Contrasting Memorial Day’s History With Our President’s Message Today; a New COVID-19 Variant–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: May 26, 2025

Indy Digest: May 26, 2025

It’s a time-honored tradition for politicians to issue statements on holidays and anniversaries—especially somber holidays such as Memorial Day.

These statements are generally nice and welcoming—sometimes pablum, yes, but appropriate for the day being commemorated.

In contrast, here’s what President Trump posted this morning on Truth Social. This is verbatim and real:

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL, INCLUDING THE SCUM THAT SPENT THE LAST FOUR YEARS TRYING TO DESTROY OUR COUNTRY THROUGH WARPED RADICAL LEFT MINDS, WHO ALLOWED 21,000,000 MILLION PEOPLE TO ILLEGALLY ENTER OUR COUNTRY, MANY OF THEM BEING CRIMINALS AND THE MENTALLY INSANE,THROUGH AN OPEN BORDER THAT ONLY AN INCOMPETENT PRESIDENT WOULD APPROVE, AND THROUGH JUDGES WHO ARE ON A MISSION TO KEEP MURDERERS, DRUG DEALERS, RAPISTS, GANG MEMBERS, AND RELEASED PRISONERS FROM ALL OVER THE WORLD, IN OUR COUNTRY SO THEY CAN ROB, MURDER, AND RAPE AGAIN — ALL PROTECTED BY THESE USA HATING JUDGES WHO SUFFER FROM AN IDEOLOGY THAT IS SICK, AND VERY DANGEROUS FOR OUR COUNTRY. HOPEFULLY THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT, AND OTHER GOOD AND COMPASSIONATE JUDGES THROUGHOUT THE LAND, WILL SAVE US FROM THE DECISIONS OF THE MONSTERS WHO WANT OUR COUNTRY TO GO TO HELL. BUT FEAR NOT, WE HAVE MADE GREAT PROGRESS OVER THE LAST 4 MONTHS, AND AMERICA WILL SOON BE SAFE AND GREAT AGAIN! AGAIN, HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY, AND GOD BLESS AMERICA! 

To those of you who voted for our current president—and I know there are a few of you out there who continue to be Indy Digest readers—I ask you, in complete seriousness: How is this OK?

One of the reason why I am so pessimistic about this country’s future is that a LOT of people do think this kind of behavior is OK. They don’t view people on the other side of the political aisle as fellow Americans with whom they simply disagree—they view them as enemies, as rotten, as sick. Or, as our president put it today, as scum with warped, radical minds, who are trying to ruin our country.

A piece penned back in 2018 by historian Richard Gardiner for The Conversation, headlined “The forgotten history of Memorial Day,” looked at how this “holiday in which the nation honors its military dead” came to be.

“Gen. John A. Logan, who headed the largest Union veterans’ fraternity at that time, the Grand Army of the Republic, is usually credited as being the originator of the holiday,” Gardiner wrote. “Yet when General Logan established the holiday, he acknowledged its genesis among the Union’s former enemies, saying, ‘It was not too late for the Union men of the nation to follow the example of the people of the South.'”

(An aside: Did you notice that in the post, President Trump didn’t mention fallen veterans, or even the military? I repeat: How is this OK?)

Gardiner further lays out how Memorial Day was born in the spirit of reconciliation, an acknowledgement of the humanity of our fellow countrymen—in the years after the deadliest war the United States has ever endured.

We need more of this spirit today. Yes, we will always look at those with whom we disagree as incorrect, or misguided, or even ignorant. But no matter where we fall on today’s rather warped political spectrum, we should look at our fellow Americans with humanity, not as enemies, or as un-American, or as evil—or as scum with warped, radical minds, who are trying to ruin our country.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• Some updates on the Rebuild Palm Springs effort, launched by a group of Palm Springs business owners to raise funds to help out businesses damaged in the May 17 bombing: As of now, more than $77,000 has been raised, with a $100,000 goal. That’s the good news. If you want to help out, click here.

