Hasta La Gadget!

The Democratic establishment and liberal commentariat lathered itself into a fine hysteria last week. What began as a Clinton surrogate meme -(Bernie has done his job, but now he’s hurting Clinton and should get out of the race) – became a maddened chorus. The predictably angry reaction of Sanders delegates –and truly deplorable behavior by some –to preemptory rulings by a pro-Clinton Nevada party chair was blown into a mythical scene of chair-throwing violence, based largely on a report by a biased reporter who wasn’t even there. The divisive DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz did her best to escalate rather than defuse the situation. Zealous Clinton advocates like Barney Frank and Paul Krugman slurred Sanders character because he wouldn’t drop out of the race. Pundits like Eugene Robinson (“behaving like a two year old”) and Jonathan Chait (“maddeningly narcissistic”) piled on. Sanders voters were scorned as befuddled innocents who can’t do addition, or, as Hillary Clinton earlier suggested, dupes that are being misled by Sanders misinformation. The New York Times and the Washington Post fanned the fames with alarmist headlines.

Slurs and insults are an odd way to build party unity. What is this fit of hysteria about? What has Sanders done to trigger this circular firing squad? What does Bernie want?

What Bernie Wants

Sanders’ intentions are not a secret. He has stated them clearly from the beginning of his remarkable presidential run. He hopes to win the nomination. And he intends to build a “political revolution” to change the direction of the party and the country, to challenge the corrupted politics and rigged rules that work only for the few and not the vast majority.

As movement builder, he has every reason to stay in the race. He’s still drawing stunning crowds. He’s still energizing a new generation. He has a responsibility to take his message across the country, to educate and proselytize.

As a candidate, he stays in the race because voters keep him in. He still has a shot – however small – at the nomination. He keeps gaining momentum. He’s won 5 of the last six primary contests, and basically tied the sixth (Kentucky). He won the closed primary in Oregon even after the mainstream media press declared that the race was over. He’s now got a chance to win California, in a primary marked by the diversity of its voters. His campaign raised more from its small donors than the Clinton campaign for the fourth month in a row in April.

As things stand now, Clinton seems certain to finish the primary season with more elected delegates than Sanders and with more total votes. If elected delegates chose the nominee, she would win. But they don’t. Clinton will not have won the required majority of the delegates to the Democratic Convention, because the rules of the party say that the 712 superdelegates who are appointed, not elected, get to vote for whomever they think is the stronger candidate. These are party officials, politicians, and leaders of DNC accredited institutions. They constitute 15% of the convention voters and will determine who is the nominee.

Playing by those rules, Sanders says he will appeal to those delegates to choose him when they cast their vote at the convention. He has a strong argument to make, particularly if he wins California. He’s the only candidate left standing whom Americans view favorably. Clinton suffers historic levels of disfavor, exceeded only by that of Donald Trump. Coming from nowhere, Sanders has grown stronger as his message has spread. Sanders runs better against Trump than Clinton in both national and most swing state polls. He fares far better among independents. He is more likely to inspire and turn out vital millennial voters. His message – and his integrity – will be a stark contrast to the bombast and duplicity of Trump. Surely he has a case to make.

So Sanders continues his critique of Hillary Clinton on issues and on the big money fueling her campaign. He continues to call on the Democratic Party to “open its doors and let the people in,” not remain a party “dependent on big money campaign contributions and… a party of limited energy.” [DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s tone deaf response to that was to repeal Obama’s ban on lobbyist contributions to the Democratic Convention).

Sanders has already made it clear that if he doesn’t win the nomination, he will endorse and stump for the winner. The most notable addition to his stump speech recently has been an extended attack on Donald Trump, featuring the riff: “I come from the working class of this country, and I will be damned if we will allow the Republican Party…to win the votes of working class Americans.”

Democratic voters seem at ease with Sanders’ course. A recent CBS/NY Times poll showed that by 59-34% Democratic voters say that the “long race for the nomination” will help the Democrats in November rather than hurt it. (And the number is a sharp contrast with 2008, when by a virtual reverse margin (38-54%) Democrats thought the long race hurt the party in November.) By 50 to 48, Democrats describe the party as united rather than divided, again a stark contrast with 2008 when by 56 to 42% Democrats thought the party divided. By 83-14%, Democratic voters already say they’ll support Clinton if she becomes the nominee. The hand wringing about Sanders dividing the party seems overwrought at best.

House leader Nancy Pelosi, one of the few Democratic leaders not to lose her head in the past days, has it right. She praised Sanders “as a positive force in the Democratic Party,” saying “he’s has awakened in some people an interest in the political process that wasn’t there…And I think that’s positive.”

So why the hysteria?

