In a disgusting PR stunt intended to sensationalize the government shutdown, the federal government barricaded a small living history farm and museum in McLean, Va., and ordered it closed \u2013 even though the historical reenactment site receives no federal resources to operate.<\/p>\n
The Claude Moore Colonial Farm<\/a> uses costumed interpreters and authentic recreations of period clothes, tools and buildings to transport visitors to 1770s Colonial America. At least that\u2019s what the Farm did until Tuesday when the National Park Service ordered law enforcement personnel to remove staff and volunteers from the property and barricaded\u00a0the facility<\/a> due to the government shutdown. \u00a0The Farm sits on NPS land<\/a> but is operated entirely with private funds.<\/p>\n In an email to supporters, Anna Eberly, the managing director of the Claude Moore Colonial Farm, called the government\u2019s decision to close the facility \u201cutter crap.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIn previous budget dramas, the Farm has always been exempted since the NPS provides no staff or resources to operate the Farm,\u201d Eberly wrote. \u201cIn all the [46] years I have worked with the National Park Service \u2026 I have never worked with a more arrogant, arbitrary and vindictive group representing the NPS.\u201d<\/p>\n Eberly said that Farm administrators pleaded with the NPS to remain open, but \u201cEvery appeal our Board of Directors made to the NPS administration was denied.\u201d<\/p>\n In her email, Eberly points out that closing the Farm actually costs<\/em> the federal government money, while taxpayers would pay nothing if the facility remained open<\/span>:<\/p>\n We have operated the Farm successfully for 32 years after the NPS cut the Farm from its budget in 1980 and are fully staffed and prepared to open today. But there are barricades at the Pavilions and entrance to the Farm. And if you were to park on the grass and visit on your own, you run the risk of being arrested. Of course, that will cost the NPS\u00a0staff salaries to police the Farm against intruders while leaving it open will cost them nothing.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n \u201cYou do have to wonder about the wisdom of an organization that would use staff they don\u2019t have the money to pay to evict visitors from a park site that operates without costing them any money,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n By forcing law enforcement personnel to shutter a historical reenactment site meant to educate children about our nation\u2019s history in order to make the government shutdown seem worse than it actually is, the Obama Administration has sunk to new lows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In a disgusting PR stunt intended to sensationalize the government shutdown, the federal government barricaded a small living history farm and museum in McLean, Va., and ordered it closed \u2013 even though the historical reenactment site receives no federal resources to operate. The Claude Moore Colonial Farm uses costumed interpreters and authentic recreations of period […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4299,4298,2440,4300,4301,395],"class_list":["post-19037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-anna-eberly","tag-claude-moore-colonial-farm","tag-government-shutdown","tag-national-park-service","tag-nps","tag-obama-administration"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19037"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19038,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19037\/revisions\/19038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}