The Patriot Post® · With Shutdown, Your Pain Is Obama's Gain

At the time of this writing, there seems to be some movement on the government “shutdown” (the shutdown in which 83% of government continues to operate), mainly in the form of Republicans regrouping yet again to come up with yet another offer for Obama, every one of which he has thus far rejected, demanding the GOP unilaterally surrender before he will he “talk” with Republicans about issues concerning them, like a monstrous and growing national debt, entitlement spending which pushes America into bankruptcy, and Obamacare, which has been disastrous (to use CBS News’ description) and which is killing jobs and raising health insurance costs drastically.

Why would Republicans continue to negotiate against themselves, when it is Republicans who have fulfilled their constitutional obligations by passing four major appropriations bills and a dozen or so “mini-CR’s” (smaller Continuing Resolutions to fund every operation of government except Obamacare)? That would be because Obama and his media lapdogs continue to spin this as a “Republican” shutdown, regardless of the fact that it is the Democrat-controlled Senate which has refused to vote on these bills, demanding House Republicans pass a single, massive bill to fund ALL of government, including Obamacare.

With Republicans negotiating against themselves so often in trying to find an offer Obama would accept, it might make one wonder why we are still at an impasse, and why Obama still refuses to negotiate with them at all. In order to understand that, you first have to understand that Obama, all the way back to his pot-smoking college days, has been a disciple of leftist radical Saul Alinksy, who wrote the guidebook for other leftist radicals hell bent on destroying the social order. In his book “Rules for Radicals” (which he dedicated to Lucifer, or Satan, who was “the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom”), Alinsky exhorts his acolytes to understand that “…there can be no conversation with one’s opponents, for to converse with them is to humanize them.”

Obama, a feckless and incompetent chief executive, but a master at political agitation, has attempted to gain ground against Republicans by refusing to negotiate with them on the one hand; and instructing his bureaucratic minions to make the shutdown as painful as possible on the other hand. Here is just a very, very small sampling of the pure pettiness, spite, vindictiveness and meanness of the tin-horn tyrant masquerading as America’s president, and the minions which do his bidding:

He closed off and barricaded the WWII Memorial, an open-air site usually open 24/7, and threatened to arrest these 90-year old veterans if they tried to get past the barricades to see the memorial before they died.

The Pentagon says that due to the shutdown, it is halting payments of death benefits to families of soldiers killed in battle, leaving their families with not only dead husbands and fathers, but no way of providing for themselves. These payments were authorized by the Defense appropriations bill passed by Republicans this summer, but Senate Democrats refused to vote on it. The White House, responding to massive public outrage over the injustice, wisely decided to make an exception to its “no negotiations” policy and sign a “mini-CR” passed by Republicans to restore the benefits.

Obama seems to take a special pleasure in harming the valiant members of the military that protect our God-given freedoms. In addition to halting death benefits, the grocery stores on military bases were closed (but Obama’s golf course at Camp David remains open), and Obama has forbidden Catholic chaplains from performing Mass on military installations, threatening arrest of priests that perform Mass, even when they have volunteered to do so for free. He has cancelled National Cemetery flyovers to honor our fallen soldiers. The traditional flyover by the Air Force Thunderbirds at the Air Force Academy graduation was cancelled but, not allowing the insult to stand, private pilots flying WWII-era planes performed over flights.

Obama has also upped the ante in his vindictiveness, making life miserable for Americans seeking to visit our national parks and monuments. He tried to close down George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon, but was informed it is private property receiving no federal funds, so he closed off the parking lot which is jointly owned by the federal government. Not to be thwarted in their exercise of tyranny and pettiness, Obama ordered the National Park Service to barricade other open air memorials (such as the Lincoln, FDR, Jefferson, MLK, Vietnam and Iwo Jima memorials. And just in case we peasants didn’t get the memo on who is king, Obama’s Park Service went around and REMOVED THE HANDLES from all of the water fountains, lest some weary traveler quench their thirst without government authorization during the shutdown (proving he is an equal opportunity oppressor, Obama has also ordered the memorial and cemetery closed at Normandy in France…to which one defiant veteran responded “Normandy was closed when we got there, too.).

Obama has also instructed the Park Service to block access to highway pull-offs in front of Mount Rushmore so that visitors can’t stop and view it, and he has closed access to the Grand Canyon, even after the state of Arizona offered to pay to keep it open. Obama also instructed that Yosemite National Park, the Grand Canyon, and the Statue of Liberty be closed off to visitors, and he cancelled the famous Miranmar Air Show, which actually makes a huge profit!

Not content to rest of the laurels of his cruelty, Obama’s Park Service gave the elderly Joyce (77) and Ralph Spencer (80), along with sixty other families, 24-hours to leave their home on Lake Mead, which sits on federal land, banning their return until the shutdown ends. The Park Service has also been ordered to keep visitors out of private businesses across the country, actually having rangers park their cars to block the driveways of these businesses, even as the roads they sit on are open for travel. This is costing these businesses millions of dollars each day, and forcing them to cut staff in an already moribund Obama economy where unemployment remains brutally high.

On the first day of the shutdown, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting received a $445 million payment, yet Harry Reid, doing Obama’s nefarious bidding, still refuses to allow a vote on a funding bill for the NIH (National Institute for Health, which works to cure kids with cancer). The national Amber Alert website for missing children was shut down, but Michelle Obama’s "Let’s Move” website and Twitter feed is still running, thank heavens! And of course Obama is still flying Air Force One to fundraisers and rallies around the country.

The bottom line is that Obama and the Democrats absolutely can NOT allow this shutdown to occur with the same apathy which greeted the sequester non-event, because it destroys their narrative that we must have bigger and bigger government just to manage our lives day-to-day. A shutdown that no one notices would be catastrophic for Obama. One park ranger, furious at Obama for these hateful theatrics in actively hurting the American people, revealed that “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as possible. It’s disgusting!” Yessir, I think that “disgusting” is an apt word to describe the Dictator-in-Chief currently disgracing the White House.