Mornings on the Mall 06.18.15

Frederick County MC Keegan-Ayer, Stuart Varney, Amb. John Bolton and Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer joined WMAL on Thursday.

Mornings on the Mall

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Hosts: Larry O’Connor and Lt Col Tony Shaffer

Executive Producer: Heather Smith

5am – A/B/C Fox’s James Rosen Presses Earnest: ‘Is Iraq Today a Quagmire?’ Fox News chief Washington correspondent James Rosen pressed White House press secretary Josh Earnest on the future of the American mission in Iraq on Wednesday, asking whether or not the country was a quagmire. Rosen’s question was direct and to the point: “Is Iraq today a quagmire?” “Well James, that’s not the word I’d use to describe it,” Earnest replied. “Iraq is a chaotic place, and it is a place where our men and women in uniform who are there are serving our country in a dangerous place.” At the same time, Earnest said that because of the Iraqi government’s commitment to unifying the country and creating a multisectarian security force, there was still “promise for Iraq’s future.” “Is one of the problems in Iraq that the Sunnis don’t trust America right now, our intentions, our capabilities?” Rosen asked.

5am – D Report: DOJ investigating St. Louis Cardinals’ hack of Houston Astros. The FBI and Justice Department are investigating the St. Louis Cardinals for hacking into the internal networks of the Houston Astros to steal confidential information about player personnel and data, according to a New York Times report on Tuesday. According to the report, investigators found evidence that Cardinals officials broke into the Astros’ network that contained information about trades, proprietary statistics and scouting reports.

5am – E Sulu vs. Kirk: George Takei Talks About “Feud” With William Shatner. (Hollywood Reporter) — “It’s difficult working with someone who is not a team player,” the ‘Star Trek’ actor says. Set phasers to awkward. George Takei has been talking about his long-lived “feud” with Star Trek co-star William Shatner, explaining what’s behind his animosity with his onetime Starship Captain. Talking to The New York Times Magazine to promote his upcoming musical Allegiance, Takei denied that there was tension between the two actors. “It’s all coming from Bill,” he explained. “Whenever he needs a little publicity for a project, he pumps up the so-called controversy between us.” Takei cited Shatner’s YouTube video complaining about not being invited to the actor’s 2008 wedding to Brad Altman as evidence, saying, “Two months after my wedding, he went on YouTube and ranted and raved about our not sending him an invitation. We had. If he had an issue, he could have easily just phoned us before the wedding, simple as that. But he didn’t. And the reason he raised that fuss two months later is because he was premiering his new talk show, Raw Nerve.” It’s all a matter of ego, he continued, “It’s difficult working with someone who is not a team player. The rest of the Star Trek cast all understand what makes a scene work — it’s everybody contributing to it. But Bill is a wonderful actor, and he knows it, and he likes to have the camera on him all the time.” For his part, Shatner agrees; he wrote about Takei in his 2011 memoir Shatner Rules: Your Guide to Understanding the Shatnerverse and the World at Large, “He says that I have a ‘big, shiny ego!’ Well, actors have big egos. If mine is shiny, it’s because I tend to it very carefully and lovingly.”

6am – A/B/C Move Over, Alexander Hamilton: A Woman Is Going On The $10 Bill. (Huffington Post) — A woman will be featured on the new version of the $10 bill, the Treasury Department is set to formally announce on Thursday. “America’s currency is a way for our nation to make a statement about who we are and what we stand for. Our paper bills — and the images of great American leaders and symbols they depict—have long been a way for us to honor our past and express our values,” Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said in a statement. “We have only made changes to the faces on our currency a few times since bills were first put into circulation, and I’m proud that the new 10 will be the first bill in more than a century to feature the portrait of a woman.” The new bill will be released in 2020, a century after the 19th Amendment guaranteed women the right to vote.

6am – D Down syndrome screening isn’t about public health. It’s about eliminating a group of people. (Washington Post) — Upon delivering my first child 11 years ago, I heard the words “Down syndrome,” and my world collapsed. Visions of children sitting passively in a corner watching life go by, not participating, kept me awake those first nights as a mom. It didn’t take me long, though, to figure out that my ideas were based on negative, outdated information that had nothing to do with the reality of life with Down syndrome today. My daughter April is an active, outgoing girl. She’s my nature child, wildly passionate about anything with four legs. Although April uses few words, she’s a master communicator. Through her, I’ve learned that Down syndrome is not the scary, terrible condition it’s made out to be. But while governments (rightly) ban gender selection, selective abortion continues to be encouraged for children with Down syndrome. In the United States and abroad, screenings are a routine part of health-care programs, and the result is the near-elimination of these children.

