April 4, 2017

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Entertainment April 4, 2017

Today in Movie Culture: 'Jurassic World' Remade With Parkour, Bruce Wayne Meets Agent Smith and More

Here are a bunch of little bites to satisfy your hunger for movie culture:

Movie Homage of the Day:

Watch what happens when you add parkour to the Jurassic Park movies in this video using real Jurassic Park and Jurassic World sets for its stunts (via Geekologie):

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Movie Character Parody of the Day:

If Darth Vader’s pun in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story wasn’t enough for you, here he is with more dad jokes through the franchise courtesy of Nerdist:

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Mashup of the Day:

Bruce Wayne meets Agent Smith from The Matrix in this brief conversation clip:

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Alternate Ending of the Day:

Why does Superman seem so absent in Justice League? This animated post-credits scene for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice offers one possible reason:

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Remade Trailer of the Day:

Check out a sweded version of Spider-Man: Homecoming with CineFix’s shot-for-shot homemade trailer:

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Vintage Image of the Day:

Craig T. Nelson, who turns 73 today, gets direction from Steven Spielberg and Tobe Hooper on the set of Poltergeist in 1981:

Filmmaker in Focus:

Alfred Hitchcock’s POV shots are highlighted in this video by Jorge Luengo showing characters and what they’re looking at side by side:

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Supercut of the Day:

Watch movie characters watching movies in this supercut of scenes in cinemas and screening rooms:

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Movie Takedown of the Day:

In anticipation of The Fate of the Furious, Honest Trailers roasts The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift:

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Classic Trailer of the Day:

This week is the 40th anniversary of the release of Robert Altman’s 3 Women. Watch the original trailer for the classic thriller below.

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Health April 4, 2017

Pulse Check: Can The GOP Health Care Bill Be Saved?

Vice President Pence is leading talks with House Republicans for the Trump administration to try to revive the failed health care bill.

Timothy D. Easley/AP

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Timothy D. Easley/AP

President Trump may have said he is ready to move on, but the House Freedom Caucus can’t let health care go.

The same firebrand conservatives who helped derail the GOP’s long-awaited legislation to repeal and replace key parts of the Affordable Care Act are now trying to breathe new life into the bill with a long shot effort to bring it back for a vote in May.

Or at least keep it on life support through the two-week April recess when they’ll otherwise have to explain the bill’s derailment back home. “We’re on the eve of going home and spending two weeks with our constituents … and they know they’re going to get questions about this,” said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark. “And for the people who were ‘no’ they’ll have justification to deal with.”

Womack, who was a “yes” on the GOP’s American Health Care Act, said despite encouraging talk from some corners of the House, a revival was not in sight.

“I did not get the message from our conference this morning that we’re nearing the finish on health care,” he said. “It’s obvious those negotiations continue to take place — and there might be some movement in some areas that give leadership some hope we can get closer to the finish line — but I’m not suggesting at all that we are right there and this thing could change on a dime.”

The 30-some members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, led by Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., are in active talks with the administration — in the aftermath of a skirmish between some of the group’s members and Trump over the failure of the health care bill. Those talks are being led by Vice President Pence, who spent Monday and Tuesday in the Capitol huddling with different factions of House Republicans.

According to lawmakers and aides briefed on the negotiations, conservatives are talking with the White House about tweaking AHCA to allow states to seek waivers of Obamacare’s requirements for “essential health benefits,” or basic health care services all insurance plans must offer, as well as restrictions on “community ratings,” or how much insurers can charge for premiums based on age and gender.

Originally, conservatives wanted to repeal those aspects of the law entirely to allow for health plans with lower premiums. Now there are talks about keeping them in place but allowing states to appeal to the Department of Health and Human Services to waive them on a state-by-state basis.

It’s far less than conservatives had hoped for in negotiations. “It perhaps is as much of a repeal as we can get done,” conceded Meadows, according to the Associated Press. “That’s the calculation we have to make.”

The talks have not so far publicly brought on board any of the moderate Republicans who already opposed rolling back essential health benefits or who worry that doing so would raise costs on people with pre-existing conditions. The talks also ignore the fact that many of the GOP’s “no” votes were based on the legislation’s sweeping changes to how Medicaid is funded, and the current negotiations don’t address those concerns at all.

It’s also unclear that including the updated proposal into the bill would even secure the votes of enough House Freedom Caucus members to pass it. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., is still a “no” and said his colleagues should not expect the conservative faction to vote as a bloc.

“For some reason, some in the media think that we vote lockstep with each other. That is categorically not the case. If you were to think of us more as an intellectual conservative think tank with a backbone, that’s what we are,” Brooks told reporters.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., spoke cautiously of the effort, describing talks as in “the conceptual stage” and saying that any action before the April recess was highly unlikely. “We want to make sure that when we go, we have the votes to pass this bill,” he said.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer was similarly cautious. “I’m not going to raise expectations, but I think that there are more and more people coming to the table with more and more ideas about how to grow that vote.”

The House is operating under a tight timeline. Republicans on all sides of this debate agree that May is a make-or-break deadline for the bill because of budgetary constraints. The health care bill is moving under a process protected by this year’s budget resolution. Once Congress begins moving on next year’s resolution, the budget protections for their health care bill expire.

