Jessica Yellin

CNN on Monday provided a rosy look at President Obama's efforts to campaign for re-election, touting that the President is distancing himself from Washington in an "anti-Rose Garden" campaign. Ironically, a few minutes later Obama was scheduled to speak in the Rose Garden itself.

In reporting on Obama's efforts to wash his hands of Washington, CNN had ignored his harsh partisan rhetoric toward Republicans in October as he was promoting his jobs bill in the heartland. Obama said Republicans want "dirtier air" and "dirtier water" on one particular tour stop, and has been regularly hitting Republicans for not supporting his jobs bill. [Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

CNN's Jessica Yellin, reporting on President Obama's virtual townhall Monday afternoon, noted two wealthy persons who wish to pay higher taxes – but didn't mention the small businessman who during the townhall complained to the President about regulations and taxes.

Yellin focused her brief report on a member of the audience who claimed to be a wealthy retiree and asked for higher taxes. CNN ran Obama's response to him, and Yellin added that the CEO of LinkedIn, the sponsor of the townhall, would be "open" to tax hikes on the rich.

[Video below the break. Click here for audio.]

CNN's Jessica Yellin used a recent CNN poll Tuesday to give credence to the White House spin that President Obama is the victim of a bad economy he inherited from Bush. What Yellin failed to report was another CNN poll showing that Americans almost two-to-one disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy.

Yellin, on Tuesday's The Situation Room, touted a July 25 CNN poll showing that 57 percent of Americans believe Bush and the Republicans are more to blame than Obama and the Democrats for the current economic troubles. She added that the Obama White House could credibly use that poll result to deflect blame toward President Bush for the poor economy.

[Video below the break.]

What a difference a day makes.  Yesterday, much of the media muttered about how unresponsive Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) was to questions about how he's been multitasking on Twitter.  Today it appears the liberal Democrat has redeemed himself through an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer.  Guest hosting on CNN's John King, USA this evening, Jessica Yellin began an interview with two political operatives:

Gentlemen thanks for being with us. You are both used to helping candidates, right and left basically extricate their feet from their mouths during tough times. I have to say, I thought that Congressman Weiner was refreshingly candid in this interview. He admitted that he didn't handle it so well yesterday and that's why he was talking to Wolf today.

Isn't Jessica Yellin mocking her own network for incessantly reporting on Sarah Palin's bus tour? The CNN correspondent called the coverage of the tour "a media low-point" on CNN Tuesday, although her own network made mention of tour almost every hour Monday from 6 a.m. EDT through 11 p.m. EDT – and then again Tuesday from 6 a.m. EDT through 1 p.m. EDT.

The continuous coverage included nine live reports from Gettysburg, one of the tour stops, by correspondent Jim Acosta – and a live appearance there by anchor John King Monday afternoon. John King, USA – King's 7 p.m. EDT show – was broadcast from Gettysburg, and then the anchor returned later to guest-host Anderson Cooper 360 from the same site, for two hours.

[Click here for audio. Video below the break.]

CNN's Jessica Yellin, filling in for host John King on Thursday's "John King, USA," delved into the mystery of Hollywood's disenchantment with President Obama – and wondered if it isn't due to celebrity liberals being "spoiled."

Yellin's guest was outspoken liberal Joy Behar, host of HLN's "The Joy Behar Show" and co-host of ABC's "The View," who believes Obama has more charisma than Lady Gaga.
 

The liberal media wasted no time in trying to exploit the shooting in Tucson, Arizona by blaming Sarah Palin, the Tea Party, and conservatives in general for creating a "culture of violence" that led to the tragedy. Here is a video compilation of journalists and pundits promoting the meme in the hours and days that followed.

View video below

 

On Monday's Newsroom, CNN treated Arizona's gun laws as a significant contributor to the shootings in Tucson. Correspondent Jessica Yellin prompted the local prosecutor to spout her pro-gun control views. Anchor Brooke Baldwin highlighted a local Republican's gun-toting ad and the infamous clip of an anti-Obama protester carrying a semi-automatic rifle outside a 2009 presidential event in Arizona.

