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What It Meant To Have A Feminist President

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“For 240 years, our nation’s call to citizenship has given work and purpose to each new generation. It’s what led patriots to choose republic over tyranny, pioneers to trek west, slaves to brave that makeshift railroad to freedom. It’s what pulled immigrants and refugees across oceans and the Rio Grande. It’s what pushed women to reach for the ballot.” 


I watched Barack Obama’s farewell speech from my apartment, getting a bit misty-eyed at hearing those words come from the President of the United States. I thought about the first time I had gathered around a laptop with friends to watch Obama speak ― in the winter of 2008 while I was living in Canada, to hear his famous “Yes We Can” speech. Obama has always had the ability to speak to millions and make each person feel as though he was speaking directly to them. In both these instances, I felt he was speaking to me. 


Since 2008, Obama has spoken countless times about women and gender equality. But in the last year, he has driven home the idea that men can ― and should ― be feminists, and that he counts himself among them. In a country where we have never had a woman president and where we still fall shamefully below parity when it comes to women’s representation in government and business, the idea that our first black president was also our first openly feminist president felt quite radical.  


“I may be a little grayer than I was eight years ago, but this is what a feminist looks like,” President Barack Obama told the audience at the United States of Women Summit at the White House in June.


In August, Obama wrote a beautiful essay for Glamour focused on his feminist identity and how that identity has informed his political worldview. He wrote about fatherhood and masculinity, street harassment and the sexual double standard, policies that penalize working mothers and attitudes that punish emotional young men.


He asserted in no uncertain terms: “It is absolutely men’s responsibility to fight sexism too.”


And those proclamations about the importance of gender equality were more than just words. Our feminist president also took action (or at least attempted to). 



He signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fairy Pay Act into law ― the first bill he signed during his first term ― and created a National Equal Pay Task Force.


He supported Vice President Joe Biden (another self-identified feminist, albeit with a mixed history when it comes to championing women) in the launch of It’s On Us, a program dedicated to fighting sexual violence on college campuses.


He upped the minimum wage for federal contractors in a nation where nearly two-thirds of minimum wage workers are women.


He defended Planned Parenthood and made it clear that American women must have the right to make decisions about their own bodies and health care. 


He made sure that birth control was covered by insurance plans so that women like me had access to it, enabling us to make safer, better decisions, and protect our bodies and health and future. (Thanks to POTUS and the Affordable Care Act, I was able to get the rad IUD I’ll still have for another four years ― the first form of hormonal birth control I’ve used that doesn’t cause my already painful, chronic migraines to become debilitating.)


The weight of what we gained from Obama’s self-identification as a feminist becomes all the more clear in stark contrast to the incoming administration. 


We are going from a White House that prioritized fighting sexual assault, and specifically violence against women, to a president-elect who has been publicly accused of assaulting more than a dozen women and a nominee for attorney general that only just acknowledged that grabbing a woman by her genitals without her consent even constitutes assault



The gravity of being an American woman watching the most powerful man in the world preach the importance of gender equality ― and men’s responsibility in the fight for it ― cannot be ignored.



We are going from a president who talks lovingly about his daughters’ kindness, brilliance, thoughtfulness and passion, to one who has said he would date one of his daughters if they weren’t related, and who speculated about his other daughter’s future breast size when she was an infant. 


We are going from a president who openly acknowledges the disproportionate burden of unpaid labor his political career put on his brilliant and accomplished partner and wife, Michelle, to one who once told Howard Stern that Melania would make a great mother because she would “take great care of the child, without my having to do very much.”


We are going from a president who critically discusses how “easy [it is] to absorb all kinds of messages from society about masculinity and come to believe that there’s a right way and a wrong way to be a man,” to one who believes men are best defined by their hand size and dick size and conquests, both financial and sexual. 


We are going from a president who understands intersectionality on a personal level, who speaks about the specific challenges women and girls of color face, to one who equates blackness with “ghettos.”


We are going from a man who writes about how he wants America to be “a place where every single child can make of her life what she will,” to one who rates women on a scale of 1-10 based on how much he desires to sleep with them.  



Yet, as Ann Friedman pointed out in June, having a president who says he is a feminist ― and tries to deliver on feminist policies and promises ― is not everything and it does not guarantee lasting legislative change, especially if the rest of the government does not support those endeavors.


