This Guy Perfectly Recreated His Disney Photo With Minnie Mouse Decades Later

In the ‘80s, artist Brian Rush took a photo as a kid with Minnie Mouse at Disneyland. Decades later, he recreated that photo and nailed it.

When Rush learned his parents wanted to take a family trip to Disney World with their kids and grandkids, he knew he wanted to recreate a photo from his first trip to a Disney park. He told HuffPost he chose one that was taken either in the summer of 1985 or 1986 at Disneyland in California, when he was around the age of 5 or 6.

“I actually couldn’t find many of our original photos, but this one was perfect,” he said.

He recreated the photo on New Year’s Day 2015 at Disney World in Florida. Most of the clothes for his outfit were found at American Apparel, including the shorts, which were actually a bathing suit on which his wife helped sew the stripes. He used fabric and tape to perfect the look of his shoes. The final touch? The mouse ears hat, which he bought at Disney World.

With Rush’s final result, it seemed like Minnie had no problem recognizing him. 

Rush posted the childhood photo alongside his recreated one on Reddit on Feb. 17. He told HuffPost he thought it’d be fun for others to see the pics side by side years later, and explained he took on the project because “life makes it really easy to get stuck in a rut.”

“Even on a vacation, which is a break from the everyday, it is so easy to fall in line with what is expected of you,” he said. “Go see this tourist attraction, go see that, ride this, wait in line here. Even at a place as ready-made magical as Disney World, bringing a little of your own creativity can elevate the experience.”

Rush also said the thought of being embarrassed never deterred him. In fact, it motivated him. 

“I’m also a bit of a sucker for embarrassment,” he told HuffPost. “Most people avoid it at all costs; I, on the other hand, get a thrill out of, for example, dressing like my 5-year-old self in short shorts.”

Waiting in line to meet Minnie sparked what might be the most comical part of the whole experience. Because Rush was wearing the outfit he had put together to recreate the photo under his clothes, he had to warn the family behind him in line that he was about to strip down.

“I turned to the family behind us, who had already watched quizzically as I taped homemade shapes to my shoes, and said, ‘Please don’t be alarmed. I’m going to take off my clothes now … but I have more clothes underneath,’” he said. “That is the kind of awkwardness that makes strangers not strangers anymore but sharers of an experience, and it makes a regular moment into a memory.”

And because we know you’re dying to know, yes, Rush continued wearing that outfit after meeting up with Minnie. 

“I changed into that outfit right before the photo shoot but stayed in it for the rest of the day.”

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Nursing Home Worker Accused Of Giving Lap Dance To 100-Year-Old Man

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An Ohio woman is facing charges of gross sexual imposition after she allegedly gave a lap dance to a 100-year-old man with dementia.

Brittany Fultz was arrested Friday for an incident that alllegedly took place in December at The Commons of Providence, a senior living facility in Sandusky, according to the Sandusky Register.

Another employee shot footage that allegedly shows Fultz straddling the victim’s leg and writhing on his leg.

She can be heard saying, “I can show you new things, I can show you new things.”

Sandusky Detective Anthony Bath says the video shows clear evidence of elder abuse.

“She is basically harassing him,” Bath told Cleveland station WJW. “It’s disturbing. She is touching him. This was not something he wanted.”

The 26-year-old suspect was charged with gross sexual imposition, a fourth-degree felony. She was released on bond the same day, but could face other charges, according to authorities.

Fultz’s attorney, Geoffrey Oglesby said the lap dance was a prank meant to make the victim feel good. He also said the man could have told her to stop, but didn’t.

“The man knew exactly what was going on and had no problem whatsoever with it,” Oglesby told the Associated Press.

The woman who taped the video told a supervisor about the incident on Feb. 12, after which it was immediately reported to police, according to the Sandusky Register.

That woman is not being charged, but she, like Fultz, is no longer working at The Commons of Providence.

Staci Lehmkuhl, executive director of The Commons of Providence, told reporters, “We are cooperating with local police who are handling the investigation and we will not comment further about the ongoing investigation.”

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You Shouldn't Trust Uber's Investigation Into Its Own Sexist Practices

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There’s really only one reason to believe that Uber will conduct a thorough and fair investigation into sexual discrimination inside the company. That reason is Eric Holder.

This week, the ride-hailing company hired the respected former attorney general, now a partner at Washington law firm Covington & Burling, to investigate claims of sexual harassment levied by Susan Fowler, a former Uber engineer.

According to a blog post Fowler published Sunday, her complaints about mistreatment ― she was sexually propositioned by a colleague on Day 1 of her job ― were mishandled or ignored by Uber at every turn. At one point, her manager even threatened to fire her for raising concerns, she said. 

