Hanging Dong: Cleveland And Pittsburgh Field Trip Report! Tabs, Wed., Aug. 12, 2026

Morning news roundup and mommytravelblogging!

Good morning, it’s tabs!

Hey so we’re winning the war in Iran right? Ahahahaahahaha. No. (Heather Cox Richardson)

Now Rand Paul and Ron Johnson are accusing Dr. Fauci of killing all the babies — saying the COVID vaccine caused miscarriages in 80 percent of pregnancies — because they love to take what happened and turn it into the literal opposite. This is going to become common wisdom. Don’t let it. (The Bulwark) It’s probably not religious discrimination when the Florida attorney general gets all up in the Catholic Church’s parochial school vaccine mandates, right? (Letters From Leo)

New Mexico state AG sues the Department of Justice for withholding Epstein Files. (Joyce Vance)

Trump’s deported a million jobs in the past year. Great work everybody, if you can get it, which you can’t. (The Fucking News)

Chris Geidner has some pertinent questions about when Trump left all the reporters on the plane that was under threat, as bait. (Law Dork)

Trump administration wants Judge Jeanine to take another crack at prosecuting the Reflecting Pool guy whom Judge Jeanine has already explained did nothing wrong at all, these people are unwell. They're giving him race car days and Wrestlemania days and he keeps waking up mad at imaginary pool destroyers. (Gift link Wall Street Journal)

Trans men using the women’s rooms in Kansas, as is required by very stupid law, pretty uncomfortable for everyone! (Erin in the Morning)

We’re relitigating “Woke One” now, so, okay, Beutler’s take on AOC’s comments that “Woke One” was a little “crazy” seems thoughtful, I’ll buy in. (Brian Beutler)

These are very good Axios bullet points about what this person went through working at Vice o.O (Pirate Wires)

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CLEVELAND AND PITTSBURGH FIELD TRIP REPORT

We did not think Cleveland and Pittsburgh would have so much Live Nude Dong, but there was dong, and it was nude and live.

Dong at the party? No dong at the party, that we know of. But here are some of your favorite Wonkpals, and other Wonkpals who are your favorites in the future because you haven’t met them yet! Identify yourself in the comments if you so choose! Josh flew from Seattle to Missoula but then he fell asleep and missed us, so he flew from Seattle to Cleveland. Josh wins.

More Cleveland!

Shy and I stayed an extra night in Cleveland and mostly wandered around the development on the riverfront, across from the Aquarium. It was very fakey and sort of felt like it had been designed by AI, and it was not our favorite. It was so un-our-favorite we did not even buy a drink! A ‘90s-themed Friends bar? Huh?

On our way back to the hotel, walking a not very-pedestrian section, we surprised a young man who was standing in a nook in the wall by the sidewalk. He was young and handsome and presumably bananas, as he was standing very still with his pants down and his peenerwanger sort of at eye level. “OH HELLO IS EVERYTHING OKAY?” I shouted-ish as we kept walking, and he shouted after me that EVERYTHING WAS FINE, HE’S OKAY, HE WANTS ME TO KNOW THAT HE’S OKAY. So that guy is okay, okay everyone?

Boobs

Relevant to Ohio, I have been friends with Gov. Mike DeWine’s nephew Skeith for 30 years; back then I would put in my OC Weekly column whatever scandals Skeith was up to, and DeWine’s staff would call Skeith up and ask him to be less publicly gay. Didn’t think that guy would end up being one of the better Republicans, but the bar, she is very very low.

Skeith lost his mom Melodye this week; she was a fabulous jazz singer and a magnificent cook and dinner party hostess, and every time Skeith and I would be out together doing something ridiculously innocent like going to the Strawberry Festival and yelling at Christopher Cross, both our moms would call us at the same time to demand to know why we were out goofing off instead of working and the answer “BUT MOM, IT’S SATURDAY” was no answer at all, and I love you, Skeith.

We saw more dong in Pittsburgh but it was ART DONG.

And then what time was it? PITTSBURGH WONKFESTZEIT! Several friends including Seth Triggs, Jim the trauma nurse (ret.), Dirk and his daughter Brooke and son-in-law Don joined us again after Cleveland. And many other friends joined too. Hiiii friends hiiiii! Thanks to the Warren Bar and Burrow for excellent hospitality.

Since Mondays are my day off, we stuck around Pittsburgh an extra day after our Pitt Booze and Fun. First up, the Andy Warhol Museum! Of course it was beautifully done and curated; so much of his shit was dark and morbid — suicides, car crashes, Jackie Kennedy at the worst moment of her life, guns —and I did not care for the giant guns though I did love the giant skulls. Warhol was making $70,000 a year as an illustrator in the 1950s, which is a preposterous amount of money; I find most of his career too grasping and thirsty — at fame, at money, at the need for constant exposure or he might die, at pretty bodies — but I think most of us would agree that it was his life, that grasping, that was the art form, and not necessarily the art itself (though I do enjoy his illustrations).

My mom always said she saw all eight hours of Warhol’s Empire in the theaters and loved it so much. I don’t believe her.

Boobs.

I did an Andy Warhol Museum screentest. I find me mesmerizing.

Now put that on an eight-hour loop just kidding.

Finally, we stopped at Randyland, sort of Opposite-Landy Warhol, only kindness and light and empathy and other orientation and being kind to oneself. (Pictures taken with a proper donation.)

NEXT UP: SAN FRANCISCO in honor of Fukui, Fri., Aug. 21, Hyatt Regency SF (Embarcadero); WINDSOR, MASS, potluck! Find your own place to camp or AirBnB near but not at Paul and Holly’s, Labor Day weekend; Atlanta has been postponed.

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