The Clinton Problem

The problem, of course, isn’t the Sanders’ obstinacy; it is Clinton’s weakness. The Democratic establishment essentially cleared the field for her. She started with all of the money, all of the endorsements, universal name recognition, a forbidding lead in the polls, and her pick of the best campaign operatives. She’s battle-tested. She’s intelligent, with remarkable energy and unmatched experience. But somehow she can’t lock up a convention majority from elected delegates against a septuagenarian democratic Socialist who is funding his campaign with small donations.

Turns out the being the establishment candidate grates against the growing number of voters who realize the establishment has failed them. The big money backing Clinton had its costs when voters think our politics are corrupted. Her experience has liabilities, as she moved to disavow the policies her husband and she championed from trade deals like NAFTA and the TPP, to harsh and biased criminal sentencing measures, to banking deregulation and more. She is burdened by scandals, old and new, some self-inflicted, even if inflated by right-wing hit squads.

Worse, she chose to run as the candidate of continuity when voters are looking for change. She made herself the champion of incremental reforms when voters – particularly young voters — yearn for much more. She purposefully presented herself as more hawkish than Obama– an “interventionist” Joe Biden called her – at a time when voters are weary of endless wars without victory.

The result is she’s almost as unpopular as Trump is — and recent polls show him closing the margins between them.

That’s the cause of the hysteria. Clinton understandably doesn’t want to risk the embarrassment of losing to Sanders in California. The superdelegates are aghast that they might face pressure from Sanders supporters to vote for him. Their votes are supposed to be locked up in backroom deals. They aren’t accustomed to being held accountable for them, or to facing public pressure – phone calls, letters, demonstrations, and aggravations – on how they vote. But they set the rules. They could have gone to the convention as observers, but they wanted a vote. Putting themselves in the kitchen, they now complain about the heat.

The Democrats’ Dilemma

Donald Trump is utterly unfit to be president. He is a classic American bounder, a version of Melville’s confidence man, peddling scams, preying on hate and division, posturing with bluster and bunk, insult and idiocy. He’s utterly incapable of carrying a policy argument, adopting and shedding positions at will.

He’s blown apart the Republican Party, repelling its neo-conservative hawks, its establishment bankrollers, its suburbanite moderates, and its social conservative zealots. His sexism repulses women; his peddling of hate and racial division will mobilize people of color against him. His social conservatism and climate denial alienate millennials. His candidacy could well set the stage for a sea-change election, with sweeping Democratic victories up and down the ticket.

But Trump clearly has a genius for playing our media, particularly the increasingly abject cable news channels. He understands “branding,” and has brutally labeled each of his opponents. He’s wily as a fox in the supposed irresponsibility of his insults.

And unless the party’s establishment responds to Sanders, Democrats are likely to end up a candidate particularly vulnerable to Trump’s assault. For all of the Clinton campaign complaints, Sanders has been the courtliest of opponents. Trump has already shown he’ll have no such compunctions. And sadly, the Clintons provide numerous targets of opportunity, old and new. Along with raking through the scandals, Trump will paint Clinton as Obama’s third term, while indicting her interventionist foreign policy, her support of corporate trade deals, and her funding ties with Wall Street.

Americans are not likely to elect Donald Trump president of the United States, but the Democrats are about to present the nomination to one of the few candidates that could make the race close. For this, Sanders is not to blame. And if Clinton is the nominee, she’ll have more than enough time to frame her argument against Trump and to organize the broadest coalition against him.

Democratic Unity

To win a convincing victory and gain a mandate for change, Clinton would benefit greatly from the energy and passion of Sanders and his supporters. The campaign clearly believes it might gather in moderate, suburban Republicans, the professional class repulsed by Trump’s hate mongering and by his transparent lack of temperament or qualification to be president. The campaign may well decide that Trump will organize the Sanders voters for her. That would be a mistake. Young voters and Democratic leaning independents aren’t going to vote for Donald Trump, but they could easily stay home in large numbers.

No one likes a sore loser. But one of the hardest challenges in politics is to be a generous winner. If Clinton believes as she says that she will be the nominee, she should run hard to win California, while curbing the attack dogs, shutting down the attacks on Sanders’ character or his supporters’ intelligence. She should warn the superdelegates they’ll have to take the heat, even as she seeks to consolidate their support. She should begin paving the way for unity. Sensible first steps would be getting the poisonous Debbie Wasserman Schultz out of the way, and opening up the platform and rules committees to Sanders nominees. After California, she should reach out to Sanders directly.

And she would be wise to embrace not only the Sanders energy, but to move to adopt many of his themes, and champion some of his major reforms. Sanders will no doubt endorse, if he loses the nomination. But how his followers respond – the energy and enthusiasm they bring to the general election — will be far more dependent on what Clinton does and how she runs than on his endorsement.