There was no way, based on how much attention Fowler’s post got ― and how inept Uber comes across ― that the company could’ve handled this without outside help. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick has made crass comments about women and has ignored safety concerns of female customers. What’s more, Uber has made a name for itself by fighting off the idea that it needs to support most of its workers, claiming in court that its drivers are private contractors, not real employees requiring benefits or support.

Enter Holder. The 66-year-old has become sort of an Olivia Pope-style fixer for Silicon Valley startups with diversity problems. This is the second time in less than a year that a high-profile tech company has hired him to conduct an internal investigation.

“It is up to Uber and Holder and his team about how serious they want to take this investigation,” Peter Romer-Friedman, counsel at the employment-law firm Outten and Golden, who works on discrimination cases for plaintiffs, told HuffPost. “These are very serious allegations; it really seems like Uber’s management doesn’t have a basic understanding of how employment discrimination laws work.”

AirBNB hired Holder and another prominent civil rights lawyer in June to investigate racial discrimination in the way the travel site operates ― behavior that was detailed in a research paper by Harvard economists and then confirmed by AirBNB customers.

The company made the results of the investigation public in September, and has begun implementing real changes ― including an instant booking system that elides the race of the customer entirely. AirBNB says this will help fix its issues, though critics are dubious.

The question with Uber is whether it will it follow AirBNB’s lead. An Uber spokesperson said it’s too early in the investigation to say. “We’re taking it day by day,” the spokesperson said.

It’s easy to see Uber’s hiring of Holder as a pure publicity stunt. Bringing in a well-respected lawyer with a track record of fighting for civil rights is a way for Uber to quickly signal its intention to do something about what appears to be not only rampant sexual discrimination, but also broken human resources and legal departments that utterly failed.

Companies and high-profile organizations often bring in high-profile former public officials to conduct investigations in the wake of a publicity fail. Penn State hired former FBI director Louis Freeh to investigate child sex-abuse charges against its Jerry Sandusky, a high-profile football coach who’s now behind bars. The school made the report public.

Fox News brought in a top New York law firm to investigate sexual harassment charges against CEO Roger Ailes last year, leading to his ouster. The report was kept private. General Motors hired a former U.S. attorney to look at its handling of a defective ignition switch and made that report public.

CBS in 2004 hired a former attorney general and the retired head of The Associated Press to investigate a flawed “60 Minutes” report on then-President George W. Bush’s military service. The practice of hiring a high-profile troubleshooter, already by then a reliable corporate way to move past trouble, has since become a crisis-management standard.

There are no rules or laws surrounding these kinds of investigations, so it’s really up to the company and its hired investigators to decide how thorough to be, what kinds of actions to take, and whether to make the findings public.

An investigation won’t necessarily fix anything. The law firm hired by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie in the George Washington Bridge scandal was criticized for what was viewed by many as slipshod work ― deleting its notes on the investigation and keeping only memos written from those notes. The firm’s bills eventually were made public, leading to charges that Christie was trying to whitewash his involvement in the scandal at taxpayer expense.

A botched internal investigation can also backfire for a company. IBM’s internal probe of an employee’s age-discrimination complaint was so one-sided that a judge who awarded the plaintiff millions rebuked the computer giant for trying to exonerate itself with its investigation rather than determine if the employee had been treated fairly.

Lawyers who represent aggrieved workers in discrimination cases and those who work for companies fending off these claims said they had no doubt that Holder, who was President Barack Obama’s attorney general from 2009 to 2015 ― the first African American to hold the position ― would conduct a thorough investigation of Uber.

That means not only investigating Fowler’s claims, but looking more broadly to see whether Uber has systemic issues related to the treatment of women. Holder was also hired by the state of California last month to represent the state government in any legal fights with the Trump administration.

But Holder’s investigation of Uber is hardly independent. Uber is paying Covington & Burling partner to conduct the inquiry. One lawyer who works on these kinds of investigations told The Huffington Post that billings for Covington’s work could be in the millions of dollars.

An Uber spokesperson told HuffPost that Holder will work hand in hand with Uber board member Arianna Huffington, as well as with someone from Uber’s legal team. (Huffington is no longer affiliated with HuffPost.)

But in the end, this is a private inquiry and what Uber decides to do about Holder’s findings is entirely up to Uber.

Uber has a gaping problem with women, as Fowler’s account makes clear.

According to her blog post, Fowler was told that the man who propositioned her was a first-time offender, so he wouldn’t face consequences. When it turned out he had harassed other women at Uber, the company still took no action. Fowler was told to stop complaining, and her manager threatened to fire her for speaking up. That kind of retaliation is illegal.

But what’s most shocking isn’t the sexism and harassment, but the company’s utter failure to deal with Fowler’s claims.

The human resources department at Uber is understaffed and only really equipped to deal with recruiting, according to a report in Recode.

It’s clear that the only reason that Uber is taking action now is because it got caught.