“The shooter’s motivation is still unknown,” Katie Couric announced as she anchored Saturday’s CBS Evening News, but that didn’t deter CBS, nor CNN, NBC and ABC on Saturday night and into Sunday morning from forwarding attempts to blame Sarah Palin and, by implication, the Tea Party, for the Tucson shooting.

“Giffords was one of 20 Democrats whose districts were lit up in cross hairs on a Sarah Palin campaign Web site last spring,” CBS’s Nancy Cordes declared in referring to a political map, adding that “Giffords and many others complained that someone unstable might act on that imagery.” Hours later on CNN, Jessica Yellin noted “we don't know the motive” before she proceeded to raise how “on Twitter and Facebook, there is a lot of talk, in particular, about Sarah Palin.” On Sunday’s Today, leading into a clip about Palin, NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell asserted: “Giffords, a conservative Democrat, was concerned about heated campaign rhetoric from the Tea Party.”

ABC connected Palin to the Wild West, as David Wright reported on This Week:

Congresswoman Gabby Giffords liked to joke that her district includes Tombstone and the OK Corral. Until yesterday morning, most people here would have said that rogue gunslingers were part of the distant past. On election night in November, 18 of the politicians in the crosshairs of Sarah Palin's political action committee lost, but not Gabby Giffords.

Audio: MP3 clip, matches 2:45 video below compilation of six soundbites.

On Wednesday's Newsroom, CNN's Jessica Yellin bizarrely implied that Congress's low poll numbers was linked to their failure to repeal "don't ask, don't tell." After noting the public's support for repeal, Yellin stated that "Congress has its lowest approval rating in the history of polling...So it's clear that the American people are in one place, and one place where they're not so happy with Congress."

Anchor Brooke Baldwin raised the "don't ask, don't tell" issue and how the House of Representatives was taking up a stand-alone bill that would repeal the 17-year-old policy. She asked the liberal CNN correspondent whether the Senate would pass the legislation, given how a previous repeal proposal was rejected just last week (as part of the defense authorization bill): "Why might the Senate change its collective mind? I remember the vote last Thursday. It was 57 to 40. They didn't have those three extra. So, all right, who's going to change their mind or why?"

On Thursday's Newsroom, CNN's Brooke Baldwin continued her network's liberal spin on the proposed compromise between President Obama and congressional Republicans to extend the current Bush-era tax rates, treating it as government spending. Baldwin hyped the apparent "two-year cost of this new cut" and how letting taxpayers keep their money would supposedly add to the deficit.

The anchor raised the "cost" issue during an interview of Democratic Congressman Jay Inslee six minutes into the 3 pm Eastern hour:

BALDWIN: Congressman, we're scratching our heads a bit over these numbers, and I'm hoping you can help me out here, because they're kind of all over the place. The latest we are getting is this two-year cost of this new tax cut, it's somewhere in the ballpark between $800 billion and $900 billion- that is just specifically the tax cut- and then, the top 2 percent would take up about 20 percent of that $800 billion to $900 billion pie. So, Congressman, how close is that to what you're hearing? How close is that to reality?

On Tuesday's Newsroom, CNN tried to spin the proposed compromise between President Obama and congressional Republicans to keep the current tax rates as a "package that increases spending dramatically." Correspondents Jessica Yellin and Joe Johns forwarded the liberal talking point that the Republicans were breaking their campaign promise to reduce government spending with this proposal.

Yellin appeared with anchor Brooke Baldwin just after the bottom of the 3 pm Eastern hour. After playing a montage of several clips of President Obama promising to "roll back the Bush tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans," Baldwin stated that "it's not just the President, as we saw in the montage, breaking a promise. It's also- correct me if I'm wrong- the Republicans breaking a promise as well."

The liberal CNN correspondent replied with the faulty concept that letting taxpayers keep more of their income is government spending (thus treating all income as if it belonged to the government):

Schlockumentary filmmaker Michael Moore on Friday's "Real Time" got a much-needed education about how absurd it is to claim "white America does not like having a black president."