— 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.

Blizzard has come up with a classy, and creative, way to celebrate the upcoming release of Overwatch on May 24th: a series of huge sculptures installed in several locations around the world, depicting some of the game’s characters as boxed-up action figures. And when I say huge, I mean they weigh over 3 tons, and required a crane and several … Continue reading

Every May, we honor those who have made the ultimate sacrifice in our nation’s armed forces. Across our country, we’ll hear from politicians about the importance of “supporting our troops,” and “leaving no veteran behind.”

These are great soundbites, but fifteen years removed from 9/11–and in the wake of scandals at the VA, a mental health crisis that claims the lives of 22 veterans every day, and unacceptably high unemployment levels among our newest generation of returning warriors, it’s past time to define what this really means. Too often, actions simply don’t match the rhetoric.

A prime example of this disconnect is in the debate over State Prevailing Wage laws–rules that effectively establish the minimum wage for skilled construction work.

First established by two Republican US Senators back in the 1930’s, and broadly supported by leaders in both political parties until recently, at least eleven states have proposed or considered eliminating their prevailing wage standards in the last two years–including Illinois.

In the debate over these measures, the vast majority of peer-reviewed studies by reputable economists have concluded that prevailing wage laws do not increase public construction costs. These same studies have concluded that prevailing wage laws result in more local hiring, job growth across all economic sectors, safer worksites, higher quality workmanship and productivity, less spending on materials and fuels, and less poverty amongst blue collar construction workers.

Missing entirely from the debate over these laws is who they would impact the most. Military veterans, for example, pursue employment in the construction trades at substantially higher rates than non-veterans.

Even moreso in states with strong prevailing wage laws according to recent research commissioned by VoteVets.org.

This should not be surprising. The military has increasingly focused on promoting skilled apprenticeships to help veterans transitioning to the civilian world, and now provides over 20% of the registered apprenticeships in the country. And the teambuilding, problem solving, and project management skills honed on the battlefield translate well to these occupations.

What simply doesn’t translate well is the “support the troops” rhetoric from politicians who are calling to repeal these laws, as they do the bidding of groups affiliated with the Koch Brothers and the trough of bad ideas known as the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

A repeal of state prevailing wage laws would be an economic disaster for veterans—costing nearly 65,000 veterans their jobs, nearly 24,000 their employer-based health coverage, and forcing nearly 8,000 Veteran-owned construction businesses to close their door – permanently. It would also impose a $3 billion pay cut on veterans nationwide, and increase the number of veteran construction workers living in poverty by 50 percent.

But that didn’t stop the West Virginia legislature from repealing Prevailing Wage earlier this year.

It didn’t stop Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker from signing a prevailing wage repeal that disproportionately affects veterans in his state into law, even as he was campaigning to be our Commander in Chief in 2015.

And it didn’t stop Indiana Governor Mike Pence from doing the same thing the year before.

And sadly, it hasn’t stopped Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner from advocating repeal in Illinois.

So the next time you hear a politician claim to support the troops, ask him or her if that includes supporting prevailing wage laws.

If it does, you’ll know they stand on the side of helping more veterans put their skills to work in their communities and access ladders to the middle class. If it doesn’t, we’ll all be able to see their rhetoric for what it is: an empty charade.

— 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.

This news just might Rag-na-rok you. 

Anthony Hopkins once left a life in the theater due to the stressful schedule and the requirement to perform the same roles over and over. Well, so much for that idea.

In addition to semi-returning to the stage in a TV adaptation of “The Dresser,” in which he plays a stage actor, Hopkins confirmed to The Huffington Post that he’s also reprising his old role of Odin in the newest “Thor” installment, “Thor: Ragnarok.”

“Yes,” said the actor when asked if he plans on returning to film “Ragnarok.” “In our studio in August, I think. July or August, yes.”

His busy schedule wasn’t the only thing making a return questionable. Up until now, everyone thought Odin was dead. Why? Mostly because Hopkins said so.

“He’s dead. I’ve done two, that’s enough,” Hopkins said in 2013.

Yeah, sounds super dead to me. Or, he was anyway.

In “The Dresser,” Hopkins plays Sir, an aging actor who’s prompted by his assistant to perform despite losing his mind to illness — not to mention bombs are dropping during World War II.

Hopkins said the return to the world of theater and the prospect of working alongside his co-star Ian McKellen was what drew him to the role. He described “The Dresser” as “a film devoted to the life [he] once lived,” saying, “I just wanted to prove to myself I could do it.” And that’s exactly what he did.

