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Mornings on the Mall

Friday June 16, 2017

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

5am – A/B/C Have you ever been given a hard time for supporting a candidate? Starbucks customer says she was bullied for supporting Trump. A loyal Starbucks customer says she was targeted for supporting Donald Trump. Starbucks said they are making sure this incident won’t happen again.” I don’t know what politics has to do with getting a cup of coffee,” Kayla Hart said. Hart walked in to Starbucks on East Boulevard in Dilworth on Wednesday morning, wearing a Donald Trump t-shirt. Instead of being greeted with a smile, Kayla said the cashier laughed and her order was labeled with a political message, mocking her support for the president.” They shouted out build a wall and shoved a drink at me and then all the baristas in the back started cracking up laughing,” said Hart. Several shots fired at truck flying ‘Make America Great Again’ flag Indiana State Police say shots were fired at a truck carrying a “Make America Great Again” flag and an American flag on eastbound I-465 Tuesday. Officers believe the shots were fired from a newer white 4-door Chevrolet Malibu with a Louisiana plate near Emerson Avenue around 4 p.m.The victim and a witness informed police that the Malibu pulled up next to the pickup truck, a passenger held a handgun out of the window and then a male fired several shots. Police say no one was in injured in the incident.

5am – D  President Trump set to unveil changes to Cuba policy (ABC NEWS) After nearly three years of warming relations between the United States and Cuba, President Donald Trump is poised to unravel many of his predecessor’s policies on the communist state. Later today the president is headed to Miami, Florida, where he is expected to announce changes to President Obama’s historic rapprochement with Cuba -– fulfilling a promise to the anti-Castro voting bloc he believes helped his campaign clinch the state, but stirring fear among others he could setback business interests and Cuba’s potential for a more prosperous private sector.

5am– E   Tens of Thousands Turned Out for the Congressional Baseball Game Turnout soared for the Congressional Baseball Game Thursday, as Washington residents and Capitol Hill staffers sought to show unity in the wake of a devastating shooting. More than 20,000 tickets were sold for the annual charity event, raising more than $1 million for area charities. The stands at Nationals Park on Washington’s south side were filled with Americans looking to honor the victims of a shooting in Alexandria, Va. The Democrats would go on to win in a blowout, 11-2.

6am – A/B/C Secretary Acosta says Trump apprentices’ starting pay $60K, more in demand than college grads (Fox Business) Do you think more kids should go to trade school? U.S. Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta detailed the Trump administration’s plan to bridge the labor gap Monday, to connect job seekers with executives looking to fill 6 million open positions in the country through expanded “high quality” apprenticeship programs. “Our program will be geared toward all industries and all jobs. The point here is to foster private-private partnerships between industry and educational institutions … so that when [students leave the program] they have the skills necessary to enter the workforce,” Acosta said during a White House press briefing Monday.

Acosta noted that graduates of vocational schools are more in-demand than traditional college graduates.

6am – D INTERVIEW – PHILIP WEGMANN – Commentary Writer for Washington Examiner

Topic: Congressional baseball game coverage

• Congressional Baseball Game Ticket Sales Skyrocket After Shootings
• Congressional Baseball Game Raises More Than $1 Million for Charity in Wake of Shooting
• Democrats win annual baseball game with special meaning

6am – E  Skittles Accused Of White Supremacy (Daily Caller) An attempt by Skittles to celebrate LGBT Pride Month has been met with backlash from various left-leaning activists on social media. The candy manufacturer removed the iconic rainbow colors from its product in a tribute to Pride Month. The company stated, “During Pride, only one rainbow matters. So we’ve given up ours to show support.” A portion of the profits from each bag will go to LGBT charities. The decision was met with backlash by those who felt that the move was racist and reminiscent of white supremacy. Jezebel’s Whitney Kimball wrote an article entitled, “It Is Agreed That White Skittles Were A Bad Choice For Pride Month.” TIME Magazine also wrote that critics had felt “the new direction was inadvertently tone-deaf, rather than supportive of LGBTQ people.

6am – F  Trump Orders Government to Stop Work on Y2K Bug, 17 Years Later Seventeen years after the Year 2000 bug came and went, the federal government will finally stop preparing for it. The Trump administration announced Thursday that it would eliminate dozens of paperwork requirements for federal agencies, including an obscure rule that requires them to continue providing updates on their preparedness for a bug that afflicted some computers at the turn of the century. As another example, the Pentagon will be freed from a requirement that it file a report every time a small business vendor is paid, a task that consumed some 1,200 man-hours every year.

7am – A  NEWT GINGRICH – Former Speaker of the House. His new book  is “Understand Trump” and his book signing is Friday evening at 7 pm at the Barnes & Noble Tyson’s Corner.

