Hasta La Gadget!

President Donald Trump received substantially worse ratings for his first months in office than any president dating back to World War II, according to Gallup.

Even presidents who’ve gone on to be unpopular generally enjoyed high ratings during their first months in office. But Trump’s average rating since Inauguration Day is just 41 percent, according to Gallup, making him the only president in their polling history to fall short of majority approval during his first quarter.

Former President Bill Clinton, the next-lowest ranked, had an average approval rating of 55 percent for that time period, while former Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush enjoyed first quarter ratings of 63 percent and 58 percent, respectively. 

What sets Trump apart isn’t a lack of support from his own party. About 87 percent of Republicans approve of his performance, several points above the average for previous presidents and similar to the numbers Obama and Bush saw at this point in their presidencies.

Rather, Trump’s ratings reflect the near-complete absence of support from Democrats, just 9 percent of whom approve of his performance so far.

Americans’ willingness to support a president across the aisle has shrunk dramatically in recent years. This early in their terms, former Presidents Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter all saw majority support from their opposing party, a feat that seems almost unimaginable in the modern political environment. But Obama still managed to garner the approval of about 30 percent of Republicans during the first quarter of 2009, while Bush saw a 32 percent rating among Democrats in the first quarter of 2001.

Trump’s numbers are also notably weak among independents. Just 37 percent approve of his performance, according to Gallup, compared with 51 percent or more for every other president since Eisenhower.

Trump’s “unconventional style suggested his presidency would be like nothing seen before,” Gallup’s Jeffrey M. Jones wrote. “And that has been true, but likely not in the way he or his supporters hoped ― with no honeymoon period to speak of and approval ratings far worse than any president has received this early in his tenure. On his best day, less than half of Americans, 46%, have approved of the job Trump is doing.”

Gallup is just one of the pollsters tracking Trump’s approval rating, and its numbers so far have looked slightly less positive than average. 

But it’s not far off. As of Thursday morning, HuffPost Pollster’s aggregate, which combines publicly available polling, gives Trump about a 43 percent approval rating, with just under 51 percent disapproving. By contrast, in April 2009, Obama’s average rating, though quickly declining from his post-inauguration honeymoon numbers, still stood at just under 60 percent.

Gallup surveyed 45,111 adults between Jan. 20 and April 19, using live interviewers to reach both landlines and cellphones.

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WASHINGTON ― In February, U.S. Capitol Police arrested six people for protesting during a confirmation hearing for the U.S. ambassador to Israel. But only two of the protesters, both Muslim men of Arab descent, face misdemeanor charges. The other four protesters, who are all Jewish, were allowed to pay a small fine or resolve the matter in traffic court.

Taher Herzallah and Kareem El-Hosseiny, the two Muslim men, were charged with misdemeanor unlawful conduct in Congress and now face a maximum penalty of $500 and up to six months in jail.

Herzallah and El-Hosseiny’s lawyer, Ann Wilcox, plans to file a motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that it is based on racial, religious and ethnic bias, she said after a court hearing Thursday.

“For similar conduct, they should have been treated the same [as the other protesters],” said Wilcox, a member of the National Lawyers Guild.

Herzallah, El-Hosseiny, and the four other demonstrators were arrested on Feb. 16 after they interrupted David Friedman’s confirmation hearing and urged lawmakers not to confirm the nominee. Friedman has supported settlements in the West Bank, spoken critically of the two-state solution, and compared liberal Jewish organizations to Jews who aided the Nazis during the Holocaust.

The six protesters behaved nearly identically. Each of them stood and spoke for about 30 seconds before security escorted them out of the room. Herzallah and El-Hosseiny, who are affiliated with the group American Muslims for Palestine, held up Palestinian flags as they spoke. Isaac Flegel-Mishlove, of the Jewish anti-occupation group IfNotNow, blew a shofar, a musical instrument used in Jewish religious ceremonies. His colleagues sang “We will build this world with love” as they were escorted out of the room. Tali Ruskin, of the anti-war group CodePink, wore a smock with “Stop settlements” written across the front.