“The issues that gave rise to these so-called investigations are issues that their legal department should’ve foreseen long before anyone sued or complained publicly,” Romer-Friedman said. “The way to justice shouldn’t be you have to make a blog post.”

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Former Aides Explain How They Shielded Trump From Twitter Destruction

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If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: If you are at all unsure about whether it’s a good idea to use Twitter, never tweet and delete your account. This is good advice, insofar as “advice on how to use Twitter” is even necessary. Concerned about Twitter, on any level? Good news: No one in the world ever needs to use it, so don’t. Enjoy your life, now.

Ah, but you can’t, can you, because now we have a president with a belly full of insecurities and deeply held grievances who uses his Twitter account to unleash whatever emotions are currently roiling his rickety psyche. And because he is, you know, the president, this could create any number of negative externalities. Stock prices could waver, diplomatic missions could be undermined, the entire population of Sweden could be left wondering if they’ve been attacked by terrorists and if their loved ones are safe ― those are the sorts of things we’re dealing with now. 

So what to do about it? Well, I say that President Donald Trump should never tweet and delete his account, because this is the advice I have always given to presidents with Twitter accounts. But Trump’s campaign minders ― who share all the same concerns as everyone else, apparently ― had a different approach to handling Trump’s tendency to lash out randomly on social media, which they’ve shared with Politico’s Tara Palmieri:

President Donald Trump’s former campaign staffers claim they cracked the code for tamping down his most inflammatory tweets, and they say the current West Wing staff would do well to take note.

The key to keeping Trump’s Twitter habit under control, according to six former campaign officials, is to ensure that his personal media consumption includes a steady stream of praise. And when no such praise was to be found, staff would turn to friendly outlets to drum some up — and make sure it made its way to Trump’s desk.

According to Palmieri, various staffers ― led by former communications directors Sam Nunberg and Jason Miller ― were tasked with seeing to it that Trump did not constantly jump on Twitter to “escalate his personal or political conflicts.” Here’s how they did it. Aided immeasurably by the fact that Trump never reads anything online and literally only consumes media that is printed and put in front of him, staffers would engineer “good news” stories with a universe of friendly media outlets. 

So, for instance: When Trump was regularly fighting with Khizr Khan, the father of a slain Iraq War soldier who made a huge splash at the Democratic National Convention, his staff would set up a meeting with other Gold Star families, get friendly media outlets to run the stories, and then show Trump those stories so that he didn’t feel so sad and angry. They’d also get “media amplifiers” to tweet about these stories so the staffers could print out tweets to show Trump, to calm him down.

This was apparently a constant undertaking. Per Palmieri:

During another damage-control mission, when former Miss Universe Alicia Machado took to the airwaves to call out Trump for calling her “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping,” the communications team scrambled to place a story in conservative friendly outlets like Fox News, the Washington Examiner, the Daily Caller and Breitbart.

[…]

While Trump still couldn’t contain his Twitter-rage with Machado, and ended up tweeting about a mystery sex-tape of the Hillary Clinton surrogate, aides say they dialed back even more posts.

So this was a really crack operation that managed to prevent Trump from sending out tweet after tweet about Alicia Machado, save for that one tweet where he encouraged everyone to “check out” a “sex tape.” (One can only imagine the tweets that were deemed irredeemable.)

Like I said, the best thing these staffers could have done is just delete Trump’s account, instead of deploying a cadre of message force multipliers to carry out this convoluted mission to plant stories and then plant retweets of those stories. (Hopefully, everyone who served as Trump’s ersatz super-ego was well paid for this caper, which clearly involved “Oceans 11”-level commitment.)

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard about Trump aides going to ridiculous extremes to mitigate his Twitter outbursts. In October, Gabriel Sherman reported that Trump’s then-campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, was approaching the problem as if she was managing an unruly 8-year-old:

To hear Kellyanne Conway talk about managing her boss is to listen to a mother of four who has had ample experience with unruly toddlers. Instead of criticizing Trump’s angry tweets, for instance, she suggested that he also include a few positive ones. “You had these people saying, ‘Delete the app! Stop tweeting!’ ” she recalled. “I would say, ‘Here are a couple of cool things we should tweet today.’ It’s like saying to someone, ‘How about having two brownies and not six?’”

Most humans come to grasp the concept of natural consequences before the age of 70, which typically makes having a team of people on hand to keep you from blowing up the world with Twitter unnecessary. But we are apparently in a unique world in which the most powerful person on earth requires a steady stream of credit and praise to tamp down his impulsive emotional outbursts.

But hey, maybe everyone in politics needs constant, public validation in order to function. Take these former campaign aides, for example. They could have simply contacted their White House counterparts and quietly imparted this advice. But no, they apparently needed to get a story in Politico about how they managed to plant articles in all these other media outlets so everyone could hear about how they had “cracked the code for tamping down his most inflammatory tweets.”