“For the kind of progress we want, we need politicians at every level who look like feminists,” wrote Friedman. “We need business leaders who look like feminists. And we need activists... to stay loud and insistent that change is still possible.”


This is all true, and has become painfully clear over the last year.


But in spite of all that, visibility matters; it matters a lot. The gravity of being an American woman watching the most powerful man in the world preach the importance of gender equality ― and men’s responsibility in the fight for it ― cannot be ignored. 


The beautiful thing about feminism is that it does not live and die by its leaders. We will no longer have a feminist president, but we will still have a whole lot of feminist citizens ― Barack Obama being one of them. And those citizens are ready for action, ready to hold dear to those rights we know to be inalienable.   

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'Beauty And The Beast' May Feature An Ariana Grande-John Legend Duet

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We’re already counting down the days until the March 17 premiere for Disney’s live-action remake of “Beauty and the Beast,” starring Emma Watson, Luke Evans, Ewan McGregor and Dan Stevens.


Then we saw the latest teaser trailer at the Golden Globes, which featured Watson singing. And now, we’re even more excited because there’s speculation that Ariana Grande and John Legend may be recording a duet for the soundtrack. 


Although nothing is confirmed, fans first started buzzing about the possible music collaboration this week when Grande posted a rather ambiguous Instagram picture that tagged John Legend and the “Beauty and the Beast” social account. What’s more, the caption is a rose.



A photo posted by Ariana Grande (@arianagrande) on



The picture was also regrammed by the “Beauty and the Beast” account, which makes this all seem even more real.


We hope we aren’t getting our hopes up!




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New Book Service Delivers Stories From The Black Diaspora To Your Door

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Derick Brewer and Zellie Iman are hoping to diversify the bookshelves of literature connoisseurs by providing them with the oft overlooked narratives from the African Diaspora.


On Monday, the pair launched Noir Reads, a subscription service which delivers two to three fiction and nonfiction book selections from writers throughout the diaspora on a monthly basis. 


“Our aim was to create a resource comprised of narratives on the black experience and the multiplicity of Blackness,” Iman told The Huffington Post. 


With nearly 100 subscribers already, the company has sold nearly half of the 200 boxes they’ve prepared for its launch. Subscriptions are offered at $35 per month or $100 for three months. 


On February 6, these first-time subscribers will find Angela DavisFreedom Is A Constant Struggle and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation in Reads’ inaugural box. 






Iman said these selections were chosen, in part, for their relevance given the current political climate. 


“With a looming Trump presidency, we wanted books to help readers navigate this racist political landscape and offer ways to move forward,” Iman said. “The books can help us process these issues in an efficient way.”


Iman, an educator and Black Lives Matter activist said Reads is an extension of the work he’s been doing to draw attention to the ranges of the black experience. 


“Blackness is complex and diverse, but this basic fact becomes overshadowed, or erased by continually centering African American narratives,” Iman said. “Instead, we want Noir Reads to explore, and not ignore, the vast and rich histories of the African Diaspora.”


To ensure their subscribers will enjoy the selections, Iman and Brewer choose books focusing on specific themes and survey readers to see what they’d prefer. The books that aren’t chosen are then placed under the “recommended reading” section of their reading guide. 


“The goal is to identify and connect people with great work, whether we can place it in the box or not,” Iman said. “That’s important.”

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Unsurprisingly, Celebrities Were Not Impressed With Donald Trump's Press Conference

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On Wednesday, Donald Trump held his first press conference since he won the election in November. It began with both incoming White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Vice President-elect Mike Pence condemning BuzzFeed’s decision to release an unverified intelligence report claiming Russian spies possessed “compromising personal and financial information about Trump.”


When Trump took to the podium, he also denounced the report, and spoke about election-related hacking, his proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and Obamacare, among other issues, before turning things over to Sheri Dillon, a lawyer who spoke at length about Trump’s business and conflicts of interest.


The whole presser was really something ... and celebrities reacted appropriately:













































































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Why Does The 'Unfortunate Events' Kid Look Exactly Like Harry Potter?

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In the early 2000s, when I was in fourth grade, a classmate claimed to have found a book that was ripping off Harry Potter. He showed me the first book in the “A Series of Unfortunate Events” series, titled, The Bad Beginning. He pointed at the young character, Klaus Baudelaire, on the cover and claimed that he looked exactly like the similarly young Potter. I agreed.


