Author Archives: PhyllisFontenot

It’s Happening—News Groups Are Being Barred From White House Press Briefings

by PhyllisFontenot Posted on February 24, 2017

Mother Jones

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From CNN:

CNN and other news organizations were blocked Friday from a White House press briefing….The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and Politico were also excluded from the meeting, which is known as a gaggle and is less formal than the televised Q-and-A session in the White House briefing room.

The Associated Press and Time magazine boycotted the briefing because of how it was handled. The White House Correspondents Association is protesting.

The conservative media organizations Breitbart News, The Washington Times and One America News Network were allowed in.

A few days ago, there was some talk about whether Trump would slow-walk federal disaster relief for the Oroville Dam area. As it turned out, he didn’t, but the possibility was taken seriously for a while.

This is what makes the Trump presidency so unpredictable. No modern president would even think of taking revenge on a state that voted against him by refusing disaster aid. No modern president would dream of evicting news outlets from a press briefing because they had criticized him. No modern president would lie about easily checkable facts on a routine basis. No modern president would loudly cite every positive bit of economic news as a personal triumph. No modern president since Nixon would casually ask the FBI to take its side in an ongoing investigation.

It’s not that modern presidents couldn’t do these things. They just didn’t. And we all came to assume that none of them would. The technical machinery of government—collecting data, hiring staffers, working by the rules—would be left alone to operate in a professional and impartial way. But that’s no longer something we can assume.

Trump is going to find lots of things like this. Things that nobody ever thought of before, but aren’t illegal. Or maybe just slightly illegal. And he’s going to use them to demagogue his enemies and take revenge on people who badmouth him. Fasten your seat belts.

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It’s Happening—News Groups Are Being Barred From White House Press Briefings

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The Surprising Gaps in HIV Care for Louisiana Prisoners

by PhyllisFontenot Posted on March 29, 2016

Mother Jones

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With the highest diagnosis rate of any state, Louisiana is a hotbed for new HIV cases, and the groups at greatest risk of infection are the same as those most likely to be imprisoned in the state’s sprawling corrections system: people who inject drugs, sex workers, the poor and racial minorities. But a new report from Human Rights Watch found that for some HIV-positive Louisiana prisoners, medical care is delayed or non-existent, depending on the facility where they are housed.

Louisiana’s nine state-level prisons operate testing programs and transfer inmates to HIV case management resources when they are released. However, only a handful of the state’s 104 parish jails conduct regular testing, with some HIV-positive inmates experiencing treatment that is “delayed, interrupted, and in some cases denied altogether,” according to the report.

That’s significant because more than 40 percent of Louisiana’s incarcerated population is housed in parish jails—including 16,877 convicted offenders and a whopping 12,602 pre-trial detainees at the end of last year. Officials in the Louisiana Department of Corrections told Human Rights Watch that all HIV-positive inmates are transferred from parish jails to states prisons. Yet, Human Rights Watch researchers found that jail inmates don’t get HIV care in state prisons unless the inmates already know their status and choose to disclose it, or until they develop symptoms.

What’s more, in some cases, when inmates did disclose their status, some still did not receive testing or medication unless a friend or family member could bring their pills into the jail. Although the East Baton Rouge Correctional Center has a large medical staff, it does not test new arrivals, the jail’s director of medical services Linda Otteson told researchers. “We cannot afford to treat them if they are positive,” Otteson said.

The result? Parish jail inmates can go weeks or months without treatment, potentially resulting in higher viral loads, increased resistance to medication, and a greater likelihood of infecting others, according to the report.

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The Surprising Gaps in HIV Care for Louisiana Prisoners

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Senator Sanders, Why Do You Hate President Obama?

by PhyllisFontenot Posted on February 12, 2016

Mother Jones

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Most of last night’s debate was pretty familiar territory. But toward the end, Hillary Clinton unleashed a brand new attack:

Today Senator Sanders said that President Obama failed the presidential leadership test….In the past he has called him weak. He has called him a disappointment. He wrote a forward for a book that basically argued voters should have buyers’ remorse when it comes to President Obama’s leadership and legacy.

….The kind of criticism that we’ve heard from Senator Sanders about our president I expect from Republicans….What I am concerned about is not disagreement on issues, saying that this is what I would rather do, I don’t agree with the president on that. Calling the president weak, calling him a disappointment, calling several times that he should have a primary opponent when he ran for re-election in 2012, you know, I think that goes further than saying we have our disagreements.

….I understand we can disagree on the path forward. But those kinds of personal assessments and charges are ones that I find particularly troubling.

The problem Sanders has here is that this is a pretty righteous attack. Back in 2011 he really did say, “I think there are millions of Americans who are deeply disappointed in the president…who cannot believe how weak he has been, for whatever reason, in negotiating with Republicans and there’s deep disappointment.” And he really did push the idea of a primary challenger to Obama. And he really did write a blurb for Buyer’s Remorse: How Obama let Progressives Down. So there’s not much he can do about this attack except sound offended and insist that everyone has a right to criticize the president.

But will it work? It was actually the only hit last night that struck me as genuinely effective. Obama still has a lot of fans who are probably surprised to hear that Sanders has been so tough on their guy. If Hillary Clinton keeps up this line, it might be pretty damaging.

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Senator Sanders, Why Do You Hate President Obama?

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