CNN's Jessica Yellin also taught Moore a thing or two about voter turnout during midterm elections (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Rick Sanchez, who was fired from his Rick's List program on CNN on Friday, certainly racked up a record of liberal bias, specifically bias against conservatives, during his tenure at the network. Sanchez also revealed a propensity for making on-air gaffes which made him a targets of comedians like Jon Stewart. It was the former anchor's animosity toward Stewart which directly led to his firing.

Here's the "best of Sanchez" list compiled from the Media Research Center's archives, updated from a July 22, 2010 item on NewsBusters:

Targeting Fox News and Conservative Talk Radio

In late 2008, the CNN anchor gained the 3 pm Eastern time slot of CNN's Newsroom, which would evolve into his Rick's List program. He consistently targeted conservative media outlets from that time until his firing.

ED HENRY: "Fox, Bloomberg, and National Public Radio were vying for it- all made strong cases. In the end, Fox [was] unanimously moved up to the front row, but did not get the seat Helen Thomas was in. We voted unanimously to move the Associated Press over to where Helen Thomas was because what a lot of people were missing in this whole fight was that"-
BROOKE BALDWIN: "And it is a fight"-
HENRY: "Yeah"-
BALDWIN: "Which is fascinating, for those of us who don't understand the inner workings of the"-
HENRY: "Sure, and then we can walk through the whole"-
SANCHEZ: "Well, I understand the Associated Press. I even understand Bloomberg, but don't have you to be a news organization to get that seat?"
HENRY: "Oh! Are you saying Fox is not a news organization?"
SANCHEZ: "Yeah. I'm just wondering."
-Exchange with CNN correspondents Ed Henry, a member of the board of the White House Correspondents Association, and Brooke Baldwin, August 2, 2010 [see video above]. Almost a year earlier, Sanchez hinted Fox News wasn't a "real news organization."

On Monday's Rick's List, CNN's Jessica Yellin leaned against California Republican Senate candidate Carly Fiorina as she compared one of her ads against that of her opponent, Senator Barbara Boxer. While Yellin acknowledged that Boxer's ad was "negative," she also  complimented it as "very effective." The correspondent went on to label Fiorina's commercial "mean" [audio clips available here].

Substitute anchor Brooke Baldwin discussed the California Senate race with Yellin 17 minutes into the 3 pm Eastern hour. Baldwin first noted that the San Francisco Chronicle declined to endorse either candidate in the race, for in their view, "[i]t is a dismal choice between an ineffective advocate for causes we generally support and a potentially strong advocate for positions we oppose." She then asked the correspondent, "[I]s that more of a slap in the face at Boxer or Fiorina?"

Yellin replied that it affected the Democrat more: "For Boxer, by far- I mean, it's fairly stunning that...a Democratic-leaning newspaper...their op-ed page tends to be left-leaning- would not endorse the long-term Democrat in the state is very, very bad for Barbara Boxer. I mean, their conclusion there is essentially that Boxer, they think, is ineffective. Carly Fiorina, they argue, is too conservative, so they're not endorsing."

On Tuesday's Rick's List, CNN's Rick Sanchez again bashed Fox News and the conservative media, two of his favorite subjects of ire. Sanchez stated that President Obama was being "dogged" and blamed "conservative talk radio hosts...lambasting this man 24/7.... [and] Fox News, which is essentially the voice of the Republican Party, whose job it is to make this man look bad no matter what he does" [audio clip available here].

The CNN anchor brought on political correspondent Jessica Yellin at the bottom of the 3 pm Eastern hour to discuss the President's town hall meeting on Monday. After playing a clip of Velma Hart, an Obama supporter who bluntly told the chief executive that she was "exhausted of defending" him, Sanchez asked Yellin for her take on whether "others out there are thinking in many of the ways that she [Hart] expressed herself."

