Hasta La Gadget!

While Congress is in recess this week, the voters back home will be demanding answers from their representatives.

Activists have organized dozens of rallies targeting members of Congress at town hall meetings and other appearances, building on a wave of protests over the last month.

People can find events near them by checking the Resistance Recess site, a project of the progressive advocacy group MoveOn.org. The site calls on Americans to hold their representatives accountable for plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act and for supporting President Donald Trump.

The Town Hall Project site, run by Democratic-leaning volunteers, has a calendar of town halls and other public appearances beyond this week.

The current recess “is our biggest opportunity yet to make sure that Republicans who side with Trump are held accountable and that Democrats understand that using every single tool at their disposal to block Trump’s toxic agenda is not just justified, but absolutely necessary for our democracy — and our most cherished values — to survive the Trump era,” MoveOn organizing director Victoria Kaplan told Slate on Friday.

The Resistance Recess site includes tips for pressuring lawmakers, asking targeted questions and taking video. It lists events with representatives from both parties.

But Republicans have faced the brunt of voters’ ire in recent weeks. Protesters have shown up at town halls held by Reps. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), Justin Amash (R-Mich.) and others. They’ve pressured the congressmen over GOP plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, among other issues.

On Saturday, Reed was criticized at a town hall when he said he supported stripping funding from Planned Parenthood and opposed taxpayer-funded abortion.

“You, an elected official, [are] giving misinformation,” a woman in the crowd replied. “Right now, our taxes do not pay for abortions.”

Earlier this month, Chaffetz faced boos and chants of “Do your job!” and “Chaffetz is a coward” from a large crowd during a town hall held at a Utah high school.

The Utah Republican Party responded by urging lawmakers to hold tele-town halls if they “feel they cannot provide adequate security” for in-person events or to hold smaller meetings in a more controlled environment.

“This organized mob has displayed hostile, violent, and deliberately disruptive behavior, which is unfair to constituents as it hijacks town hall meetings to prevent any type of meaningful discussion,” the state party said.

The current wave of progressive town hall protests and citizen pressure has been compared to the tea party activism that disrupted Democrats’ town halls and helped get Republicans elected in the early years of Barack Obama’s presidency.

Some GOP lawmakers and their supporters have dismissed the latest protests as the work of radicals and tried to delegitimize the protesters by claiming they’re being paid. Protesters have rejected the idea that they’re being compensated as well as the implication that they’re not good Americans. That doesn’t mean there isn’t some funding behind the organizing effort. Democratic super PAC Priorities USA launched a digital advertising campaign on Friday to publicize Republicans’ town hall meetings this week.

In the first two months of this congressional session, Republican lawmakers have scheduled fewer than half the number of town halls they held in the first two months of the previous Congress, according to Vice.  

Some of those who are skipping out on constituent meetings will still be targeted at events organized by activists who’ve invited the representatives to attend ― like a Tuesday rally at the Troy, Michigan, office of Rep. David Trott (R). Protesters have accused Trott of “chickening out” by refusing to meet with them to address their concerns about repealing Obamacare.

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Bono had some surprising praise for Vice President Mike Pence on Saturday.

At the Munich Security Conference in Germany, the U2 frontman, 56, called Pence “the second busiest man on earth” before the two went on to chat about the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. In 2003, President George W. Bush introduced the five-year bilateral agreement, which designated $15 million to be spent on HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and research in developing countries. Even Bush critics have praised the initiative, which reportedly now provides antiretroviral drugs to 11.5 million people. 

As an Indiana congressman, Pence voted in favor of PEPFAR in both 2003 and 2008, a point which did not go unnoticed by Bono, who has been a longtime activist in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

“Twice on the House floor you defended that,” Bono said. “That’s how we know you.”

“It was an extraordinary historic accomplishment,” the vice president, who captured the moment for posterity on Twitter, told Bono. “You played a leading role in carrying it forward.” 

Unfortunately, Bono seemed to overlook the rest of Pence’s history with HIV/AIDS issues during the brief interaction. In 2011, the vice president laid the groundwork for a massive HIV outbreak as an Indiana congressman, when the House passed his amendment to defund Planned Parenthood. Public health spending cuts prompted the closing of the only Planned Parenthood in Indiana’s Scott County during Pence’s first year as governor in 2013, leaving 24,000 residents without a place to get tested for HIV. The result, predictably, was a spike in HIV infections that the governor, who also opposed needle exchange programs that can curb the spread of the virus, declared a state of emergency.

And while Bono and his bandmates are also LGBTQ rights advocates, the singer kept his mouth shut on Pence’s vehemently anti-equality platform during the chat. Given the significance of HIV/AIDS issues to the queer community, this apparent disregard prompted Twitter to do its best to set the U2 singer straight. 

Just goes to show that it pays to do a little research into a politician’s rhetoric before heaping them with compliments. 

For the latest in LGBTQ news, don’t miss the Queer Voices newsletter.

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President Donald Trump’s often-combative press conference conference last Thursday raised quite a few questions ― among them, what sort of reaction, if any, it would garner from people who don’t have to watch 77-minute midday press conferences for a living.

A new HuffPost/YouGov survey offers some answers. Most people who tuned in with pre-existing opinions of the president, for instance, found their opinions confirmed. And most people who lacked those preconceived notions weren’t watching in first place. But overall, the event, while by no means cataclysmically damaging, probably did Trump no favors.