Neither of us had read “A Series of Unfortunate Events” at that time and, admittedly, I still haven’t. On top of this, I also remember being a huge Harry Potter fan and my loose recollection is that this classmate was one, too. Especially given our age, we likely had a comically large personal stake in believing the likeness of our favorite wizard was getting unfairly copied.


But still ― despite my clear bias from childhood ― don’t these two characters objectively look way, way, way too similar for debuting just years apart?



A few brief points:




  • Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (or Sorcerer’s Stone as I knew it in the United States) debuted in 1997.




  • The Bad Beginning from the “Unfortunate Events” series debuted in 1999.




  • Both were young, white, well-dressed characters that donned middle parts.




  • Both had “unique” circular glasses frames.




  • Both were orphans in tragic circumstances.




  • Although the book doesn’t explicitly say this, fans have assumed that The Bad Beginning takes place in London. Harry Potter is British.




  • The actor who played Baudelaire in the movie adaptation, Liam Aiken, was originally a lead candidate to play Harry Potter before Daniel Radcliffe won the role in the film series.




A reporter for The New York Times Magazine actually had this same question back in 2001, when both series were still in the beginning of their paths to eventual stratospheric popularity. The writer, Daphne Merkin, claims in the piece that when asking “Unfortunate Events” author Daniel Handler (pen name Lemony Snicket) about the resemblance, the series’ author “shoo[ed] away the question.”


All Handler is quoted as saying in response to the suggestion that Baudelaire is a Potter look-alike is, “All bookish white boys with glasses look alike. They both look like the kid in ‘Half Magic.’”


Now that more than 15 years have passed since that interview and the Netflix version of “A Series of Unfortunate Events” is debuting this Friday, I figured I’d reach out to Handler and the series’ illustrator, Brett Helquist, to see if they’d finally share an explanation for the similarity.


In a series of unfortunate events, both respective publicists did not make the two available for comment, although I was told Handler “sends his regrets.”


Once again, I have not read “A Series of Unfortunate Events” and my understanding is that the actual Baudelaire character is not a wizard and is distinctly different from Potter. It is also my assumption that if you brushed back Baudelaire’s middle-parted brunette hair, you would not find a lightning bolt scar.


But still, I think it is extremely important in this time of previously unimaginable turmoil, to at least sort out this one restless-sleep-inducing mystery that has haunted me for nearly two decades. And look around online ― you’d be hard-pressed to find many people wondering about this very relevant and not-at-all niche question.


Am I really on an island of insanity with only my fourth grade classmate as a companion?


Please tell me, why do these characters look exactly alike?


The state of my similarly brown-haired, glasses-wearing being depends on it.



Hit Backspace for a regular dose of pop culture nostalgia.

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Woman Made ‘Pussy On Protest’ Kits To Flood The White House With Women’s Stories

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Of all the things President-Elect Donald Trump is known for, being a champion of women’s rights is not one of them. He has been caught on tape bragging about grabbing women “by the pussy,” said women might have to go to different states to access abortion care when he’s in office, and arguably helped amplify misogyny on a national level. Because of this, January 20th isn’t just Inauguration Day for many women and their allies. It’s the beginning of a political revolution.


For 32-year-old Miranda “Mindy” Benner, this upcoming changing of the guard means action. 


“I’ve never been active in politics but this time its different, women have so much on the line, so much to lose that I felt like I had to get involved somehow,” she told The Huffington Post in an email. 


The art director at 72andSunny recently launched a project called Pussy on Protest, in the hopes of bringing people together in solidarity against Trump's anti-woman agenda. 


For $10, Benner is selling enamel pins that read “Pussy on Protest,” which are paired with a postcard pre-addressed to the White House. The “little activist kits,” as she calls them, are meant to get wearers involved in the political process in a simple way. 


“I wanted to make something that you could wear, a symbol that wasn’t preachy, but that had an unapologetic attitude that showed solidarity with women’s rights,” Benner said of the pins.


As for the postcards, Benner says she wanted to something that would “get people back to analog” without asking them to write a full-fledged letter. The postcard prompts participants to write a note or a draw a doodle.


“With this [kit], you could take a step forward, get off the couch, away from behind your screen and ‘like’ buttons and actually create a physical change in the world ― and that’s exciting,” she said.




