The Pettiness Surrounding Lake Ontario and the Kennedy Center; a Guide to Fall/Winter Vaccines–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Aug. 27, 2026

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Indy Digest: Aug. 27, 2026

I try to keep my hollering about the Trump administration to a relative minimum. I really do. There are other things happening in the world, after all.

But sometimes, I need to holler, because the sheer stupidity becomes too much. Today is one of those days.

The Associated Press reports:

President Donald Trump said Thursday he is renaming Lake Ontario to be known as “Lake America” in the United States as he escalates his trade war with Canada.

The Republican president signed an executive order directing the Interior Department to update the lake’s name in the U.S. geographic naming service. Trump cannot force Canada to follow his preferred naming convention, however.

Trump has been floating the idea of the name change in recent days as the U.S. announced it was imposing 50% tariffs on $20 billion worth of Canadian goods over the weekend after talks between the countries broke down. Trump has been needling America’s northern neighbor since he returned to the White House last year, suggesting the ally with whom the U.S. once had warm relations should instead be absorbed as the 51st state.

Canada responded to Trump’s import taxes this week by imposing retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion worth of American goods, including steel, dairy products, appliances and farm equipment.

Trump, who signed the order as he was sitting at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, had a large sign behind him propped on a stand with a map of the Great Lakes. Over Lake Ontario, in big red letters, the map read “Lake America.”

On the other side of the president was another map with the words, “MAKING THE GREAT LAKES EVEN GREATER.”

Good god.

There’s another word besides stupid, perhaps an even better word, to describe what Trump is doing, here, as stated by Vermont Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican. According to The Hill:

“This is petty and disappointing. We should be at the negotiating table, finding a path forward that strengthens both the U.S. and Canadian economies,” wrote Scott, who has hammered Trump over National Guard deployments and proposed mail-in voting restrictions, in a social media post about the order. 

“Further escalating tensions does nothing to help American or Canadian families and businesses,” he added. 

Scott, who is running for reelection, shared comments that echo other Republican lawmakers, including Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), who urged Trump to pull back on increasing tariffs on Canada. 

Yes. Petty indeed.

Speaking of petty actions regarding things Trump wants to re-name … NPR reports:

In a legal filing, the board of the Kennedy Center said that the arts complex and living memorial to President John F. Kennedy may be torn down if its plans for a two-year renovation and to add President Trump’s name back on the complex do not move forward.

The board called the Kennedy Center “embarrassing to the nation’s capital” and a “sick and poorly run facility.” Lawyers for the Justice Department also argued that the board and President Trump, who was named as the complex’s chairman in February 2025, should be allowed to move ahead with a two-year renovation that would shut down most of the complex’s performance venues and cost at least $250 million.

If not, the filings said, “the center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down, with a determination to follow on what to build on the site, such as a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River that has been proposed, by some, for many years.”

Trump’s cronies are threatening to tear down the Kennedy Center.

This, in every way, is the stupidest timeline. And possibly the pettiest, too.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• An update to a story mentioned in this space on Monday: Meta has settled a suit filed by most of the country’s states—and the settlement is a big deal. Wired magazine says: “Not even a quarter of the way into an expected 19-day federal trial over Meta’s alleged failure to protect young users, the social media giant agreed to settle the case. The company has agreed to pay up to $16.7 billion to 51 US states and territories and make substantive product changes for how teens engage with its platforms. Attorneys general representing some of the 29 U.S. states that had taken Meta to trial announced the deal on Wednesday, shortly before Instagram head Adam Mosseri was set to return to the witness stand. In a separate announcement detailing the settlement, Meta urged YouTube and TikTok to adopt similar changes to their platforms. … The product changes that Meta has agreed to will apply to Instagram and Facebook and will focus on both features and time limits. Pending judicial approval, teens on Instagram and Facebook will have a two-hour time limit by default across both platforms; they’ll need parental approval to turn it off. Those limits don’t apply, however, to ‘longform content’—defined as audio or video at least 22 minutes long—or messaging, meaning teens can still DM for as long as they please.”

