Joe diGenova, Susan Ferrechio, Morgan Wright and Mary Katharine Ham joined WMAL on Monday!

Mornings on the Mall

Monday, August 7, 2017

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

5am – A/B/C   College Park City Council To Vote On Whether To Allow Illegal Immigrants To Vote. WASHINGTON (WMAL) – College Park may become the ninth city in the state of Maryland to allow people who aren’t citizens, including illegal immigrants, to vote in local elections. Aug. 8 the College Park City Council and mayor are scheduled to vote on whether to open up local elections to non-citizens who live within city limits. People on both sides of the aisle spoke at a city council meeting July 11. Resident Bill Bukowski said he is opposed to the change because the Constitution specifies that only citizens are allowed to vote. “This council is stepping way out of bounds on their legal responsibility by making a change in the voting status and giving that voting status to non-citizens,” Bukowski said during a public hearing. Resident Barbara Pandobanke is in favor of allowing people who aren’t citizens to vote. She said when her parents came to America from Bolivia, they had to become citizens before they could vote, but it’s different now than it was then. She said College Park has a large immigrant population, and they should be able to vote so they are represented on the city council. “They have some of the same concerns non-immigrant residents have, mainly they want a quiet, safe and pretty community in which to raise their kids, and that’s not so foreign to the most of us, but they don’t’ always feel heard here,” Pandobanke said. Takoma Park, Barnesville, Glen Echo, Garret Park, Martin’s Additions and Somerset already allow non-citizens to vote.

5am – D         TRUMP NEWS:

• Pence camp: Report on 2020 run “nothing more than wishful thinking.” A spokesman for Vice President Mike Pence said that a report Saturday about the Pence camp preparing for a possible 2020 run for president is “ridiculous” fake news. “Claims @VP preparing for 2020 run are ridiculous #FakeNews and nothing more than wishful thinking by New York Times,” tweeted Marc Lotter, Pence’s press secretary. The article that prompted the tweet from Lotter discussed Republican efforts to create a “shadow campaign” for the 2020 election, as faith in President Trump is dropping among the GOP faithful. Though the New York Times reported Pence himself has not overtly signaled his intention to run counter to his boss, it does mention that some of his aides have been speaking out in private about a possible campaign.

• West Wing being cleared out for August renovations. The West Wing is being cleared out as August renovations and maintenance of the White House begin. CBS News White House correspondent Mark Knoller tweeted photos Friday afternoon of staff starting to move furniture out of the West Wing. @markknoller: Desks moving out – no sign of secret treasure maps. (Attn: Nicolas Cage) 5:35 PM – Aug 4, 2017
• White House to become less ‘dump’-like in Trump’s absence. (Washington Post) — Donald Trump has spent a good chunk of his presidency far away from the fly-infested White House — lately at a cottage on his resort in Bedminster, N.J., where he recently explained to fellow golfers that the “White House is a real dump,” according to Golf magazine. You may have heard this already — and that Trump denied making the remark. “TOTALLY UNTRUE,” he wrote Wednesday, several hours before he again evacuated the White House for Bedminster — at which point a renovation crew immediately began tearing the presidential residence apart. Because regardless of whether Trump said it, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has undeniably acquired some not-un-dump-like qualities over the years. The scuzziness has nothing to do with the current occupant. As Jenny Starrs noted for The Washington Post, the White House is a centuries-old mansion whose original designers and occupants, whatever their foresight regarding matters of governance, never planned for the plumbing, wiring, extensions and HVAC systems that would be tacked on in future decades.
• Trump Lets Sessions Know He’s Out Of The Dog House. (Daily Caller) — Attorney General Jeff Sessions appears to be out of the dog house. After weeks of speculation regarding Sessions’ job security, President Trump took to Twitter — his preferred method of communication — to praise the attorney general on Saturday for cracking down on illegal leaks of classified information. “After many years of LEAKS going on in Washington, it is great to see the A.G. taking action!” Trump wrote. “For National Security, the tougher the better!” Sessions was widely considered to be on thin ice after Trump repeatedly attacked him out of frustration over the Russia investigation. Trump told the New York Times in an interview that if he had known that Sessions would have recused himself from the Russia investigation, he would have picked a different attorney general. He later criticized Sessions for not re-opening the investigation into former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s private email server. Sessions initiated on Friday a new crackdown on the flood of illegal leaks coming out of the executive branch.