6am – E Top Mexican official blasts Donald Trump’s ‘absurd’ comments on migrants. (Washington Post) — Donald Trump’s entrance into the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign on Tuesday led to a slew of bemused and amused reactions in the American media, but perhaps the most important response came south of the border. Trump, after all, had devoted considerable time during his rambling announcement to casting aspersions on Mexican migrants to the United States, suggesting that they were rapists, narco-criminals and general malefactors. He also trumpeted a plan to build a “great, great wall” on the border — with Mexican money. The ludicrousness of this prompted official comment in Mexico City. “The remarks by Donald Trump seem prejudicial and absurd,” Miguel Ángel Osorio Chong, Mexico’s interior minister, told reporters on the sidelines of an anti-discrimination event on Tuesday. “He surely doesn’t know the contributions made by migrants from practically every nation in the world, who have supported the development of the United States,” Chong said. On Planet Trump, of course, such a reasonable contention has little impact. In a follow-up interview with Bill O’Reilly of Fox News, Trump doubled down on his fear-mongering and borderline racist demonization of Mexico. “The Mexicans are the new China…. They are ripping us so badly,” Trump said. He added that Mexico, a country of more than 120 million people and the world’s 15th-largest economy, “is living off the United States” and is “not our friend.”

7am – A/B/C INTERVIEW – M.C. Keegan-Ayer – Frederick County Council Member

Bill introduced to repeal Frederick County’s English-only ordinance. Two members of the Frederick County Council are working to repeal an ordinance passed in 2012 that required that all of the county’s official business be conducted in English. The two members, Jessica Fitzwater and M.C. Keegan-Ayer, say the 3-year-old ordinance is ineffective and sends a message of intolerance to country residents from diverse backgrounds and to businesses that may want to operate here. Dropping the ordinance, the two women said, would create a more welcoming environment for potential employers and newcomers to the county. They introduced a bill Tuesday to repeal the ordinance. Fitzwater said that several local and federal laws require that vital documents be available in a number of languages, so, for all practical purposes, nothing changed after the 2012 ordinance was passed. “This ordinance accomplished nothing of material substance,” she said. “It has, however, had a profound impact on how Frederick County is perceived by those around us, including local and national media as well as the broader business community.”

7am – D INTERVIEW — STUART VARNEY – Host of Varney and Company pn Fox Business Network, weekdays

RAND PAUL proposing 14.5% FLAT TAX
Neil Young whining about Trump using “Rocking in the Free World”
House Republican leaders on Wednesday presented their members with the outlines of a plan that would respond to a Supreme Court decision negating federal subsidies that help people buy ObamaCare plans. The House GOP plan would give block grants to states that want them as a way to replace the subsidies, according to lawmakers leaving the meeting.

7am – E INTERVIEW – HOLLY FIRFER — CORRESPONDENT from South Carolina

Gunman at large after killing nine at black South Carolina church. CHARLESTON, S.C. (Reuters) – A white gunman was still at large after killing nine people during a prayer service at an historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina, the city’s police chief said on Thursday, describing the attack as a hate crime. Officers with dogs searched the streets for the suspect, whom police described as a 21-year-old white man with sandy blond hair, after gunfire erupted inside Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston on Wednesday night, Police Chief Gregory Mullen said. The gunman had yet to be caught hours later and was considered extremely dangerous, he said.

8am – A INTERVIEW- AMB JOHN BOLTON – former UN Ambassador

Benghazi panel probes Sidney Blumenthals work for David Brock
US Could Lift Sanctions Before Iran Accounting

8am – B South Carolina Church Shooting:

Police: Nine dead in shooting at black church in Charleston, S.C.
GOP presidential hopeful Jeb Bush has canceled Thursday events in Charleston due to shooting
Charleston PD chief: “I do believe this is a hate crime.”
Gunman at large after killing nine at black South Carolina church

8am – C El Al Airlines flight attendants protest new high heel requirement.

Female flight attendants with Israel’s El Al Airlines are upset with a controversial decision passed down from company leadership that requires them to wear high heels until every passenger has boarded and is seated, according to Stuart Winer of the Times of Israel. Previously, female flight crew members employed by El Al could remove their heels upon boarding the aircraft, only being required to wear them while passing through the airport and greeting passengers as they made their way onto the plane. An email sent to employees last week revealed the new protocol, leading angry flight attendants to organize a petition. So far, roughly 200 people have signed on, per the Times. “It is unbelievable how much an employer can be disconnected from his workers,” an anonymous stewardess told news site Ynet via the Times.

8am – D INTERVIEW — RAYMOND ARROYO — Anchor of “The World Over Live” on EWTN Thurs. 8PM Est., EWTNews Director, New York Times Best Selling author

Pope’s Views on Climate Change Add Pressure to Catholic Candidates
Pope Francis will be issue his long-awaited “encyclical” on climate change on Thursday.

TOMORROW: James Rosen and Rod Wheeler