**Theodore Roosevelt's Ghost Reportedly Filing HR Complaint Against Mount Rushmore For 'Unsanctioned Use of Likeness'**
KEystone, SD — In what historians are calling either the most unhinged spiritual subpoena of all time or Wednesday, the restless spirit of Theodore Roosevelt has reportedly filed a formal HR complaint against the National Park Service, alleging that his 60-foot granite face on Mount Rushmore constitutes “gross, unsanctioned use of personal likeness for commercial and political gain.” The complaint, filed through a medium in Deadwood who specializes in “ectoplasmic arbitration,” demands an immediate cease-and-desist of all selfies taken in front of his stone schnozz.
“This is a clear violation of my posthumous publicity rights,” dictated the spirit of TR through the medium, a woman named Brenda who definitely smells like patchouli and regret. “I did not sign up to be a damn billboard for ‘Murica. I was a conservationist. I hated bullies. Now I’m literally carved into a mountain next to a guy who owned slaves and a dude who got shot in a theater. This is not the legacy I ordered from the cosmic menu. I wanted a national park named after me, not a giant rock erection of my face that people put sunglasses on with Photoshop.”
The complaint, which is 47 pages long and written in increasingly frantic cursive, alleges that the National Park Service has been “gaslighting, gatekeeping, and girlbossing” his image for over 80 years without paying a single ghostly cent in residuals. Roosevelt’s spirit is also seeking “emotional damages in the form of unlimited buffalo wings for all future séances” and a full apology from Gutzon Borglum, the sculptor, who is also dead and therefore cannot respond, which seems like a cheap shot even for a ghost.
Legal experts are baffled, mostly because ghost law is not real, but also because the audacity is kind of impressive.
“This is unprecedented,” said Dr. Larry Hemsworth, a professor of paranormal jurisprudence at the University of Phoenix Online. “Usually, hauntings are about unfinished business like finding a lost will or scaring teenagers away from a lake house. But demanding residual checks for a mountain sculpture? That’s a power move. That’s the energy of a man who once charged up a hill with a horse and a limp wrist. I’d say he has a 50/50 chance of winning, because ghosts are notoriously litigious and the Park Service can’t exactly cross-examine a séance.”
The internet, as always, has taken this reveal and immediately set it on fire. Reddit user u/SkiBum_42069 posted in the r/AmITheAsshole thread: “AITA for thinking Teddy Roosevelt’s ghost is being a total Karen? Like bro, you’re famous. You’re on a mountain. You’re on the nickel. You’re literally the reason we have the Teddy Bear. Chill out, Casper. Some of us have to fill out W-2s for our own faces.” The post has 47,000 upvotes and 2,000 comments debating whether Teddy is an entitled boomer ghost or a based class warrior fighting against the tyranny of monument capitalism.
“NTA,” replied user u/PhantomOfTheOpera. “Teddy didn’t ask to be carved. He was a conservationist. He wanted to save the buffalo, not become a Chuck E. Cheese mascot for American exceptionalism. That mountain is basically unpaid labor. Have you SEEN the gift shop? They sell ‘I Climbed Teddy’s Nose’ t-shirts. That’s not a legacy. That’s a cringe Halloween costume for the entire nation.”
Meanwhile, the National Park Service has responded with their typical bureaucratic wet blanket. In a press release issued from a fax machine that still smells like 1997, they stated: “The National Park Service does not recognize claims from spectral entities. Mount Rushmore is a federally protected monument commemorating four presidents who contributed to the birth, growth, development, and preservation of the United States. If Mr. Roosevelt’s spirit has concerns, they can be directed to our official suggestion box, which is located in the gift shop next to the fudge samples. Please include a return address. We cannot reply to ectoplasm.”
This, predictably, has enraged the ghost of TR even further. According to the medium, Teddy has taken to possessing park rangers and making them recite the entire text of his “Man in the Arena” speech while doing push-ups. He also reportedly possessed a prairie dog and made it flip off the Lincoln Memorial. “He’s not mad,” said Brenda the medium. “He’s disappointed. He said the country has gone soft. He said the only thing carved in stone should be the Constitution, not his cheekbones. Also, he wants you all to stop putting those stupid ‘I’m with Teddy’ bumper stickers on Subarus. He finds it patronizing.”
The controversy has also reignited the eternal American debate: Are monuments a form of respect or just a way to make dead guys into lawn ornaments? Twitter user @Shady_Sadie_ chimed in: “Teddy Roosevelt was a badass who literally got shot in the chest and gave a 90-minute speech. He deserves royalties. If I can sue for someone using my photo on a dating app, he can sue for having his face used to sell ‘I ❤️ SD’ coffee mugs. Justice for the Bull Moose Ghost.”
But not everyone is on Team Specter. Conservative commentator and occasional human shrug, Tucker Gable, posted a video rant: “This is what happens when we let woke ghost lawyers into our national parks. First, they take down statues. Now, they want royalties for them. Next thing you know, Mount Rushmore will be renamed ‘Carvings of Color’ and Teddy will be replaced with a hologram of Dolly Parton. It’s a slippery slope, folks. And it’s greased with ghost tears.”
The situation has gotten so absurd that the White House was forced to comment. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, visibly exhausted, told reporters: “The President is aware of the reports.
Final Thoughts
Let me be blunt: Theodore Roosevelt was less a man than a force of nature, a paradox who embodied America's noblest ideals and its most reckless impulses in equal measure. His frenetic bustle—charging up San Juan Hill, trust-busting monopolies, and cajoling a canal through Panama—was a brilliant, manic attempt to drag a reluctant nation into the 20th century, yet his unshakable faith in "the strenuous life" often veered into a jingoistic worship of power for its own sake. In the end, Roosevelt’s legacy isn’t that he was always right, but that he had the courage to be spectacularly, messily *alive* in a job that tends to calcify the soul—a reminder that true leadership isn't about managing the status quo, but about seizing history by the scruff of the neck