5am – E         50 Bikers With Big Hearts Escort Bullied 6th-Grader To School.

When Tammy Mick learned that her son had considered hurting himself, she turned to a friend for help. (Huffington Post) – Bullies are intimidating because they’re rude, mean and sometimes violent. But they can be intimidated, too. That’s why a group of 50 bikers in Dekalb County, Indiana, used their image to help one sixth-grade student teach his classmates a lesson: Bullying is bad, not badass. The bikers, brought together by Brent Warfield of the social group United Motorcycle Enthusiasts, on Tuesday escorted 11-year-old Phil Mick to his first day of class at Dekalb Middle School. Phil rode onto campus on the back of Warfield’s bike.  Warfield, director of the biker club and owner of KDZ Motorcycle Sales & Service, brought the group of bikers together after Phil’s mom, Tammy Mick, told him Phil had been bullied at school last year. Mick said she discovered that other kids were hitting and punching her son when Phil came home with bruises.  “It tore my heart out,” Mick told HuffPost of the bullying. Warfield stepped in to help after Mick said that Phil had talked about killing himself, according to Fort Wayne news station WANE.

6am – A/B/C American Airlines ‘unable to substantiate’ Lena Dunham’s allegations of transphobic employees at NYC airport. (Fox News) – Lena Dunham took to Twitter on Thursday to complain about two American Airlines employees she claimed to have overheard engaging in “transphobic talk” — but the airline has since stated that they are “unable to substantiate” Dunham’s version of events. “We always look into complaints from customers, but at this time, we are unable to substantiate these allegations,” American Airlines tells Fox News. Dunham first tweeted about the incident early on Thursday morning, while she said she was waiting for her delayed flight to depart from JFK International Airport in New York.  “Not gonna call out the airline who delayed cuz s[—] happens BUT I did just overhear 2 @AmericanAir attendants having a transphobic talk,” wrote the “Girls” creator at 2:51 a.m. Shortly afterward, she followed up with a tweet that described the incident as “the worst part” of a night that already included a several-hour delay, to which American responded with concern.

6am – D         Rolling Stone Promotes ‘Professional Cuddling’ as Way of ‘Coping’ With Trump. How unhinged are some media outlets in responding to the election of Donald Trump? Rolling Stone’s website on Friday promoted “professional cuddling” as a reaction to those struggling to “cope.” Writer Allie Voipe highlighted this presumably blue state response: “Since November – and the election of Donald Trump – professional cuddling services have seen a spike in client interest.”  According to Adam Lippin, the CEO of Cuddlist, “The holiday season was the first time that since Trump won the election that a lot of people were seeing their family.” Apparently those who take part in these organized hugging sessions must be told to keep it appropriate:  “This is a G-rated event,” says one organizer. “Touch stays outside the bikini area.”

6am – E         Annapolis tries to keep national politics out of its police department. WASHINGTON — Several police chiefs around the country were quick to rebuke President Trump for suggesting it would be OK for officers to rough up someone who has just been arrested. Most of those statements were also published on departmental social media accounts, including in Annapolis, where Police Chief Scott Baker said the president’s words “do not help build trust between citizens and police.” But the city’s mayor disapproved of the police chief’s statement. Annapolis Mayor Mike Pantelides met with Baker personally and also emailed all city employees, reminding them not to “post anything whether it’s positive or negative about the president or national politics.” Pantelides argues that doing otherwise will “distract us from our core mission of serving the citizens of Annapolis,” while adding that he is not a fan of “having to read through over 120 comments on Facebook and deal with the blowback from this.” The mayor later elaborated in a statement to WTOP, saying it’s “not about violating anyone’s First Amendment rights,” but rather “a policy of not bringing politics into our offices.”