Benner is donating all proceeds from the kits to Planned Parenthood, something she says “was a no-brainer since [she] and countless others have relied on Planned Parenthood throughout the years.”


“[Planned Parenhood] provides healthcare services to vulnerable and scared populations, where access to even the simplest things are hard to get,” Benner said. “They’re the ones you go to when you don’t know what to do, who to talk to, or what to say. They’re knights in shining armor, and even if you haven’t gone yourself, I’m certain you have had friends who have.”


Benner hopes an influx of Pussy on Protest postcards at the White House might encourage the incoming cabinet to “read the messages and stories women in America are sharing.” 




The kits are currently on backorder, but Benner assured HuffPost that there are more on the way. 


“I hope that the kit can be a tool that men and women use to spark their own activism ― and springboard change ― even if they had never done anything like it before,” she said. “My generation has rested on the works of lifelong activist and it’s time others step up to help carry to load.” 

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Painting Of Michelle And Young Sasha Obama Is Making Us Yearn For 2008

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Following Barack Obama’s stunning farewell address Tuesday night, lovesick Americans took to social media to bid farewell to the exceptional first family. The New Museum joined in, posting a particularly emotional 2008 oil painting by Elizabeth Peyton. 


The work, titled “Michelle and Sasha Obama Listening to Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention August 2008,” depicts just that, capturing in Peyton’s distinctly effusive and whirly aesthetic the First Lady with a then 7-year-old Sasha resting in her lap. 


Peyton is known for her free-floating, figurative portraits of celebrities and other public figures, her portfolio serving as the art world alternative to fan magazines. She’s said in past interviews that she cannot paint a subject she doesn’t admire.


In fact, she’s expressed that her subjects evoke a feeling something like “I love you; I think you’re the best thing I’ve ever seen.” 


In this case, we wholeheartedly agree.

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39 Photos Of Pets Supporting Their Humans Through Childbirth

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For over four years, the Birth Photography Facebook group has been producing slideshows of gorgeous labor, delivery and postpartum images and sharing them on its public page. After compiling photos featuring midwives, doulas, dads and siblings, the group decided to focus its latest project on another special subset of birth team members: pets!


“Dogs and other pets seem to instinctively know that something is up during a pregnancy,” the Birth Photography group’s founder Laura Eckert told The Huffington Post. “They can become more protective of the mother-to-be, as though they sense that something is about to happen.”


Eckert shared photos from “Loyal Birth Companions: Pets at Births” with HuffPost. “As these images show, pets are often very curious and maybe even concerned about what is going on during a home birth, and they often offer a sense of calm for the laboring mother,” she said. “To some moms it’s like having an extra support person right there beside them throughout their labor.”


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Sexy Spider-Man Boudoir Shoot Will Get Your Spidey Sense Tingling

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We’ll get tangled in his web anytime.


Sarah Hester, an Oklahoma City-based photographer, has come out with a series of male boudoir photos that imagines what Peter Parker would look like in his birthday suit rather than his spider suit.


This is the third time Hester has snapped photos of model and photographer, Zach Howell, for a sexy/nerdy photoshoot. In the past, the pair has collaborated on a Dexter and Harry Potter-themed photos.


And Hester has no intentions of slowing down, telling the Huffington Post that she’s got plenty of gorgeously geeky ideas lined up for the future.


“It’s really just pure entertainment,” she told HuffPost. “It’s fun. There are so many sexualized female versions of fictional characters and it’s neat to explore the other side.”


Check out Howell’s hot photos below that are so hot, it’ll make your head spin:


 









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'Full Frontal With Samantha Bee' Writers Gear Up For Sharply 'Dissident' Take On Trump Presidency

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“Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” delighted its audience throughout Donald Trump’s campaign for president with graphically creative descriptors. 


“Sentient caps-lock button.”


“Screaming carrot demon.”


“The white power movement’s orange ally.”


But, like many who supported Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election, the “Full Frontal” writing staff had hoped those jabs wouldn’t be as relevant after Nov. 8. 


“We tried to get them all out before the election,” the show’s head writer, Jo Miller, told The Huffington Post. (It was a valiant effort ― check out some of their best Trump takedowns from our editors above.)


“I think we’ve gone from being satirists to being dissidents,” she said of the show as we march on toward Jan. 20, and Trump’s oath of office.


