Joe diGenova, Susan Ferrechio, Trevor Matich, Amb. John Bolton and guest host Mary Walter joined WMAL on Monday!

Mornings on the Mall

Monday, January 2, 2017

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Mary Walter

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B     AP New Year’s Poll: Americans Enter 2017 on Optimistic Note. Americans weren’t thrilled with 2016. Only 18 percent said things for the country got better, 33 percent said things got worse, and 47 percent said it was unchanged from 2015. On a personal level, they were optimistic about 2017. Fifty-five percent said they believe things will be better for them in 2017. That’s a 12-point improvement from a year earlier. Americans interviewed about the poll’s results expressed some of that optimism.

5am – C         Obama’s Final Days:

• First Family departs from Hickam, ending President Obama’s last Hawaii vacation while in office. One final aloha Sunday night for President Obama as he and his family leave Hawaii, wrapping up their last holiday vacation here while he’s in office. The First Family departed Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam on Air Force One around 10:30 p.m. Sunday night. Prior to taking off, as the president got out of his motorcade vehicle he was greeted with a round of cheers from a nearby crowd. Hawaii’s dignitaries were also there to bid the family farewell.
• President Obama still has one last chance to try and force Merrick Garland onto the Supreme Court. (Washington Times) – President Obama will have one last chance to force Judge Merrick Garland onto the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday — but it’s a legal gamble and one that has so many pitfalls that even those who say he could get away with it believe it isn’t worth the fight. Mr. Obama’s moment will come just before noon, in the five minutes that the Senate gavels the 114th Congress out of session and the time the 115th Congress begins. In those few moments the Senate will go into what’s known as an “intersession recess,” creating one golden moment when the president could test his recess-appointment powers by sending Judge Garland to the high court.

5am – D         Trump & Role of The Media:  Spicer: Media Freaked Out By Trump Using Twitter to Have a Direct Conversation With Americans. Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” while defending President-elect Donald Trump’s use of Twitter, the incoming White House press secretary Sean Spicer said,”I think it freaks the mainstream media out that he has this following of over 45-plus million people that follow him on social media, that he can have a direct conversation. He doesn’t have to have it funneled through the media.”

5am – E         Washington Post corrects story on Vermont utility breach. (The Hill) – The Washington Post has corrected a story that originally said Russian hackers penetrated the U.S. electric grid by breaching a utility company in Vermont. “An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid,” an editor’s note attached to the original article said. The original story was published Friday, one day after the Obama administration announced new sanctions against Russia for its cyber activities. According to the report, which cited anonymous senior administration officials, a code linked to the Grizzly Steppe operation was found within the utility’s system. Officials told the newspaper that the breach did not interrupt electrical operations. Gov. Peter Shumlin (D-Vt.) called for “ a full and complete investigation of this incident” and to “undertake remedies to ensure that this never happens again,” according to the report.

6am – A/B     Report: Obama’s Economy Pushed Many Women, Men, Into Part-Time Work. The number of women in part-time jobs has doubled in the eight years of President Barack Obama’s tenure, because his management of the economy has produced very few new full-time jobs, according to a new report by left-wing academics. From 2005 to 2015, the percentage of men in “alternative work” increased modestly from 12.3 percent to 14.7 percent; but the percentage of women in alternative work almost double from 8.9 percent to 17.0 percent, according to President Obama’s former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, Alan Krueger. “We find that 94 percent of net job growth in the past decade was in the alternative work category,” he acknowledged, despite Obama’s claim to have created 15 million “good jobs at good wages.” He added, “And over 60% was due to the [the rise] of independent contractors, freelancers and contract company workers.” Essentially, nearly all of the jobs created in the last decade were not traditional nine-to-five jobs, the report showed. Krueger co-authored the report for the National Bureau of Economic Research, and showed how found the percentage of American workers employed in “alternative work,” an economist’s polite term for part time and temporary help, jumped from 10.7 percent to 15.8 percent between 2005 and 2015.

