Remember the Barrycades? Only Obama would handle a government shutdown this vindictively

Tunnel Wall archives

1. No Barrycades! Sec. Zinke Will Spend The Government Shutdown Ensuring The WWII Memorial, National Parks, Stay Open
From 2013: Obama barricades Lincoln Memorial unlike during 1995 “shutdown”  "Morgen Richmond, of the former Verum Serum blog, has been doing great research on the closure of parks and monuments in Washington, D.C. by Obama and the Democrats, revealing rank hypocrisy and mean-spiritedness.

"For example, The White House now claims that it needed to erect barricades at the WWII Memorial to keep out vistors, including a group of visiting WWII veterans, because parks service personnel know how to perform CPR.  (Seriously, that’s the claim.) " . . .

. . . The Barry-cades should be the symbol of this “shutdown” — political opportunism by Obama and the Democrats in Congress who create unnecessary photo-ops, even if it means ambushing visiting WWII veterans and ordinary citizens in order to protect special Obamacare privileges enjoyed by members of Congress.  . . .

Called by some a "veangeful narcissist".   "A top-secret memo that has been released to members of Congress, but still is being withheld from the American public, characterizes Barack Obama as “the vengeful narcissist” and alleges surveillance abuses by his administration" . . .

The Trump shutdown compared with the Obama shutdown

2. If lane closings end Gov. Christie's career, what about Obama's closing of national monuments and parks?

The work of a vindictive, petulant president: Federal Government Park Service blocking view of Mt. Rushmore from highway    "With South Dakota’s most famous park, Mt. Rushmore, many people can stop along the highway and take pictures because… Well, because IT’S A MOUNTAIN.
....
"But the Obama administration won’t have any of that. They have actually gone to the step of putting parking cones along the highway, so you can’t stop and take a freaking picture of the nation’s most famous mountain from the road..."

How much did it cost to do this?
Thomas Lifson gives his estimate of the former President's character

The vindictiveness of Obama shown during the government shutdown
"However, the Obama Administration is going out of its way to take unreasonable and unnecessary steps to block public access to parks and monuments that isn’t warranted by a government shutdown. For example, open air parks and national monuments, places without doors or gates, where people are allowed to visit 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, have been barricaded off. In addition, none of these D.C. memorials were closed during the last government shutdown in 1995-1996 under the Clinton Administration. The Obama Administration’s closing of these sites is not something they are required to do; it’s something they are CHOOSING to do. The Obama Administration wants the effects of this government shutdown to be as painful as possible." . . .

Obama's Spite Fences.

"First remember: Park Rangers Ordered to ‘Make Life Difficult’ During Shutdown Those would be the National Park Service of Obama's Rangers and never forget that.

“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.”

"Blame whomever you will for this issue, but know that it was Obama who ordered these sites blocked!" . . .

Read the entire collection here.

No Barrycades! Sec. Zinke Will Spend The Government Shutdown Ensuring The WWII Memorial, National Parks, Stay Open

Weasel Zippers

"No Barrycades this time. Just one more demonstration of how Obama had no problem hurting people for his political agenda."

"Via Daily Caller:

The government might be shut down Saturday morning, but that did not stop Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke from doing his job.

Early in the morning, Zinke could be found cleaning up trash on the National Mall and welcoming tours of schoolchildren to the World War II memorial with a smile.

“We’re not putting up barricades,” Zinke told The Daily Caller in an interview. “Absolutely not. We’re passing out brochures until we run out of brochures. I’ll be out here everyday.”[…]

n the first hours of the government shutdown Secretary Zinke was making plans for how to keep America’s public parks open. In the early hours of Saturday morning, Zinke met with public affairs and maintenance staff to run through a plan to keep memorials on the National Mall open. He then spoke with garbagemen who will be picking up trash on the Mall one last time before the city of D.C. takes over for them.

Zinke then got into his car and drove to the WWII memorial to greet visitors and hand out maps and helped with directions. “I spent the morning walking around, giving brochures out,” Zinke said. “I got a lot of thanks from both sides of the aisle. We will not weaponize our public lands.”

“The visitor experience will be diminished,” Zinke admitted, noting that some museums and public service will take a hit during the shutdown. “But to the degree possible, we will keep our public lands open. They should not be used as a political weapon.”