6am – F         Baltimore’s ‘nobody kill anybody’ weekend leaves at least 2 people dead. Two Baltimore murders break 72-hour anti-violence ‘ceasefire.’ (Reuters) – A 37-year-old man was shot and killed in Baltimore late on Saturday, police said, in the second murder since activists called for a 72-hour “ceasefire” this weekend in response to the city’s record homicide rate. The unidentified victim suffered multiple gunshot wounds just before 10 p.m. on Saturday, a few hours after a 24-year-old man was reported shot and killed. Another shooting, which was not fatal, occurred earlier in the day, police said. Community leaders had pleaded for a 72-hour pause in the violence during Friday, Saturday and Sunday, using the hashtag #BaltimoreCeasefire on social media. No murders were reported until Saturday afternoon. The city had recorded a record 204 homicides for the first seven months of the year.

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

• TOPICS: Sessions leaks crackdown / latest on Mueller grand jury
• Sessions announces leak crackdown, is “reviewing” subpoenaing the media
• Attorney General Jeff Sessions appears to be out of the dog house. (Daily Caller) — After weeks of speculation regarding Sessions’ job security, President Trump took to Twitter — his preferred method of communication — to praise the attorney general on Saturday for cracking down on illegal leaks of classified information. “After many years of LEAKS going on in Washington, it is great to see the A.G. taking action!” Trump wrote. “For National Security, the tougher the better!”
• Deputy AG days after Sessions threatened to subpoena journalists: We’re after leakers, not journalists (The Hill) — Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Sunday said the Department of Justice (DOJ) is not targeting journalists as it clamps down on leaks in the administration. “The attorney general has been very clear that we’re after the leakers, not the journalists,” he said on “Fox News Sunday.” Rosenstein said the department wants to target the people who are committing crimes. He also said the DOJ is putting forth the necessary resources in its effort to prevent these leaks and will respond appropriately.
• Top Intel Dem: Mueller wouldn’t convene grand jury “without evidence” to move Trump-Russia probe forward
• Rod Rosenstein: Mueller needs to come to me if he wants to chase any crime outside scope of Russia probe

7am – B         Immigration News:

