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Two weeks into the government shutdown, National Parks are starting to close. The public has been getting free access, since there are no employees to collect entrance fees of up to $35 per car. But neither are employees there to collect trash and clean bathrooms. So, with overflowing trash cans and toilets posing a threat to human health and safety, parks are shutting down.
But in the nation's oldest national park, Yellowstone, local businesses are pitching in to pay park staff to keep it open — or at least parts of it.
[...] Jerry Johnson owns a business that rents snowmobiles and sends seven guided tours a day into Yellowstone in the winter. He calls it 'the trip of a lifetime.' When the shutdown began, he received a big spike in phone calls from people who had already booked trips, and he didn't want to tell them their Yellowstone adventure was cancelled because politicians in Washington D.C. couldn't resolve their differences.
[...] "If you don't groom," explained Johnson, "the trails will get very rough, and you get bumps, moguls, in them, and it'll be — it's just miserable."
So, during the shutdown, private businesses that operate inside the park are picking up the tab — about $7,500 dollars a day to groom Yellowstone's 300-plus miles of snow-covered roads, and to keep one paved road open to cars. Xanterra Parks and Resorts, which runs the only hotels operating inside the park in winter, is paying most of that — paying park service employees to perform the same grooming duties they do under normal circumstances.Xanterra asked the 13 guide services that operate in the park to chip in to help pay, and all of them did. It adds up to about 300 bucks a day for each of the guide services.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday January 14 2019, @11:01PM (2 children)
Did they get what they were asking for? Why or why not? I think you'll find as with all GOP propaganda it's half true at best. Maybe you'll find that the 2006 bills were about a different kind of security procedure than what's being proposed now. Or rather you'll find that there *was* a solid proposal for what should be put up (even though that evolved,) unlike the nebulous, grand, and completely undocumented facts as to what the current proposal actually is. Maybe Trump should make up his mind for more than five minutes at a time about what he actually wants to see there. And maybe border security is in fact important to Democrats, which includes what to do about the Dreamers (back when Trump could have had his wall if he was willing to negotiate on that). On, by the way, who was President in 2006? So whatever this is there isn't much history to say it must be a Dem-GOP thing. So once again you have a Trump playing "waaah! they don't love me," instead of looking at the facts.
Maybe some of us just don't want to put up a U.S. version of the Berlin wall when there are better methods?
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 15 2019, @02:43AM (1 child)
Except - they aren't GOP. They are libertarians. They spend plenty of time blasting the Republicans too. For as long as I've been listening to them, they point out that D's stick together, while R's are always infighting. If the idiot R's could stick together, there is no end to what they could accomplish. For instance, the R's could have appropriated the money to build the wall in Trump's first two years.
http://www.waltonandjohnson.com/listen_live.html [waltonandjohnson.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday January 15 2019, @04:39PM
It might be libertarian talk show hosts. But Mick Mulvaney [politifact.com] also made the allegations about democrats previously voting for border security and he is chief of staff of a GOP elected, not Libertarian elected, presidential administration. Whatever his political bent, when he opens his mouth at this time he speaks as GOP force.
But yes, you're right to wonder why this didn't get done when the Republicans did have control of both houses.
After I posted it I realized that what I should have said was, "as with all political propaganda it's half true at best." That's usually true of either side. And personally I feel that with Trump what he says is 5% true at best. 10% if you cover his entire administration and not Trump personally. He gives entirely new meaning to the notion that politicians tell lies. He's willing to speak things that cannot be justified as true by any stretch of any imagination if the lie will play to his base.
For example, if Mexico was going to pay for this wall (and install it on their side) that's their choice. Why aren't they paying for it? (And no, Trump NEVER qualified it during the campaign that "trade savings will pay for it" - at least I'd love to be shown where Trump personally promised that particular little goodie and I invite correction.) But this is yet another example of Trump isn't consistent about what he's asking for at all, let alone the price tag he wants it to come in at.
This sig for rent.