CNN Newsroom

CNN pushed for more gun control on the very day of the Aurora shootings – to the dismay of media critic Howard Kurtz – and host Candy Crowley continued the fight on Sunday and Monday.

In her Monday report, Crowley stressed the lack of "courage" – borrowing from a one gun control advocate – in today's Democratic Party to pursue firearms regulation. And when Senator Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) noted the lack of outrage over gun violence, Crowley agreed, "She's right." [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Four days after President Obama insulted job creators by asserting "If you've got a business, you didn't build that; somebody else made that happen," CNN finally reported the controversial remarks, and only once the Romney campaign featured them in a campaign attack.

In contrast, when Romney surrogate John Sununu said on Tuesday morning that he wished "this President would learn how to be an American," it only took CNN a few hours to jump on the remarks. The network mentioned them every hour between 1 p.m. and 6 p.m. and anchor Wolf Blitzer even brought Sununu on for an interview to explain himself.

CNN continues its brazen support of gay activists upset with the Boy Scouts. On Wednesday afternoon, anchor Don Lemon gave the sappiest of  interviews to former Cub Scout den leader and lesbian Jennifer Tyrell, booted from the organization because she is openly-gay.

Lemon asked saccharine questions like "You doing okay?" and "do you feel disrespected?" and "You sound a little sort of downtrodden." CNN boasts of itself as "The Most Trusted Name In News," but what kind of "news" are people getting with sentimental Oprah-style interviews during an election season? [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN's Jim Acosta bragged that his network does not call the Affordable Care Act "ObamaCare," a term he said Republicans prefer. However, CNN has repeatedly referred to the law as "ObamaCare" in its reporting.

"He [Romney] used the term 'ObamaCare,' which by the way, that's fine in Republican circles, but there are a lot of Democrats who sort of bristle at using the term 'ObamaCare'," Acosta explained on Wednesday after Mitt Romney used the term when addressing the Democratic-friendly NAACP. "We at CNN use the term 'the President's health care law,' at least in our news reporting," Acosta boasted. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

While CNN initially panned Mitt Romney's Wednesday reception by the NAACP as "very negative," anchor Kyra Phillips was quite jovial about Joe Biden quoting scripture to the audience the next day.

A gleeful Phillips gushed that Biden "rolled out the scripture. He got spiritual on them, and they loved it! That is Joe Biden, we had to expect that." [Video below. Audio here.]

After Mitt Romney addressed the NAACP on Wednesday, CNN's Jim Acosta focused on the boos he received from the audience without mentioning the crowd's standing ovation and their applause scattered through the speech. Acosta simply reported a "very negative" reaction from the audience.

"[N]o question about it, this was a very negative reaction to what Mitt Romney had to say here earlier this morning," he rounded out his post-speech report. However, NBC's Garrett Haake tweeted that Romney got a standing ovation as he finished his speech, and National Review's Jim Geraghty noted the cordial reception by the NAACP. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN's Christine Romans played Obama spokesperson on Monday's Starting Point and accused Republicans of creating "uncertainty" about ObamaCare in trying to repeal it. That fits what has seemingly become a CNN line to Republicans of "stop fighting this law and get in line."

"I'm wondering, should Congresspeople be spending more time helping their constituents comply with the law rather than continuing all this uncertainty about it?" Romans challenged Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.). Ironically, CNN's own poll shows a majority in favor of Congress repealing the law. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

On Monday morning's edition of “CNN Newsroom,” host Carol Costello interviewed liberal writer Nicholas Shaxson, who accused Gov. Mitt Romney of breaking tax laws but provided no evidence to back up his charge.

Shaxson was the author of a hit piece in Vanity Fair magazine that accused the presumptive Republican presidential candidate of having a “buried treasure” in undisclosed overseas accounts. Instead of questioning Shaxon for making such a charged accusation, Costello let him talk almost uninterrupted.

Is CNN campaigning for Rep. Joe Walsh's Democratic opponent? In a heated exchange with Walsh on Thursday, anchor Ashleigh Banfield rattled off a list of opponent Tammy Duckworth's accomplishments and admitted "she should get elected" if voters are pleased with her resume.

CNN gave much softer treatment to Duckworth on Friday. Host Wolf Blitzer did press her about controversial statements she has made, but also tossed her softball questions and gave her an opportunity to explain her stances on issues that matter to voters -- an opportunity CNN did not give Walsh.

Blitzer asked her softballs like "Do you have a problem that he [Walsh] never served in the military?" after Walsh had accused her of incessantly touting her own military service. [Video below the break.]

Ever sweet on liberal Catholic nuns, CNN played up a group of nuns lambasting the Ryan budget and hosted one of the leaders, Sr. Simone Campbell, three times in three weeks for an interview. In contrast, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) appeared not once on the network to defend his budget during that time span.