In our conversation, Miller and writer Ashley Nicole Black remembered the night of the election ― not fondly. As the staff and host Samantha Bee gathered in the office to follow closely along with the results, the mood began to shift as it did across the country when Americans realized that poll estimates had been grossly inaccurate. 


“Around the time that the New York Times predictions flipped, we got writers and Sam together in the room and sat in silence, mostly. A lot of silence,” Miller said. That Tuesday, the team had to toss out much of their work that had been prepped assuming the Clinton victory predicted across the media. The next night, they had still managed to pull together a show that swathed their bewilderment at American politics in the cloak of a dark, yet punchy, comedy.


As Black explained, however, those jokes (though written with aplomb) don’t come so easy to many comic writers after the country elected a president who filled his campaign with bullying rhetoric often directed at women, people of color, the LGBTQ community and other groups that have all too often been shoved to the sidelines of American history.


“Most comedians come to comedy because they have something that makes them feel like an outsider that they want to express,” Black said simply, “and anything that makes you feel like an outsider right now feels like it also puts you in danger.”


On facing four years of finding the humor in a Trump Administration, she said, “We’re not excited.” 


“Full Frontal” had been sharpening its claws, ready to go after Clinton post-election on “so much stuff,” Miller said, before the news of an impending Republican presidency threw them off course. Now, current events produce so much material to dissect for the sake of comedy ― and awareness ― that it feels “like standing in a fire hose of shit.” But the team will continue to tackle the issues that speak the loudest to their diverse group of writers


“We follow our gut and what’s obsessing us the most at the moment,” Miller said. 


“Full Frontal With Samantha Bee” returns to TBS Wednesday at 10:30 p.m. ET. 

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Alec Baldwin Will Play Trump On ‘SNL’ The Day After The Inauguration

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On Jan. 20, Donald Trump will officially become president of the United States. Alec Baldwin and “Saturday Night Live” are ready for it. 


While promoting his ABC game show “Match Game,” Baldwin revealed to Extra, “We’re gonna play him the day after the inauguration; I’m doing ‘SNL’ the day after the inauguration.”


He added, “Trump is our head writer. He just hands it to us in a basket with a big bow on it every day.”





Baldwin expressed similar sentiments in an interview on radio’s “The Brian Lehrer Show” last year, noting Trump is “the head writer of his own comedy routine.” 


The actor has also opened up about what it’s like getting into character as the business-man-turned-politician, telling The New York Times in December it was all about the “puffs” or pauses Trump takes when he gives speeches. 



“I see a guy who seems to pause and dig for the more precise and better language he wants to use, and never finds it,” Baldwin told the paper. “It’s the same dish — it’s a grilled cheese sandwich rhetorically over and over again.”


We guess that means we’ll be getting a whole lot of grilled cheese for the next four years ...


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Solange Is All Of Us Trying To Choose Between These Two Selena Songs

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Beyoncé and Solange don’t have to be fluent in Spanish to understand the greatness of Selena Quintanilla.


The “Lemonade” singer has told the story of how she once met the late Tejano singer at The Galleria in Houston, Texas. But the Knowles sisters recently revealed just how bidi bidi bom bom crazy their hearts are for Selena in a feature for Interview magazine.


Solange was interviewed by Beyoncé for the occasion, and it seems that few people know the singer better than her older sister. As part of a rapid fire question portion of the interview, she asked her little sister to choose between two of Selena’s songs. 



BEYONCÉ: “No Me Queda Más” or “I Could Fall in Love”?

SOLANGE: This is so unfair! “No Me Queda Más.”



A surprising choice considering Solange has repeatedly covered “I Could Fall in Love.





We could definitely fall in love with this cover, Solange.


(H/T Latina)

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Joseph Fiennes As Michael Jackson Makes Paris Jackson Want To 'Vomit'

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The controversy over casting Joseph Fiennes to portray Michael Jackson for an upcoming comedy show continues.


The trailer for the episode “Elizabeth, Michael & Marlon” of the British TV show “Urban Myths,” which features Fiennes as Jackson, dropped Wednesday ― and the blowback has been excruciating. 


For context, this is what Joseph Fiennes as Michael Jackson looks like:






A Michael Jackson podcast called “The MJ Cast” sent out a call to arms to boycott the upcoming show and asked Jackson’s daughter, Paris Jackson, for her thoughts.










