Mornings on the Mall

Wednesday, December 3, 2014

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

5am – A/B/C House Republicans grill homeland security chief on immigration action. Washington (CNN) — After appearing briefly on the Obama administration's short-list to run the Pentagon, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson now has to survive a congressional grilling on the president's new immigration policy. Testifying before the House Homeland Security Committee on Tuesday, Johnson said he is "fully comfortable" that President Barack Obama's executive action on immigration reform is within the President's legal authority. Johnson helped draft the President's plan to shield up to 5 million undocumented immigrants from deportation and will make undocumented criminals a priority for deportation. "Many of these individuals have committed no crimes and are not enforcement priorities.

5am – D         NDAA deal hits troops' pay, housing allowances. (Military Times) — Troops will see a 1 percent pay raise, slowed growth in their housing allowance and a $3 increase in most prescription co-pays as part of a military budget deal expected to be finalized this week. The measure includes authorization for $521 billion in base military spending and nearly $64 billion more in overseas contingency funds, including about $5 billion for the current fight in Iraq and Syria. House and Senate lawmakers are expected to fast track the legislation in an effort to finalize the measure within the next two weeks. The deal marks another triumph for House and Senate negotiators, who have shepherded some version of the annual defense authorization bill through Congress for more than 50 consecutive years. But the details are likely to irritate outside advocates who pushed against any pay and benefits cuts, arguing that the defense budget should not be balanced on troops' wallets. All of the pay and benefits trims were backed by the Pentagon and White House in an effort to slow the growth of personnel costs. The housing cuts and pharmacy co-pays were the final sticking points for lawmakers, with a compromise reached after nearly a month of behind-the-scenes fights.

5am – E         About 100 brains missing from University of Texas. AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The University of Texas at Austin is missing about 100 brains — about half of the specimens the university had in a collection of brains preserved in jars of formaldehyde. One of the missing brains is believed to have belonged to clock tower sniper Charles Whitman. "We think somebody may have taken the brains, but we don't know at all for sure," psychology Professor Tim Schallert, co-curator of the collection, told the Austin American-Statesman. His co-curator, psychology Professor Lawrence Cormack, said, "It's entirely possible word got around among undergraduates and people started swiping them for living rooms or Halloween pranks." The Austin State Hospital had transferred the brains to the university about 28 years ago under a "temporary possession" agreement. Schallert said his psychology lab had room for only 100 brains, so the rest were moved to the basement of the university's Animal Resources Center.

6am – A/B/C DRIVE AT FIVE INTERVIEW: DELROY BURTON – chairman of the D.C. Police Union – reacted to President Obama’s police gear proposals.

6am – D         Maryland lawmakers consider yelling ‘cut’ on film tax-credit program. The panel of analysts spent more than an hour Tuesday afternoon explaining why Maryland should stop giving millions of dollars to movie and television productions that choose to film in the state. The few thousand jobs created by this small industry are temporary, they said, summarizing an exhaustive report by the state’s department of legislative services, and the benefits are short-lived.

●Maryland has given or promised more than $62 million in tax credits to producers since 2012, they said, which means that the state is essentially paying $14,000 for each job created — much more than is spent on other job-creating tax credits, including those targeting biotech and cybersecurity jobs. Plus, 98 percent of the film-incentive money has gone to the production of two major shows: HBO’s “Veep” ($22.7 million) and Netflix’s “House of Cards” ($37.6 million). So this was their pitch to a handful of legislators at a public hearing in Annapolis: When the film tax-credit program sunsets in July 2016, lawmakers should do nothing to save it.

6am – E         Meet Chuck Hagel's expected replacement as Defense Secretary. Washington (CNN) — Ashton Carter, the former second-in-command at the Pentagon, appears to be the top choice to replace outgoing Secretary Chuck Hagel. Barring any last minute complications, Ash Carter will be President Barack Obama's choice as the new Secretary of Defense, several U.S. administration officials told CNN. An administration official had said that Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, a former General Counsel at the Pentagon, was also still on the list of possibilities, but on Tuesday morning, sources said Johnson was no longer being considered. The prospect of an additional confirmation hearing for Johnson's replacement if he were to move to the Pentagon as the Senate switches to Republican control would have been problematic for the White House. Hagel announced his resignation last week, but has said he will stay on until his successor is confirmed by the Senate.

