In response to the White House press team’s troubling habit of refusing to do on-camera press briefings, CNN has found a workaround that also functions as a dry critique: It sent in a courtroom sketch artist.
The images Friday provided a much-needed visual element for CNN, and also highlight the silliness of Trump Administration officials refusing to be seen speaking for the chief executive. (Accountability is important, given the president’s propensity for lying, which is meticulously documented here.)
Asked this week why briefings are being held off-camera, Trump adviser Steve Bannon explained, “Sean got fat,” referring to embattled press secretary Sean Spicer.
It’s great that everyone — or at least Bannon and CNN — have such a great sense of humor about the White House’s latest refusal to be held accountable for the things that come out of its officials’ mouths. But many of CNN’s critics — many of whom are also CNN fans — have another idea for how CNN and other officials could handle the no-cameras order:
By rejecting it.
Dear @CNN, I don't want to see drawings by your sketch artist. I want to see you refuse to turn off your cameras when ordered by Trump & Co.
“Dear @CNN, I don’t want to see drawings by your sketch artist. I want to see you refuse to turn off your cameras when ordered by Trump & Co.,” wrote environmental scientist Peter Gleick.
the cnn courtroom sketch artist is kind of cutesy ha ha but they could just turn on the camera and dare spicer to shut them down
“The CNN courtroom sketch artist is kind of cutesy ha ha but they could just turn on the camera and dare Spicer to shut them down,” noted liberal writer Oliver Willis.
WHITE HOUSE: Let's undermine the press and destroy democratic norms
WHITE HOUSE PRESS: Let's send a sketch artist in protest
People on the right didn’t like the sketch idea, either.
“File this one under, ‘no, this not a joke,'” wrote NewsBusters. “For Friday’s off-camera White House press briefing, CNN hired a sketch artist to render images of press secretary Sean Spicer as yet another example of their pathetic meltdowns over the Trump communications team’s decisions about access.”
CNN did not respond to TheWrap’s request for comment. But CNN’s Jim Acosta, one of the biggest critics of the off-camera briefings, also weighed in on Twitter, as did CNN:
So sketchy to not have cameras at WH briefing. So CNN sent sketch artist to capture the moment. pic.twitter.com/tNAoDHkozj
It seems like mixed reviews at best for CNN’s art project. Back to the drawing board?
Susan Seager contributed to this story.
9 Movies to Remind You How Bad US Health Care Used to Be - And Might Be Again (Photos)
The Republicans are continuing their attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, with the Senate voting to push a repeal bill to floor debate. The bill looks to roll back a number of the protections put in place by the ACA to protect Americans from issues like being denied coverage for pre-existing conditions or hitting lifetime limits on care. But people hated American health care so much before 2010, Hollywood made plenty of movies, TV shows and documentaries about it. Here's a list of films that are a helpful reminder of how American health care used to be in the pre-2010 world.
"As Good As It Gets" (1997) Everyone remembers Jack Nicholson’s obsessive-compulsive jerk of a writer, Melvin. What's easy to forget is he uses his substantial wealth to bail out a waitress (Helen Hunt) from her son’s high medical bills for his asthma. She notes how she gets screwed by — guess who — her HMO when a doctor hired by Melvin shows up to give her son actual, competent medical care.
"Last Holiday" (2006) Greed bad, kindness good. That’s the moral of “Last Holiday,” in which Queen Latifah goes on an expensive vacation after learning she has a brain tumor that will kill her. Of course, her insurance won’t cover risky life-saving surgery. Latifah makes friends with almost everyone she meets at the hotel and they learn from her example. And then it turns out the tumor diagnosis was a mistake, so everyone wins.
"Dallas Buyers Club" (2013) Taking on the Food and Drug Administration rather than insurance companies, “Dallas Buyers Club” focuses on how federal foot-dragging kept life-saving drugs out of the hands of AIDS patients in the 1980s. Matthew McConaughey fights for the right to take an unapproved drug and wins, and learns to be less of a terrible person along the way.
"Critical Care" (1997) Getting the flipside of the healthcare debate, “Critical Care” is all about the level of care you receive when you have good insurance. Focusing on a man in a vegetative state, James Spader finds himself playing a doctor who wonders if it’s ethically cool to just keep people alive (and maybe suffering) because it’s profitable.
"Breaking Bad" (2008) Everyone knows Walter White (Bryan Cranston) becomes Heisenberg, a meth-making Albuquerque kingpin, but they might not remember why: medical bills. Walt receives a cancer diagnosis that he fears will bankrupt his family, and meth is a way for him to leave them enough money to survive before he goes. With issues like pre-existing conditions on their way back, it seems likely lots of people will be searching for extracurricular ways to pay their medical bills, and gofundme campaigns can only go so far.
"Sicko" (2007) Documentarian Michael Moore picks apart the healthcare system and highlights the people it leaves behind. That includes 9/11 first responders in New York. The film digs into the history and issues of the U.S. employer-based insurance system -- a lot of which will come back under the Republican bill -- and compares it to alternatives like those in Cuba, Canada and the United Kingdom.
"The Rainmaker" (1997) A John Grisham David v. Goliath legal story, “The Rainmaker” sees Matt Damon and Danny DeVito take an extremely evil insurance company to court. The extremely evil insurer denies coverage to a couple whose son is dying of leukemia, but Damon and DeVito eventually wallop it in court. The reality of fighting insurance companies in court in the future will likely be less uplifting.
"Saw VI" (2009) The infamous Jigsaw killer targets the guy who denied him insurance coverage for an experimental cancer treatment. Jigsaw’s revenge: Make the guy who decides who lives and who dies for a living do it in a much more hands-on, gory way. At the end of the movie, another family he decided not to cover gets to choose whether to melt the insurance guy with acid. Guess which option they pick.
"John Q" (2002) Denzel Washington plays a man whose son needs a heart transplant, but a technicality means his insurance won't cover it. He takes an emergency room hostage, but, since everyone knows how evil insurance companies are, he manages to befriend everyone there. And then his son gets his operation, and John saves the healthcare system.
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As Trump-threatened repeal vote looms, here’s a look back at how Hollywood covered the problems of the pre-Obamacare healthcare industry
The Republicans are continuing their attempt at repealing the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, with the Senate voting to push a repeal bill to floor debate. The bill looks to roll back a number of the protections put in place by the ACA to protect Americans from issues like being denied coverage for pre-existing conditions or hitting lifetime limits on care. But people hated American health care so much before 2010, Hollywood made plenty of movies, TV shows and documentaries about it. Here's a list of films that are a helpful reminder of how American health care used to be in the pre-2010 world.