Paris Jackson responded to the missive to share her disdain for the portrayal:














She also added that her father “made a point of it plenty of times to express his pride in his roots” and that “he would never have wanted this,” in a response to a fellow tweeter.


And she wasn’t alone. Her feelings were shared by many:























Paris followed up her tweet about her discontent with the portrayal of her father with another tweet that just read “#justice4mj #justice4liz.


The “Urban Myths” episode, with its contentious casting choices, debuts Jan. 19 on Sky Arts and will feature other “believe it or not” stories. 


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J.K. Rowling Went After Trump And His Tiny, Dangerous Fingers

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Donald Trump’s first news conference as president-elect was unsettling, to say the least. And J.K. Rowling, much like the rest of the world, took notice.


Shortly before the conference, the Harry Potter author went on Twitter and took a jab at Trump’s claim that he had no ties to Russia, defending himself against the unverified allegations that the Russian government had been backing Trump for years.


“Must be telling the truth,” Rowling wrote in reply to a Trump tweet written in his signature style. “He used caps.”














Then, after the news conference, a Twitter user tried to lash out at the British author for involving herself in American politics.


Rowling, per usual, unraveled another sassy clap-back explaining the obvious.


“Those teeny little fingers are within twitching distance of the nuclear codes,” Rowling wrote to the Twitter user, whose original tweet can be found on Mashable. “We’re all in it, up to our necks.”






Rowling has been very vocal about her opposition to Trump, with an exceptionally polished insult game. She’s criticized his most controversial policies ― a proposed ban on Muslim immigrants, his plans for a wall paid for by Mexico U.S. taxpayers ― and has compared the president-elect to an “unstable nightclub bouncer” and, worse, to Lord Voldemort.


Name-calling aside, Rowling is right: Trump’s election to America’s most powerful office does affect the world, and the globe is watching his every move.

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'Hamilton' Cast Bids Farewell To Obama With 'One Last Time' Performance

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Just in case you haven’t gone through enough Kleenex this week, “Hamilton” is here to tug at your heartstrings one last time.


Nearly a year ago, the cast from the original Broadway production headed to the White House for a student workshop. Performances of songs including “Alexander Hamilton,” “My Shot” and “The Schuyler Sisters” have since been released, along with portions of President Barack Obama’s remarks about the whole experience.


But the production seems to have withheld one full performance from the internet until now. In honor of Obama’s farewell address, the “Hamilton” production released a video of Lin-Manuel Miranda and Christopher Jackson performing “One Last Time,” the number about President George Washington stepping down and saying goodbye to the country he fought to create.






”As we prepare for President Barack Obama’s final days in office, we celebrate the profound legacy he leaves behind,” a caption with the video posted to YouTube says. “Today, we look back on Christopher Jackson performing ‘One Last Time’ during our visit to The White House. Teach ’em how to say goodbye.”


In addition to the actual performance, the video shows prolonged moments of Obama watching the cast sing lines that feel especially poignant at the moment, like:



“The people will hear from me


One last time


And if we get this right


We’re gonna teach ‘em how to say


Goodbye.”



Coincidentally, Obama quoted Washington’s farewell address Tuesday night.



In his own farewell address, George Washington wrote that self-government is the underpinning of our safety, prosperity, and liberty, but “from different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken ... to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth”; that we should preserve it with “jealous anxiety”; that we should reject “the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest or to enfeeble the sacred ties” that make us one.



Let’s just say you may want to have some tissues handy before you watch.


 

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Hayden Panettiere On What It Means To Play A Powerful Woman On TV

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After “Nashville” was canceled earlier this year, Hayden Panettiere, like the rest of the cast, was heartbroken. The role of superstar country singer Juliette Barnes ― which earned her two Golden Globe nominations for Best Supporting Actress ― provided the actress with so much inspiration and allowed her to tap into emotions she had yet to portray on screen.  


So when it was announced that CMT revived the ABC show for a fifth season, Panettiere recognized just how fortunate she was to be back in Juliette’s boots, and fully embraced the opportunity to return to Nashville. 