• Texas’ attempt to ban drag shows has again been rejected in court. NBC News explains: “U.S. District Judge David Hittner, a Reagan appointee, said the measure, known as Texas Senate Bill 12, improperly restricted speech, violating the First Amendment of the Constitution. The ruling prevents state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is running for the Senate, from enforcing the law and denies his motion for a new trial. In the ruling, Hittner also had advice for ‘those who find such activities as described in this case offensive.’ ‘The solution is relatively simple … just don’t go,’ he wrote.”

• The Washington Post (gift link) is reporting that Vladimir Putin thinks the war in (and around) Iran has weakened the U.S. militarily … because, uh, it has: “CIA Director John Ratcliffe’s mysterious trip to Moscow this week was preceded by fresh U.S. intelligence indicating that the Kremlin sees the United States as weakened by the Iran war, offering Russia an opportunity to escalate action against American interests and allies in Europe, according to two people familiar with the matter. The details of Ratcliffe’s talks with his Russian counterpart remain secret, but one of the people told The Washington Post that the CIA chief warned Moscow against ramping up its war against Ukraine, arguing that such a move would backfire. … President Donald Trump on Thursday downplayed concerns that Putin would order an attack on U.S. allies in Europe. ‘He’s not going to be attacking a NATO territory,’ said Trump, who brushed off a question about the purpose of Ratcliffe’s trip. The classified intelligence suggesting that Putin sees the U.S. as weakened by the six-month-old war in Iran follows reports of diminished troop readiness and munitions shortfalls as a result of the extended campaign against Tehran. U.S. military stockpiles of key weapons have been severely depleted, including Patriot and other air-defense platforms, as well as sophisticated offensive weapons like Tomahawk cruise missiles and the short-range Army Tactical Missile System, which is also in demand in Ukraine.”

• Also from The Washington Post (gift link): Food-policy columnist Tamar Haspel makes the case that we should stop eating lettuce entirely, and not just because of the recent explosive diarrhea: “A 2024 analysis found that lettuce was the source of something like 1.7 million cases of foodborne illnesses per year, and the economic cost was $3.7 billion. Lettuce and other vegetables that are generally eaten raw top the charts here primarily because most pathogens that make us sick don’t survive cooking. It’s certainly possible that your collard greens are contaminated, too, but once you braise them with a smoked ham hock and a little vinegar, you’ll never know. Aiding and abetting foodborne illness may be lettuce’s biggest offense. But it doesn’t have much else going for it, either, and there’s a reasonably strong case that we would be better off without it. … Let’s start with nutrition. Americans eat about 14 grams of lettuce per day. The good news is, that’s only a few calories. But it’s not much else, either, mostly because lettuce is about 95 percent water. Think about that for a second. Only 5 percent of your lettuce is what you think of as lettuce. Every time a head gets picked, trimmed, packed, stocked on a shelf or put in your grocery cart, only one-twentieth of that weight is actual food. Lettuce is just a vehicle for transferring refrigerated water from farm to table.”

• We’re approaching the season of vaccines, and the excellent Substack publication Your Local Epidemiologist has broken down each of the options for COVID-19, RSV, the flu and the like, with suggestions. A snippet: “The fall COVID-19 vaccines have an updated formula targeting XFG, an Omicron subvariant. Updated vaccines have consistently provided people 30-60% additional protection against urgent care visits or hospitalization compared to people who didn’t get the vaccine. Three vaccines are on the market.”

• And finally … the near-unanimous outpouring of love and sadness regarding the death of Dolly Parton has been an incredible thing to see. Now, we have some related news that, I suspect, would have made Ms. Parton laugh her rear end off. Variety reports: “CNN has apologized to the family of Dolly Parton after the news network incorrectly showed a photo on the air of a Dolly Parton tribute artist instead of the famed country singer herself. On Tuesday evening’s broadcast of CNN’s ‘Laura Coates Live’ in the 11 p.m. ET hour, in a report about the death of Parton, the network displayed a photo that was actually of Kelly Vohnn, a Las Vegas performer who has portrayed Dolly Parton over the course of her career. In a statement to Variety, CNN said, ‘We regret the error and apologize to the Parton family.’” The only way this could have been funnier: If the photo would have been of a drag queen!

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