So, yeah, as long as Trump never finds out about it, everything will be fine. If he does find out though, some new method of calming him down will have to be invented.

Has anyone considered just spraying Trump in the face with a water mister whenever he starts misbehaving? It usually works on my cat. Sometimes I just jingle my keys.

~~~~~

Jason Linkins edits “Eat The Press” for The Huffington Post and co-hosts the HuffPost Politics podcast “So, That Happened.” Subscribe here, and listen to the latest episode below.  

 

 

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Japanese Bald Men Celebrate With Cueball Competition

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More than 30 bald men gathered at a hot spring facility in Tsuruta City, Japan, on Wednesday to show off their hairless heads and have fun.

Members of the city’s Bald Men Club took turns competing in a unique game of tug-of-war by sticking a suction cup, which is attached to a single red rope, to each of their heads. Both sides then attempt to pull the cup off of their opponent’s head.

“My head still hurts,” Toshiyuki Ogasawara, 43, said with a smile. “I think I need to ice it!”

 

Masatomo Sasaki, 64, a first-time participant at the tournament, said he used to feel insecure about his baldness but now feels differently.

“I feel proud. Or maybe I should say, I feel good about being a bald man,” Sasaki said, adding that he started losing his hair when he was 40. “And that is thanks to this bald men’s club.”

The club, which has attracted roughly 65 members from all over the country since its founding in 1989, encourages people to “view baldness in a positive manner, to have fun, and to brighten the world with our shiny heads,” according to its website.

Teijiro Sugo, 70, the club’s chairman, hopes the gathering will turn into something much larger.

“I want all the bald men all over the world to gather here so we can organize a bald men’s Olympic tournament,” Sugo said.

The event is held every year on Feb. 22.

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So, Chris Christie Might End Up Replacing Mike Francesa

Chris Christie, once thought to be a potential Republican candidate for U.S. president, is now in the running for a job of a very different variety: Mike Francesa’s.

NorthJersey.com reported Wednesday that WFAN 660-AM’s program director, Mark Chernoff, would be interested in hiring the New Jersey governor as the replacement for legendary afternoon radio host Mike Francesa, should Francesa actually decide to retire at the end of 2017. 

I would certainly at least want to consider him,” Chernoff told the outlet. “If he’s interested and we’re interested, it’s worth pursuing.” 

WFAN, which predominately covers sports in the tri-state, famously became the first radio station to dedicate itself entirely to sports 24 hours a day in 1987. 

Christie would be just one among “plenty of [other] candidates,” cautioned Chernoff, who is also vice president of WFAN’s parent company, CBS Radio New York.

Christie is set to end his time as governor of New Jersey less than a month after Francesa is expected to retire. Speculation about Christie’s interest in Francesa’s gig has only grown increasingly louder since he called in to the host’s show in January to discuss his next opportunities, saying he’d “have wide-open ears.”

Last week, Christie told the SNY cable network that his son told him it would be “great” if someone paid him to talk about sports, since the son had been listening to his father talk about them for his “entire life.” 

“So, yeah, that’s certainly one of the things that I hope I’ll have a chance to consider when I get out and stop being governor,” he added. 

Even if Christie is interested in the job, people on the internet expressed shock that the governor, who this time last year was just weeks removed from running for president of the United States, would take on such a gig.

Some noted the irony of him potentially moving into the entertainment business as President Donald Trump gets used to life in government. But with the whole scandal surrounding the bridge lane closings in his home state, I mean, what did you really expect? 

By the way, Chris Christie is a Dallas Cowboys fan

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HUFFPOST HILL – More Like District Jerk Periods

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Astronomers have detected seven Earthlike planets lightyears away, even though their telescopes aren’t strong enough to measure crowd size. Kellyanne Conway is being prevented from going on television, prompting Fox News producers to scramble to find another blonde Republican woman who can lie on air. And a number of Trump administration officials have failed background checks, though one official with a history of spotty tax returns and inappropriate conduct toward women did sneak through. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Wednesday, February 22nd, 2017:

DISTRICT WORK PERIOD GOING GREAT – Amanda Terkel: “Rather than face angry, frustrated and raucous crowds of constituents at town hall meetings this recess, a large number of GOP lawmakers are skipping face-to-face contact with voters and instead holding conference calls or other more manageable forums (if they do anything at all).” [HuffPost]

PENCE HITS UP DESECRATED JEWISH CEMETERY – This one gets three out of four Paul Ryans Scrubbing Dishes At A Local Soup Kitchen. From the pool report: “Pence delivered very brief remarks from the bed of a pickup truck after touring the cemetery. The grave stones are all back in place. Then he went to another area of the cemetery where a rabbi said a prayer. Then Pence and the governor cleared brush as part of the larger volunteer effort to beautify the cemetery following the attack.”