Anthony Bourdain bashes fellow ‘privileged Eastern liberals’ for making Trump win possible. (Washington Post) — Anthony Bourdain, an outspoken critic of President-elect Donald Trump, has called out “privileged Eastern liberals” — including himself — for their “utter contempt” of working-class Americans that he says made Trump’s presidency possible. He faulted those same forces for Trump’s win in November. “The utter contempt with which privileged Eastern liberals such as myself discuss red-state, gun-country, working-class America as ridiculous and morons and rubes is largely responsible for the upswell of rage and contempt and desire to pull down the temple that we’re seeing now,” Bourdain told Reason. “I’ve spent a lot of time in gun-country, God-fearing America,” he added. “There are a hell of a lot of nice people out there, who are doing what everyone else in this world is trying to do: the best they can to get by, and take care of themselves and the people they love. When we deny them their basic humanity and legitimacy of their views, however different they may be than ours, when we mock them at every turn, and treat them with contempt, we do no one any good.” Bourdain went on to criticize HBO political talk show host Bill Maher as “the worst of the smug, self-congratulatory left” after being asked about an appearance on “Real Time with Bill Maher” a few years ago. “Not a show I plan to do again. He’s a classic example of the smirking, contemptuous, privileged guy who lives in a bubble,” Bourdain told the magazine. “And he is in no way looking to reach outside, or even look outside, of that bubble, in an empathetic way.”

6am – C         KU Libraries offering buttons for employees, visitors to display preferred gender pronouns. A number of University of Kansas Libraries employees now wear buttons showing their preferred gender pronouns. Extra buttons are offered for students who want one, too. “Because gender is, itself, fluid and up to the individual,” a posted sign at the libraries explains. “Each person has the right to identify their own pronouns, and we encourage you to ask before assuming someone’s gender. Pronouns matter! Misgendering someone can have lasting consequences, and using the incorrect pronoun can be hurtful, disrespectful, and invalidate someone’s identity.” The buttons are part of KU Libraries’ “You Belong Here” marketing campaign, targeted at attracting undergraduates and making sure they feel welcome, including those who are transgendered, library leaders said.  There are three versions of the square-shaped “My pronouns are” buttons: “He him his,” “She her hers” and, for people who don’t identify themselves as male or female, “They them theirs.”

6am – D         Debate over school start times flares anew. (The Washington Post) — Nearly two years after Montgomery County leaders voted to start the school day later so teenagers could get more sleep, the debate that many thought was settled shows signs of making a comeback in Maryland’s largest school system. Principals in elementary schools have been speaking out about the toll of schedule changes — drowsy children, longer bus rides, families strapped for child care. Employee unions are urging a return to the school hours of old, saying it would be best for students and staff. But parents who support later school days have weighed in, too, with many emailing letters backing the changes adopted in early 2015. “Please do NOT revert to old bell times!!!” one high school parent wrote. “If anything I wish high school bell times were later.” The issue came up briefly at a school board meeting in December and is on the agenda for the Jan. 10 meeting. “I think there have been some unintended consequences,” said Michael A. Durso, board president. “We’ll look at it and discuss it and maybe there are some angles we haven’t thought of,” he added. “We’re just kind of exploratory at this point.” The 2015 decision to reset the 7:25 a.m. opening bells of high school 20 minutes later — to 7:45 a.m. — followed more than two years of study and debate and was viewed by some elected leaders as a no-cost “first step” toward healthier school hours for teenagers. Supporters have argued that later high school start times are in line with research showing that adolescents are biologically wired for later bedtimes and wake-ups, and that lack of rest is linked to increased risks of depression, car accidents and other problems. But the changes at high schools affected schedules across the 204-school system. Elementary schools, which open in two waves, now start at 9 a.m. or 9:25 a.m., 10 minutes later than before, and their dismissals come 20 minutes later, so the length of the school day has been extended. Principals at later-starting elementary schools have appeared at the board’s past three meetings to describe what they see as the fallout. Several talked about children being dropped off at school overly early by parents who need to get to work.