“It’s been really empowering as a woman [to play Juliette],” the 27-year-old told The Huffington Post during a recent Build Series interview. “She’s like a phoenix. She crashes and burns hard and then she rises from the ashes, and she is so resilient and that’s one of the things I love the most about her. She always chooses to take the lesson and become stronger because of it. And she doesn’t seem to make the same mistake twice, but she seems to find every mistake she could make,” the actress added with a smile. 


Her co-star Charles Esten, who plays Deacon Claybourne on the show, chimed in to say that playing opposite Panettiere as Barnes and Connie Britton as Rayna James is a dream come true as an actor. 


“They’re some of the strongest female characters on television,” he told HuffPost, “and I’m the piece of rope getting the tug of war in the middle ... it was amazing right then to walk in and see [them] going at it.”



Panettiere added that although she’s not too much like Juliette in real life, she’s learned so much about herself through portraying the confident, emotional and tough-as-nails character.


“She has such extremes and I don’t think she could exist without it, and that’s what makes her so human and so fun to play,” Panettiere said. “I love playing bad and I love playing those moments of good, too.” 


As for what’s to come this season for Juliette on “Nashville,” Panettiere warned fans that they may be surprised by the singer’s journey.  


“Obviously, you see her go through this [plane] accident, but it opens a door and a path that you would never expect her to go down,” the actress explained. “She explores a part of herself that is so un-Juliette but so powerful and so deep, I think you’re going to be really surprised, really excited, I think you’e going to like it.” 


“Nashville” airs at 9 p.m. ET Thursdays on CMT. 


Watch the full Build Series interview with Hayden Panettiere and Charles Esten below: 




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Curb Your Ire, Bros: Anna Kendrick Is In Talks To Play Santa In A Disney Movie

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Anna Kendrick is in talks to play Santa Claus in a new Disney movie, Variety reported Wednesday.


We know some people are incredibly protective of the traditional image of Santa Claus, so the backlash about this news seems inevitable. Typically protesters (aka Megyn Kelly) argue that Santa ― a fictional character with historical ties to a Turkish monk ― must be white. Now they get to argue over whether Father Christmas must, in fact, be a father. (Please don’t.)  


The project’s working title is “Nicole.” Kendrick plays Santa’s daughter, who is left to take over the family business when Saint Nick retires and her brother chickens out before his first Christmas in charge. “Miss Congeniality” and “Two Weeks Notice” scribe Marc Lawrence has written the script and will direct the film. 


Gender-swapping on the big screen is nothing new, of course. Just last year, misogynistic bros claimed their childhoods were ruined by Paul Feig’s female-centric “Ghostbusters” reboot. Marvel opted to cast Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One in “Doctor Strange.” And a reboot of “Ocean’s 11” booked an all-star cast including Cate Blanchett, Rihanna, Sandra Bullock and Mindy Kaling.


Most other details about “Nicole” are under wraps. According to The Hollywood Reporter, it’s not a musical. The Huffington Post reached out to Kendrick’s rep to confirm her involvement but did not immediately hear back. 




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Pretty Big Movement Is A Dance Company That Crushes Body Stereotypes With Style

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After years of facing excessive criticism and judgment because of her body type, Bronx-born Akira Armstrong had one probing question: aren’t there any other big girls in New York City who can dance? 


The answer, of course, was yes. Armstrong recruited some of the best in the game to join her full-figured dance company, Pretty Big Movement, which provides a “no judgement” space for women of all body types to flex their dancing skills and look damn good doing it. 


In The Scene’s video below, Armstrong discusses how, despite dancing in two Beyoncé music videos, she still had trouble finding an agent to represent her because her body didn’t conform to the mainstream beauty norms dancers are expected to embody.


“When people think about the stereotypical dancer’s body, they think [of someone] very thin, tall, long legs, long arms,” she explained. “Growing up in a dance environment, I did feel like my body was a negative.”


Armstrong founded her very own dance company to ensure that budding dancers with curves would not have to grapple with the same undue feelings of alienation and self-doubt. “It’s about uplifting and empowering women,” she said, “to feel like they can be confident to do anything, not just dance.”


Watch the ladies of Pretty Big Movement break it down ― and by it, we mean outdated beauty ideals, of course ― in the video below. 




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Watch Daveed Diggs Rap 'Rubber Duckie' On 'Sesame Street'

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”Rubber Duckie” just got an awesome new remix. 