CNN's Rick Sanchez quickly apologized on his Rick's List program on Monday after inadvertently labeling Barack Obama the "cotton-picking president of the United States." Sanchez used the racially-tinged term in response to the President recently addressing the significant percentage of American population who believe he is Muslim or was born outside the U.S. [audio available here]

The anchor raised President Obama's recent comment about his birth certificate with correspondent Jessica Yellin 21 minutes into the 3 pm Eastern hour. Yellin explained that "this is the first time he's talked about it since the polls showing how many Americans believe him to be Muslim came out" and that "you get the sense that he's been sort of through this. He wants to set the record straight, but he really does seem to accept that he's not going to convince everyone, and he's not going to spend a lot of time and energy on something that's not going to change."

Sanchez replied to Yellin full of frustration: "I'm just sitting here just shaking my head. He is the cotton-picking president of the United States!" He continued with another slighter gaffe: "If the president of the United States doesn't have enough of a bully pulpit to convince people of a lie- that a lie is a lie, I should say, then- you know, where are we? What kind of planet are we living on? What the hell is going on here?"

On Wednesday's Rick's List, CNN's Rick Sanchez returned to his obsession with Fox News, stating that the network "obviously tends to lean way, way, way to the right." He did acknowledge this his competitors at MSNBC "tends to sway to the left," but went on to extend his "I play it down the middle" label of himself to his entire liberal network: "We happen to be in the middle, and that's the way we do things" [audio available here].

The anchor, who denied that he had any ideological leanings less than a month ago, brought on correspondent Jessica Yellin 17 minutes into the 4 pm Eastern hour to report on the political donations of News Corporation, which own their competitor, Fox News. Yellin reported that News Corp. "has given a million to the Republican Governors Association." Sanchez replied that "there is nothing wrong with giving money....Time Warner is a big company. I'm sure Time Warner gives money to different organizations, except I have no idea what it is." He then asked, "So, what I want from you is, the $1 million figure, all those zeroes...is it different? Is it substantially different?"

CNN's Jessica Yellin, a one-time "prominent feminist activist," helped forward the talking points of the pro-abortion lobby by devoting part of a segment on Tuesday's Rick's List to EMILY List's new anti-Sarah Palin ad. Yellin aired their left-wing accusations against the Republican and her endorsed candidates without providing the other side and/or fact-checking them [audio clips available here].

Anchor Rick Sanchez introduced the issue by bringing up the Republican's recent "mamma grizzly" ad: "It seemed like a very effective ad that Sarah Palin had put out. I mean, professionally speaking, it was very clean, very well put together- the whole 'grizzly mom' ad that everyone was talking about- and, apparently, there's some blowback on this now. What is that?"

Rick Sanchez, who hosts his Rick's List program for two hours during the afternoon on CNN, will be taking on the network's 8 pm Eastern hour slot for several weeks between Campbell Brown's departure on Wednesday and the start of the ex-Democratic Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer (the infamous Client #9) and sometime-conservative Kathleen Parker's new program.

Sanchez will likely bring his two-year record of liberal bias to his temporary gig. Some of the worst examples from the Media Research Center's archives:

Targeting Fox News and Conservative Talk Radio

In late 2008, the CNN anchor gained the 3 pm Eastern time slot of CNN's Newsroom, which would evolve into his Rick's List program. Over the past year and a half, he has consistently targeted conservative media outlets.

"That weekend tragedy involves a man who allegedly shot and killed three police officers in cold blood. Why? Because he was convinced, after no doubt watching Fox News and listening to right-wing radio, that quote, 'Our rights were being infringed upon.'"
-From CNN Newsroom, April 8, 2009. Sanchez blamed conservative news outlets for the murder of three police officers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Rick Sanchez stumbled again on-air on his CNN program on Monday, getting the year of the famous Kennedy-Nixon television debate wrong by a margin of two years. Sanchez, who was trying to describe South Carolina Democratic senatorial candidate Alvin Greene's first public speech as the "converse" of the debate, initially guessed 1962 as the year of the debate, but then broadened his answer to "early '60s" [audio available here].

The anchor, who misidentified the Galapagos Islands as Hawaii during CNN's live coverage of the February 27, 2010 Chilean earthquake, and "joked" that it was too cold in Iceland for volcanoes on April 15, brought on correspondent Jessica Yellin to discuss Greene's speech. Twenty-one minutes into the 4 pm Eastern hour, Yellin mentioned how she had "talked to the audience [at the speech] beforehand....Every single person I spoke to was a skeptic before, and almost all of them said they'd vote for him afterwards or support him."