CON(HER)WAY OUT? – A real blow for gender equality in the field of pathological lying. Dylan Byers: “Kellyanne Conway, once the most visible spokesperson for the Trump White House, has been sidelined from television appearances for making statements that were at odds with the administration’s official stance, White House sources told CNNMoney on Wednesday. Conway has not given a television interview since early last week. On that Monday, she told MSNBC that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn had the president’s ‘full confidence.’ Hours later, Flynn resigned. The following day, Conway claimed Flynn had offered to resign, even though White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said Trump had asked Flynn for his resignation. She has not given a television interview since then. Those statements, which came amid existing public scrutiny over Conway’s credibility, led the president and his top advisers to conclude that her appearances were doing more harm than good for the administration, the sources said. She was ‘off message,’ a White House source said.” [CNN Money]

TRUMP STAFFERS FAILING BACKGROUND CHECKS – Democrats need to stop stonewalling the process of Making America Great Again by depriving these people of the free will they had when they engaged in activities that would make them fail a background check. Tara Palmeri and Daniel Lippman: “White House Chief Digital Officer Gerrit Lansing was among the six staffers who were dismissed from the White House last week after being unable to pass an FBI background check, according to sources. A source close to Lansing said the issue with the background check was over investments... President Donald Trump’s director of scheduling Caroline Wiles, was also among the six staffers who did not pass the intensive FBI screening. She is the daughter of Susan Wiles, Trump’s Florida campaign director. Caroline resigned Friday before the background check was completed. She was appointed deputy assistant secretary before the inauguration in January. Two sources close to Wiles said she will get another job in the Treasury Department.” [Politico]

Pick a politician and watch a video of people yelling at them.

Like HuffPost Hill? Then order Eliot’s book, The Beltway Bible: A Totally Serious A-Z Guide To Our No-Good, Corrupt, Incompetent, Terrible, Depressing, and Sometimes Hilarious Government

Does somebody keep forwarding you this newsletter? Get your own copy. It’s free! Sign up here. Send tips/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to eliot@huffingtonpost.com. Follow us on Twitter – @HuffPostHill

THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF IS A CHILD – Even by the standards of presidential ego, this makes Bill Clinton resemble your grandmother who puts a dollar in the tip jar when no one is looking. Tara Palmeri: “President Donald Trump’s former campaign staffers claim they cracked the code for tamping down his most inflammatory tweets, and they say the current West Wing staff would do well to take note. The key to keeping Trump’s Twitter habit under control, according to six former campaign officials, is to ensure that his personal media consumption includes a steady stream of praise. And when no such praise was to be found, staff would turn to friendly outlets to drum some up — and make sure it made its way to Trump’s desk…During another damage-control mission, when former Miss Universe Alicia Machado took to the airwaves to call out Trump for calling her ‘Miss Piggy’ and ‘Miss Housekeeping,’ the communications team scrambled to place a story in conservative friendly outlets like Fox News, the Washington Examiner, the Daily Caller and Breitbart.” [Politico]

JASON CHAFFETZ IS ON IT – Jason Chaffetz is a walking, breathing “This is Fine” comic, but the cup of coffee in this case are Hillary’s emails. Paulina FIrozi: “House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) is investigating a months-old tweet from his state’s Bryce Canyon National Park. Chaffetz reportedly suspects that the tweet, which was posted in December the day after President Obama designated the more than 1.35-million-acre Bears Ears National Monument in southern Utah, may reveal that the park officials had advanced notice. ‘Welcome to the family Bears Ears (& Gold Butte) NM! A hopeful slot in our front desk maps has long been held for you,’ the account tweeted. An attached picture with the tweet showed what appeared to be an empty map slot, labeled ‘Bears Ears.’” [The Hill]

PEREZ LEADING DNC RACE – Don’t count H.A. Goodman out, yet.  Lisa Lerer and Bill Barrow: “Just days before Democratic activists pick a new party chair, the contest to head the Democratic National Committee remains fluid, as national leaders grapple with how to turn an outpouring of liberal protest against President Donald Trump into political gains. The tight race between former Labor Secretary Tom Perez and Rep. Keith Ellison of Minnesota marks the first heavily contested battle to run the organization in recent history, a reflection of a newly energized Democratic party struggling to find the best path forward after years of losses in Congress, governor’s mansions and statehouses. Perez, who was encouraged by Obama administration officials to run for the post, has emerged as the front-runner with the backing of 205 committee members, according to independent Democratic strategists tracking the race. The strategists spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to discuss the voting publicly. Ellison, backed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and his supporters, has the support of 153 members.” [AP]

