Kurt Schlichter, Ton Bevan, KT McFarland, Tucker Carlson, Stephen Hayes & Scottie Nell Hughes joined WMAL on Wednesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Scottie Hughes

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C INTERVIEW — KURT SCHLICHTER – retired colonel, author of new book “Conservative Insurgency”,   columnist at IJReview.com, served in Desert Storm and Operation Enduring Freedom (Kosovo), c, former stand-up comedian, and a lawyer in Los Angeles – shared his thoughts about the GOP debate from Las Vegas.

5am – D         Congress Budget Update

5am – E         President Obama, First Family expected in Hawaii for the holidays. (KHON)– Kailua residents are getting ready to welcome the First Family back to Hawaii for the holidays. On Friday, the White House released a schedule that said the First Family will depart the White House en route to Honolulu Friday, Dec. 18. Preparations this year have already begun. Boats and other vessels will not be allowed for a two-week period. President Obama usually spends his time in Hawaii, going to the beach, playing golf, and grabbing his favorite island goodies. The Obamas stop by Island Snow in Kailua every year.

Barack Obama’s Air Force One Christmas trip to Hawaii ‘is too expensive’. ‘The Obamas treat Air Force One like an Uber ride’: Chief of spending watchdog says president’s Christmas Hawaii trip is too expensive to justify. (MailOnline) – Barack Obama has been savaged by a top spending campaigner for taking the First Family on an eighth consecutive Christmas vacation to Hawaii, at huge expense to the American taxpayer. The President was accused of treating Air Force One, which costs $206,000/hour to run, ‘like an Uber ride’ ahead of his next jaunt to his home state. Fly-time alone will set taxpayers back somewhere in the region of $3.5million as Obama, the First Lady, Sasha and Malia and their two dogs jet off for around two weeks. They have traditionally rented a luxury villa in the upscale Kailua area on Oahu, the main island, and head out for hikes, rounds of golf and restaurant meals with their friends. Tom Fitton, the head of the Judicial Watch pressure group, said Obama’s holiday habit proves that he is out of touch – and has to stop.

6am – A         LA Email Terror Hoax:

• Los Angeles schools to reopen after terrorism scare. LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County’s largest school system abruptly canceled classes for 650,000 students Tuesday after an email threat, a sign of how tense public officials are after recent terror attacks. New York City deemed a similar threat a “hoax“ and kept schools open. Los Angeles schools Superintendent Ramon Cortines said although the district gets threats “all the time,” recent events in San Bernardino, about 60 miles east of the city, and elsewhere elevated this threat. “I, as superintendent, am not going to take the chance with the life of a student,” he said. “What we are doing today is not different from what we always do except we are doing it in a mass way.” About 12 hours after the superintendent’s action, Mayor Eric Garcetti said it was determined there was not “a credible threat” and it was announced that schools would reopen Wednesday. New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton said a generic email threat was sent to multiple school officials in Los Angeles, New York and possibly other districts across the nation. He said the threat appeared to originate abroad and probably was not “the usual prank of a student not wanting to take an exam.”
• Bratton: New York City Schools Received ‘Hoax’ Terror Threat, Says It Was Similar To LA Threat. NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) –New York City school officials received a similar terror threat early Tuesday to the one that prompted the closure of the Los Angeles school system for the day, but police quickly concluded that it was a hoax. All schools in the Los Angeles Unified School District were ordered closed Tuesday due to the threat. As CBS2’s Tracee Carrasco reported, students will return to class on Wednesday. The threat came as an email Monday night to board members of the Los Angeles Unified School District, and threatened an attack with assault rifles on “every school” with “bombs hidden in backpacks and lockers.” New York officials, however, kept schools open. NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton called the move in Los Angeles a “significant overreaction” and said the decision there was made before school officials consulted with the Los Angeles Police Department.

6am – B         Transportation News:

• Warning DC Drivers: Big fines may be coming your way! District Department of Transportation officials are proposing increasing the cost of traffic tickets to as much as $1,000 for certain offenses. DDOT is proposing 20 new fines and increases that the agency says is directed at making roads safer and cutting down on traffic deaths, which were up by eight percent in the first six months of 2015. DDOT bypassed the legislative process that includes public City Council Hearings and is using the regulatory process instead. However, the proposals are in the D.C. Register for up 30 days of public comment before taking effect.
• Simulated service to begin for DC Streetcars, WASHINGTON (WUSA9) — Residents along D.C.’s H Street NE corridor will start seeing more streetcars running along the tracks. The streetcars won’t have any passengers, however, as the District Department of Transportation says they’re moving into the Pre-Revenue Operations phase of the streetcar project. The PRO, which DDOT says simulates service for the streetcars without passengers, is scheduled to begin Wednesday along H Street NE and Benning Road NE.
• Federal Officials Order Washington Metro to Address Safety. WASHINGTON — Federal officials have issued a directive ordering the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to fix more than 200 lingering safety issues in the district’s transit system. The Federal Transit Administration issued the 51-page directive Tuesday.
• MillerCoors wants to pick up tab for Metro riders on New Year’s Eve. WASHINGTON — The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority expects to announce by week’s end how long Metrorail and Metrobus will stay open New Year’s Eve — and if the rides will be covered through a sponsorship. This year, the holiday happens Thursday night into Friday morning. Service was extended until 2 a.m. last New Year’s Eve when the holiday fell midweek. Metro’s board has an offer on the table for a sponsorship that would pay for rider’s fares between midnight and 3 a.m. on Jan. 1, 2016. Metro typically operates until 3 a.m. on weekends. The proposed partnership with MillerCoors would pay WMATA $165,000 for Metrobus and Metrorail rides from midnight through the system’s closure on Jan. 1, 2016. That dollar amount is based on previous year’s ridership.