On Tuesday's Rick's List, CNN's Jessica Yellin harkened back to her college days at Harvard as she defended Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan against charges by conservatives that she is anti-military: "When I was at Harvard, a full decade before she was dean of the law school, there was already institutional opposition to 'don't ask, don't tell'....it steeps the whole university."

Yellin, actually, was a key left-wing student agitator during her time at the university, as revealed in several interviews with The Crimson, the student newspaper at Harvard. She was labeled a "prominent feminist activist in her own right" in a June 10, 1993 profile of Sheila Allen, her first-year roommate and self-proclaimed "dyke of the Class of '93." The then-student certainly earned this label, as she helped resurrect Harvard-Radcliffe Students for Choice after a "relatively inactive period," was a women's studies major, and, in an April 10, 1992 interview, bemoaned how Harvard was apparently opposed to her feminist agenda: "For people interested in women's issues or gender studies, this is an overtly hostile environment."

In a May 1, 1992 article, Yellin expressed how the acquittal of the four police officers involved in the controversial Rodney King arrest was "the most blatant evidence of the indelible racism... in this country."

CNN's Kyra Phillips completely got it wrong on Friday's Newsroom as she reported on Pope Benedict XVI's latest apology for the priestly sex abuse scandal. Even after she reported that Pope was "begging for forgiveness," Phillips repeatedly claimed that "there are two simple words we haven't heard: I'm sorry." The Pope has actually used those words and has made multiple apologies.

The CNN anchor led the 9 am Eastern hour with the pontiff's request for forgiveness, which he made at a Mass in St. Peter's Square to close out the Catholic Church's Year for Priests, which began on June 19, 2009 and ends June 19 this year: "Here's what we're working on right now. Sex abuse in the Catholic Church- the Holy Father begs forgiveness, promises never again. But why is it that being Pope means never having to say, I'm sorry." Despite the continuing the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico and other top stories, Phillips highlighted the Pope's comments, along with the teenager stranded at sea and the opening of the World Cup in South Africa.

CNN and the Associated Press on Wednesday and Thursday touted how the tea party movement apparently didn't get motivate voters to turn out and "throw out the bums" in Republican primaries in Indiana, North Carolina, and Ohio. Both outlets, however, omitted how senate candidate Rob Portman ran unopposed in his primary race in Ohio.

Anchor Rick Sanchez brought on CNN national political correspondent Jessica Yellin during a segment 21 minutes into the 3 pm Eastern hour of his Rick's List program on Wednesday. After noting how Democratic Representative David Obey, a "partisan brawler," was retiring, and how "Sarah Palin and tea party influences" might be "running some of these rascals out of office," Sanchez turned to Yellin and asked her about the results: "Those allegedly angry voters could have stormed the polls in droves and thrown out the bums. They would have all been there in big numbers, and they're going to get rid of the incumbents, get rid of the old hacks. So, did that happen?"

On today's Rick's List, CNN anchor Rick Sanchez brandished those reportorial skills for which he's so famous.  He and national political correspondent Jessica Yellin discussed Tuesday's primaries and the "Sarah Palin and the Tea Party influences."  Not surprisingly, they agreed they had little impact:

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yesterday's elections showed that there was very limited turnout. One of the things we have heard is that the Tea Party movement was going to energize the base, stoke up turnout, especially on the Republican side. And in the key Republican races -- there were two in Indiana especially -- the incumbents won. Now, their margin of victory was more narrow, but the Tea Party movement didn't throw the bums out, as you said.

SANCHEZ: Well...

YELLIN: So, it's still to be determined whether they will have a huge influence in November.

SANCHEZ: Well, I know, but we got one of the first runs where we get to -- where we get to take a look at something like this, the...

YELLIN: Right.

SANCHEZ: ... and the -- the -- the polls showed that the turnout was way, way underwhelming. Not only that. The three guys -- or five guys, whatever the number is, the number of guys who actually won last night...

