Fuck r/NationalPark for a duopoly tribalist ban

Posting correct information about Obama's neoliberal National Park Service centennial, then telling all the downvoters to keep downvoting me because I don't vote for either duopoly party is NOT NOT NOT trolling!

The message is as follows.

Hello, You have been permanently banned from participating in r/NationalPark because your comment violates this community's rules. You won't be able to post or comment, but you can still view and subscribe to it.

Note from the moderators:

TROLLING/FALSE OR MISLEADING INFORMATION

I replied telling them the facts, and also telling them that I suspected they would not unban me. So, r/nationalpark fuck off, assuming my guess is right. If not? I'll apologize here.

Fact is, both that and the other main national parks site are loaded with duopoly tribalism. The downvotes I had gotten on the initial comment about the fire at the North Rim:

Part of a trend. Obama's centennial celebration had a bunch of corporate sponsors and I remember the concern when he picked Jewell from REI.

I then added to when I hit 22 downvotes:

(I don't vote for either "duopoly" party, but do tell the truth about this, about both parties on climate change and more. Keep downvoting; I won't die.)

And was at 37 by the time I got banned.

No, Obama didn't cut firefighting? Or maybe he did. He DID, per the one commenter, get in bed with Xi Jinping to make the Paris Accords totally voluntary Jell-O. Too bad that doesn't fit the left hand of the dupoly's narrative.

And, maybe not targeted to firefighters, but Obama DID cut the budget for individual national parks. There you are, certain Reddit soy boy.

That link comes off Google's AI, which also returned all of this:

In February 2012, a National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) announcement noted that President Obama's proposed budget included cuts exceeding $20 million for the parks themselves, leading to a net reduction of 218 full-time rangers and other park service staff. (That's also the link above.)

The NPS budget for deferred maintenance (addressing the backlog of repairs) was reportedly cut during the first three years of the Obama Administration, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior (.gov). (link was dead, to Trump content)

The National Park Service (.gov) confirmed in 2015 that the President's Fiscal Year 2013 budget included $67.2 million in "strategic reductions" in park and program operations, construction, and heritage partnership programs.

An ABC News article from 2012 reported on potential staffing cuts for national parks under Obama's budget, particularly affecting seasonal staff. 

I focused on stuff that came out of Obama's presidential budget.

Here's more on that third bullet point:

The President's Fiscal Year 2013 budget released today requests $2.6 billion to support the bureau's critical national recreation, preservation and conservation mission. The 2013 President's budget request fully funds $27.0 million in fixed costs and provides increases totaling $39.2 million to fund essential programs and emerging operational needs. Reflecting the President's call for fiscal discipline and sustainability, the budget also includes $67.2 million in strategic reductions in park and program operations, construction, and heritage partnership programs. 

This is the same O'Bummer who listened to Rahmbo Emanuel on cutting the size of his stimulus. 

As for my original comment? Even before the NPS centennial celebration itself, here's Dear Leader already pushing backdoor privatization at the Park Service.

You Dumbocrats keep falling for this. 

You fall for Bears Ears. Neither Obama nor Biden made it part of the National Park Service with orders to phase out multi-use shit, even though we see how problematic Grand Staircase-Escalante has been. 

Then you keep attacking the messengers of truth.

And, then, many of you claim people like me "really" voted for Trump. 

==

This is the second duopoly-tribalist site that has banned me for telling non-duopoly truth. R/Texas is the other; I even called them Nazis, but, they're politics-driven ones, per the poll at top right. And, the same untrue claim was made about what I was saying. 

This, per the poll, is versus the non-tribalist, non-duopoly, plain old Reddit Nazi moderators. At my other site, I noted the boot I got at r/AcademicBiblical.

Texas Progressives look at other issues

Soy Boy Greg Abbott is trying to have his cake and eat it too on mid-decade redistricting and racial gerrymandering.

The Dallas Museum of Art's expansion project has a new design team member.

Fairview fights Mormons.

The Fort Worth Modern's being targeted by wingnuts is just one step in larger issues in Cowtown going more conservative. (I was at the Amon Carter exhibit mentioned in the piece.) And, shock me that the pink slime at Monty Bennett's Dallas Express is involved. Even though nothing ultimately happened, the Observer notes the "chilling" factor will likely continue.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project wrote that the ICE raid through MacArthur Park in Los Angeles, is a spur for us to ask questions of local elected officials about how Houston and Harris County are interacting with ICE.  

Your Local Epidemiologist explains the forthcoming cuts to Medicaid and why they will be so bad.  

Law Dork shows just how much the Trump administration was lying to the courts about sending immigrants to El Salvador.

Texas Progressives talk flooding

SocraticGadfly taking note of the reality and seriousness of climate change, has both an extensive look (going back to Obama-administration issues) at too much water on the Guadalupe followed by too little water on the Rio Grande.

Off the Kuff looks at the Lege's missed opportunity to bolster emergency preparedness in the state, and Kerr County's many failed attempts to do something about installing flood alarms.

Lone Star Left has a pseudo-appropriate response to Ron Filipkowski. And I have a fully appropriate for Lone Star Left — Democrats cock-blocking third party voting in Texas are full of hypocritical shit.

 Bayou City Sludge meditates on the disaster and presents her emergency preparedness kit. 

Suzanne Bellsnyder asks why a bill to boost disaster warning capability failed to get a vote in the Senate after overwhelmingly passing in the House.

Mimi Swartz is not running here until she talks about Dick Eastland grifting for an Obama-era FEMA floodplain exemption.

Casino gambling in Texas is deader than a doornail

Maybe Miriam Adelson et al will learn that.

