Susan Ferrechio, Stuart Varney, Katie Phang and guest host: Scottie Nell Hughes joined WMAL on Thursday!

Mornings on the Mall

Thursday, December 17, 2015

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Scottie Hughes

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B     Some conservatives are uphappy with the 2016 omnibus spending and tax cut package spending too much on Obama’s immigration priorities. Should Ryan fight harder?

5am – C         Kids Will Soon Be Able To Sled On Capitol Hill. Congressional leaders slipped language into the 2,000-page omnibus spending bill released late Tuesday night that will subvert Capitol Hill Police and allow children to sled down Capitol Hill. The move comes as a response to a protest earlier this year where dozens of people staged a “sled-in” of sorts on Capitol Hill. As first noted by Roll Call, the $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill extends a provision of a previous spending bill that instructs Capitol Hill Police to look the other way when they encounter sledders on the hill.

5am – D         Is Ted Cruz The New Target? Cruz Gets Hammered By Bret On Immigration.

5am – E         Fed raises interest rates. America’s first interest rate hike in nearly a decade is here. The Federal Reserve raised its key interest rate on Wednesday from a range of 0% to 0.25% to a range of 0.25% to 0.5%. The rate hike is a small one, but it will affect millions of Americans, including investors, home buyers and savers. Savers should eventually see a little more interest on their deposits at the bank, but big banks didn’t make any increases Wednesday. Mortgage rates will gradually rise. The move was widely expected. It is a sign of how much the economy has healed since the Great Recession. The central bank believes the U.S. economy is strong now and no longer needs crutches and that the move “marks the end of an extraordinary period” of low rates designed to boost the recovery from the Great Recession.

6am – A/B/C US public prefer Star Wars characters to Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The force is strong with the American public who, in a new poll, said they’d rather elect Star Wars characters Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi president than the political party’s two current frontrunners. Yoda trumps Republican frontrunner Donald Trump by 18 points, with 42 percent saying they’d support the Jedi in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, while 24 percent would support Trump, according to an Ipsos Public Affairs poll. Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton also gets trounced by the little green guy, with 41 percent of respondents on team Yoda and 25 percent ready for Hillary.   Kenobi, also known as Ben, also beats both politicians by double-digit margins.

6am – D         Harvard Creates Placemat Instructing Students To Use Liberal Talking Points Over Christmas. Harvard University has created a “Holiday Placemat for Social Justice,” which it is distributing to students in the hopes they will push liberal points of view while visiting their families over winter break. The placemat is the work of Harvard’s Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and was distributed in an undergraduate dining hall by school staff. The placemat covers four different topics: “Yale/student activism”, “Islamophobia/refugees,” “House master title” (Harvard recently abolished the title after complaints it evoked slavery), and “Black murders in the street.” Each topic is set up as a series of hypothetical questions from family members, followed by a suggested response (which is always liberal in nature

6am – E         Terrorism News:

• San Bernardino killers reportedly buried in small funeral. (Fox News) – The Muslim couple who killed 14 people when they opened fire at a San Bernardino, Calif. holiday party earlier this month were buried Tuesday at a funeral guarded by FBI agents, Reuters reported Wednesday. Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik were reportedly buried in a Muslim cemetery hours away from San Bernardino in a ceremony attended by about 10 people, including members of Farook’s family and people who used to pray with the couple at mosques. An attendee told Reuters it took a week to find a graveyard willing to accept the bodies of the jihadi couple who were killed in a gun battle with police. According to Reuters, the funeral followed traditional Islamic rituals, where the bodies were cleansed and wrapped in white cloth and buried.
• Full text of threatening email sent to LAUSD. LOS ANGELES (KABC) – See the full text of the threatening email directed toward the Los Angeles Unified School District that led to the closing of all district schools on Tuesday. “TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: I am emailing you to inform you of the happenings on Tuesday, 12/15/15. Something big is going down. Something very big. It will make national headlines. Perhaps, even international ones. You see, my last 4 years here at one of the district high schools has been absolute hell. Pure, unmitigated, agony. The bullying, the loneliness, the rejection… it is never-ending. And for what? Just because I’m ‘different’?”
• In a change, FBI says July 16 Chattanooga attack ‘motivated by’ terrorist propaganda. Agency previously maintained it didn’t want to ‘smear people.’ The shooter who attacked two military sites in Chattanooga on July 16 was inspired by a foreign terrorist organization, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation said today in a press conference in New York City. “We’ve investigated Chattanooga from the beginning and we’ve concluded the Chattanooga killer was inspired by a foreign terrorist organization’s propaganda,” Director James Comey told reporters in New York. Comey made the remarks to reporters in New York after the Associated Press and other media outlets pointed out inconsistencies between the FBI’s handling of the Chattanooga shooting and other, seemingly similar cases. On July 16, 24-year-old Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez attacked two military sites in Chattanooga and killed five U.S. service members. The FBI initially hesitated to call the attack “terrorism.”

