The serious issues behind shutdown theater

Two must read posts.

First, J. V. Last in the Weekly Standard:

The Park Police

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 Memorial on the National Mall was “closed.” Just to be clear, the memorial is an open plaza. There is nothing to operate. Sometimes there might be a ranger standing around. But he’s not collecting tickets or opening gates. Putting up barricades and posting guards to “close” the World War II Memorial takes more resources and manpower than “keeping it open.”

The closure of the World War II Memorial was just the start of the Park Service’s partisan assault on the citizenry.

That might sound extreme, but Last backs up his point:

It’s one thing for politicians to play shutdown theater. It’s another thing entirely for a civil bureaucracy entrusted with the privilege of caring for our national heritage to wage war against the citizenry on behalf of a political party.

That's kind of a big deal. yet, the MSM is utterly indifferent to this assault in on the American public.

Ace has some ideas why this is so:

Yellowstone Park Goon Squads, Media Ignorance, and Media Ideology

While ideology is no bar to having actual expertise, ideology does permit those without any particular expertise to have an opinion on matters they know little about...

The problem is that the media makes these sorts of decisions out of nearly perfect ignorance, but, having a Corporate Mission of presenting itself as Expert and Informed on every issue, cannot admit that it is simply groping based upon its ideology, and dresses up its partisan/ideological guesses as "expertise."...

But the media doesn't know a whole lot of Huge things, but they paper over their manifold ignorances with the confident swagger of the Righteously, Ignorantly, Indignantly Partisan.

You really have to read the the whole post. It is not just media bashing. Ace addresses the same point as Last, but from a slightly different angle.

Obama does not own the military, the government, or the national parks, media. Obama instead is the trustee of these things -- but is required to oversee them for the benefit of their true owners, the American People.

Lands held in trust are not "owned" by the government in the same way that the Starbucks Corporation is owned by the Starbucks shareholders. ...

This why we on the right make such a big deal over whether these moves "save money" or not - if they saved money, these moves could, arguably, be credited as actually benefiting the trustees, and hence would, arguably, be legal.

But when the government is actually Spending More Money to harass and harm citizens, sorry media, there is no possible way to construe this as "acting for the benefit of the trustees."

Blockading someone's view of Mount Rushmore or Old Faithful obviously does not "preserve" the trust, as viewing does not damage the property held in trust.

So no, Media, actually it's not just like Starbucks, and it's not business as usual for a trustee to deliberately harm and harass the actual beneficial owner of the property of the trust.

In fact, it's illegal.