WHAT HAPPENS IF ELLISON LOSES – Daniel Marans: In an attempt to head off Perez, some prominent Ellison supporters argue that failing to elect him would squander a major opportunity to energize the progressive grassroots and heal the wounds of the 2016 presidential primary…. ‘If Perez wins, we’re not gonna come out with pitchforks and say, ‘No, no, no,’’ said Murshed Zaheed, political director of Credo Action, an online progressive heavyweight that has experienced record growth since Trump’s inauguration. ‘But people are going to roll their eyes and just keeping doing what they do. It’s going to keep the DNC what it is: an irrelevant, old, stale entity that hasn’t been re-serviced since the Howard Dean days.’” [HuffPost]

MILLENNIAL FLAKES OUT – Few things millennials can relate to more than a last-minute, “can we reschedule?” text. Well done, Rep. Elise Stefanik. Matt Fuller: “As chairwoman of the House GOP’s millennial task force, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) issued a report last week urging her Republican colleagues to hold town halls to engage and win over millennial voters. But Stefanik isn’t taking her own advice. The second-term Republican has no current plans to hold a town hall meeting in her district during this week’s so-called “district work period,” even after pushing out a 22-page report last week that strongly advises members to be accessible to millennials and other voters. “Millennials are a generation that expects their government to be open and honest, even if the message they deliver isn’t what they want to hear,” Stefanik writes in the first section of the report. She later names four “best practices” for engaging millennials: hold roundtables with them, establish a youth advisory group, use social media and hold town halls.” [HuffPost]

Dayyyy-um: Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth said Monday that he is unsure of Donald Trump’s mental state ― but added that the President doesn’t appear to be in control of himself. ‘He is demonstrating on a daily basis that he [is] totally unfit for the office he serves in,’ Yarmuth, from Kentucky, said in a speech to a local chapter of the NAACP posted on YouTube this week. ‘He is, in my opinion, a dangerous president. I’m not sure of his mental state, but I know that he doesn’t portray someone who is in control of his facilities.’” [CNN’s Andrew  Kaczynski]

HOW CPAC PAVED THE WAY FOR TRUMP – Sam Stein and Igor Bobic flashback to 2011: “The moment was, in retrospect, critical in Trump’s political ascent. He had flirted with running for president before. And at that point, he was no stranger to stirring the proverbial pot, having already spent weeks smearing President Barack Obama with lies about his birthplace. But as Trump stepped onstage on Feb. 10, 2011, the question was not whether he’d lose the schtick, but how it would play with the audience. He got the answer he craved. ‘That was pretty significant, actually,’ said Walter Olson, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies. ‘The conservative movement, its institutions and press, really were consistently resistant to Trump for a long time. They didn’t write about him seriously or treat him as a serious figure. But his appearance at CPAC was an important breach in that general wall of disdain and lack of interest.’” [HuffPost]

LIVE FREE OR DIE (IN AN ACTIVE SHOOTER SITUATION) – Samuel Levine: “New Hampshire residents no longer need any kind of license to carry a concealed handgun after the state repealed a nearly century-old law that allowed police to deny concealed carry licenses to people they believed could pose a risk to others. New Hampshire already permitted open carry, but local law enforcement long had discretion to deny individuals a license to carry a concealed weapon. The system, in place for 94 years, let police prevent people who they knew had a violent history from getting license. On Wednesday, Gov. Chris Sununu (R) signed a law that simply allows residents to carry a concealed weapon without a license. Similar legislation had been twice vetoed by former Gov. Maggie Hassan (D).” [HuffPost]

BECAUSE YOU’VE READ THIS FAR – Here’s a parrot singing Rihanna.

DEMOCRATS NOT IN DISARRAY – Amanda Terkel and Ryan Grim: Local Democratic parties are confronting a problem in the Trump era that is as confounding as it is unexpected: space. All across the country, party meetings that had once been sleepy affairs, dominated by Robert’s Rules of Order and a handful of graying activists, have become standing room only. The overflowing crowds have sent stunned party regulars scrambling to find new venues, while the surge in interest, and the coinciding fundraising boost, is enabling local chapters to hire staff and build infrastructure in previously unthinkable ways. On the national level, Democratic politicians have been rushing to respond to the sudden outpouring.” [HuffPost]

SO EMO – “The Washington Post has reminded Donald Trump of the importance of a free press by unveiling a new masthead underlining what’s at stake if he talks down the industry. The newspaper’s slogan, ‘Democracy Dies In Darkness’,’ has emerged as the US President has been railling against the media as an “enemy of the American people” who are purveyors of ‘fake news.’…Although the slogan isn’t explicitly aimed at Trump, the new catchphrase was emblazoned on the august organ’s website and Snapchat Discover stories last week as the furore over the media dominated his astonishing press conference. “ [HuffPost]

COMFORT FOOD

– Eat it, Iowa : the Mall of America’s Writer’s Residence is where it’s at.

– You can buy the umbrella from Britney Spears’ 2007 meltdown.

– Scientists found seven potentially life-sustaining planets in a single solar system.

TWITTERAMA