• College Park City Council To Vote On Whether To Allow Illegal Immigrants To Vote. WASHINGTON (WMAL) – College Park may become the ninth city in the state of Maryland to allow people who aren’t citizens, including illegal immigrants, to vote in local elections. Aug. 8 the College Park City Council and mayor are scheduled to vote on whether to open up local elections to non-citizens who live within city limits. People on both sides of the aisle spoke at a city council meeting July 11.
• Los Angeles paid illegal immigrant families an ABSURD amount in welfare benefits over the past two years. (Daily Caller) – Los Angeles County paid illegal immigrant families over $1.3 billion dollars from 2015 to 2016, Fox News reports. The metric is over a quarter of the money the county has spent on its entire low-income population.  The Department of Public Social Services, the entity that assesses welfare and food stamp benefits in the county, gave a summary of costs associated with the city’s lax sanctuary policies for illegal immigrants. According to a study by the Migration Policy Institute, Los Angeles has one of the highest concentration of undocumented people of any county in the country. It also permits undocumented families with children born in the U.S. to receive full welfare and food stamp benefits. Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation says these costs are just “the tip of the iceberg,” when it comes to supporting illegal immigrant families. He also notes that the state can subsidize up to $24,000 per family to pay for education, police and fire, medical, and affordable housing coverage. Rector stated, “They get $3 in benefits for every $1 they spend.”
• Emanuel: City to sue Trump Justice Department over funding threat. Mayor Rahm Emanuel is planning to double down against President Donald Trump’s immigration policies by filing a federal lawsuit claiming it’s illegal for the federal government to withhold public safety grant money from so-called sanctuary cities. The city will head into federal court Monday to argue Attorney General Jeff Sessions cannot hold back federal Byrne grants from cities the administration says aren’t cooperating enough with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, Emanuel said during an interview on “Connected to Chicago” on WLS radio-890. The interview will air at 7 p.m. Sunday. Byrne Justice Assistance Grants provide a relatively minuscule amount of money to Chicago. The city this year is counting on $3.2 million from the program, money mostly used to buy police vehicles. The grants amount to roughly three-hundredths of 1 percent of the entire $9.8 billion city budget. That makes the lawsuit a relatively low-stakes gambit with some political upside for Emanuel as he courts support from Latinos, who are deeply concerned about the Trump administration’s immigration policies. The lawsuit also could affirm Emanuel’s profile among big-city mayors pushing back against Trump policies.
• GOP Sen Flake: I’ll ‘Stand Up Against’ Trump’s Immigration Legislation. (Breitbart) – Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) said he would “stand up” against the immigration bill endorsed by President Donald Trump. Flake said, “The immigration proposal that was put forward last week. I think it’s fine to move to a points system, we did that in the bipartisan bill in the Senate, but you can’t cut immigration, legal immigration in half. And so I’ll stand up against that. And the behavior in the White House as well. I mean, referring to our colleagues across the aisle as losers or clowns is just not the direction to go if we are going to solve the problems in a conservative way that we need to. So I’ll stand up every time to the president when he’s doing things that I don’t think he should be doing.”

7am – C         YouTube beat out Netflix and Amazon to snag ‘The Karate Kid’ TV series sequel.  YouTube has pulled off a major score for its subscription service, YouTube Red, and in the process has left its competitors Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu all feeling envious. The site has landed the TV sequel to the classic 1984 movie, “The Karate Kid,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.  Titled “Cobra Kai,” it will be a 10-episode half-hour comedy series that features two of the stars from the movie, Ralph Macchio and William Zabka. The series will debut in 2018.  “The Karate Kid” became a sensation in the late ’80s for its look at teenager Daniel LaRusso (Macchio), who after moving to a new town begins to get picked on constantly by bully Johnny Lawrence (Zabka) and his friends — who all know karate from training at the intense Cobra Kai dojo. Daniel befriends Mr. Miyagi (the late Pat Morita), who uses unconventional methods to train Daniel how to do karate. The movie ends with Daniel and Johnny fighting at a karate tournament. The series, set 30 years after that tournament, focuses on Johnny. He’s down and out but reopens the dojo to seek redemption. Daniel, on the other hand, is successful but is struggling to find balance in his life since the death of Mr. Miyagi. Josh Heald of “Hot Tub Time Machine” fame will direct most of the episodes. The series will be written by Heald and “Harold and Kumar” franchise screenwriters Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossberg. The series landed at YouTube after a competitive bidding war that included Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and AMC, according to THR. Macchio and Zabka, who are also executive producers on the show, were heavily involved in the pitch around Hollywood.

7am – D         INTERVIEW – SUSAN FERRECHIO — chief congressional correspondent for the Washington Examiner

• Congress takes summer recess, leaves behind ObamaCare, looming spending, debt issues. (Fox News) — Congress has left Washington for the summer with a trail of unfinished business and several immediate concerns when they return in September — increasing the federal debt limit and passing a temporary spending bill to avert a government shutdown. The effort by the Republican-led Congress to repeal and replace ObamaCare appears dead for now, despite President Trump goading leaders to try again to give him a major legislative victory. “We’ve pivoted to tax reform and I think we’ve got to stay on that,” Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said Friday. GOP House leaders passed their ObamaCare overhaul bill in May. But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tried and failed several times since early July to present a bill that at least 50 of his 52 GOP senators could support and pass. With passage appearing at least possible last month, the Kentucky Republican boldly required senators to stay on Capitol Hill for the first two weeks of their August recess. But after a series of repeal and-or replace measures failed in recent weeks, lawmakers returned to their home states, with some taking overseas trips as part of congressional delegations.   Congress must increase the debt limit to prevent a jarring federal default.

