Aug
29
2026

Hey! Pointless Foot-Stomping is My Only Dance Move!

I'm just gonna quote Jeffrey Blehar: Lake America? Spare Us.

*sigh*

Do I really have to do this? Must I talk about yet another pointless, stupid publicity stunt by America’s flailing president? I suppose so, if only briefly, and only to note how unsuccessful the attempted distraction is. Lake Ontario – you might have heard of it, it’s one of the lamer Great Lakes, but Niagara Falls is nice for budget honeymoons, and western N.Y. needs something going for it other than Indian casinos — has today been peremptorily renamed “Lake America” by Donald Trump via executive order.

This rhetorical escalation from Trump is merely another step in the trade war he is seeking to launch against Canada during the run-up to the midterms. I’ve run through the stupidity of this all before — including my analysis of the shockingly simplistic motivations behind Trump’s animus toward Canada — so I don’t want to waste either my time or yours rehashing all of it. (Canada is a natural target of opportunity for Trump, who has forever held their military and cultural weakness in contempt and now uses them as a punching bag of convenience.)

But really, what does any of this mean? Nobody is going to start calling Lake Ontario “Lake America,” just like nobody — even in Alabama or Florida — refers to the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” (Except laughingly, in that raised-eyebrow “freedom fries” way.) This obviously isn’t the sort of thing that can be changed via executive order, and even if Donald Trump threatens to imprison every mapmaker in the U.S. government, it won’t last for more than two years. (Ask any Chicagoan — even the transplants! — what they call that giant tower that dominates our skyline. Sears may not really exist anymore, but its brand equity lives on in the name.)

So what are we left with? Nothing, just a pointless foot-stamping gesture from a president incompetently locked into several simultaneous tire fires of his own making. The economy is hurting. Voters are angry about the rising price of gas and groceries and panicking about AI and data centers. And here Trump is, amusing himself, because he lacks the ability or inclination to do anything else. Trump will fight to rename the Great Lakes, or demolish the Kennedy Center — anything to keep the media from talking about the economy or the war in Iran. Because ultimately Trump thinks of the voters basically as infants who haven’t yet developed object permanence: “If the media is busy talking about something else, then these problems no longer exist!”

I concur. If he doesn't want to do President-stuff, then he should quit and toss the Air Force One keys over to JD. Who wouldn't be great, or even good, but he might take the job more seriously.

Also of note:

  • Nice try on that Constitution-trashing thing, Steve. Back in 2024, I noted the effort of the Bow (New Hampshire) School District to ban pink armbands emblazoned with "XX" from the spectator stands at a soccer match. My headline: They're Not Really Getting the LFOD Thing in Bow, New Hampshire.

    I speculated that "the most probable outcome will be some expensive litigation paid for by Bow taxpayers, which Bow will lose."

    Ah, but I did not foresee that the litigation would first go before United States District Court Judge Steven McAuliffe (Christa's husband). NH Journal:

    [Judge McAulliffe] ruled Bow High School has the right to ban parents from wearing pink XX wristbands to girls’ soccer games to show their opposition to allowing biological males to compete against females. The judge said the protests weren’t protected speech, and he accused the parents of “harassing” individual trans-identifying athletes.

    … and I noted his decision appeared to be 1A-problematic.

    So now I get to say "toldya so". In the College Fix: First Circuit rebukes judge who ruled parents can’t wear ‘XX’ wristbands to protest boys in girls’ sports.

    The First Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously ruled against the judge who sided with a school district in forbidding parents from wearing “XX” wristbands to protest males playing in female sports.

    The case has been remanded back to Judge Steve, so we'll see what happens there.

  • "Insane Circumcision Analogy" would be a good name for a rock band. But instead it's in the headline of a David Harsanyi column: El-Sayed's Insane Circumcision Analogy.

    "Sex changes for minors. Do you support that?" Fox News host Jesse Watters recently asked Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed.

    "So you think it's OK for a parent to slash his kid's ding-a-ling off?" Watters finally interjects.

    "Are you circumcised?" El-Sayed asked.

    "Circumcision's different than castration," Watters shot back.

    "It's a problem that you think you get to decide what happens between a parent, a doctor, and a patient," El-Sayed argued. "I'm just saying that, yes, circumcision is surgery on a kid's ding-a-ling."

    Fun fact: "My Ding-a-Ling" was Chuck Berry's only number one single.

  • Those pesky jets. Nellie Bowles' TGIF, among other things, notes some Orwellian doings up north:

    Anyway, another reason to invade Canada: the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) has issued new guidelines for how to report on September 11th. Here’s from the internal memo:

    “Do not refer to the Sept. 11 attacks as terrorist attacks. The hijackings led to passenger jet crashes in Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, and Manhattan. The World Trade Center (WTC in second reference) was destroyed.” The memo was reportedly authored by Basem Boshra, senior director of journalistic standards and public trust at CBC News.

    “The hijackings led to passenger jet crashes.” By next year it’ll be that it was just a total accident, a setback for passenger plane safety. After that, it’ll have never happened.

    If you want a picture of the future, imagine a snowshoe stamping on a human face— forever.