Even if the House can muscle up the votes to revive the bill next month, it still must clear the Senate, which is expected to make significant changes to the House bill, and then the House would have to pass it again.

Politically, most Republicans say they do not want to drag out the health care debate longer than they have to if it’s clear it can’t pass. The only thing worse than failing once to deliver on a central campaign promise is failing twice.

“Let me just tell you what we can’t do — we can’t try again and fail,” Womack said. “So there will not be a try-again effort unless it is certain that we have the votes to pass it.”

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Business April 4, 2017

AFL-CIO's Trumka Says Both Parties Have Lost Focus On U.S. Workers

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka speaks Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington.

Alex Brandon/AP

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Alex Brandon/AP

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka laid out his vision for organized labor Tuesday, taking on both political parties for catering to moneyed interests instead of focusing on the plight of American workers — the hallmark of the presidential campaign.

“Republicans, and too many Democrats, have rigged our economy to enrich a select few,” the union chief told an audience at the National Press Club.

“Give every worker out there the right to bargain with their employer for better wages, better working conditions whether you have a union or not,” he said.

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Trumka’s cautionary messages about allowing corporations to enrich themselves at the expense of workers, and the dangers of deregulation struck a familiar theme for unions. But the speech was also notable for the way it veered from traditional party politics, calling attention to a growing rift in the once-solid relationship between unions and the Democratic Party.

“We’ll stand up to the corporate Republicans who attack working people and the neoliberal Democrats who take us for granted,” Trumka said. During the last election, 37 percent of the AFL-CIO’s membership voted for Trump. Both parties, he argued, are struggling with an identity crisis.

In the early days, Trumka and other union leaders supported the Trump administration’s position against the Trans-Pacific Partnership and its promise to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement. But more recently, he said, the administration has lost its focus on workers in favor of relaxing rules on employers.

“There is a Wall Street wing that seeks to undermine Donald Trump’s promises to workers, and there’s a competing wing that could actually win some progress that working people need,” he said. “I’m concerned that the Wall Street wing of the White House is starting to hijack the agenda.”

Unions are not what they were during Trumka’s childhood in Pennsylvania coal country, when about a third of all American workers were members of unions. That declined to about 20 percent in the early 1980s. Now, it’s half that. Trumka himself referenced unions’ efforts to reverse that trend, including organizing efforts with white collar workers such as graduate students and technology professionals, as well as hotel and fast-food workers.

Trumka also called on workers to advocate for their interests with their employers, whether or not they can join a union.

Aparna Mathur, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, said the message is a big departure from the decades-long emphasis unions have had on increasing membership.

“I think it is a recognition that, at some level, what unions did 50 years ago is not what they are able to do today,” she said.

Mathur said there are pragmatic realities facing unions. There is less interest in union membership among workers. Now, 28 states have right-to-work laws that prohibit unions from compelling the payment of dues or representation.

Unions are weaker, she said, and Trumka is trying to keep the worker movement going, with or without unions.

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Sports April 4, 2017

NCAA Returning To North Carolina After Partial Repeal Of 'Bathroom Bill'

The second round of the 2016 NCAA men’s basketball tournament at PNC Arena in Raleigh, N.C. The NCAA pulled championship events from the state this year because of the controversial “bathroom bill”; the sporting events will now be returning.

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

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Streeter Lecka/Getty Images

The NCAA is bringing sporting events back to North Carolina after state lawmakers repealed large portions of the controversial “Bathroom Bill” — although the collegiate sports organization isn’t exactly enthused about the deal.

In a statement on Monday, the group says its governors reached their decision “reluctantly.”

That law, which was passed more than a year ago, required transgender people to use bathrooms corresponding to the sex on their birth certificate and blocked cities and counties from passing protections for LGBT people, among other things.

In response, the NCAA pulled planned championship events from North Carolina, saying the law would make it “challenging” to promote an inclusive atmosphere at sporting events.

Last week, North Carolina lawmakers reached a compromise to repeal most of the effects of the law, known as House Bill 2 or HB2. The deal prohibits local communities from passing anti-discrimination ordinances for at least three years. That will block cities from imposing their own protections for LGBT people.

As we reported, the deal made a lot of people unhappy. Conservative supporters of HB2 saw it as a betrayal of principle. Supporters of LGBT rights, meanwhile, denounced the prohibition on LGBT protections.

The NCAA isn’t delighted either.

“As with most compromises, this new law is far from perfect,” the group said in a statement. The NCAA governors worried that by blocking cities from protecting “basic civil rights,” the state was sending “a signal that discriminatory behavior is permitted and acceptable.”

But the NCAA also noted that the situation in North Carolina now resembles that in other places where the group willingly holds championships. (In most states, it is legal to discriminate against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and at least one other state bars local anti-discrimination ordinances.)

In short, the NCAA determined the compromise reached in North Carolina “has minimally achieved a situation where we believe NCAA championships may be conducted in a nondiscriminatory environment.”

Championships scheduled for 2017-2018 will be held as originally planned in North Carolina, and the state will be considered for future championship bids.

The NCAA reserves the right to “take necessary action” if it finds the environment in North Carolina prevents it from enforcing its own anti-discrimination policies.

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