October News

by Mark Silva

Brian Williams already has gotten a lot of public mileage out of his private time with President Barack Obama, in preparation for a day-in-the-life of the president series that NBC News will air this week, Tuesday and Wednesday nights.

The anchorman got the president to walk his Supreme Court nominee back from the remark she made about the relative wisdom of Latino women, as compared with white men. He got the president to say that he's not interested in the government owning GM. -- just a 60 percent stake, for now.

"Our viewers will see a view of the White House never televised before,'' Williims says of his program, Inside the Obama White House. "Senior staff, the president himself, the first lady and yes... Bo will make an appearance with us on television.''

Williams tells of a president who is not confined to the Oval Office, who walks from study to study dropping in on sessions, popping m&m's for snacks along the way.

"We had something like 20 camera crews....we have something like 150 hours of video tape,'' he says, and that's after a day in the White House last week, which Williams will follow up with another interview of Obama on Tuesday. "e're going through all of this to distill it down to two hours.

Williams also got a cheeseburger out of the deal - joining the president in his outing for a take-out pickup of burgers at a Five Guys in Washington.

Williams also asked Obama about the early part of his day that he hadn't seen: "I got my workout in,'' Obama said, "saw the girls off to school... always eat a hearty breakfast.''

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An AIDS conference scheduled for this week in Washington, DC, will not have 60 participants - Canadians who could not enter the US because they have HIV and didn't realize that they still had to jump through several hoops to get a temporary waiver:

As many as 60 Canadians had been turned away from the U.S. border in spite of "stated U.S. policy that foreigners living with HIV would no longer be barred from entering the country." However, even though Congress acted to repeal the law that keeps HIV+ visitors out, relevant U.S. Department of Health & Human Services regulations have not been revised, and HIV+ visitors are still not allowed to enter the country... "The 60 Canadians had planned to attend the North American Housing and HIV/AIDS Research Summit in Washington, D.C. from June 2 to June 5."

The situation echoes a recent incident in which a Cuban unsuccessfully sought to remain in the U.S. under a 1966 American law that provides for permanent U.S. residency for those who emigrate to American shores from Cuba. But in the case of Raul Hernandez, the long-standing law was superceded by the ban on HIV+ foreigners, even though Hernandez had been living in Arlington, Virginia, reported The Southern Voice in a May 20 article.

The Obama administration seems unable or unwilling to expedite this. People with HIV outside America need to know that there has been no change and the discrimination against the HIV-positive continues despite the law change and despite the change in administration. Travelers beware. They can and will detain you or turn you back.

On Friday's Special Report with Bret Baier, FNC host Baier informed viewers that the Justice Department had dropped charges against New Black Panther members who engaged in blatant voter intimidation in Philadelphia last November. As previously documented by Newsbuster Noel Sheppard, last November Fox News ran a report by Rick Leventhal detailing the activity which was ignored by the mainstream media. On Friday's Special Report, Baier quoted a former 1960s civil rights lawyer: "The most blatant form of voter intimidation. They were positioned in a location that forced every voter to pass in close proximity to them. The weapon was openly displayed and brandished in plain sight of voters."

Below is a transcript of the report from the Friday, May 29, Special Report with Bret Baier on FNC, which aired during the show's "Political Grapevine" segment:

BRET BAIER: A lawsuit brought by the Bush administrationNew Black Panther Party has been dropped by the Obama Justice Department. The move comes despite an eye witness account of a You Tube video of the men seemingly attempting to scare away would-be voters on Election Day, an apparent violation of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The civil complaint accused the men of coercion, making threats, intimidation, and hurling racial slurs while at a Philadelphia polling station on November 4. Prosecutors say one of the men brandished a night stick, which they called a deadly weapon.

A former 1960's civil rights lawyer said in an affidavit that it was, quote, "The most blatant form of voter intimidation. They were positioned in a location that forced every voter to pass in close proximity to them. The weapon was openly displayed and brandished in plain sight of voters." A Justice Department spokesman said officials obtained "an injunction that prohibits the defendant, who brandished the weapon, from doing so again. Claims were dismissed from the other defendants based on a careful assessment of the facts and the law."