Zinke said public parks, monuments and the battlefields “belong to the people and not the government,” and noted that people will see a “significant difference” between the Trump administration and Obama’s in the way public lands are managed during a shutdown.

Keep reading…

From 2013: Obama barricades Lincoln Memorial unlike during 1995 “shutdown”  "Morgen Richmond, of the former Verum Serum blog, has been doing great research on the closure of parks and monuments in Washington, D.C. by Obama and the Democrats, revealing rank hypocrisy and mean-spiritedness.

"For example, The White House now claims that it needed to erect barricades at the WWII Memorial to keep out vistors, including a group of visiting WWII veterans, because parks service personnel know how to perform CPR.  (Seriously, that’s the claim.) " . . .

. . . The Barry-cades should be the symbol of this “shutdown” — political opportunism by Obama and the Democrats in Congress who create unnecessary photo-ops, even if it means ambushing visiting WWII veterans and ordinary citizens in order to protect special Obamacare privileges enjoyed by members of Congress.  . . .

Called by some a "veangeful narcissist".   "A top-secret memo that has been released to members of Congress, but still is being withheld from the American public, characterizes Barack Obama as “the vengeful narcissist” and alleges surveillance abuses by his administration" . . .

The Trump shutdown compared with the Obama shutdown

Here’s what happens now that the federal government shut down

Post officeThe US Postal Service is an independent agency of the federal government. Post offices will not be affected. Mail will continue to be delivered.
Social SecurityChecks will still be in the mail. But new applications will not be processed until the shutdown ends.
National parksUnlike the last shutdown, some plan to remain open. Those with safety or staffing issues will close.
Museums and monumentsYou will have to cancel that visit to the Statue of Liberty, Lincoln Memorial and other well-known sites. The Smithsonian and the National Zoo plan to stay open for the weekend, but shut starting Monday.
TravelAirports will stay open. During the last shutdown, more than 14,000 air traffic controllers were ordered to keep working without pay. In a worst-case scenario, delays might be encountered depending on which employees are deemed “non-essential.”
PassportsIf you need one, hurry up. Passport services will end within a short time depending on when funding runs out.
Immigration servicesMost employees of the Department of Homeland Security are considered essential and will remain on the job. Immigration services are mostly self-funded, so those offices will continue operating.

If lane closings end Gov. Christie's career, what about Obama's closing of national monuments and parks?

“We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.”   “ '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.' ”

More:  "... the administration has made it clear the effort in shutting these things down is not about saving money, but about using these actions to make a political point.
 "A senior administration official actually fluffed off the shutdown, noting that “they were winning” so they didn’t care about the shutdown (or who it might hurt)."

Networks Torch Christie for Lane Closures, But Ignored Obama Admin's Corrupt Shutdown Tactics
"The same network evening news shows that ignored vindictiveness by the Obama administration during October's government shutdown were up in arms Wednesday over New Jersey Governor Chris Christie's "Bridgegate" and the possible tarring it could give his image."

Cones are shown along the road to Mount Rushmore. The National

Parks  Service placed the cones there to prevent viewers from

stopping on the side of the road to view the monument

Obama Forcing Shut Down of Parks the Feds Don't Even Fund   "Looking to cause as much pain as possible to the American people during this shut down, President Obama sent National Park Service (NPS) police officers to shut down hundreds of parks and historic sites that the federal government doesn't even fund."
....

"The famous Ford's Theater--site of Abraham Lincoln's assassination--was also forcibly shut down even though the theater and its programs are run by a private non-profit group.

"Another unnecessary shut down occurred at George Washington's home, Mount Vernon.
"In the case of Washington's home, the park is run by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, a group that takes no federal or state money to operate. After the NPS arrived on the scene, though, the MVLA insisted that they were open despite Obama's attempt to send his NPS stormtroopers to shut the place down."

The work of a vindictive, petulant president: Federal Government Park Service blocking view of Mt. Rushmore from highway    "With South Dakota’s most famous park, Mt. Rushmore, many people can stop along the highway and take pictures because… Well, because IT’S A MOUNTAIN.
....
"But the Obama administration won’t have any of that. They have actually gone to the step of putting parking cones along the highway, so you can’t stop and take a freaking picture of the nation’s most famous mountain from the road..."

