Anger as National Parks grant free access on Trump's birthday -- and end it for MLK day

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Raw Story

December 6, 2025 5:51AM ET


“Why is MLK Day not worthy of a fee-free day anymore?” That’s what Kati Schmidt, communications director for the National Parks Conservation Association, wondered in an email to SFGATE, which reported Thursday on the National Park Service’s recently announced free admission days for 2026.

“That has become a day of service throughout the country as well as celebrating an American hero who has several park units celebrating his legacy,” Schmidt noted of the federal holiday honoring Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. each January.

In addition to MLK Day, three other previously free days were left off the US Department of the Interior’s announcement last week about “resident-only patriotic fee-free days.” Visitors will now have to pay park fees on National Public Lands Day, the anniversary of the Great American Outdoors Act—which President Donald Trump signed in 2020—and Juneteenth.

In 2021, Congress passed and then-President Joe Biden signed legislation designating Juneteenth as a federal holiday to commemorate the end of slavery in the United States. After returning to the White House in January, Trump declined to recognize it on this past June 19.

Read more: https://www.rawstory.com/alternet-posts/national-parks-trump-2674374939/

---

Link to SFGATE article - National parks change prioritizes Trump birthday over days honoring Black people

As I say over and over - call them out as racists to their faces. It's the only thing they recoil about.

They thrive on insulting women and embrace being called "sexists", brag about being homophobes and transphobes when it comes to their hatred of LGBTQ people.

But call them "racists" and they'll squeal like little piggies.

[Irish_Dem]

1. The courage, service, great leadership are all being erased.

The most important Americans in our history all ignored.

While a traitor, rapist, felon, who is destroying our country has his name plastered everywhere.

[electric_blue68]

2. R-A-C-I-S-T-S !!!

Such nasty, scummy people!
"Patriotic"? Riiiiiight. 😑😬

[kacekwl]

3. He's a fucking racist.

Prove me wrong. I dare you.

[Evolve Dammit]

4. his Dad was arrested at a KKK rally. This is who he always was. Central Park 5....

[twodogsbarking]

5. Better to have free admission for a week the day after he, well, dies.

[paleotn]

6. THAT'S going to be a national holiday.

[Ilsa]

7. They could at least mzke it fee-free on days that

celebrate the great outdoors and public lands.

Trump doesn't know squat about the great outdoors. He knows country club outdoors, like golf and tennis. He only knows football from the comfort of owners' suites. I bet he's never been on a hike, even a short one. And I'd bet he's only been to one or two national parks.

[IzzaNuDay]

15. Never seen him "roughing it"

I’m wondering why all those MAGA hunters don’t invite him to partake in hunting!

[popsdenver]

8. You know the answer to that

as well as all of us do.............

[mdbl]

9. Dump's Birthday was one of the darkest days for our planet.

[COL Mustard]

18. Wasn't he born around the same time....

As the Roswell incident took place? I'm just asking questions, kind of like Fucker Carlson would.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

10. Donny is a racist piece of shit

Nothing more

[jfz9580m]

11. Racist and laughably dictatorial

Of course it is racist to ignore Juneteenth and end free access on MLK Day.

Please tell me how this is different from North Korea’s Kim Jong Un or say the dictator of Turkmenistan?

These are hallmarks of corrupt, poorly educated and dictatorial leaders the world over.

Aside from everything else, less infantile politicians would at least get how bad it looks, even if they are secretly grandiose-which to some extent people who run for office, vy for attention etc presumably have to be.

A pox on these creeps who like attention and adulation. They are destroying reality. A reality show star is the last person to handle actual reality. Absurd..Idiocracy is a documentary.

This stupid story reminded me of the time this guy wanted his horrible book to be a part of the school curriculum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saparmurat_Niyazov

In his time, he was one of the world's most repressive and autocratic dictators.[5][6][7]He promoted a cult of personality around himself and imposed his personal eccentricities upon the country, such as renaming Turkmen months and days of the week to references of his autobiography the Ruhnama.[8] He made it mandatory to read the Ruhnama in schools, universities and governmental organizations; new governmental employees were tested on the book at job interviews and an exam on its teachings was a part of the driving test in Turkmenistan. In 2005, he closed down all rural libraries and hospitals outside of the capital city Ashgabat, in a country where at the time more than half the population lived in rural areas,[9] once stating that, "If people are ill, they can come to Ashgabat."[10]

Niyazov simultaneously cut funding to and partially disassembled the education system in the name of "reform", while injecting ideological indoctrination into it by requiring all schools to use his own book, the Ruhnama, as their primary text. He also made it mandatory to read the Ruhnama in schools, universities and governmental organizations, new governmental employees were tested on the book at job interviews and an exam on its teachings was a part of the driving test in Turkmenistan. Turkmen State University even had a "Department of the Holy Ruhnama of Türkmenbaşy the Great", and Ruhnama Studies were pursued as a major research agenda in the country, often at the cost of academic disciplines.[70] Niyazov claimed those who read it thrice were destined for heaven.[71][72][73] Like Kim Il Sung and Muammar Gaddafi, there is even a creation myth surrounding him.[74][75]

At some point I presume his stupid “Art of the deal” will be required reading replacing all the “woke” and “communist” textbooks like Halliday and Resnick, Grey’s Anatomy, Guyton and Hall etc.
Nope. Just “Art of the deal” for you!
Lame and pathetic…

Chauncey DeVega had an excellent piece earlier this year about how life in a dictatorship is largely dull. But it is a steady erosion of reality as you knew it.

I can’t find the precise piece at the moment, but DeVega is always worth reading. I try to never miss his columns:

https://www.salon.com/writer/chauncey_de_vega

[hunter]

12. It would be a good time for protests at the park gates.

No Kings!

[COL Mustard]

19. Boycott the parks on those days.

I have a pass that gets me in free for life. I still wouldn't want to go on those days.

[Dulcinea]

13. This will be reversed...

...when this asswipe finally leaves office or meets his demise. And yes, it will happen.

[the_liberal_grandpa]

14. Free days can still happen I think.

I have spent weeks at a time in Yosemite National Park and I can tell you that there are many days when no one is working the entrance gates to collect fees. Usually its related to air quality (smoke) or some meeting that all park rangers must attend. So, I think that it's possible park employees could just not show up to work the gates on MLK's birthday and Public Lands Day.

I also think the orange assholes birthday could be designated as a day to boycott national parks.

And don't forget that foreigners are going to be paying a boatload of money to get in the parks when they are open so I would expect that visitation may drop a bit next year.

[maliaSmith]

16. Black voters

21 % of Black men voted for Trump. You can thank them for this. They actually voted for a racist like Trump.

[Rebl2]

17. Not surprised

at all that he did this. Not happy about it, but not surprised. Remember, it’s all about him.