"You go, girls," CNN's Carol Costello cheered the "Nuns on the Bus" tour. The tour received eight different mentions from CNN from June 13 through July 3, including a report from the trail that aired twice, and three interviews of Sr. Campbell.

CNN's Carol Costello told guest Bill Nye "The Science Guy" on Monday that climate change skeptics are "politicizing this issue" and "winning." Of course, the two did not admit to the possibility of man-made climate change believers doing the exact same thing.

"But the people who are politicizing this issue, they seem to be winning because not much is being done on the issue of climate change even though President Obama promised that, you know, back in the day, 2008," Costello said. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

In a pathetic act of desperation, CNN's Carol Costello whined that President Obama is not defending his own health care bill well enough and that Mitt Romney is not standing behind his own health care bill from Massachusetts. Costello's lament aired on Thursday morning's Newsroom.

"I mean, secretly, don't you wish Mitt Romney would help us understand his signature accomplishment as Massachusetts governor, health care complete with a mandate and everything?" she implored the audience. "And don't you wish President Obama would really explain the plan's impact on our economy?" [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Once a candidate to be President Obama's surgeon general – and thus the mouthpiece for ObamaCare – Dr. Sanjay Gupta touted the benefits of ObamaCare throughout the day on Thursday, after the Supreme Court upheld the law. CNN's own medical correspondent was essentially defending the law by explaining its benefits to different guests.

Two health care activists were among the guests who came to Gupta and defended the bill. CNN didn't identify them as pro-ObamaCare, however, even though their respective organizations supported the law.

It didn't take long after ObamaCare was upheld by the Supreme Court for CNN to browbeat Republicans about accepting defeat and getting behind the law. Anchor Brooke Baldwin asked Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) on Thursday afternoon why he was still fighting a law opposed by a majority of Americans.

"You lost in 2010 when this law was passed, you lost again today. Yet you are still pushing for the repeal of this law. Doesn't that make you look kind of like a sore loser?" Baldwin obnoxiously asked. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

President Obama created a fictional woman "Julia" to help argue how his policies would support a person's well-being over her lifetime. Well, CNN pulled the same propaganda tactic on Wednesday to show the necessity of ObamaCare to the livelihood of various people.

Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen told the situation of three hypothetical persons in nothing less than a case for the upholding of ObamaCare. And this isn't the first time she's tried to play on the heartstrings of her audience, as she hyped the fears of an epileptic three year-old girl and her family back in March as the Court was hearing oral arguments for Obama's health care law. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, was once a serious candidate to be President Obama's surgeon general – and thus a megaphone for ObamaCare – before he turned down the offer. Now he is going on CNN and sounding the alarm that health insurance premiums will probably rise if the ObamaCare mandate is overturned by the Supreme Court.

However, CNN issued no disclosure on Sunday, Monday or Tuesday about Gupta's past relationship with the President. His report on "Obamacare: 60 years in the making" aired multiple times from Sunday through Monday, and he appeared on CNN on Tuesday to explain how health care costs could rise if the law's individual mandate is overturned.

Has CNN's integrity sunk so low that it is now using works of fiction as sources to round out its own reports?

While covering the story of Fox News reporter Greg Burke moving to the Vatican's own communications team, CNN mentioned his membership in Opus Dei and referenced the organization's (quite negative) portrayal in the fictional book and movie The Da Vinci Code. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

While Arizona's "Show Me Your Papers" provision spawned plenty of controversy, it was still upheld as constitutional by the Supreme Court on Monday. But CNN's John King thought it was more than "controversial," blasting the law as "notorious" not once, but twice on Monday.

Near the beginning of the 11 a.m. hour of Newsroom, King called the provision "that one -- and I'll call it 'notorious' – part, the controversial part about 'Show Me Your Papers,' part of the Arizona law left into effect". [Video below the break. Audio here.]

On CNN Newsroom this morning, anchor Carol Costello reported on "Nuns on the Bus:"

"Normally, you see nuns working in their closely knit communities and religious orders. But a group of nuns in the United States, they are hitting the road," she reported. "They are taking a bus on nine-state tour.  They are protesting the Ryan budget cuts they say will hurt the poor the most. The nuns are in Milwaukee today and that's where Ted Rowlands is. So the nuns are jumping into the political fray."

As NewsBusters previously reported, former White House correspondent Sam Donaldson said Saturday, "Many on the political right believe this president [Barack Obama] ought not to be there – they oppose him not for his policies and political view but for who he is, an African American!”

On CNN Newsroom Sunday, Don Lemon agreed with Donaldson's indefensible observation (video follows with transcript and commentary):

After the Obama administration announced it would not deport young illegal immigrants who met certain criteria, CNN jumped all over the story and gave a podium to multiple illegal immigrants who were overjoyed at the President's announcement.