This viewpoint was blocked by the Obama administration

Shut down: George Washington's Mount Vernon, owned and operated by the Mount Vernon Ladies' Association

The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association holds the Mount Vernon estate in trust for the American people.

We receive no funding from federal or state governments.

We are not a national park or monument.

We rely solely on the generosity of caring people to whatever degree they are able.

 



 

The government shutdown: Never forget what it revealed about Obama's character.

Rich Terrell

NO DEAL: Government Heads to Partial Shutdown at Midnight After Congress Fails to Reach a Funding Deal  . . . "It should not be controversial to ensure the security of any of our borders, and yet… the Democrats have made this a hill to die on." . . .

It’s not about the $5 billion for border security in the bill the House passed tonight. It’s about Democrats wanting to break Trump.

Remember the shutdown in Obama's day? Dr. King said we should never judge a man by the color of his skin but by the content of his character; I've judged Obama by the content of his character and found him reprehensible. The Tunnel Dweller


Obama Acting Like Vindictive Child With National Parks Shutdown  . . . "As with the sequester, this President is using the shutdown of 17% of the government to punish the American voters into submission.  For example case of open-air monuments that have no physical barrier, such as the World War II memorial in downtown D.C., the White House has ordered park police to take the extra step of making sure no one can get to the memorials.  This led to the now famous incident where WWII veterans, who took an “honor flight”  to D.C.  went through the temporarily erected barricades to visit their monument." . . .

"Obama is one mean, vindictive bastard"  " . . .There is no other way to put it. During the last government “shutdown” Obama blockaded the WWII memorial, which is normally is open and ungated. He spent money on personnel and materials to prevent WWII vets from gaining access to their own shrine."

Shut Down Obama - Simply Vindictive

It is not hyperbole to say with the utmost clarity that the narcissist-in-chief is not a leader, but a petty, vindictive despot working his damndest to offend, hurt, and punish as many real Americans whom he is charged to serve. Obama is personally inflicting as much pain, suffering, and inconvenience upon veterans, children, and vacationers as possible, not just in these United States, but overseas as well.

There are more than 9,300 American World War II troops turning over in their graves in the Normandy American Cemetery in France while Obama has ordered it off limits to visitors – people who have traveled at pronounced expense to pay homage to real heroes of the Greatest Generation. Obama is simply spitting on their memories.

Is Anyone More Annoying or Treacherous than Barack Obama?

...And his slobbering sycophant Stephen:

Is anything that Barack Obama says on the up-and-up? Is this monster of a politician to be believed? No. Not for a nanosecond.

 Townhall  "Okay, right off the bat, in the annoying category, Obama is tied with Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, and the usual Leftist gang of congressional idiots. At the moment, however, Obama has a louder megaphone. He is shooting his mouth off all over the place, for good reason. He knows that if Donald Trump somehow is re-inaugurated, the ongoing investigations into Russiagate are eventually going to lead to Obama himself and that such investigation will reveal his treachery.   

"At this very moment, Barack Obama is highly knowledgeable about the level of Democrat election and voter fraud that took place this year. He has an intricate, inside knowledge of the ploys used by Leftist operatives. However, he is silent about the phenomenon. He is actively espousing the opposite, claiming that no significant fraud occurred and that Trump is making wild accusations (as per usual in Obama's world).

"Is anything that Barack Obama says on the up-and-up? Is this monster of a politician to be believed? No. Not for a nanosecond." . . .

"Stephen Colbert praised former President Barack Obama during a Tuesday interview, saying, “I just want to take a moment to drink you in.”“The Late Show” host threw in a dig at President Donald Trump — though he did not mention him by name — saying that with Obama in the room, he was “having to get used to looking at a president again.” 

Obama’s Petty Response To The “Shutdown” Becomes Tyrannical  . . .  “ 'We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can,” one National Parks Service ranger told the Washington Times; and evidence of this Machiavellian scheming can be found across the nation. Not satisfied with merely closing national parks like Mt. Rushmore, the NPS placed cones blocking scenic overlooks where drivers at least could pull over and take pictures. At Yellowstone National Park, one of the country’s most popular, Park Rangers are using drawn firearms to make their point." . . .

