Greets and saluts from the unseasonably warm and beautiful NYC metro area. The GOP shutdown marches on and the GOP continues to use the NPS as a prop, even though they’re as much a victim of the GOP shutdown as every other federal agency. The projection is strong among the GOP and their apologists.

NPS needs more cuts. “@AriFleischer: WW II veterans were and are essential personnel.” #GoonSquad

— ZDL (@zdlatham) October 2, 2013

“The National Park Service has somehow become the unofficial goon squad of American liberalism.” http://t.co/2nAsNHdUbs

— jimgeraghty (@jimgeraghty) October 4, 2013

.@JonahNRO more projection than an IMAX movie. But for #GOP poison pill provisions to defund delay destroy #ACA, deal done #GOPshutdown

— lawhawk (@lawhawk) October 4, 2013

Calling the NPS a goon squad is reprehensible and disrespectful of these hard working and dedicated folks who are preserving the nation’s natural beauties. Rather rich that the GOP thinks that they should reopen the NPS sites, because the GOP has fought to reduce their budgets time and time again. More than that, they’ve fought to prevent the NPS from preserving sites - demanding that drilling, mining, and other activities that could threaten national park sites (and all those areas where the NPS has jurisdiction like national recreation areas, national forests, etc.) They’re hardly conservationists - they’re hoping to exploit the federal lands to the detriment of future generations, and now they think that the NPS should open up memorials on the mall even as it would expose the NPS to liability should anyone fall or be injured on site. Besides, the shutdown is entirely of the GOP’s doing. But for their insistence on pushing ACA poison pill provisions in every CR and other legislation, a deal would have been done and the shutdown avoided.

The GOP has no strategy here other than chaos. If they want to reopen the national parks, it’s real simply. Pass a clean CR. Speaker Boehner doesn’t have it in him to do the right thing.