CNN.com

After SOTU, CNN Contributor Reprises a Five Year-old Line: 'A Speech by Barack Obama Is a Lot Like Sex'
By Tom Blumer | January 29, 2014 | 12:05 AM EST

I guess when you've run out of anything meaningful to say, you revert to your tired old one-liners, even when they are — or should be — embarrassing.

In early 2009, five days after President Obama's first State of the Union speech, Alex Castellanos, who at the time was apparenty a "Republican strategist," said the following on a CNN Sunday show: "I think, as a friend told me once, that -- listening to Barack Obama give a speech is like sex. The worse there ever was, was excellent." Tuesday night, as Politico's Lucy McCalmont reports, Castellanos was at it again:

Poll Showing Most Americans Believe Economy Is and Will Stay in Poor Shape Puzzles Politico, CNN
By Tom Blumer | December 31, 2013 | 9:36 AM EST

One thing the establishment press will not be celebrating this evening as we head into 2014 is the fact that they have been unable to convince the American people that the economy has been and will continue to be on the rebound.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released on Friday, which "oddly enough" (no, not really) is not being touted at ORC's related press release web page, shows that 68 percent of Americans believe the economy is in poor shape. Over half expect the economy to be in that condition a year from now. This came as somewhat of a surprise to Lucy McCalmont at the Politico and Gregory Wallace at CNNMoney.com.

White House Cravenly Uses de Blasio Daughter's Fight With Depression and Substance Abuse to Promote Obamacare
By Tom Blumer | December 28, 2013 | 9:56 AM EST

Remember when George W. Bush was intensely criticized in 2004 for using a couple of seconds of footage from the World Trade Center attacks in a campaign commercial? He was "exploiting" 9/11. Let's talk about an example of really crass exploitation which the press has largely ignored.

As reported by Politico's Joseph Delreal, recently elected New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio's daughter Chiara recently opened up "about her struggles with depression and substance abuse and for her decision to seek treatment." White House National Drug Policy Director Gil Kerlikowske, "in a statement issued by the White House," praised "her and the entire de Blasio family for addressing this important public health issue." Fair enough. But he went one step further, as seen after the jump:

Denver Post Editor Offers Lame, Insulting Defense For Removing 'Socialist' From Description of Accused Colo. High School Shooter
By Tom Blumer | December 16, 2013 | 9:15 AM EST

Earlier this morning, Joe Newby at NewsBusters posted on the Denver Post's scrubbing of the word "socialist" from a fellow student's description of Karl Pierson, who police say shot two other students and then took his own life at Arapahoe High School on Friday. The Post story originally said that classmate Thomas Conrad described him as "a very opinionated Socialist." Sometime later, the Post watered the description down to "very opinionated" without telling readers what it had done.

Wait until you see the lame, condescending attempt at a defense offered by Post Senior Editor for News Lee Ann Colacioppo in a tweeted response to a reader's challenge on Saturday afternoon:

Reporting Bob Filner's Sentencing, ABC, CNN, MSNBC Websites All Omit Fact He's a Democrat
By Ken Shepherd | December 9, 2013 | 3:08 PM EST

This morning, Bob Filner (D) was sentenced to "90 days home confinement as punishment for three criminal charges connected to the sexual harassment scandal that ended his term as San Diego mayor," according to NBCSanDiego.com staffers Monica Garske and R. Stickney, who failed to mention Filner's Democratic Party affiliation in their story.

But Garske and Stickney are not alone among their peers in omitting Filner's party affiliation. Besides NBCNews.com -- which linked to the aforementioned NBC San Diego story -- ABCNews.com, and CNN.com all similarly left out reference to the California Democrat's party allegiance. CBSNews.com and FoxNews.com ran an Associated Press story which mentioned Filner's political persuasion in the final paragraph. MSNBC.com also omitted the Democratic label from their story, although, curiously, the story was filed under a "Democrats" topic tag (see screen capture below):

Story on CNN Poll Showing 'Jump in Percentage of Those Saying Things Not Going Well' (to 59%) Hard to Find
By Tom Blumer | November 29, 2013 | 10:45 PM EST

Newsmax had an interesting item this evening about a CNN/Opinion Research poll released Friday. The poll shows that "Americans views on the state of the nation are turning increasingly sour." Specifically, "Fifty-nine percent say things are going badly, up nine points from April." The inverse of that, i.e., the 41% who feel that things are going well, is "the lowest that number has been in CNN polling since February 2012."