Rick Santorum: Obama Was a Vindictive Bully

Throughout his presidency, Obama routinely engaged in the sort of behavior he would describe as authoritarian and vindictive.   . . . "Obama’s IRS also attempted to silence political enemies. Lois Lerner, an IRS official who served under Obama, threatened Tea Party nonprofits that had applied for tax-exempt status throughout the 2010 midterms and the 2012 presidential election. " . . .

Vindictive Obama punishing Israel for reelecting Netanyahu . . . "There is no doubt that Netanyahu will do his utmost to try to repair the relationship. But if Obama continues to be vindictive and remains obsessed with forcing America’s only loyal and democratic ally in the region to retreat to indefensible borders, we will need to stand firm." . . .

Veterans return Obama’s barricades to the White House . . . "In a mean-spirited fit of selfish anger, Barack Obama has shut down our nation's war memorials, march organizers said in a press release. And he has declared open war on our honored veterans. The World War II memorial, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the Korean War Veterans Memorial, Obama has shut them all down to force his will on the House of Representatives and, frankly, to get revenge on the American people who oppose ObamaCare and his other naked power grabs." . . .

The Obama Administration Opens the National Mall - for Pro Illegal Immigration Rally  . . . "This is an administration that is so shameless and obvious in its partisan political actions that only the most intellectually dishonest in the country can deny it is because they know they will get a full pass from the mainstream media. Is there anyone working for these people who is even capable of embarrassment?". .?

The List: Unnecessarily Shut Down by Obama to Inflict Public Pain  . . . "There are many
other examples of this president’s cold-hearted fanaticism and willingness to punish people for reasons that seem to have much more to with spite than what is and is not “essential.” In fact, there are a number of examples where Obama seems to be spending more money and using more resources to close and block and inconvenience than to just leave it alone." . . .

Below is a list of illogical, unnecessary, and shockingly spiteful moves our government is making in the name of essential and non-essential.   The 2013 list

UPDATE! All the above and more leading to this:  Trump ends Obama's 12-year run as most admired man: Gallup  Obama and Pope Francis. . . . "President Trump has ended former President Obama's 12-year run as the most admired man in America, edging out his predecessor in the annual Gallup survey released Tuesday.

"Eighteen percent of the survey's respondents named Trump as their most admired man, compared to 15 percent who named Obama and 6 percent who named President-elect Joe Biden. Three percent named National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci, while 2 percent chose Pope Francis."

More posts at The Tunnel Wall blog

UPDATED: Obama Worship Continues With Barack's Emmy Win –

  PJ Media

. . ."The Condescender in Chief won his Emmy at Saturday’s Creative Arts Emmy Awards for Best Narrator for the documentary series Our Great National Parks. The Obamas’ Higher Ground production company produced the documentary.

“ 'He was the biggest name in a category full of famous nominees for the award handed out at Saturday night’s Creative Arts Emmys, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, David Attenborough and Lupita Nyong’o,” the Associated Press reported in the most gag-inducing way.

"Obama may have deserved his award for narration. He may well have been better than any other television documentary narrator. I rather doubt it, but here’s the thing: Barack Obama would have won the trophy regardless. He’s the king of winning awards whether he deserves them or not.

"Let’s not forget that Nobel Peace Prize that he won for simply existing. And the two Grammys he has won for reading two of his books, The Audacity of Hope and A Promised Land. Actually, the Grammys are notorious for giving awards to left-wing presidents and first ladies. Michelle Obama won a Grammy for reading the audiobook of her memoir, while Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, and Jimmy Carter have all won Grammys for their audiobook narrations.

"And in all those cases, they may have been deserving, but we know the truth that they would have won anyway because they’re Democrat darlings and objects of hero worship.". . .

Obama Wins Emmy For Narrating. Media Then Compares Him To Legendary Artists. | The Daily Wire

Doesn't anyone remember this?   Obama Wants to Make the Shutdown Hurt Ordinary Americans   "Mr. Obama, in an effort to hurt ordinary Americans, has ordered the closing of hundreds of private parks. He is using the same strategy he used with Sequester.

