'The pattern is similar across America'

'Is this the beginning of the end of America's national parks?'

Ted Kerasote at The New York Times

America's "national parks have been a golden goose," but the "outlook for the national parks next year is especially grim," says Ted Kerasote. Donald Trump has "proposed hacking the Park Service's operating budget by roughly 30%, which would be catastrophic." We "would be witnessing the dismantling of a century-old system that has protected majestic scenery and places of ecological or historical importance from development." It has been a "model of stewardship of landscapes that belong to all Americans."

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'The anti anti-feminist election'

Arash Azizi at The Atlantic

Opposition to "women's rights has helped fuel authoritarian movements in Russia, Hungary, Brazil, and the United States," says Arash Azizi. That the "same is true in South Korea" is "perhaps less well-known." South Korea's "role of anti-feminists is particularly stark, helping to put women's issues at the very center of the country's fraught contest." For "longer than it has had a democracy, South Korea has had a women's rights movement pressing to improve these conditions."

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'Corporations won't save LGBTQ+ people. Take their money for Pride anyway.'

Missy Spears at USA Today

Corporations are "not our friends," says Missy Spears. They "exist to sell us things. They exist to advertise their brand. They exist to maximize their profits." Every "dollar counts more than ever if we want to keep LGBTQ+ people informed, healthy and alive." It "would financially decimate" the LGBTQ+ community if they were "expected to take the already small amount of resources that we have and use them to replace hundreds of millions of dollars in lost sponsorships."

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'Assad and Iran are out of Syria. The U.S. should be too.'

Alex Madajian at The American Conservative

The "longer we keep American personnel in a rapidly changing part of the world where no vital U.S. interest is at stake, the more difficult it will be to prevent an unnecessary loss of life if the situation falls apart," says Alex Madajian. Whether Syria "prospers into a stable country or slides back into chaos, it is not worth American lives to guide Syria's fate." The U.S. "should focus on regions where core national interests are at stake."

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