@mollyfitz: I know I am loved and deeply understood based on the number of people who have sent me a link to the Mall of America writers’ residency

@NickBaumann: CNN

We’re gonna find that plane eventually.

@grgdwyr: JOHN PODESTA: should we make the code word for ordering young boys “pineapple pizza”?

TONY PODESTA: no john thats disgusting. make it cheese

Got something to add? Send tips/quotes/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to Eliot Nelson (eliot@huffingtonpost.com)

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19 Cozy, Chunky Couches For Anyone Who's Sick Of Mid-Century Modern

If you’re a millennial or simply a fan of “Mad Men,” the odds that you own a mid-century modern style sofa are high. 

You may even own a Peggy, the popular mid-century number West Elm recently pulled from its website after a piece titled “Why Does This One Couch From West Elm Suck So Much?” was published at the Awl last week. 

Given the news, now is as good of a time as ever to reconsider our love affair with mid-century modern. Sure, it’s retro and Pinterest-worthy, but are these couches really all that comfy? 

If you’re second guessing your choice, we’ve got you covered. Below, 19 chunky, comfy sofas that are practically begging you to take a nap on them. So low-slung, so sexy, right? 

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Brazil Races Against Time To Save Drought-Hit City

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CAMPINA GRANDE, Brazil (Reuters) – The shrunken carcasses of cows lie in scorched fields outside the city of Campina Grande in northeast Brazil, and hungry goats search for food on the cracked-earth floor of the Boqueirao reservoir that serves the desperate town.

After five years of drought, farmer Edivaldo Brito says he cannot remember when the Boqueirão reservoir was last full. But he has never seen it this empty.

“We’ve lost everything: bananas, beans, potatoes,” Brito said. “We have to walk 3 kilometers just to wash clothes.”

Brazil’s arid northeast is weathering its worst drought on record and Campina Grande, which has 400,000 residents that depend on the reservoir, is running out of water.

After two years of rationing, residents complain that water from the reservoir is dirty, smelly and undrinkable. Those who can afford to do so buy bottled water to cook, wash their teeth with, and even to give their pets.

The reservoir is down to 4 percent of capacity and rainfall is expected to be sparse this year.

“If it does not fill up, the city’s water system will collapse by mid-year,” says Janiro Costa Rêgo, an expert on water resources and hydraulics professor at Campina Grande’s federal university. “It would be a holocaust. You would have to evacuate the city.”

Brazil’s government says help is on the way.

Rerouting The River

After decades of promises and years of delays, the government says the rerouting of Brazil’s longest river, the São Francisco, will soon relieve Campina Grande and desperate farmers in four parched northeastern states.

Water will be pumped over hills and through 400 kilometers of canals into dry river basins in Ceará, Rio Grande do Norte, Pernambuco, and Paraíba, the small state of which Campina Grande is the second-biggest city.

Begun in 2005 by leftist president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the project has been delayed by political squabbles, corruption and cost-overruns of billions of dollars.

Brazil’s ongoing recession, which economists calculate has shrunk the economy of the impoverished northeast by over four percent during each of the past two years, made things even worse.

Now, President Michel Temer is speeding up completion of the project, perhaps his best opportunity to boost support for his unpopular government in a region long-dominated by native-son Lula and his leftist Workers Party.

In early March, Temer plans to open a canal that will feed Campina Grande’s reservoir at the town of Monteiro. The water will still take weeks to flow down the dry bed of the Paraíba river to Boqueirão.

With the quality of water in Campina Grande dropping by the day, it is a race against time.

Professor Costa Rêgo says the reservoir water will become untreatable by March and could harm residents who cannot afford bottled water.

Helder Barbalho, Temer’s minister in charge of the project, says the government is confident the water will arrive on schedule.

“We have to deliver the water by April at all costs,” he said.

Climate Change

Climate change has worsened the droughts in Brazil’s northeast over the last 30 years, according to Eduardo Martins, head of Funceme, Ceará state’s meteorological agency.

Rainfall has decreased and temperatures have risen, increasing demand for agricultural irrigation just as water supplies fell and evaporation accelerated.

Costa Rêgo blames lack of planning by Brazil’s governments for persistent and repeated water crises, shocking for a country that boasts the biggest fresh water reserves on the planet.

The reservoir supplying São Paulo, Brazil’s largest city and a metropolitan region of 20 million people, nearly dried up in 2015. The capital, Brasilia, resorted to rationing this year.

In Fortaleza, capital of Ceará and the northeast’s second largest city, the vital Castanhão reservoir is down to 5 percent of its capacity.

While that city will also get water from the São Francisco project, it will not arrive until at least year-end because contractor Mendes Junior abandoned work after being implicated in a major corruption scandal.

“Water from the São Francisco river is vital,” Ceará Governor Camilo Santana told Reuters. He said the reservoir can supply Ceará only until August.

After that, the state must use emergency wells and a mandatory 20 percent reduction in consumption to keep Fortaleza taps running until water arrives.