"This became a clear political strategy this past week when Mr. Obama shut out aged veterans who traveled with a charity group to see the OUTDOOR World War II Memorial.". . .

From an earlier Tunnel Wall post: "Of the men pictured in this collection, those still alive are in or close to their nineties, many in wheelchairs. One wonders how many of these men went to visit the WW2 memorials during Obama's shutdown only to be told they could not enter because Obama wanted the shutdown to hurt.  The Tunnel Dweller."

UPDATED, 9/6/ 2022: Obama Wins an Emmy -- Instantly Exposed as Trump's Name Enters the Conversation (thefederalistpapers.org)

Even Obama fans would have to agree he’s led a life of shameless self-promotion. He’d published not just one but two autobiographies before he even became the president and naturally has published a third since. Trump critics can obviously say the same, but being a showman has been part of Trump’s public persona going back to the 1970s. No one ever thought of giving him a halo for it.

 

Shut the government down

Don Surber  "Face it, we deplorables would love to see the federal government shut down for a month or so. A battle for funding the wall is as good an excuse as any.
"Imagine a month without Congress. Well into the 19th century, Congress took summers off. Then Willis Haviland Carrier invented modern air conditioning, and the swamp critters could stay all year round.
"No FBI would be fun. No one to entrap you. No one to raid your lawyer in a pre-dawn attack.
"No IRS to harass legitimate conservative charities while giving the Clinton Fake Charity a pass.
"The military would continue to protect the country. And President Trump -- who gets to pick and choose what agencies gets shut down (thanks, Obama) -- would keep the border patrol on.
"I am pretty sure the Social Security checks would continue since it is a self-funded agency. But why worry? President Trump would sooner open up the prisons than piss off all us old people.
"Conservatives are very patriotic people, but they are not very happy with the government.
"Liberals love the government but hate the country.
"Here's an idea: How about we get a government that actually serves the country. That way, liberals can hate both."

Remember Obama's vindictive shutdown of monuments and memorials to "make it hurt"?  (Video added by TD)

2013: Obama Wants to Make the Shutdown Hurt Ordinary Americans

 . . . "During the Obama administration the memorials were “weaponized” for the purposes of political optics:

The Trump Administration is leaving the National Mall and monuments open in a shutdown. Remember when Obama shut them down to get PR out of WWII vets pushed away from the WWII memorial? Good times.

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) January 19, 2018

"Among the defining images of that [obama] shutdown were children locked out of parks and veterans protesting at barricades in front of the World War II Memorial" https://t.co/gJtCncYnrW

— Ryan (@alwaysonoffense) January 20, 2018

Never forget how Obama tried to inflict as much pain as possible on the American citizen when the govt shutdown under his watch. He closed every park unnecessarily and erected barriers in open air spaces. Patriots tore them down! Make Dems pay for #SchumerShutdown https://t.co/JMc1dN3ceS

 "Valor: Another wounded warrior carried Barrycades; Searcy: 'Best damn tweet ever!' "

If Gov’t Shuts Down, Trump Plans to Handle It Very Differently Than Obama Did

Tim Pearce  "The Trump administration will leave national parks and monuments as accessible as possible in the event the federal government is shut down, The Washington Post reported.

"The move breaks from the actions of the last administration and is aimed at minimizing the effects from a disruption of federal services.

“ 'We fully expect the government to remain open, however in the event of a shutdown, National Parks and other public lands will remain as accessible as possible while still following all applicable laws and procedures,” Interior Department Spokeswoman Heather Swift told The Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement.

Park Ranger: “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can."closed down more than 400 parks and monuments across the country.

"The administration blamed the shutdown and forced furlough of 20,000 U.S. Parks Service employees on the closures.

"The move was widely criticized by Republicans accusing then-President Barack Obama of unnecessarily making the shutdown more upsetting to Americans than was necessary.

"Critics pointed to the precedent set during the shutdown of 1995-96. The Clinton administration had allowed states to pay to keep parks open and reimbursed them after the shutdown was over." . . .

Guy Benson in 2013: Park Ranger: “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can."

. . . "The rangers are from the government, and they’re only here to help. “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.” . . .