6am – E         Brian Tells Some Stories From His Travels During Christmas Break.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – JOE DIGENOVA – legal analyst and former U.S. Attorney to the District of Columbia

• Latest on Obama’s pardon-request pile: Snowden and Manning ask Obama for clemency
• Obama could still force Garland onto court during ‘intersession recess’
• Joe weighs in on President Obama last week imposing sanctions on Russian officials, intelligence services in retaliation for hacking and the Russian response.

7am – B         Howard Co. may take legal action over BWI airplane noise. WASHINGTON — Lawmakers in Howard County, Maryland, are considering a bill that would allow the county to potentially take legal action against the federal government over increased airplane noise coming from BWI Marshall Airport. The measure would give the county government’s law office the authority to “institute any civil action or other proceedings” over noise that has resulted from new flight patterns, The Baltimore Sun reports. County Council Chairman Jon Weinstein and Councilman Calvin Ball plan to introduce the bill Tuesday, saying they have tried unsuccessfully for months to resolve the problem with the Federal Aviation Administration. “Frankly, I’m troubled that our FAA folks have been unresponsive and have not addressed the issues for our constituents,” Ball told The Sun. “It’s unfortunate that it’s come to this.” “They just seem to be kicking the ball around,” Weinstein added. New flight patterns have been put in place around airports nationwide under NextGen, a different kind of air traffic control system that the FAA is now using. It is a satellite-based technology instead of the traditional radar-based; the FAA says it is more efficient and saves fuel. But residents in many communities have complained about noisy airplanes flying closer to their homes.

7am – C         TERROR ATTACK/ISTANBUL:

• lslamic State group claims Istanbul New Year’s night club attack. (Washington Post) — ISTANBUL — The Islamic State group on Monday claimed responsibility for a deadly rampage at an Istanbul nightclub on New Year’s Eve, an assault that left at least 39 people dead, many of them foreigners from the Middle East. The statement from the group was circulated on social media early Monday, and said a “heroic soldier of the caliphate” attacked the nightclub in “revenge for God’s religion and in response to the orders” of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to target Christians in Turkey. Turkey’s Interior Ministry, meanwhile, announced that 147 people have been detained for their connections to the Islamic State, with 25 formally arrested.
• Shooter killed 39 and wounding dozens, according to NBC Philadelphia.
• Delaware man injured in Istanbul nightclub attack. One of the survivors of the horrific New Year’s Eve terror attack in Istanbul was a Delaware man who was reportedly saved when a bullet was deflected by his cell phone. William Jacob Raak, 35, was shot in the leg when a gunman opened fire in the packed the Reina nightclub — killing 39 and wounding dozens, according to NBC Philadelphia.
• Daily Mirror claims the gunman shouted, “Allahu Akbar” before shooting. A desperate manhunt has been launched to find a terrorist who reportedly shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ before shooting dead 39 people in an Instanbul nightclub packed with New Year’s Eve partygoers.

7am – D         INTERVIEW – SUSAN FERRECHIO – Chief Congressional Correspondent for the Washington Examiner – previewed Congress coming back.

• Incoming GOP-run Congress sees mandate — starting with end to ObamaCare
• Ferrechio: Six predictions for the 115th Congress

7am – E         BRIAN TELLS STORY ABOUT HOW HE SURPRISED HIS DAUGHTER WITH A CAR OVER THE CHRISTMAS BREAK.

8am – A         INTERVIEW — TREVOR MATICH – WMAL’s Redskins Analyst

• Kirk Cousins, Redskins squander a chance to make playoffs in 19-10 loss to Giants. Redskins are eliminated from playoff hunt with 19-10 loss to the Giants.  Washington will miss the NFL postseason with an 8-7-1 record, despite rallying from a 10-point halftime deficit to tie the game late at FedEx Field.

