Hawaii Field Trip Report! Tabs, Thurs., May 21, 2026!
Morning news roundup and field trip report! I JUST SAID!
My dear and terrible ones, how did you even survive with me gone a full week for family booze and fun, and also TWO wonkparties? You didn’t? ME EITHER! But stick around to the end of these terrible tabs, and see the beauty inherent in the system! Wait, that’s not how that goes.
TABS!
Oh damn, did you already forget about the $230 million we already paid Trump for “damages”? Our Liz didn’t. More details on this flabbergasting “weaponization” gambit. (Our Liz at Public Notice) “Every detail of this story sounds like it was fabricated by a constitutional law professor trying to write an issue-spotter exam in the middle of a mushroom trip.” (Balls and Strikes)
Speaking of weaponization payouts: Tennessee put a man in jail for a month for a post he made about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and now will pay the fuck up to the tune of $835,000. (AP)
Oh hey right also: Popular Info figured out Trump’s been pump-and-dumping some stock sales, too, and surprise JD Vance was smarmy about it and also rude! (Popular Info)
Jeff Bezos thinks we shouldn’t double his taxes, since that wouldn’t help a schoolteacher in Queens. He’s right, because according to this old ProPublica, he’s only paying less than one percent. (ProPublica)
Trump and Pete Hegseth forgot to protect our WARFIGHTERS, and forgot to make sure they had medical supplies too. (The Fucking News)
Hey, are the Trump Hegseth Caribbean Boat Murders legal? PROBABLY NO, right? The inspector general is wondering too! (Military Times)
“All this time, I thought they were voting for libertarian Republicans. But after some soul searching I realized when they voted for Rand and Ron and me in these primaries, they weren’t voting for libertarian ideas—they were voting for the craziest son of a bitch in the race. And Donald Trump won best in class, as we had up until he came along.” — Thomas Massie in 2017. At least this crazy dude lost with his integrity pretty much intact. (The Nation) Every story this week is another spoke in Trump’s Perpetual Profit Motion Machine! (Status Kuo)
Cassidy, Tillis, Cornyn, and all the rest of the Trump-targeted, insufficiently MAGA Republicans should get a little vengeance on and caucus with the Dems. (Noah Berlatsky at Everything Is Horrible)
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Yes putting Zionists in “camps” and “castrating” them for being presumed pedophiles is PRETTY antisemitic, this Texas young lady Democratic candidate. I promise! (San Antonio Current)
There’s simply no way the two MAGAs pictured here could ever have done a racist assault. (BBC)
Ben Shapiro is going after the Civil Rights Act now that they’ve killed the Voting Rights Act. Neat! Fun! Fun and neat! (Salon)
Kansas judge lays out in the record 349 (!) facts showing gender-affirming care is safe for trans kids, and it’s presumptively unconstitutional for Kansas to ban it. (Erin in the Morning)
Barney Frank peaces out. He was mean and funny and kind of shitty in his last years, particularly about trans people, whom he was weird about. I don’t think that part’s in here, but the mean and funny are. (Gift link New York Times)
Now it is time for some treats! Something magical happened every single day we were in Hawaii, whether it was the volcano essploding just when we were on our way home from Wonkparty I to our treehouse in Volcano — hmmm, should we drive an extra two miles to the national park to go see it? we SHOULD? — or an Uber driver who tarts up his whole ass minivan into an Alice in Wonderland tea party, with the music and costumes and pouring tea and all of it (our pictures in no way capture how perfect and Captain Insano it was; if you know Charles the Alice in Wonderland Uber driver in Honolulu, tell him to make some cards so people can call him up direct!).
There were baby chicks walking around under the table at South Kona Grindz, a hula lesson free from the hotel that the girls (and I!) absolutely loved, fascinating exhibits on Honolulu WWII martial law at the state Supreme Court, and the auntie at the airport who insisted we pile onto her cart and get a wiki wiki ride to the gate.
My Grandma Jeani was living there at the time! She never mentioned the martial law.
Atiya, one of your comrades from Wonkparty II, is in charge of the Galapagos tortoises at the Honolulu Zoo, some of whom, like Jaws and Charlotte, have been there since they immigrated in 1929 — they were there for Pearl Harbor! — and she invited us to come pet them, which we did for about 45 minutes. Galapagos tortoises love being petted! We obliged! It was incredible.
Magic things that happened!
Hey, you want to see some incredible beauty? Our treehouse (that second one is the bathroom, note the toilet paper for situational context), Akaka Falls State Park and the Hilo botanical gardens on the Big Island, and the Honolulu Aquarium (and me).
More incredible beauty, there were too many for one gallery!
And we learned this hula as a gift for my mom, who grew up on Oahu and is maybe (probably) ill (besides the Alzheimer’s), we will find out soon. She cried when I showed her the video. This one right here!
That has been your field trip report from Hawaii. More field trip reports coming soon from MONTREAL (June 14), MISSOULA (July 25), CLEVELAND (Aug. 8) AND PITTSBURGH (Aug. 9), and SONOMA/SF (Nov. 30)! TIME TO PARTY!
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Wonderful pictures! Hawaii really is magical.