“The Dresser” has been receiving rave reviews for the performances of both Hopkins and McKellen. Hopkins said, “It’s the best thing I’ve been involved in in many years.”

Or … it will be until Odin returns.

Yep. I got chills. And it’s not just from the frost giants.

— 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.

The ability to make and receive payments electronically has emerged, in recent years, as a technology hero during natural disasters and health pandemics. At a time when more people than ever are affected by conflict and crisis, there is good news.

In many cases, payments through smart cards, mobile phones and even iris scans have enabled faster and more transparent emergency response work, transferring funds rapidly and safely in a way that cash and in-kind donations could not. As the first United Nations World Humanitarian Summit convenes in Istanbul next week, the theme of innovation in humanitarian emergencies will be front and center. Governments, aid organizations and the private sector should pay close attention to the power of digital payments. Here are five ways going digital has already come to the rescue.

1. Mobile Phone Wallets: Saving Money, Saving Lives in Sierra Leone
The Ebola virus outbreak that began two years ago in West Africa claimed over 11,000 lives. In Sierra Leone, the government turned to an unexpected tool to help battle the virus: mobile wallets. A new UN report published today reveals that mobile payments to emergency workers dramatically shortened payment times and minimized fraud during the outbreak. By shifting from cash to digital, faster and more reliable payments prevented strikes which were seeing 800 working days lost from the Ebola Response Workforce each month. Preventing these strikes enabled health services to reach more families, ultimately saving more lives.

Photo credit: United Nations

Mobile wallets also stopped double payments and streamlined payments, saving the country more than US$10 million. That’s enough to fund the country’s healthcare program that serves 1.4 million children and 250,000 pregnant women each year. The experience of Sierra Leone and other members of the Better Than Cash Alliance – a UN-hosted partnership of governments, companies, and international organizations that accelerates the transition from cash to digital payments – offers a lesson for other governments: Invest in a solid mobile payment infrastructure before the next crisis strikes.

2. Iris Scans: Easing the Burden on Syrian Refugees
More than 4.7 million Syrians refugees are on the move. Neighboring countries such as Jordan now house more than 640,000 refugees. Jordan was the first country in the world to use iris scan technology to enable refugees to access monthly cash assistance provided by The UN Refugee Agency. This year, the World Food Programme started using the same technology to allow Syrian refugees living in camps to purchase food items from local shops and plans to expand the project into new camps, including the largest camp, Za’atari.

3. E-vouchers: Modernizing Food Aid in Afghanistan
Following decades of emergencies and conflicts in Afghanistan, the World Food Programme made the transition to electronic vouchers in 2014, instead of paper vouchers, to make food aid distribution more efficient and secure. This pilot e-voucher program was designed for people with low levels of literacy, including many women in Afghanistan. More than 70,000 beneficiaries are now receiving their stipends via e-voucher through mobile phones. The program has achieved impressive results and helped further financial inclusion among poor communities. One hundred percent of participants surveyed reported a seamless customer experience redeeming their e-vouchers at local stores, according to a new UN report. In addition, the government of Afghanistan is now expanding mobile money payments for salaries.

Photo credit: United Nations

4. Crowdfunding platform: Responding to Natural Disasters in Bangladesh
Cash, checks and in-kind donations can be a logistical challenge when an unexpected natural disaster hits. Dhaka-based development organization BRAC has invested in an online platform to make it easier for people all over the world to make donations. The digital platform allows more people to seamlessly make contributions from their mobile phone, generating more donations and making a bigger impact.
For a country like Bangladesh that is prone to natural disasters, and has a large diaspora, these funds can play in critical role in helping families rebuild their lives. Floods and cyclones pose the greatest threat to Bangladesh, while earthquakes, droughts, and landslides frequently strike highly populated areas. Pooling funds and making it easier for people to become donors will ultimately make a difference to people facing disasters.

5. Debit cards: Rebuilding Chile after the Earthquake
In 2010, the world’s fifth largest earthquake on record hit Chile, killing 720 people and destroying buildings and infrastructure. In response, the Chilean government and humanitarian agencies turned to digital payments to get their citizens and cities back on their feet. The Chilean Red Cross launched ‘Tarjeta RED’ – a debit card program to help families pay for basic needs or to repair their homes. Tarjeta RED debit cards created a more effective recovery process while also saving time and empowering recipients.

These examples show how a range of digital payment types can fuel better, faster and more efficient emergency responses. We live in a world where technology is advancing rapidly and tools such as mobile phones are becoming ubiquitous, even for those who live on less than a few dollars a day. At the same time, there are more crises unfolding than ever before. The time is right for governments, humanitarian organizations and the private sector alike to invest in the infrastructure and create a policy environment that allows these digital payment tools to save and rebuild lives.

— 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.