Just 11 percent of Americans report watching the whole press conference, according to the survey. Another 33 percent say they watched parts, or saw clips and highlights later, and another 18 percent that they read or watched news stories about it. The rest, 38 percent, hadn’t heard anything about it. Even that likely overstates the audience a little bit ― people who agree to take surveys about politics tend to be somewhat more politically engaged than average, and people may also want to portray themselves as more attentive than they actually are.

Those who paid any attention to the press conference tended to be politically aware, opinionated, and not overly fond of the president. Sixty-one percent say they follow government and current affairs “most of the time,” 94 percent have an opinion of Trump’s job performance (44 percent approve and 51 percent disapprove), and nearly three-quarters have a strong opinion, whether that’s positive (29 percent) or negative (44 percent).

Since the survey was taken after the conference, of course, those ratings could be shaped partially by their opinions of his performance last week. But they also line up neatly with past voting behavior ― 94 percent of those who paid attention to the press conference and voted for Hillary Clinton last year disapprove of Trump, while 96 percent of Trump voters who tuned in still approve of him.

By a 13-point margin, 34 percent to 21 percent, those who paid attention to the press conference say it worsened, rather than improved, their views of his actions as president, with 40 percent saying it didn’t change their opinion. By a 16-point margin, 32 percent to 16 percent, they say it worsened their views of his temperament, although again the plurality say it didn’t do anything to change their minds.

Trump’s attacks on the media ― he called the press, among other things, “out of control,” “dishonest” and “fake” ― also saw a generally negative reception. Those who paid attention to the press conference say by an 11-point margin, 49 percent to 38 percent, that Trump treated the media unfairly. By contrast, 47 percent think the media’s treatment of Trump was fair, with just 32 percent calling it unfair.

But those predisposed to like or to dislike Trump largely left with those opinions intact.

Just 2 percent of Trump voters who paid attention to the press conference say it worsened their view of his actions or his temperament. The overwhelming majority, 87 percent, say he treated the media fairly, and 61 percent that the media was unfair in its treatment of him.

By contrast, 60 percent of voters for Hillary Clinton who paid attention say it worsened their opinion of Trump’s actions, and 56 percent that it worsened their opinion of his temperament. Eighty-eight percent think he treated the media unfairly, and 82 percent that the media was fair toward him.

Everyone else ― non-voters and those who supported a third-party candidate ― are seemingly in the middle. While 16 percent say it improved their opinion of his actions and 12 percent that it improved their opinion of his temperament, more, 38 percent and 37 percent respectively, say it worsened their views. By a more than 2-to-1 margin, 52 percent to 23 percent, they say he treated the media unfairly. Their opinions are also motivated by partisanship, with those who consider themselves Republicans or Republican-leaning mostly saying their opinions were improved or unchanged, and those more tied to the Democratic Party saying the opposite. The sliver who consider themselves true independents also generally say their views were worsened or unchanged.

While the survey makes it clear that the press conference didn’t radically alter public opinion, it’s hard to put an exact number on how many minds were changed at all, or to quantify how many minds would have to have been changed to constitute a significant impact.

It may, however, further a sense that Trump’s priorities aren’t always in line with the public’s top concerns. Just three in 10 of all the Americans polled say Trump is spending enough time on the issues they care about most, while 46 percent say the president is spending too much time on other issues. Even among those who approve of Trump’s job performance, 69 percent say he’s spending enough time on the issues they care about, while 15 percent think he’s focused on other things, and 16 percent aren’t sure.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

Everyone knows that pain of stepping on LEGO bricks. Few things in the world are as painful or induce more expletives shouted in anger. And when you think of all of the styles and shapes of LEGO pieces, some hurt worse than others. Well, the folks at the Nerdist have taken the time to rank the most painful pieces that your foot can encounter.

The idea is this: If you had to pick one LEGO piece not to step on, which one would that be? So they browsed the LEGO Shop, scanning through 1,244 available pieces to determine which ones are the most evil on your bare feet. It turns out that many of them are, so it wasn’t easy to narrow them down.

Check out the list for yourself and think about it the next time you enter your kid’s room.

[via Nerdist]

We first picked up on a report that claimed that WhatsApp was testing a new feature called Status that was similar to Snapchat Stories. The Facebook-owned company confirmed it today. The WhatsApp Status feature is out now and simply put, it’s just an encrypted version of Snapchat Stories. Facebook-owned services appear to have a penchant of copying what Snapchat has done with Stories.

WhatsApp Status enables users to share photos and videos with their contacts on WhatsApp. All status updated are encrypted end-to-end.

WhatsApp Status updates can be posted using the in-app camera. The photos can then be edited with text, drawings, and emoji. Once they have been posted they will appear in the new “status” tab in the app. Contacts will be able to view the status updates for the next 24 hours after which they will automatically disappear. They will also be able to reply to updates directly from the post.

This isn’t the first time that a Facebook service has copied Snapchat Stories. It started with Instagram and was later done by Facebook Messenger and then Facebook proper, but both are currently testing the feature in select markets. WhatsApp is the second service which has rolled out this feature to all users across the globe.

The WhatsApp Status feature is rolling to all of its billion-plus users starting today and it will be available soon to everyone on iOS, Android, and Windows Phone.

WhatsApp Status Is Basically An Encrypted Snapchat Stories , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.