• Unfortunately, there’s also some bad news: Joy Brown Meredith, a Palm Springs business leader who owns Crystal Fantasy, posted over the weekend on Facebook: “Last night I noticed someone trying to add several posts to the I Love Downtown Palm Springs group that looked exactly like the Rebuild Palm Springs post we are all sharing for donations for the Palm Springs businesses impacted by the explosion last week. But my gut told me to look further. And then I saw it—it was not the same QR code! This heartless jackass was attempting to divert funds our generous community’s donations.” Folks, be careful. The real Rebuild Palm Springs donation site has a zeffy.com URL, and says “Greater Palm Springs Pride” at the top. It can be reached via this shortened URL: bit.ly/rebuildps

• Our partners at Calmatters talked to some California college students who are in school to become scientists—but have had their research projects cut, thanks to Trump’s DOGE hacks: “To find California campuses that lost training grants, CalMatters looked up known training grants in the (National Institutes of Health) search tool to see if those grants were still active. If the grant’s award number leads to a broken link, that grant is dead, a notice on another NIH webpage says. The NIH web pages for the grants CalMatters looked up … are no longer accessible. Some campuses, including San Marcos, Cal State Long Beach, Cal State Los Angeles and UC Davis, have updated their own websites to state that the NIH has ended doctoral pathway grants. ‘We’re losing an entire generation of scholars who wouldn’t have otherwise gone down these pathways without these types of programs,’ said Richard Armenta, a professor of kinesiology at San Marcos and the associate director of the campus’ Center for Training, Research, and Educational Excellence that operates the training grants. At San Marcos, 60 students who were admitted into the center lost grants with stipends, partial tuition waivers and money to travel to scientific conferences to present their findings.”

• Harvard University’s battle against President Trump’s incredible and unprecedented attacks continues to get crazier. NPR reports: “President Trump is again targeting Harvard University, days after his administration’s move to revoke the school’s ability to enroll international students was blocked by a judge. In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump said the home countries of some of Harvard’s international students are ‘not at all friendly to the United States’ and ‘pay NOTHING toward their student’s education.’ He added that the administration wants ‘to know who those foreign students are’ and that ‘Harvard isn’t exactly forthcoming.’ Trump’s latest attack against Harvard comes two days after a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking the administration from being able to revoke the university’s ability to enroll international students. The university had argued that the Trump administration’s revocation was a ‘blatant violation of the First Amendment’ and punished the school for rejecting ‘the government’s demands to control Harvard’s governance, curriculum, and the “ideology” of its faculty and students.’”

• Meanwhile, the Trump administration is now selecting which transcripts of the president’s remarks to post online—and which ones to omit. CNN says: “The Trump White House, which touts itself as ‘the most transparent’ administration in history, has removed a database of official transcripts documenting President Donald Trump’s announcements and appearances. The ‘remarks’ section of the White House website now features YouTube videos rather than the transcripts that past administrations have published for decades. The change is yet another example of the Trump administration trying to exert more control. Rather than printing every transcript, thus creating a comprehensive record for the public, the White House is selectively publicizing some events and skipping others. The selection of ‘remarks’ videos is noticeably incomplete, as it includes fewer than 50 Trump videos from the first 120 days of his second term. The White House publishes a much greater number of videos on YouTube, including highly partisan attacks and propagandistic mashups.” Can you imagine the outcry if Biden had done this?

• And finally … it’s been a while since we’ve discussed COVID-19 variants here in the Digest … but alas, the time has come to do so. CBS News says: “Cases of the new COVID-19 variant NB.1.8.1, linked to a large surge in China, have been detected in multiple locations across the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ‘CDC is aware of reported cases of COVID-19 NB.1.8.1 in China and is in regular contact with international partners,’ a CDC spokesperson said in a statement last week. The spokesperson said that, so far, too few U.S. sequences have been reported of NB.1.8.1 to be included in the agency’s variant estimates dashboard. But hospitalizations abroad have raised questions about the new variant, its symptoms and more.” Early indications are that the new variant is not deadlier, but it may be more contagious.

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