rushmore has to be the most petty and insane of them all.
The feds didn’t just shut the access roads — even though the state offered to pay to keep them open — it erected cones along a viewing road in the distance to prevent people from pulling over to view the presidential monument.
The Argus Leader reports (h/t Ben Grivno):
“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.
The cones first went up Oct. 1, said Dusty Johnson, Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s chief of staff. The state asked that they be taken down, and federal officials did so with some of them. The state was told the cones were a safety precaution to help channel cars into viewing areas rather than to bar their entrance.”
The Governor of South Dakota isn’t buying the “channel cars into viewing area” excuse for cones which only appeared after the feds had shut the monument:
“I think reasonable people can disagree about that,” Johnson said.
Daugaard offered to keep Mount Rushmore open using state resources, Dusty Johnson noted. The National Park Service declined.
“I can’t even believe we’re having this conversation,” he said.
This Buffalo (NY) News report makes pretty clear that blocking viewing areas was part of the federal strategy:
“People were upset. We were looking forward to the trip, and Mount Rushmore was the main thing,” said Hilde Werneth of North Collins, who organized the trip through a national touring company. “People were disappointed, but what can you do? It’s beyond our control. People said, ‘Vote them out.’ ”
The entrance to the park, parking lots and highway pull-off areas where people usually are allowed to stop their vehicles for photographs of the monument all were blocked to any traffic, said Werneth.
“It’s all closed up,” she said. “They won’t even let you stop and take a picture. You can only drive by.”
The trip, which had been planned for about a year, consists mostly of senior citizens from North Collins, Eden, Hamburg, Boston and Angola. And there were many veterans traveling, as well. Some may not be able to return to the South Dakota landmark.
The government did not manage to block all viewing areas, but that it tried says everything about the mean-spiritedness and pettiness of the Obama administration.
Twitchy has more images from Mount Rushmore and the Badlands:
@michellemalkin Mt Rushmore! No stopping! pic.twitter.com/3fQQkiMiME
— Nab32 (@NoelleBruno) October 6, 2013
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Petty, asinine and vindictive. That about sums up the Obama administration.
You forgot childish, audacious, narcissistic, dysfunctional, insane, destructive and Chicago-like.
If someone made a movie and had the Federal Government doing these things, it would be called a fantasy, a satire. Yeah, that’s it, we’re living in a freaking satire!
I would add “officious” and just a minor quibble, delete “audacious” because it sometimes has a positive connotation.
Just incredibly arrogant and stupid!
Here is a link about them shutting down the Ocean. And, this is not a satire piece. They really are trying to shut down the Ocean.
http://nation.foxnews.com/2013/10/05/nps-rangers-patrol-newest-%E2%80%98government-shutdown%E2%80%99-closure-ocean
Mark Steyn notes Obama’s latest piece of “shutdown theatre”, his attempt to close the ocean here in Florida:
“In his first inaugural, Reagan famously said that ‘we are a nation that has a government, not the other way around.’ When the government feels free to Barrycade off large chunks of the nation — from the mountains to the prairies to the oceans white with foam — it’s telling you: it’s the other way around.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/360480/obama-furloughs-sea-mark-steyn
He can shut down the ocean but not the border?
He doesn’t want to shut down the border.
The following is a copy.paste of a comment I left on a previous thread on this.
Closing national monuments and parks is an asinine act by an asinine administration. Closing off parts of the open ocean to commerce is entirely another thing. Follow this now.
By definition, cutting off access to a port or to any area of ocean to normal commerce, for example, fishing, is, under international law and treaty and U.S. law, establishing a blockade. Obama has ordered the Florida Bay to be closed. As well as prohibiting fishing in Biscayne National Park. And has sent vessels to support this closure. IOW, he has established a blockade.
A blockade, again by definition, is an act of war. So, Obama, by definition, has committed an act of war.
Against what enemy has Obama committed this act of war? The American people.
This is all by simple definition. And is really kind of cut and dried. It would make a great first article of impeachment- “He has committed war against the American people.” I’d love to see his defenders tying themselves in knots trying to show that the definitions aren’t real, and that a closure of the ocean enforced by force isn’t really a blockade.
Now they are kicking homeowners out of their homes on Lake Mead: http://www.ktnv.com/news/local/226557661.html?lc=Smart
I hate to say this, but you may have spoken too soon. In any case, there’s a fair bit of competition for that title:
Elderly residents kicked out of private Lake Mead homes; 60 families affected
Does Barry understand that WE THE PEOPLE are not the enemy?
Here’s another contender: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/04/blue-ridge-parkway-pisgah-inn/2923169/
I knew I would regret saying “most” because the ability of this admin. to be petty exceeds the normal human imagination.
