Reign of Pain: Shutdown Fever!

The "closure" of the the National Mall, and the outdoor walk through memorials in Washington D.C. was only the biggest zit on the face of the Obama administration in the latest war to batter inform the public into believing that the government shutdown is hurting them personally.  Around the nation, hundreds of parks on federal land, but with no federal workers or facilities are being shuttered:

Warren Meyer of Phoenix, AZ, is owner and president of Recreation Resource Management, Inc. RRM employs about 400-500 camp workers and managers across about a dozen states. It is one of a handful of companies that have been managing national parks and campgrounds as tenants for years, through previous government shutdowns including the last one in 1995-1996. Those previous shutdowns never closed any of the parks managed in this way, but the current shutdown threatens closure.


The campgrounds are self-sufficient and receive no federal funding. No government employees staff or manage the parks. The management companies pay the National Park Service out of the funds they generate from operating the thousands of campgrounds. So the reason for the shutdown is puzzling to Meyer.

Today, he sent a letter to both of his senators, John McCain and Jeff Flake, asking for help to keep his parks open.

“My company, based in North Phoenix, operates nearly over 100 US Forest Service campgrounds and day use areas under concession contract. Yesterday, as in all past government shutdowns, the Department of Agriculture and US Forest Service confirmed we would stay open during the government shutdown. This makes total sense, since our operations are self-sufficient (we are fully funded by user fees at the gate), we get no federal funds, we employ no government workers on these sites, and we actually pay rent into the Treasury... However, today, we have been told by senior member of the US Forest Service and Department of Agriculture that people “above the department”, which I presume means the White House, plan to order the Forest Service to needlessly and illegally close all private operations. I can only assume their intention is to artificially increase the cost of the shutdown as some sort of political ploy.

This is like a tenant being evicted because the landlord is taking a vacation...

However, throughout the nation, would be users of the National Parks and Forests are noticing that the closures and barricades are only being placed where they would expect multitudes of relatively inexperienced users; the back roads and lesser known entries are not being marked as closed or being manned.

Another park being shut down, the memorials overlooking the Normandy Beaches where Allied Troops landed to finish WWII, along with a variety of memorial parks overseas operated by the US government.

Today it was noted that the barricades on the walkways entering the WWII Memorial in Washington D.C. had been wired closed, in an apparent attempt to make it more difficult for wheel chair veterans and their families to illicitly visit  the memorial as they did on Tuesday.  However, there are so few visitors to the WWI memorial that a single barricade is deemed sufficient.  I guess there aren't enough WW I vets left to piss off...

One park Ranger at Mt. Vernon, which the Park Service closed despite the fact that it was co-owned with the Mount Vernon's Ladies Association, gave away the game:

“It’s a cheap way to deal with the situation,” an angry Park Service ranger in Washington says of the harassment. “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.”

Via Instapundit - Government shutdown: Do national parks really need to be barricaded?

The government has also flipped the switch on a large number of government websites:

The Obama administration is using the “Washington Monument Syndrome” as part of its shutdown propaganda effort. The goal is to win the PR battle over the shutdown by closing the government functions and places most noticeable to average citizens.

Sometimes the tactic backfires as when World War II veterans pushed through barricades this week to visit a monument honoring their service or when White House tours for schoolchildren were closed last March, supposedly because of budget cuts mandated under sequestration.

But for every petty political calculation that backfires, many go unreported. During this shutdown, federal websites promoting Obamacare may be open but access to high-profile websites run by NASA, the Library of Congress, the Agriculture Department, as well as data.gov and many others has been shuttered. “This makes no sense,” Donald Rieck, executive director of the Statistical Assessment Service at George Mason University, told me. “It costs more money to close sites than to keep them running without being updated.” After all, the infrastructure to keep websites up is already in place.

I noticed on Monday (before the shutdown) that my favorite NOAA wind site for looking at the local winds prior to boating had been altered, and that the new links did not seem to work right. However, with a bit of searching, I did manage to find this alternative with this note:

Due to the Federal Government shutdown, NOAA.gov and most associated web sites are unavailable. However, because the information this site provides is necessary to protect life and property, it will be updated and maintained during the Federal Government shutdown.

Meanwhile, back in D.C., Obama started to play the next card; threatening to send the country back into economic crisis, by holding Social Security checks hostage  to his Obamacare demands via  the debt ceiling.

"In a government shutdown, Social Security checks still go out on time. In an economic shutdown — if we don't raise the debt ceiling — they don't go out on time," Obama said. "In a government shutdown, disability benefits still arrive on time. In an economic shutdown, they don't."

Since polls suggest that the shutdown is very unpopular, and that Republicans take a slightly larger share of the blame in the public's media's  view, he appears willing to roll everything and anything into it to keep it going as long as possible.

While the White House argues with Fox New over whether it's appropriate for the administration to use "terrorists", "gun to the head" and "hostage takers" phrases regarding Republicans, a Republican congressman was assaulted outside the Capitol building.