“Hamilton” and “Black-ish” actor Daveed Diggs stopped by the “Sesame Street” set to perform the classic Ernie song. And of course, he gave it a “Hamilton”-worthy update. Watch him break it down in a new rap section. 


We’re awfully fond of you, Daveed!

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Four Young Ballerinas Celebrate Dancers Of Color Who Inspire Them

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“I want to show the ballet world it’s possible to do all these things and not be rail-thin or have blond hair,” Misty Copeland told Self Magazine last year. “I feel like I’m representing not just the little brown girls but all African-American dancers who have come before me who were never promoted because of the color of their skin.” 


In 2015, Misty Copeland became the first black woman to achieve the status of principal dancer at the American Ballet Theater. But as many of our own readers have pointed out in emails and comments addressed to HuffPost Arts & Culture since, Copeland was not the first woman of color to succeed in a dance world historically filled with white, lithe bodies. Before her, for example, there’s Raven Wilkinson, one of the first African-American ballerinas permitted to join a ballet company in the 1950s. And cousins Janet Collins and Carmen de Lavallade, who were some of the first principal dancers of color with the Metropolitan Opera.


Beyond those who preceded Copeland, there are also a number of women today who are breaking barriers alongside her. Copeland’s peers include dancers like Olivia Boisson of the New York City Ballet, Precious Adams of the English National Ballet, Awa Joannais of the Paris Opera Ballet, Jasmine Perry of the Los Angeles Ballet, and Francesca Hayward of the the Royal Ballet, to name a few.


In response to Copeland’s shoutout to the dancers of color who came before her, we reached out to Brown Girls Do Ballet, a start-up organization devoted to addressing diversity in ballet programs, to ask young dancers in their network to spotlight some of the role models inspiring them. In four beautiful responses, aspiring ballerinas Shalom Johnson, Ameyla Rivera, Olivia Winston, and Amirah Muhammed celebrated eight dancers who motivate them in their own careers.


Check out their responses below:




Ebony Williams, Ashley Murphy and Ingrid Silva


Hello, my name is Shalom Johnson. I am 16 years old and I attend the High School for Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, Texas. The dancers that inspire me are Ebony Williams, Ashley Murphy and Ingrid Silva. Why? Well, aside from their amazing technique, their beautiful lines and their artistry, they look like me. I am not the average ballerina dancer. My body does not look like the other girls I dance with nor does my skin color. And I believe if these fantastic ladies can make it in an industry where you are judged on your body type and the color of your skin, well then, I have a fighting chance too. ― Shalom Johnson



taken by @altin.kaftira #michaeladeprince @remiwortmeyer #tedbrandsen #coppelia #swanhilda

A photo posted by Michaela DePrince (@michaeladeprince) on




Michaela DePrince


“Never be afraid to be a poppy in a field of daffodils.” This quote by Michaela DePrince sits on my wall above my mirror in my room. Every day I read that quote and remind myself that no obstacle is too great to stop me from achieving my dreams. I don’t need to look like everyone else to be as good as everyone else. Michaela DePrince is not only a beautiful dancer, she is someone who I have been inspired by since the first time I watched her dance at YAGP [Youth America Grand Prix]. She is a warrior. She has proven that a ballerina of color is just as beautiful and graceful as anyone else. ― Ameyla Rivera




Lauren Anderson, Misty Copeland and Katlyn Addison


I’m inspired by many dancers of color including Ingrid Silva, Lauren Anderson, and Misty Copeland, all of whom I’ve had the opportunity to meet. But I’m especially blessed to have Katlyn Addison, Soloist with Ballet West, as my “big sis” and mentor. In addition to always making herself available to answer questions about training, Katlyn also choreographed a contemporary piece for me for YAGP last year and arranged for us to take some Pilates classes together when I needed help with body alignment. I was especially excited when I was able to watch from the wings as Katlyn made her debut last year as Sugar Plum in Ballet West’s The Nutcracker, one of a select few dancers of color to dance the role and the first for Ballet West. ― Olivia Winston




Aesha Ash


I draw my artistic inspiration from two hometown Western New York natives like myself. In the field of dance, former New York City Ballet dancer Aesha Ash, and my aunt, supermodel Beverly Johnson. Both have paved the way for many who have come after them and desire to pursue their passion and live their life to the fullest. Despite having gone through challenges, they didn’t let anything get in the way of achieving their goals. ― Amirah Muhammed

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