Ashton Carter or Ashton Kutcher? Twitter users confuse name of defense secretary choice.  Did President Barack Obama choose a physicist, a pop star or an actor as the new secretary of defense? Twitter users who read the the name of the president's choice too quickly confused physicist Ashton Carter, with pop star Aaron Carter or actor Ashton Kutcher.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – SUSAN FERRECHIO – Washington Examiner's chief Congressional correspondent

>> House Republicans grill homeland security chief on immigration action

7am – B         Redskins fan reworks 'Candle in the Wind' lyrics for RG3's downfall. It's been a rough season for Robert Griffin III and the Redskins faithful, so one local fan is trying to ease the pain in the form of song. With the Redskins quarterback getting benched for Colt McCoy and his time in Washington possibly coming to an end, a creative individual has reworked Elton John's "Candle in the Wind" and made a heartbreaking YouTube video.

The song opens with:

Goodbye RG Three

That was an impressive downfall

You're still great at selling sandwiches

But not so great at football

7am – C         Mean girls? New study says boys may be worse. "Mean girls" may be getting a bad rap. While everyone knows the stereotype of teen girls who use vicious gossip and social rejection to put down their rivals, a new study finds the same behavior is even more common in boys. Researchers from the University of Georgia call the behavior "relational aggression," and define it as the use of malicious rumors, social exclusion and rejection to harm or manipulate others. They surveyed 620 students from northeast Georgia school districts each year as the students progressed from sixth grade through the end of high school, and found almost all of them reported taking part in such behavior at one time or another. "Overall, we found relational aggression to be a very common behavior," lead researcher Pamela Orpinas, a professor of health promotion and behavior at the University of Georgia's College of Public Health, said in a statement. "Almost all of the students surveyed, 96 percent, had passed a rumor or made a nasty comment about someone over the course of the seven-year study."

7am – D         INTERVIEW – KT MCFARLAND – Fox News National Security Analyst

>> Chuck Hagel's expected replacement as Defense Secretary: Ashton Carter

 >> House Republicans grill homeland security chief on immigration action

7am – E         Stephen Hawking warns artificial intelligence could end mankind. Prof Stephen Hawking, one of Britain's pre-eminent scientists, has said that efforts to create thinking machines pose a threat to our very existence. He told the BBC:"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." His warning came in response to a question about a revamp of the technology he uses to communicate, which involves a basic form of AI. But others are less gloomy about AI's prospects. The theoretical physicist, who has the motor neurone disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is using a new system developed by Intel to speak. Machine learning experts from the British company Swiftkey were also involved in its creation. Their technology, already employed as a smartphone keyboard app, learns how the professor thinks and suggests the words he might want to use next.

8am – A         INTERVIEW: BLAIR LEE – Maryland political analyst

>> With Hogan coming, Annapolis lobbying firms beef up their Republican credentials

>> Maryland lawmakers consider yelling ‘cut’ on film tax-credit program

>> Hogan to meet with Obama. President Barack Obama will meet with Maryland Gov.-elect Larry Hogan on Friday to discuss the ways that the administration can partner with states on economic issues, the White House said Tuesday. The White House meeting will also include the newly elected governors of Alaska, Illinois, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Texas. Vice President Joe Biden will also attend. Hogan is the first Republican elected to lead the state since Robert L. Ehrlcih Jr. won the governor's race in 2002.