From 10:30 a.m. until 4 p.m., CNN interviewed eight guests who favored President Obama's new immigration policy, and only one guest who opposed it and appeared three times. The airtime for guests in favor totaled over twice as much as the time given to the one guest who opposed the policy.

After the Obama administration announced Friday it will not deport young illegal immigrants that meet certain criteria, CNN's first interview went to an immigration rights leader who raved to the network that "Today is, I think, the happiest day of my life."

The activist, Gabby Pacheco, appeared in the Time magazine illegal immigration cover story that CNN featured multiple times on Thursday, and herself noted that the DHS announcement was timely in light of the magazine cover hitting stands on Thursday. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Breaking news! Liberal activist Sandra Fluke will be voting for President Obama! CNN thought this announcement not only worthy of a CNN.com op-ed, but hosted Fluke in person for an interview during the 9 a.m. hour of Newsroom on Thursday.

Fluke was welcomed on cable news after she was publicly defamed by Rush Limbaugh -- and was published on CNN.com -- and on Thursday CNN's Carol Costello hailed her as the "woman who became the face of the fight over whether insurance plans should cover contraceptives." So the religious organizations who were affected by the HHS birth control mandate were not also the faces of the debate?

Dismissing Republican accusations against Eric Holder as "politics," CNN legal analyst Jeff Toobin claimed that allegations of corruption against the Attorney General have "not been proven at all, at least as far as I can tell."

Exasperated anchor Carol Costello teed him up by wondering why Republicans in Congress won't believe the Attorney General's admitted ignorance of tactics used in the infamous "Fast and Furious" operation. "Eric Holder has testified before the House Judiciary Committee nine times. Each time he has admitted 'Fast and Furious' was a dreadful mistake, and each time Holder says he was unaware of the tactics of the operation," she insisted. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

CNN took some shots at the Vatican on Thursday when touting a dissident nun's book that made the Amazon.com best sellers list. "The nun who wrote a book about sex should be thanking the Vatican for condemning it," anchor Carol Costello quipped.

Exactly why CNN thinks this is news is uncertain, unless it wants to advance a liberal religious agenda. Just the other day, a regular contributor to CNN's religion blog came on and blasted the church for declaring the nun's book "Just Love" to be not in conformity with Catholic teaching – even though the nun herself admitted the book was not an official expression of church teaching on sexual ethics. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

When the news pertains to issues in the Catholic church, CNN loves to promote liberal theologians and religious, especially ones that are defying Catholic teaching. In contrast, orthodox priests and bishops might receive vastly different treatment – if they even get on CNN, that is.

So when an American nun's book on sexual ethics was found by the Vatican to be "not in conformity" with the Catholic Church's teaching, CNN contributor Stephen Prothero smacked the Vatican for its "unjust" condemnation of the book and accused the Catholic Church of continuing to "attack the sort of apple pie, mom kind of institutions in America."

CNN devoted over four times the coverage to the Obama campaign's new attack strategy on Thursday than it initially gave to the largest religious lawsuit in U.S. history. Over 32 minutes of airtime on Thursday focused on President Obama's campaign attacks on Mitt Romney, including video clips of the campaign's new attack ad.

In contrast, when a dozen lawsuits were filed on by 43 Catholic institutions including the University of Notre Dame and the Archdioceses of Washington and New York, CNN's coverage totaled less than seven minutes total on that day, May 21, and on the next morning's Starting Point.

After the news broke of the First Circuit Court declaring the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, CNN hosted openly-gay Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and asked him softball questions like "are you heartened to see that?"

The entire interview lasted over 12 minutes, a very long time on cable news, but only a part of it focused on DOMA. Anchor Suzanne Malveaux painted a positive picture for supporters of same-sex marriage, touting a "sea-change" on the issue in America. [Video below the break. Audio here.]

Nanny state Mayor Michael Bloomberg is at it again, trying to pass a ban on large sugary drinks, all with the media’s help of course. CNN’s Alina Cho favored the proposal in her May 31 report during the 10 a.m. hour of “Newsroom.”

“Newsroom” anchor Carol Costello called the Bloomberg proposal to ban sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces at roughly 20,000 establishments “controversial,” but Cho found nothing to criticize. Instead she blatantly promoted the idea with her one-sided story. (Video after the jump)

CNN jumped all over Donald Trump's "birther" remarks on Tuesday as Trump hosted a fund raiser for Mitt Romney. CNN ran the story almost every single hour on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, hyping Romney's message getting "Trumped" by his supporter's controversial statements.

In contrast, CNN showed no initial scrutiny of foul-mouthed comedian Bill Maher's $1 million donation to a pro-Obama Super PAC in February. Maher is infamous for his vile and disgusting insults of conservative women, but when he announced the donation CNN simply reported it without any hint of controversy.