Topic: Mueller investigating Trump for obstruction of justice 

• Special counsel is investigating Trump for possible obstruction of justice

• Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accused special counsel Robert Mueller on Thursday of trying to destroy, undermine and cripple Donald Trump’s presidency.
• “Mueller is now clearly the tip of the deep state spear aimed at destroying or at a minimum undermining and crippling the Trump presidency,” Gingrich said on Twitter Thursday.

7am – B /C Should Trump fire Mueller? Trump administration rips leaks surrounding Mueller probe The Trump administration and its allies are firing back at the torrent of leaks surrounding Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, suggesting the anonymous sources tied to these reports cannot be trusted – while calling into question the Mueller team’s neutrality.In an unusual statement overnight, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said Americans should question anonymously sourced reports.

7am – D Day After Shooting, Pelosi Attacks Trump And Republicans’ ‘Politics Of Personal Destruction’ (Daily Caller) The day after Nancy Pelosi emphasized the need to bring Republicans and Democrats together in the wake of the congressional baseball shooting, she attacked Republicans for creating the hostile environment.

Pelosi placed the blame for the coarsened political culture — the most recent manifestation of which involved a left-wing Bernie Sanders supporter trying to murder Republican congressmen — squarely at the feet of Donald Trump and Republican attacks on Bill and Hillary Clinton. “It didn’t used to be this way,” Pelosi said. “Somewhere in the 1990’s Republicans decided on the politics of personal destruction as they went after the Clintons and that is what started and it has continued. “Again, I feel as if we’re having a family moment that is very, very serious and we’re talking about things that we can say, the discussion — save the discussion for another day,”

7am – E   Otto Warmbier’s father denounces North Korea as his son is treated for a ‘severe neurological injury’ Fred Warmbier denounced the “pariah” regime that had brutalized his son and fought back tears Thursday as he talked about kneeling to hug him when he was returned to the United States in a coma.” The fact that he was taken and treated this way is horrible,” Fred Warmbier said. “They’re brutal and they’re terroristic. We see the results of their actions, with Otto.” Otto Warmbier is in stable condition but has suffered a severe neurological injury, Kelly Martin of the University of Cincinnati Medical Center told reporters at the news conference Thursday. Otto Warmbier has extensive loss of brain tissue, no obvious signs of trauma, doctors say Otto Warmbier, who was medically evacuated from a 17-month detention in North Korea this week, has extensive loss of brain tissue and is in a state of unresponsive wakefulness, University of Cincinnati doctors said Thursday afternoon. Doctors said they don’t know what caused the brain damage. When asked whether it could be the result of beating or other violence while in prison, they said that Warmbier did not show any obvious indications of trauma, nor evidence of either acute or healing fractures.

8am – A/B/C Should high profile citizens be held accountable for inciting violence? How?  After Shooting, Some in GOP Blame Incitement by Democrats Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich blamed a “pattern” of “increasing hostility on the left” in an appearance on Fox News, prompting the host to press him on whether it was appropriate to be making such charges at such a time. “You’ve had a series of things, which sends signals that tell people that it’s OK to hate Trump. It’s OK think of Trump in violent terms. It’s OK to consider assassinating Trump and then … suddenly we’re supposed to rise above it — until the next time?” Gingrich responded. On MSNBC in January, Kaine discussed how Democrats could capitalize on an energized base in order to successfully resist the Trump administration. He referred to healthcare rallies, the Women’s March and travel ban protests as early sources of momentum. Kaine suggested building on the “fight in the streets,” a phrase Infowars claims is a call to violence. “What we’ve got to do is fight in Congress, fight in the courts, fight in the streets, fight online, fight at the ballot box,” Kaine said. “And now there’s the momentum to be able to do this.”

8am – D INTERVIEW –  JOHN MALCOLM –  Vice President for the Institute for Constitutional Government / Heritage Foundation

Topic: Mueller’s past ties to Comey

• Mueller’s past ties to Comey makes Trump probe tricky, says ex-DOJ official
• Robert Mueller must tread carefully when investigating President Donald Trumpbecause of his past ties to James Comey, former DOJ official John Malcolm told CNBC on Thursday.
• “Bob Mueller has an excellent reputation,” Malcolm, former deputy assistant attorney general under the George W. Bushadministration, said on “Squawk Box.” “He’s got to be a little bit careful because there is no question that he is close to Jim Comey. He dealt with him every day when Comey was deputy attorney general.”

8am – E  Maryland’s top lawyer says it’s ok to make bare breasted women cover up in public Maryland’s top lawyer on Thursday waded into the controversy over topless sunbathing at the beach, telling state and local officials that they probably are on solid legal ground if they want to ban women from baring their breasts in public. The office of Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D) said that “prohibiting women from exposing their breast in public while allowing men to do so under the same circumstances does not violate the federal or state Constitution. “The brief opinion comes less than a week after the Ocean City Council held an emergency meeting to pass a public nudity ban. The family-friendly beach has never been a destination for topless sunbathing. But the popular vacation spot was thrust into a debate about gender equity after a local female resident lobbied officials to go shirtless.