And just think…
Obama will still be in office tomorrow.
And somehow, some way, he will succeed in lowering the bar even further.
But we are the enemy. In the Progressive mind, the people must be subjugated to prevent them from rising up in opposition.
Next up, they will try to keep people from watching the sunrise and sunset, because as we all know, the sun rises and sets in our Dear Leader.
Kim Il Sung, Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un ain’t got nuthin’ on our Prezz-O-Bama!
I took three of our rescue dogs out to watch the sunrise this morning, over the Florida ocean, on a beach which Barry thinks should be closed … #ANARCHIST
I know that you were trying to be humorous, Trooper John, but since the first sunlight of the morning dawns at Acadia National Park in Maine, and Acadia National Park is closed, he has done exactly that.
I buy into the notion: “Guam: Where America’s Day Begins!”
And it will continue to be, Hank Johnson’s fears notwithstanding, of course….
Great Moments in Magic Gone Wrong
After the complete failure of The Amazing Barry’s Grand Finale Lowering of the Oceans Trick, in a fit of pique he ordered all access routes to beaches closed.
He then proceeded to saw a WWII Veteran in half. He tried to make all the other Vets disappear, but that trick failed miserably, too.
All (and especially Prof. Jacobson),
Does anyone besides me think that this qualifies as a “taking” for the purposes of demanding 5th Amendment compensation? The owners are being denied the use of their property by the Government.
I suppose that the Government could argue that it was not taken for “public use,” but alternatively if the Government cannot make the “public use” argument then it has no right to take the property (via removing the residents) in the first place.
Any Nevada/Arizona lawyers want to file a pro-bono lawsuit and make a name for themselves?
The Governor of South Dakota should be instructing people on how easy it is to knock down those barrycades.
demonstration courtesy of PSY
Michelle Malkin has photo on FB of those barrycade cones being tossed off the road in the Badlands. I don’t know how much, if any, of this type of info is even presented by the lamestream media. If it is, I’m sure they blame Choom’s opponents and the Tea party in particular. Coup time? Sic temper tyrannis. Would be a pity if the people woke up and emulated what happened between Mussolini, a tree and some rope.But what to make of the rumored 30,000 guillotines ordered by FEMA? Where I live it seems most people continue to worship the Messiah and believe whatever propaganda the likes of MSNBC spews.
Twitchy picked up that story, and updated http://twitchy.com/2013/10/06/families-throw-off-the-cones-at-badlands-national-park-in-south-dakota/it with pictures:
People have to be made aware that those dam TeaParty terrorists are terrorizing the easily terrorized, and it has to stop! And, if the only way to do it is to spend taxpayer money to deny taxpayers access to what they already paid for…then so be it.
The Gospel According to Barry.
Move the cones. Stack them neatly along the berm. Perhaps include a short polite note, something along the lines of F##k You, Barry !. Then enjoy the view. Tell them all to bugger off.
Those that elected this child TWICE, are in their glory. Time to give him AND them their diapers and send ’em away..
I don’t really understand why people are putting up with this. I would definitely move the orange cones if they blocked something I want to see. What’s wrong with Americans? I guess we have the president we deserve (except for the WWII vets, unfortunately).
I think even the Vietnam vets let the Park Police kick them out. Unbelievable.
We need more of this: https://twitter.com/NoelleBruno/status/386663054605156352
It is time for Americans to decide who owns and controls what, and if they will be cowed by some orange plastic or yellow tape.
I haven’t seen or heard tell of any of that crap happening in Texas…perhaps for obvious reasons.
Yes, and Obama’s petulance is demonstrating that the federal government owns much too much land. Perhaps, someday, with a conservative president and congress the federal government could sell off lots of its land, and use the proceeds to pay down the federal debt.
Texas kept its public lands when it joined this lash-up.
Excellent, and prescient. The Texans who caused that to happen should have a memorial, which, of course, would be open to the public. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them do have memorials.
Oh, they DO. In our hearts!
Unfortunately, ‘Don’t mess with Texas’ applies only to Texas … other states just don’t have the balls.
‘The beatings will continue until morale improves.’
ENOUGH!!!
Get some 90 y/o WWII vets up there, quick! Lord knows that they are the ONLY ONES capable of facing this down…
The national media may not cover this but the local media is and the tone is often one of outrage.
People are also fighting back when they can do so without too high a cost. Unmanned barriers are being ignored and/or removed. Question about the legal authority for these move are being asked.
I suspect that come Monday we will see the lawsuits and requests for injunctions being filed. I can’t prevent my neighbor from using my driveway-an abandoned state road- to access his land. Nor can a private sector landlord unilaterally change the terms of a lease on a whim. The feds are doing these things left and right.