But the protesters received widely disparate punishments for their actions. Two paid a $50 fine the same day they were arrested. Another paid $35. Capitol police told Herzallah, El-Hosseiny, and Thomas Corcoran of IfNotNow that they were required to appear in court. A week later, Corcoran’s case was moved to traffic court. But Herzallah and El-Hosseiny were charged with misdemeanors.

Herzallah and El-Hosseiny first appeared in court on March 1. They considered accepting a plea deal that would have banned them from Capitol grounds for four months and obligated them to do 32 hours of community service. However, they decided to reject the plea deal to fight what they believe is discriminatory treatment.

The six protesters kept in touch after their arrests and tried to figure out why they received different punishments for committing the same acts in the same place on the same day. They rewatched video footage from the confirmation hearing, looking for signs that any of them had been especially disruptive compared to the others. They say they don’t see a reason why Herzallah and El-Hosseiny were singled out for harsher treatment.

At first, the group wasn’t sure if the discrepancy in their punishments was the result of incompetence or prejudice. It took the officers nearly six hours to process the protesters after they were arrested. Over the course of the day, the officers appeared to change their minds several times about whether to fine the protesters or send them to court. One officer even asked El-Hosseiny if he had cash to pay a fine, he told The Huffington Post.

“They were arguing among themselves about what should happen with us,” Herzallah said. “It seemed like the officers were either untrained or it was their first time dealing with this.”

Capitol police did not respond to a request for comment.

When’s Corcoran’s case was moved to traffic court, the group began to believe that Herzallah and El-Hosseiny’s religion or ethnicity had factored into their punishment.

“That to me is the most blatant example of racism and Islamophobic practices,” said Lila Weintraub, who was arrested after demonstrating with IfNotNow and was fined $50 for her actions. “I can’t really see any other reason why they wouldn’t have all gotten the same charge.”

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Some girls grow up dreaming of their fairytale wedding ball gown, while others would much rather spend the big day in a pair of pants. 

For brides who fall into the second category, we’ve gathered 16 on-trend wedding jumpsuits that will have you jumping for joy. 

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A San Francisco-based writer blessed the interwebs Wednesday with the apparent answer to a question as old as Olive Garden’s most famous slogan: What exactly would a customer have to do to no longer be considered “family?” 

Joe Wadlington wrote on Twitter that he went on a date Tuesday night and discovered his prospective love interest is a former general manager for the chain. But not just any Olive Garden ― his date was the general manager of the Times Square Olive Garden. You know, the one that’s three floors high, charges $400 a head for its New Year’s Eve bash, and leaves everyone wondering why tourists visiting New York are eating at an Olive Garden?

Wadlington reacted as any human with a pulse would have: He said he launched into a full-blown interrogation about the restaurant’s innermost workings and, of course, the infamous unlimited salad and breadsticks. 

He related what his date declared the Garden’s worst-case scenario: The horror of running out of unlimited breadsticks is far more upsetting than anything else that can possibly happen at the restaurant.  

Consider the story Wadlington says his date shared about a knife fight between two women in the restaurant.

“You may be surprised, but yes, Olive Garden running out of breadsticks is worse than a knife fight,” the date reported. 

The extensive thread also answers many questions we’ve had about Olive Garden. Diners at the Times Square location pay higher prices that those at other locations; the restaurant continues seating until 2 a.m. and hosts mainly Brazilians, Puerto Ricans, and Americans from Ohio; and, most importantly, you can’t get kicked out for sitting and eating only as much unlimited salad and breadsticks as you can physically handle. 

The Olive Garden did not respond to requests for comment. Wadlington declined to give the name of his date, saying that he’d already been a pretty good sport about the tweets. But he assured The Huffington Post the conversation really happened, though he notes it’s possible his date exaggerated. (Eater reports wait times aren’t as long these days as the two-hour delay Wadlington’s date described.) 

Either way, we wish Wadlington and his date a lifetime filled with happiness and pasta passes. 

“We will be going on another date,” Wadlington told HuffPost. 

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In its continuing bid to stay relevant in a competitive market, Motorola is trying to build up a community of hardware designers for the Moto Z’s modular add-ons. Yesterday, the company brought together several winners of regional hackathons to a pit…