There's a great piece in the Monthly about how Tim Dunn punked Miriam Adelson on casino gambling. Can't they share a red heifer, spotless and without blemish, and make it all up? In reality, as I've said before, Danny Goeb will NEVER see a casino bill in the Texas Senate that he likes, and he'll surely get re-elected next year, which means Adelson will have to wait until at least the 2031 Lege to win this thing. 

So this?

There is little doubt about what Sands wants. It sold its last U.S. property in 2022. Its six casinos are all in Asia. Texas is the company’s path back home. In 2020, Abboud told a conference that the state was “the biggest plum still waiting” to be plucked “in the history of hospitality and gaming.” Worth an estimated $32 billion, Adelson is betting that limitless cash can overcome any opposition. It’s a long game, with immense profits as the reward, one that her most ardent enemies admit may pay off someday.

Ain't gonna happen for years to come. Indeed, the story goes on to say that the Sands/Adelman overkill effort may have driven the cause backward.

That said, the piece is also good for noting that, contra Goeb and Dunn, gambling was here in Tex-ass long ago:

Twenty miles southwest of Irving, a citadel of vice stands atop one of the highest points in Arlington. In the 1930s and ’40s, Top O’Hill Terrace served as an illegal home for gambling, booze, and prostitution—“Vegas before Vegas,” some have called it. Its patrons were among the most famous celebrities and businesspeople of the day: Mae West, Howard Hughes, oilman H. L. Hunt, and even Bonnie and Clyde. High stakes were leavened by fine entertainment: Ginger Rogers, Benny Goodman, and Ruth Laird’s Texas Rockets all performed at the club.

Interestingly, the piece does not mention the glory days of Jacksboro Highway, which I believe had gambling along with whores and the mob, probably because nobody that famous ever went there.

Meanwhile, if Adelson and son-in-law Patrick Dumont pull out, can they sell the Mavericks, too?

Jeff Davis County is fixing to get itself sued over First Amendment issues

That is, if recently arrested independent journalist David Flash has both the money and mind to do that.

At the same time, this:

“The profession has to police itself,” said Renita Coleman, a professor of journalism and media at the University of Texas at Austin. “Because our reputation with the public is really all journalists have. Our credibility hinges upon us doing the right thing.”

Is a reminder that independent journalists can be jackwagons. 

That said, so can members of the mainstream media.

Also, this:

Max Resnik, director of growth at Documenter Network City Bureau, a civic journalism program that has trained more than 4,000 residents across the country to document similar public meetings, said it does not matter whether Flash is a professional journalist. Every resident has the right to record, document and publish public meetings, he said.

“By preventing reporting from happening or discouraging reporting in those public meetings, it sends a chilling effect to other residents and reporters,” Resnik said.

He also pointed to the state’s open meeting handbook, which government officials and members of the public must comply with. Any person, the handbook says, “may record all or any part of an open meeting of a governmental body by means of a recorder, video camera, or other means of aural or visual reproduction.”

Reminds us that one doesn't have to call oneself a journalist to do what Flash generally does.

If Flash is harassing anybody? Let Jeff Davis County file official charges.

My personal take on what bits I glean from the story? Flash is likely not violating any laws. That said, is he glory-hounding a bit? Probably.

If "zero" represents the typical reporter or editor at the typical small-town newspaper or other traditional media outlet and "ten" represents full-on Joey Dauben, Flash is probably in the "4-6" range.

We have a second — and much better — lawsuit against the Ten Commandments in Texas

And this one is a much better vehicle than the first one, for this reason right here:

“As a rabbi and public school parent, I am deeply concerned that S.B. 10 will impose another faith’s scripture on students for nearly every hour of the school day,” said plaintiff Rabbi Mara Nathan (she/her). “While our Jewish faith treats the Ten Commandments as sacred, the version mandated under this law does not match the text followed by our family, and the school displays will conflict with the religious beliefs and values we seek to instill in our child.”

As I noted when the first suit was filed, it was primarily about personal aggrievement. This one expresses the universal First Amendment problem. (Surely, in either the House or the Senate, there's a Catholic wingnut or two, even if Catholic wingnut Drew Springer has retired, who could have reminded Protestant wingnuts that Catholics disagree with Calvinist and Anabaptist Protestants on what commandments are in those "Ten" Commandments. But, assuming I'm right, they're that chicken-shit to not argue over WHOSE Ten Commandments.)

If that doesn't do it, having someone from a non-Abrahamic religion will add to it:

“S.B. 10 imposes a specific, rules-based set of norms that is at odds with my Hindu faith,” said plaintiff Arvind Chandrakantan (he/him). “Displaying the Ten Commandments in my children’s classrooms sends the message that certain aspects of Hinduism — like believing in multiple paths to God (pluralism) or venerating murthis (statues) as the living, breathing, physical representations of God — are wrong. Public schools — and the state of Texas — have no place pushing their preferred religious beliefs on my children, let alone denigrating my faith, which is about as un-American and un-Texan as one can be.”

For good measure, a secularist, or at least a "none" of some sort, is part of the suit:

“We are nonreligious and don’t follow the explicitly religious commandments, such as ‘remember the Sabbath.’ Every day that the posters are up in classrooms will signal to my children that they are violating school rules,” said plaintiff Allison Fitzpatrick (she/her).

So, yes, this is "the vehicle."

That said, this secularist doesn't even fully accept the "second table" of the commandments.

Is an "open marriage" non-adulterous if everybody is in full disclosure? Wingnuts will call abortion murder — and a few are targeting pregnant women, not just doctors. Will people who oppose covetousness oppose the capitalism behind it? And, will they speak out against the ancient language that considered women property, as well as the slaves who are more than "manservants" and "maidservants"?