Jessica Yellin continued CNN's biased coverage towards Pope Benedict XVI, the Catholic Church, and the sex abuse scandal on Friday's Campbell Brown program. After replaying a report from Tuesday on one dissenting priest's call for the Pope's resignation, Yellin misleadingly asked, "Why is he [the Pope] having such a hard time saying he's sorry?" She also brought on two liberals to discuss the scandal.

Before the replay of correspondent Mary Snow's report on Father James Scahill's public call for Benedict XVI's resignation at 26 minutes into the 8 pm Eastern hour, Yellin, who was filling-in for anchor Campbell Brown, noted that "just yesterday, in a rare reference to the scandal, the Pope called for penitence for the Church's sins. But for some, penitence is not enough." After Snow's report, the substitute anchor read a promo for the upcoming segment, which included the "why is he having such a hard time saying he's sorry" claim.

That is an irresponsible question on the part of Yellin. Just under a month ago, the Pope did make such an apology in his pastoral letter to the Catholics of Ireland, directly addressing the victims of the abuse: "You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry. I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured....It is understandable that you find it hard to forgive or be reconciled with the Church. In her name, I openly express the shame and remorse that we all feel." Two years ago, in April 2008, he met with some of the victims of abuse during his visit to the U.S., and addressed the scandal during a homily in New York City. Later that year, he apologized again, this time for the sex abuse in Australia while he visited that country.

CNN's Rick Sanchez repeatedly insinuated on his Rick's List program on Wednesday that Republican leaders and "crazy talk show hosts that are so right wing" were to blame for ten congressman requesting extra security earlier in the day: "Are some Republicans culpable of stirring this, to a certain degree?"

Sanchez led the 3 pm Eastern hour of his program with House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announcing that ten of their Democratic colleagues in the House of Representatives had requested additional security for their homes and offices due to reported threats of violence. The anchor brought on correspondent Jessica Yellin to give more details. After Yellin reported that House Minority Leader John Boehner had condemned such threats, Sanchez replied, "But Boehner himself has been one of the most critical. He's one of those who has used words like 'socialist' and 'government takeover' and the kinds of things that someone who, maybe, doesn't follow the situation so closely might be led to act in an incivil way. Is this is a chicken or an egg question, of which came first in this case?"

On Monday's Rick's List, CNN's Rick Sanchez and Jessica Yellin both tried to portray liberal Indiana Democrat Evan Bayh as a centrist. Yellin insisted, "Republicans should be sad to see Evan Bayh go because he is one of the centrists who worked very hard to work with Republicans." Sanchez replied, "Evan Bayh is no liberal!"

Before the CNN anchor raised Bayh's retirement with his colleague 18 minutes into the 3 pm Eastern hour, he brought up Congressman Joe Wilson's response on Twitter to his Democratic colleague's decision. Wilson wrote, "Great news of Senator Bayh's retirement, good prospects of change in Indiana has now become much brighter! I am happy for Hoosiers." Sanchez all but condemned the Republican's Tweet: "It's not like he's dancing on his grave because the guy's not dead. He's...just retiring. But wouldn't you think, just from the standpoint of being collegial, that, most of the time, somebody would say something like- 'boy, I hate to see Jessica Yellin leaving CNN. She really was good'- as opposed to- 'boy, am I glad Jessica Yellin's leaving. Now, we can get a competent reporter in there.'"

When Democrats lose, liberal reporters tend to see anger and fear, and never positive motivations. CNN reporter Jessica Yellin found the "anger and fear" on Monday night in Massachusetts. She found it again during live coverage just after 10 pm Tuesday night from the Coakley campaign after the Democrat's concession speech, painting Coakley as a "very subdued woman" swamped by "a tidal wave of voter rage."

"The president told her you can't win 'em all, that's what she told us, and you could see the Martha Coakley there that voters saw, a woman who spent 20 years in public service, but a very subdued, restrained woman who could not have prepared for what she confronted, and certainly Democrats in this state say she was not prepared for -- a tidal wave of voter rage that the Democrats just did not foresee here."