. . . "Finally, a quote from a veteran New York Times reporter, within the context of how [Obama] treats the press: "Sanger, who has worked for the Times in Washington for two decades, said, 'This is most closed, control-freak administration I’ve ever covered.'”

Obama's full frontal blast at the sitting U.S. president from abroad and his own personal character

His logic is that because President Trump doesn't want the U.S. taking orders from petty little unelected eurocrats someplace in Germany, there's somehow a lack of U.S. leadership.

Monica Showalter

The worrisome thing is how this irresponsibility will be taken abroad. Is Obama trying to get foreign leaders to thumb their nose at President Trump and oppose him at every turn? To undercut him by telling them he's the 'real' president? And the White House is his house? Sure looks like it.
In reality, it's his ego he's defending, he was all in for that Paris Climate Accord to bolster the global warming superstition and remains bitter at the dismantling of his legacy.
Leadership, and legitimacy itself, in his mind, is premised on how much U.S. leaders agree with his policies. Obama considers the U.S. state less important than Democratic politics. This is the same mindset that Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez have demonstrated - the state subordinate to the political party.
Is there any question as to why so many voters questioned this man's patriotism?

Thomas Lifson gives his estimate of the former President's character

 Obama was a wuss who CNN and everyone else handled with kid gloves because they feared being called a racist if they told the truth about him.
CNN went Full DPRK News in praising Obama's IQ, basketball prognostications, and oratory skills. That last one was disproved every time the teleprompter went out and he was left to sputtering until he said Okie Dokey, or something equally inane.

 The vindictiveness of Obama shown during the government shutdown
However, the Obama Administration is going out of its way to take unreasonable and unnecessary steps to block public access to parks and monuments that isn’t warranted by a government shutdown. For example, open air parks and national monuments, places without doors or gates, where people are allowed to visit 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, have been barricaded off. In addition, none of these D.C. memorials were closed during the last government shutdown in 1995-1996 under the Clinton Administration. The Obama Administration’s closing of these sites is not something they are required to do; it’s something they are CHOOSING to do. The Obama Administration wants the effects of this government shutdown to be as painful as possible.

"Democrats Finally Get Comfortable Saying Obama Is a Jerk"

 Obama accumulated all this, while lecturing the world’s rich: “There’s only so much you can eat. There’s only so big a house you can have. There’s only so many nice trips you can take. I mean, it’s enough.”

Democrats Finally Get Comfortable Calling Out Barack Obama's Narcissism | National Review    "Last week, our Charlie Cooke spotlighted an MSNBC commentator insisting Florida governor Ron DeSantis is “more dangerous than Trump” and accurately dissected how Democrats talk about Republican officials in and out of office.

This is simply how Democrats begin to talk about Republican candidates whom they believe are capable of winning a national election. When such candidates reach office, they’re Hitler. When they’ve left office, they’re bad, but not as bad as the ones in office. And when they’re dead, they’re the sort of Republicans whom the living ones should be more like — yes, even if, when they were alive, they, too, were deemed to be Hitler.

"There’s an inverse relationship with Democratic party lawmakers. The more time that passes since a particular Democrat was in elected office, the easier it gets for his fellow Democrats to acknowledge glaring flaws that they previously ignored or downplayed. Six years after Ted Kennedy died, it was safe to make a movie about Chappaquiddick – and lay out the facts that Kennedy left a young woman to drown. In 2017, nearly 17 years after Bill Clinton left officeand when it was clear his wife would not become president someday, Matt Yglesias and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand could safely acknowledge that Clinton’s affair with an intern should have forced his resignation.

"And now this appears to be the moment when Democrats feel comfortable publicly ripping into Barack Obama. There were moments during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary where candidates and factions within the party grappled with their disappointment and recognized that if Obama was as terrific a president as they insisted, the American people would not have elected Donald Trump." . . .