6am – C         Freddie Gray Case:

• Freddie Gray case: Jurors in deadlock; judge says keep deliberating. Baltimore (CNN)When the jurors in the trial of William Porter went to bed Tuesday night, they were deadlocked over the fate of the Baltimore police officer charged in the death of Freddie Gray. They’ll give it another go Wednesday morning. Porter is the first of six police officers to be tried in Gray’s death from a neck injury sustained while in police custody, and its outcome could have a domino effect on the others. The jury — made up of three black men, four black women, three white women and two white men — began deliberating Monday, 12 days after testimony began. On Tuesday afternoon, they told the judge they’d been been unable to reach an unanimous decision. If the trial ends with a hung jury, prosecutors would have the opportunity to try the case again.
• Larry Hogan: ‘crime is out of control in Baltimore City‘ (Baltimore Sun) — As Baltimore braces for more protests, Gov. Hogan questions why no “uproar” over escalating murder rate. Calling the murder rate in Baltimore “disgraceful,” Gov. Larry Hogan asked Thursday why protesters in the Freddie Gray case are not also marching against violence in the streets. “Crime is out of control in Baltimore City,” Hogan said during a radio interview. “I’ve expressed my concern that we have a lot of people out there, expressing their concern, their frustration over the tragic death of Freddie Gray. But where is the uproar from the community? Where are the people protesting the 330 people murdered?” Through Tuesday night, Baltimore police reported 328 homicides in 2015.

6am – D         INTERVIEW — TOM BEVAN — co-founder and Executive Editor of RealClearPolitics.com – gave post-debate analysis.

6am – E         Entertainment News:

• Jordan Smith Is Crowned The Voice’s New Champion! On Tuesday, the singer was crowned The Voice’s season 9 champion. Emily Ann Roberts placed second, while Barrett Baber and Jeffery Austin rounded out the final four. After host Carson Daly called his name, Smith, 21, was joined on stage by his coach Adam Levine and family members.
• MSNBC’s Melissa Harris Perry: Star Wars is Racist Because Darth Vader Is a ‘Black Guy’, MSNBC host Melissa Harris Perry, in addition to comparing black people to the bestial Wookies, complained Saturday that Star Wars is racist because Darth Vader totally looks like a black guy. “I know why I have feelings — good, bad and otherwise — about Star Wars,” Perry explained. “…I spent the whole day talking about the Darth Vader situation.” “The part where he was totally a black guy, whose name was basically James Earl Jones,” she said. “While he was black he was terrible and bad, awful and used to cut off white men’s hand, and didn’t actually claim his son. But as soon as he claims his son, goes over to the good, takes off his mask and he is white — yes, I have many feelings about that.”

7am – A         GOP DEBATE: Winners and Losers?

7am – D         INTERVIEW – KT MCFARLAND – FOX NEWS NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST – analyzed the GOP debate.

7am – E         INTERVIEW — KATHY ORTON – real estate reporter, Washington Post

• What a Fed rate hike could mean to mortgage borrowers. By Kathy Orton December 14 / This week’s expected rate increase by the Federal Reserve should not cause home buyers to panic, if history is any indication. Back in the early 2000s, after the tech bubble burst, the Fed dropped its benchmark rate to 1 percent. Then in the summer of 2004, it began raising it by a quarter percent. At the time of the central bank’s first increase, the interest rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was around 6.3 percent. During the next four months, it dropped to 5.7 percent. As the Fed continued to raise the benchmark rate, the rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage declined, falling to 5.58 percent in June 2005. By the time of its last increase in the summer 2006, the rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was at 6.68 percent. It had gone up less than half a percentage point even though the benchmark rate had climbed from 1.25 percent to 5.25 percent.

8am – A         INTERVIEW — TUCKER CARLSON — Editor, The Daily Caller and co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend – analyzed the GOP debate.

8am – B/C     Taking calls on GOP debate.

8am – D         INTERVIEW — STEVE HAYES – Senior Writer, The Weekly Standard; Fox News Contributor

• Winners/Losers of the GOP debate: So who won? The lack of a big moment probably means Trump is the de facto winner. Both Rubio and Cruz debated effectively, with Rubio showing his mastery of the subject matter and Cruz demonstrating his keen political instincts. Jeb Bush could probably be counted as a winner, though it’s not clear that it matters beyond one night.
• The losers? Christie was less effective than he has been in previous debates. Fiorina, too. Kasich was a non-factor. Carson was soporific. And Rand Paul was a non-interventionist libertarian in a Republican debate that took place at a time of heightened anxiety about terrorism.

8am – E         Speaker Paul Ryan has told House Republicans a deal has been reached on a year-end tax and spending bill. Congressional Leaders Reach Sweeping Deal on Tax and Spending Legislation. WASHINGTON—Congressional leaders early Wednesday unveiled a sweeping deal on spending and tax legislation that would avoid a government shutdown and make major changes to energy policy and the 2010 health law. The $1.15 trillion spending bill to fund fiscal year 2016 was completed and released around 1:30 a.m. on Wednesday, following weeks of negotiations on Capitol Hill. Late Tuesday night, lawmakers also reached a deal on legislation that would revive and extend dozens of lapsed and expiring tax breaks. As part of the year-end legislative push, lawmakers agreed to lift the ban on U.S. oil exports among other policy shifts.