A little old fashioned law-bending is called for, too…
When you commit true civil disobedience, you are exposing yourself to the law (not running, not hiding in a mob, and not making a special pleading). You make the law live up to itself.
Jury trials, all around…!!!
I was thinking about the people wanting to take a hike in Smoky Mountain National Park who won’t move the barriers to park at the federally maintained trail heads. They have multiple concerns. They could get back to find the car had been towed away. If it was damaged who knows if the insurance would pay. They might also find themselves stranded near dusk with no cell phone signal.
Some hikers are parking on private land close to the park then hiking the extra distance to cross the barriers on foot. They figure all the NPS people will do is order them out or haul them back to the trail head, where they can safely walk back to their cars.
[…] Legal Insurrection notes that you can’t look at Mt. Rushmore during shutdown theater […]
Why can’t the Governor just take over the Mt. Rushmore Park under the 10th Amendment? After all, didn’t the “Several States” get together and form this government to serve the Common Good?
Here in Texas, we kept our public lands when the two Republics joined, and any Federal lands revert back to the state when no longer used. Maybe ol’ Rick Perry should just take back Big Bend, which was Texas state and private lands before it was a National Park.
I wonder what would happen, if the several States decided some day to simply claim Eminent Domain and take control of Federal lands within their own borders.
It is an interesting question.
Do you suppose that this might be the reason why the government bought those billions of rounds of ammunition? Should there be a major uprising of the public might result in violance from the government.
>>”Why can’t the Governor just take over the Mt. Rushmore Park under the 10th Amendment?”
The same reason why Republicans aren’t doing a lot of things they could or even recognizing this new level of moral and physical assault.
Because gutless.
By the way, this governor doesn’t even identify himself as a Republican until the last paragraph of his bio.
I guess the next move will be to require airlines to have all the window shades placed in the down position when flying over a national park and especially when landing or taking off in the DC area to make sure no one can look out and behold a national monument.
So all of a sudden they realize “Hey! We’ve been unsafe all these decades! We need to put bright orange cones that most people perceive as barriers and use them to guide ignorant rubes into the viewing areas!”
And of course it’s just a coincidence they came to this epiphany the same time Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) decided to kill kids with cancer. It’s just an unhappy coincidence orange cones came to be used as barriers to prevent entry into other national monuments and historic sites.
Most people seeing these cones are law-abiding citizens. They will regard the cones as barrier. Let’s just hope nobody needs to pull off the side of the highway due to an emergency. This is a safety problem. The problem is the cones are a barrier to traffic safety.
I hope Gov. Daugaard does the right thing and sends his Highway Patrol out to remove those cones and keep them removed.
Better they do it and he takes the heat than some average Joe citizen does and is uselessly and shamefully imprisoned for an avoidable cause of civil disobedience.
>>“I think reasonable people can disagree about that,” Johnson said.
No, I think “reasonable people” would call it tyrannical bullsh*t.
Think about it folks.
Don’t we have in all of these shutdowns a perfect example of what Obamacare will do to medical care.
No Federal money, so no access even if you have the money.
I think we need to start calling this “the shutdown that foreshadows what Obamacare will do to our medical care.”
Healthcare, in federal hands, could be shut down for reason.
Park Barrycades now, Doctor Barrycades later.
Tell me, has Obamacare created more doctors and nurses?
No!
Tell me, has Obamacare created more hospitals?
No!
Tell me, has Obamacare created more rules, increased taxes, IRS employees, unqualified medical decision makers, and diminished access to qualified medical care?
Yes!
Now you know why Obama made a point of appointing incompetent flunkies to fed department heads.
Let’s see now.
“First they came for the
communistsNational Park visitors, and I did not speak out—because I was not…..”
Time for an additional Liberty Amendment–All federal lands will be the property of the several states in which they are.
Also, we need to start asking the enforcers of this crap if they enjoy being the police arm of a tyrant. Get em on camera.
Shaming the front-line enforcers is a good idea.
In the process, inform them of the budgetary authority of the House of Representatives and tell them that neither the Senate nor the president has authority to be an absolute dictator over the people’s representatives.
If there are any Wisconsin peeps on this blog, thank you and well done!
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151628274025764&set=a.179158945763.136382.143173285763&type=1&relevant_count=1
http://blog.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2013/10/wisconsin-nullifies-park-service-shutdown-order/
If the governor had any decency and courage and the least political acumen, he would deploy the state police to remove them and keep the monuments open. He would be a national hero.
Yes. Closing shoulders is a safety hazard.
A big question: Despite general outrage, how many understand it is Team Obama that is shutting things to needlessly cause pain and outrage, with belief they can blame “Tea Party Anarchists”?