8am – B         TV Train Wrecks On New Year’s Eve:

• Dick Clark Productions calls Mariah Carey’s sabotage claims ‘absurd’ (Fox News) – Dick Clark Productions isn’t taking claims that it sabotaged Mariah Carey’s disastrous New Year’s Eve performance lightly. TMZ reported Sunday that representatives for Carey complained that the diva’s troubled performance on the New Year’s Eve special was set up by the show’s producers “so they could get Mariah drama.” Carey’s team claimed in a written complaint to Dick Clark Productions that her sound and microphone systems were deliberately sabotaged. The report also said that Carey and her team repeatedly complained that her earpieces were not working. Her representative Nicole Perna blamed technical difficulties and told Billboard that the production crew hampered Carey’s lackluster performance. “She was not winging this moment and took it very seriously,” Perna told Billboard. “A shame that production set her up to fail.”
• Don Lemon was a cornucopia of drunken revelry on CNN’s New Year’s Eve
• Don Lemon’s Drunken Near Striptease Ear Piercing CNN Segment Makes Sense as an End to 2016

8am – C         Pranksters Change Hollywood Sign to ‘Hollyweed’ — and Montel Williams Isn’t Happy About It. (People) – Los Angeles police are looking for the suspect who altered the iconic Hollywood sign to read “Hollyweed” on New Year’s Eve, according to multiple reports. On social media user uploaded a photo of the altered sign to Twitter, writing, “Hollyweed!!! I think security took the night off last night in Hollywood.” Sgt. Robert Payan with the Los Angeles Police Department’s Security Services told Variety that officers stationed above the sign over night did not see the vandals. He noted that although there is security footage of the incident, no suspects have been identified. A spokesperson for the department’s Hollywood division told KABC that a vandalism unit was called in to investigate. Television personality Montel Williams found the incident to be no laughing matter. “As a prominent cannabis activist, I find nothing funny about this Hollyweed vandalism and hope those who did it are promptly arrested.— Montel Williams (@Montel_Williams) January 1, 2017”

8am – D         INTERVIEW – AMB. JOHN BOLTON – former UN Ambassador

• Bolton calls for Trump to retaliate against UN over Israel resolution. Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton on Sunday called for the U.S. to take action against the international body and member nations who supported a resolution censuring Israel over its settlements. During an interview with John Catsimatidis on AM 970 in New York, Bolton singled out Malaysia and Venezuela, saying that the U.S. should cut its foreign aid to the countries. Still, Bolton stipulated
• LAST WEEK:  US abstention allows UN to demand end to Israeli settlements. Donald Trump and Israel had urged Washington to use its veto to stop historic security council resolution. The United Nations security council has adopted a landmark resolution demanding a halt to all Israeli settlement in the occupied territories after Barack Obama’s administration refused to veto the resolution. A White House official said Obama had taken the decision to abstain in the absence of any meaningful peace process.
• Washington Post corrects story on Russians hacking a Vermont utility. The Washington Post has corrected a story that originally said Russian hackers penetrated the U.S. electric grid by breaching a utility company in Vermont. “An earlier version of this story incorrectly said that Russian hackers had penetrated the U.S. electric grid. Authorities say there is no indication of that so far. The computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked was not attached to the grid,” an editor’s note attached to the original article said.
• Trump’s Russia claims drive this week in politics.   (CNN) President-elect Donald Trump claims to have inside information on Russia’s meddling in the United States’ election — and promises to reveal it “Tuesday or Wednesday.”
• Spicer hints Obama’s Russian sanctions ‘politically motivated’
• Last week: State Department also kicks out 35 Russian diplomats from its embassy in Washington, consulate in San Francisco.
• Last week: President Obama imposes sanctions on Russian officials, intelligence services in retaliation for hacking.
• lslamic State group claims Istanbul New Year’s night club attack.  

8am – E         Larry O’Connor Previews His New Show @ 3 PM – 6 PM.