Obama Wants to Make the Shutdown Hurt Ordinary Americans ..."Mr. Obama’s behavior is not normal behavior but it is the behavior one would expect in a Banana Republic. "

Flashback to when Obama weaponized 2013 government shutdown (legalinsurrection.com) "Obama shut high profile monuments and national parks specifically so that the TV cameras could show veterans and others being turned away. "

“A Tale of Two Shutdowns”: Obama Closes War Memorials to Veterans; Trump Admin Keeps Them Open to Public   ..."In 2013, what President Obama did was nothing short of a political stunt. To make our veterans feel the pain of the shutdown, he weaponized our public lands. He actually had park officials working overtime to erect barricades and stand guard to deny access to open air memorials, which were normally open 24/7. Worse still, he did this knowing that groups of WWII veterans were planning once in a lifetime visits to the memorial erected in honor of their fight for freedom."...

Obama's Spite Fences.

First remember: Park Rangers Ordered to ‘Make Life Difficult’ During Shutdown Those would be the National Park Service of Obama's Rangers and never forget that.

“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.”

Blame whomever you will for this issue, but know that it was Obama who ordered these sites blocked!

Police Remove Vietnam War Veterans at Memorial Wall   "After one group of veterans went around the barricade, "the park ranger told them the wall was closed," NBC's Mark Seagraves reported. "Later another group of vets showed up and moved the barricades. At that point, the memorial filled with vets and tourists. That's when police came and moved everyone out."
....
"It takes more manpower and costs the government more money to close down an outdoor wall than to let people walk past it and pay their respects.
The Obama administration has been very selective in devoting resources to shutting down memorials." This vindictive president and his administration.

Iwo Jima Memorial Closed, Barricades Erected (Update: Vets Break Through) 

"The stop is a popular destination for veterans and tourists alike, and, in my observation, is usually completely unmanned and unguarded. But, for some reason, it's closed to the public during this federal government shutdown."

Memorial circus outrages visitors  “I think it’s trashy politics if a politician is coming down to get publicity at a memorial that they have closed. I’m talking about both sides,” said Colonel Al Appling..."
Sure, blame both sides, but remember it is Obama who ordered these to be shut down. 

Feds Try to Close the OCEAN Because of Shutdown  "The Park Service will also have rangers on duty to police the ban... of access to an ocean. The government will probably use more personnel and spend more resources to attempt to close the ocean, than it would in its normal course of business."
All above via Drudge

For Political Impact Only   "The nameless bureaucrats that make anonymous decisions affecting our lives decided that open air walk through malls must now be enclosed and sealed.  It takes more money and effort to close an open park or mall than to leave it open.  I guess we shouldn't be surprised.  The optics of the yellow tape around the WWII memorial screams "the Republicans did this".....at first.  Then the analysis turns to the idiocy of the exercise and the bogus intent."
....
James Piereson refers to "punitive liberalism" where in the Punitive Liberals feel that the purpose of national policy is "to punish the nation for its crimes rather than to build a stronger America and a brighter future for all."  One massive reparation for all those "harmed" by our nation

Making Life Difficult   "The Democrats are claiming the Republicans are holding the nations "hostage." But is seems the mean- spirited hostility to the public is coming from the Obama administration."

Unclear and Present Danger? Obama’s Actions over WWII Memorial Tips His Handful of Sad Jokers   “ 'Public lands” DO NOT belong to the Federal Government, they belong to “the public.” As such, the Federal Government has NO authority to keep “the people” from access to land which belongs to “the people.” The government can only stop the upkeep and maintenance of the property. It CANNOT block public access to public lands, at least “constitutionally.' ”

DEVELOPING… National Park Service Blocks Roads To Keep Drivers From Viewing Mount Rushmore

Diana West @diana_west_

UNBELIEVABLE: NPS blocks lane to prevent viewers from stopping on the side of the road to view Mt Rushmore!
The National Park Service is run by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar who sits at the table with Barack Obama during cabinet meetings. Here is where the President can give him instructions on what to do with American's access to national parks and memorials, including telling him not to spend money on blocking visitor access. Or, being Obama, this is likely where he told Salazar to make things as difficult for Americans as possible.
Somehow I picture laughter around the cabinet table as Salazar told Obama he even put cones in the road so people cannot even stop to look at Mt. Rushmore.
"Attaboy, Ken! I can't wait to blame this on the Republicans!"
How vindictive of this petulant, spiteful, juvenile president.
The Tunnel Dweller

Here is the Facebook page of Sec. of the Interior Ken Salazar