The messaging from Elizabeth Warren is that anarchists are keeping veterans from visiting their memorial. Of course Warren kept a genuine “minority woman” from attending Harvard, by playing the bait and switch game with her Native American identity theft.
For the private businesses on federal property, that are being harmed by Obama’s selective, malicious, capricious, unprecedented shutdowns … why were they not given relief in the bill that funded “paid vacations” for non-essential government employees?
Why give something freely to Obama, without attaching anything for private business that is really harmed most, and would actually generate tax revenue if left alone by Obama’s “stormtroopers”?
These comments to an article on AT this morning: “The people must be punished” by Greg Richards, speak to me. I think the government workers are just high paid union thugs. Don’t ever expect them to intervene on behalf of the people or a person as illustrated by the biker beat up of terrified father last week.
califjim
• 2 hours ago – Does anyone think that their “superiors” issuing orders to erect barricades to keep the public out of public space has any legitimacy? These illegal commands should be viewed as those of a petty, vindictive tyrant having a hissy fit.
The heroic status of those who refuse to comply would seem painfully obvious but the left has so infected the governmental work force that they simply have forgotten who they work for.
smokes califjim
• an hour ago – Plus, they’re paid more than they could ever earn in the private sector. The IRS officials lead the gubmint in mafia-style attacks, though the lies and dark machinations from Rodham’s tate Department were ugly, too.
Last October, my wife and I took our first ‘official’ retirement road trip. We spent a day at Mt. Rushmore and the following day, Devil’s Tower. While hiking the trail around Devil’s Tower, there was a brief snow storm that provided some breathtaking sights.
Today I see that even the Devil’s Tower national monument is closed: http://www.visitrapidcity.com/whattodo/parksandmonuments/devilstowernationalmonument/
If I were to write how I really feel about all this, the blogs language filter would be sorely tested.
How I wish the election had been THIS year instead of last.
Ha, your comment was stuck in Spam anyway! Cleared now.
Americans do not cave to extortion.
Barry is going to find out what makes us exceptional. School is in session, so right now with regard to his National Park shenanigans, he’s targeting retiree tourists who lived during the Great Depression, saw WWII, can remember what transpired during other federal government shut-downs, and took civics back when public schools actually taught the three Rs.
He is courting a major backlash assuming that people will be stupid enough to think that the Tea Party did this. Meanwhile I doubt that Obamacare actually looms all that large on many Medicare recipients’ radars.
[…] the ocean. As if that's not bad enough, he's even trying–Nigel Tufnel-like–to keep people from looking at Mt. Rushmore. (When the WWII Memorial barrycades first went up, I was going to make a PShop of a tarp over Mt. […]
If the Republicans were smart, they’d pay for a busload of these old vets to go around opening all these phony closures.
Have video of some kindly old vets picking up these orange cones off the roads so people can stop and view Rushmore. The Park Service going to arrest them? Then you’ve got Mark Levin and his army marching on D.C.
Just keep upping the ante.
Scenes like that would pull the rug out from underneath the Obama regime.
Let’s see the Palace Guard MSM defend against that.
Time for a little of that Ithaca “civic-minded humor.”
Somebody put up a sign that reads,
“Due to Government Shutdown, views of Mt. Rushmore are closed and drivers are asked to close their eyes for the next 10 miles.”
I love this poster:
“You Need the Government to Walk in the Woods.”
A small quibble;
In the post title, I think it would more accurately reflect the truth if “Obama administration” replaced “government.”
“Government” infers, to me at least, that the Republicans support this insanity, too.
Second.
Thirded. It’s an important point to make, I think.
I was pleased to see, when Chad Pergram tweeted “Gov’t shutdown prevents Armed Forces Network from showing NFL games today”, Jason Whiteman corrected him, “No, the Obama administration did.”
The cones are bits of plastic. A car does not get damaged if they are “bulldozed” out of the way.
People visiting the area should go play a game called “cone knock out”…. just knock the things down. Ignore them altogether.
This is so petty and infantile it is just ridiculous.
Tyranny. I blamed those idiots who voted this fraud in the WH.
When do we march on the White House?
The government is offering a teaching moment for conservatives. Civil disobedience on the right is becoming normalized. Do the liberals realize what they are training up?
As one of my friends at work remarked, “We’ve already been called every ugly name in the book, and our President has made it clear that he hates us … what do we have to lose?”
If I’m going to be called an anarchist, why the h-e-double-toothpick shouldn’t I act like one? Have these people never been parents, have they never heard of “self-fulfilling prophecies”?
Just one more in a series of embarrassing “Barrycade” moments.
[…] to their congregations. Cancer trials for children have been halted. Parks, turnarounds, and scenic vistas–some of them nothing more than a patch of grass or concrete–have unnecessarily been […]