Rationing

Ceará has had to cut back on irrigation, hurting flower and melon exporters, cattle ranchers and dairy farmers. They stand to flourish when the transfer comes through, but quenching the thirst of the cities will take priority.

In Campina Grande, a textile center, companies including industry leaders Coteminas and Alpargatas have curtailed expansion plans and drastically cut back consumption by recycling the water they use.

There, too, new water will first go towards solving the crisis in Campina Grande and surrounding towns. Only then will officials think about agriculture.

“First we have to satisfy the thirst of urban consumers. Only then can we think of producing wealth,” said Joao Fernandes da Silva, the top water management official in Paraíba.

Rationing has particularly hurt poorer urban families. Many have no running water or water tanks and instead store water in plastic bottles.

For those who have waited decades for the São Francisco transfer, they will believe it only when they see the water flow.

Brito said he and his neighbors survive on the social programs that were the hallmark of Lula and his Workers Party administration. Though tainted by corruption allegations, Lula remains Brazil’s most popular politician ahead of presidential elections next year.

“Without the Bolsa Familia program, we would be dying of hunger,” said Brito, who believes shortages could persist even after the river transfer. “It’s political season again, so they promise us water, just for our votes.”

(Additional reporting by Ueslei Marcelino and Sergio Queiroz; Editing by Paulo Prada, Daniel Flynn and Bernadette Baum)

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Michigan Teen Believes Shirt Was Left On Her Car Windshield As A Trap

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A teenager says she had an ominous experience in a mall parking lot in Flint, Michigan, last week, involving a mysterious shirt she found wrapped around her windshield wiper.

Ashley Hardacre, 19, described the incident in a Facebook post that has since gone viral. When she got in her car after work at the mall Thursday night, she says, she noticed a shirt wrapped around one of her wipers.

Hardacre says she looked around and spotted two cars parked nearby. One of them was running, she said, which made her feel “uneasy.”

“I had seen posts lately about people finding things under their windshield wipers in the burton/Flint [sic] area as an attempt to get girls out of their cars and distracted,” she wrote on Facebook. “Luckily I knew better than to remove the shirt with cars around me so I drove over to a place where I was safe and quickly rolled down my window and got the shirt off.” 

Hardacre told The Huffington Post on Wednesday that she’d heard about other such incidents on a Facebook page about human trafficking in her area. HuffPost reached out to the Facebook page in question, but did not immediately receive a response.

There doesn’t appear to be any actual evidence that the shirt was placed on Hardacre’s car with ill intent. But she says she wants her experience to serve as a warning to others.

“I posted about the incident to inform others that it can happen to anyone and that they shouldn’t fall for it,” she told CBS News. “A lot of people think it is fake or it won’t happen to them. But you can never be too safe.”

Flint Township police Detective Sgt. Brad Wangler told HuffPost that authorities are looking into the incident, but they can’t say for sure that anything nefarious took place. Surrounding counties that he’s spoken with have not recorded any similar incidents, Wangler said.

“I can’t definitively say whether kidnapping or abduction was the end goal of this,” he said. “It’s hard to draw that conclusion by a shirt being put on a car.”

I can’t definitively say whether kidnapping or abduction was the end goal of this.
Flint Township police Detective Sgt. Brad Wangler

Wangler said Hardacre reported the incident to mall security on Friday, but it wasn’t until Monday that his department was made aware of it. He reviewed the mall’s security footage, but the angle of Hardacre’s car meant that he was unable to see it clearly.

“I can’t just debunk it, because is it possible? Sure. Anything’s possible,” he said. “But I can’t jump from one thing to something else without [more evidence].”

Still, he doesn’t want residents to worry.

“This is not common at all. I wasn’t even familiar with this type of alleged criminal behavior,” he said. 

The idea that someone could lay a trap like this isn’t implausible, Wangler said. And human trafficking, the issue cited by Hardacre, is hardly unknown in Michigan: According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, Michigan ranks seventh among U.S. states in terms of reported trafficking cases.

But other, similar reports of criminals putting objects on people’s car windshields have not stood up to scrutiny.

In 2004, stories circulated of people leaving fake money on windshields to lure people out of their vehicles, allowing the culprits to then jump behind the wheel.

The investigative website Snopes declared that claim false, having found no evidence that it ever happened. Authorities also said that’s not how most carjackers operate.

“Running around parking lots sticking flyers on windshields and then hanging around to wait for drivers to return to their vehicles involves planning and exposure atypical of most carjackers,” Snopes noted. “They’re more likely to approach occupied vehicles (particularly luxury cars with high resale value) and force the drivers out (by threatening them with weapons and/or physically pulling them out of their seats).”

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