 

7am – A         INTERVIEW — SUSAN FERRECHIO — chief congressional correspondent for The Washington Examiner – discussed the latest news about the budget battle on Capitol Hill.

7am – B         Dr. Gridlock: D.C. plans to add more traffic cameras. Those are among several measures Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) unveiled Wednesday as part of her commitment to eliminating traffic fatalities by 2024. Her “Vision Zero” action plan lays out strategies for enforcement, public education and street engineering, and also is expected to expand the city’s sidewalk and bicycle network. The plan released early Wednesday called for the city to “deploy 100 additional cameras,” by October 2017, targeting violations including speeding, red light, stop sign, crosswalk and gridlock law breakers. But D.C. transportation officials Wednesday afternoon backed away from that number saying it had inadvertently been left in the 110-page document. The city considered adding 100 cameras, but the mayor’s final plan would not specify a number, Terry Owens, an spokesman for the D.C. Department of Transportation said. If the District adds 100 cameras over the next two years, it will significantly increase its automated enforcement. The city currently operates 153 traffic cameras, including 97 speed, 42 red-light, 7 stop sign, and 7 oversize or weight cameras, according to the Vision Zero plan.

7am – C         Panda cub in Washington is thriving ahead of public debut. If the youngest giant panda cub at the National Zoo is stressed out about appearing in front of crowds for the first time, Bei Bei isn’t showing it. WASHINGTON (AP) — If the youngest giant panda cub at the National Zoo is stressed out about appearing in front of crowds for the first time, he isn’t showing it. Keepers were expecting Bei Bei (BAY BAY) to squawk and squirm during an audience with a small news media contingent Monday. Instead, under bright television lights with cameras clicking, he quickly fell asleep on an examination table, leaving a small puddle of drool on the tablecloth. Panda biologist Laurie Thompson explained that before he went in front of the cameras, Bei Bei was playing with a piece of bamboo and trying to walk. Just like a newborn human, he tires easily.

7am – D         INTERVIEW — STUART VARNEY — Anchor, Varney & Company, Fox Business Network

• Fed raises interest rates
• According to Triple A, the national average for regular gas has finally dropped to $2 even. This is a story I love….it is good news for every consumer, and very bad news for some foreign economies, like Russia…..”
• Some conservatives are uphappy with the 2016 omnibus spending and tax cut package spending too much on Obama’s immigration priorities. What does Stuart think? Should Ryan fight harder?

7am – E         Is Ted Cruz The New Target? Cruz Gets Hammered By Bret On Immigration.

8am – A         INTERVIEW — KATIE PHANG – Fox News legal analyst, trial attorney, former prosecutor and Partner at Berger Singerman, based in Miami, FL.

• Jury is hung on all charges, Judge Williams declares mistrial. Mistrial in 1st officer’s trial in Freddie Gray case BALTIMORE (AP) — The first effort to convict an officer in Freddie Gray’s death from a broken neck in a Baltimore Police van ended Wednesday with a hung jury and a mistrial. Officials appealed for calm as small crowds protested along streets lined with police officers. The situation was quiet at North and Pennsylvania, the intersection where the worst rioting happened in April as parts of West Baltimore were set on fire.

8am – B         Entertainment News:

• Tickets for Adele’s D.C. shows go on sale Thursday This CD cover image released by Columbia Records shows “25,” the latest release by Adele. Adele’s “Hello” single has become the first song to sell one million tracks in a week. Her comeback track sold 1.11 million digital songs, setting a new record. The album will be released on Nov. 20. WASHINGTON — Adele announced a 56-night North American tour for 2016, including two shows at Verizon Center in D.C. and tickets for the show go on sale Thursday morning. Adele’s third album, “25,” including the song “Hello,” is at or near the top of music charts. Tickets for Verizon Center shows on Oct. 10-11 go on sale Thursday through Adele’s website or on Ticketmaster beginning at 10 a.m. On Ticketmaster, ticket prices range from about $40 to about $150.
• N.W.A, Deep Purple, Cheap Trick Chosen for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Steve Miller and Chicago will also be inducted at Brooklyn ceremony on April 8^th. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame has officially announced next year’s inductees: Cheap Trick, Chicago, Deep Purple, N.W.A and Steve Miller will all join the class of 2016. They will be inducted April 8th during a ceremony at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, with tickets on sale to the public in February. HBO will broadcast the show in the spring.
• Star Wars Opens Today.

8am – C         Clinton: I’d rather be president than Beyonce because I can’t sing.“I want to be as good a president as Beyonce is a performer,” Hillary Clinton said Wednesday. It wasn’t your average campaign trail question that Hillary Clinton faced in Iowa City on Wednesday. Would you rather be president or Beyonce? The Democratic candidate for president thought for a minute before answering “Well if I really had a choice I’d rather be president because I can’t sing,” she said, before going on to talk about how much she admires Beyonce, a Grammy-winning superstar who has performed at the White House for President Obama.

8am – D/E     Some conservatives are uphappy with the 2016 omnibus spending and tax cut package spending too much on Obama’s immigration priorities. Should Ryan fight harder?