8am – B         Top 2014 baby names inspired by Netflix, Derek Jeter. (USA Today) —Your newborns Sophia and Jackson have some company this year. They're the most popular girl and boy names of 2014, according to BabyCenter, a pregnancy and parenting online resource. It's Jackson's second year as No. 1, and the name Sophia has reigned supreme as the No. 1 girl name for five years. "This year's list shows Jackson has staying power and is not a one-hit wonder, and Sophia is arguably the Jennifer of its generation with five consecutive No. 1 spots. It's clearly entered the baby name hall of fame," said Linda Murray, BabyCenter's editor-in-chief, in a statement. But the most pervasive baby trend? TV-inspired names.  According to BabyCenter, 20% of moms found naming inspiration from TV-show characters and 16% got names from celebrities, leading Murray to call this the year of the "binge-watching baby name." Cited in the "Netflix effect": • House of Cards character names were up since 2013: Garrett (up 16%), Claire (up 14%), Zoe (up 13%), Remy (up 11%), Frank (up 19%) and Francis (up 5%). • Orange is the New Black characters were up since 2013: Galina (up 67%), Nicky (up 35%), Piper (up 28%), Larry (up 28%), and Dayanara (up 19%).Other shows with name-inspiration power: Nashville and Shonda Rhimes-helmed shows including Grey's Anatomy, Scandal and How to Get Away with Murder.

8am – C         Congressional Priorities:

• House votes to end benefits for Nazis. (Washington Examiner) — House lawmakers voted Tuesday to block federal benefits for people suspected of participating in Nazi-era war crimes. The unusual bill was brought quickly to the House floor after the Associated Press reported in October that expelled suspected Nazi war criminals had collected millions of dollars in Social Security payments. “To think Nazis are receiving Social Security benefits derived from tax receipts of the American people is sickening and morally wrong,” Rep. Leonard Lance, R-N.J., said on the House floor. “And today, Congress will move to put an end to it.” The bill passed unanimously.
• Ban on Medicare coverage for penis pumps would save taxpayers $44 million a year. (Stephen Dinan/The Washington Times) — Congress is putting the final kibosh on the penis pump, with the House slated to begin debating a bill Wednesday that would stop Medicare from paying for the erectile dysfunction treatment, saving an average of $44 million a year. All told, the government stands to save nearly $450 million over the next decade by halting payments for “vacuum pump systems,” or penis pumps, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s analysis released Tuesday. House Republicans, who wrote the bill, said that as long as Medicare is banned from paying for erectile dysfunction drugs such as Viagra, the program shouldn’t be paying for pumps, either. And besides, Medicare had been “grossly” overpaying for the pumps, averaging more than $450 a pump, according to the agency’s inspector general — or more than twice what other federal agencies paid. Buying from a company online would have produced even bigger savings, with the average price of less than $165 per system, investigators said in their report from last year.

8am – D         Christmas tree lighting, scourge of commuters, set for Thursday.  It’s as much of a December tradition for grumpy D.C. commuters as it is for holiday merry-makers: The lighting ceremony for the National Christmas Tree is set to begin at 4:30 p.m. Thursday on the Ellipse, just south of the White House. The event usually lasts till about 7 p.m.

The ‘green’ debate on Christmas trees: Fresh vs. fake? (Washington Post) — This Christmas, Vicki Freshley will proudly show off her prized fake fir. In her eyes, it’s a beautiful thing, as nice as any real Christmas tree — nine feet tall, emerald and fluffy, and decked out with so many eye-popping trimmings that her brother stopped in his tracks when he saw it and said, “Oh my God.” But in the eyes of many environmentalists, Freshley could have made a better choice than buying that artificial tree last year at a Costco near her home in Gaithersburg. Even tree huggers are encouraging Americans to go out every December and buy a real tree from a lot or go to a farm, cut one down, and drag it home because tree farms are good for the atmosphere. Artificial trees have been gaining ground in American living rooms — 50 million fake trees vs. 30 million fresh ones, according to the two competing industry groups, the long-standing National Christmas Tree Association (which supports real trees) and the more recently formed American Christmas Tree Association (defends artificial trees).

TOMORROW:          Stuart Varney, Pat Herrity, Dan Bongino and Aaron Katersky