One would think that this news would be prominently displayed at CNN's U.S. home page, given that as of 10 p.m. the related story was less than 12 hours old. Well, it isn't.

CNN.com Puts 'Religious Liberty' in Scare Quotes in SCOTUS/Hobby Lobby Case
By Ken Shepherd | November 26, 2013 | 6:43 PM EST

Hobby Lobby's complaint about infringement of religious freedom is deserving of scorn in the eyes of CNN, judging by the way the network's website treated news of the Supreme Court agreeing to take up a case in March which would decide if ObamaCare's ironclad contraception mandate is an unconstitutional intrusion on a business owner's religious liberty.

Reporting the story this afternoon, CNN.com Supreme Court producer Bill Mears put the term "religious liberty" in scare quotes in his lead paragraph:

CNN Trumpets 10k Per Day 'Applying' for Obamacare in CA; No Mention of How Many Paid
By P.J. Gladnick | November 22, 2013 | 7:08 AM EST

Looky Loo: A term for someone who looks at something with no intention of buying it.

CNN Money published an article trumpeting the fact that 10,000 per day were "applying" (also "registering") on the California Obamacare website, Covered California. Among the many statistics happily tossed out by the reporter, Tami Luhby, one is notably missing. The most important stat of them all: how many people actually paid for an Obamacare insurance policy. So let us now join Ms Luhby reciting the California Obamacare statistics...except for the most vital one:

CMS Official Says '30 to 40 Percent' of Federal Exchange Not Working; CNN Ignores
By Matt Hadro | November 20, 2013 | 4:13 PM EST

On Tuesday and Wednesday, CNN ignored a bombshell revelation that "30 to 40" percent of the online federal exchange has not been completed almost two months after its rollout.

CNN prefaced the hearing Tuesday morning by reporting that ObamaCare's "top technology manager" Henry Chao was set to testify before Congress. Although CNN.com reported Chao's words, the network completely missed the story.

Christiane Amanpour Calls Obama Admin Most 'Litigious Against Journalists' 'In Decades'
By Matt Hadro | November 15, 2013 | 4:07 PM EST

CNN's Christiane Amanpour has a staunchly liberal track record, so perhaps it's surprising that she was so candid about the Obama administration overseas like she was in Morocco on Thursday.

According to CNN.com, Amanpour "described the U.S. administration of President Barack Obama as the most 'litigious against journalists that we have had in decades'."

Bill Maher to Piers Morgan: MSNBC 'Very Rarely Wrong,' CNN Lagging For 'Play(ing) It Down the Middle'
By Tom Blumer | November 3, 2013 | 1:03 PM EST

Bill Maher was a guest on Piers Morgan's CNN show on Tuesday night; the interview segment was replayed on Friday (thanks to NB's Noel Sheppard for that catch). Among other things, Maher confirmed that he is a member of the left's unreality-based community when he described MSNBC as "very rarely wrong" and Fox News's Bill O'Reilly as someone who "says something that is insanely off-base and not true" almost every night.

Maher also lamented what he sees as CNN's biggest problem: They're trying to "play it down the middle," and viewers don't want that.

Breaking News at CNN: Senate Democrats Voted to Kill Other Health Plans -- Three Years Ago
By Randy Hall | November 1, 2013 | 5:58 PM EDT

It's always interesting when people in the “mainstream” press catch up to something conservatives and Republicans have known for a long time.

That was the case when Chris Frates, an investigative correspondent at the Cable News Network, reported on Friday that "Senate Democrats voted unanimously three years ago to support the ObamaCare rule that is largely responsible for some of the health insurance cancellation letters that are going out.”