7am – E         A courageous boy from New Jersey received a letter of support from NASA after he applied for the role of planetary protection officer. (Daily Mail) – Jack Davis, 9, applied for NASA’s new position that was listed this week in hopes of finding help to protect the Earth against aliens.  In official terms, the position involves the assistance with the ‘avoidance of organic-constituent and biological contamination in human and robotic space exploration’. It adds that ‘space flight missions may intentionally or unintentionally carry Earth organisms and organic constituents to the planets or other solar system bodies’.  Jack was one of the first applicants to apply, writing an adorable letter explaining why he was qualified for the job. ‘My name is Jack Davis and I would like to apply for the planetary protection officer job,’ he said in the letter. ‘I may be nine but think I would be fit for the job. ‘One of the reasons is my sister says I am an alien also I have seen almost all the space and alien movies I can see. ‘I have also seen the show Marvel Agents of Shield and hope to see the movie Men in Black. ‘I am great at video games. ‘I am young, so I can learn to think like an Alien.’ The youngster signs off the letter giving himself the title ‘Guardian of the Galaxy’.

8am – A         INTERVIEW — MORGAN WRIGHT- Senior Fellow, Center for Digital Government, former executive at Cisco & Alcatel-Lucent and former senior advisor for the US Department of State Antiterrorism Assistance Program – discussed Sessions leaks crackdown, finding digital footprint of leakers and how Sessions can find the leakers.

8am – B         Google employee anti-diversity memo causes row. (BBC) – A Google employee’s opinion criticising the firm’s diversity initiatives is causing a furor at the firm. In an internal memo, a male software engineer argued the lack of women in top tech jobs was due to biological differences between men and women. “We need to stop assuming that gender gaps imply sexism,” he wrote in the piece which was widely criticised. But the author said he had received “many personal messages from fellow Googlers expressing their gratitude”. Posted on an internal discussion board, the article was published in full by tech website Gizmodo. It argues that “the abilities of men and women differ in part due to biological causes and that these differences may explain why we don’t see equal representation of women in tech and leadership”. The unnamed author says women generally “prefer jobs in social or artistic areas” while “more men may like coding”.

8am – C         ‘Barack Obama Day’ is official holiday in Illinois. (Washington Examiner) — President Obama’s birthday is now a state holiday in Illinois. Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican, signed a bill into law on Friday designating Aug. 4 as officially “Barack Obama Day.” The new state holiday will be celebrated each year on Obama’s birthday, beginning in 2018. The bill stated that the holiday will be observed throughout the state in honor of the 44th president of the United States, “who began his career serving the People of Illinois in both the Illinois State Senate and the United States Senate, and dedicated his life to protecting the rights of Americans and building bridges across communities.”

8am – D         INTERVIEW – MARY KATHARINE HAM – co-author, “End of Discussion”, CNN contributor and senior writer for The Federalist and former WMAL morning show host

• Lena Dunham, Reporting People To Authorities For Disagreeing With You Is Creepy Bullying, Not Heroism. Dunham isn’t content to publicly lecture about trans issues. She wants to punish people who disagree with her, going after their jobs without so much as a conversation with them. (The Federalist / Mary Katharine Ham) – This week, famous millennial journaler Lena Dunham was strolling through an airport eavesdropping on a couple of flight attendants. There she was, just a right-thinking individual with fluency in approved language and a desire for a kind and compassionate society, when she heard a conversation that violated her sense of an ideal society. Then, as any individual principally interested in kindness and empathy would do, she reported the flight attendants’ conversation to their bosses at American Airlines. Then, filled once more with the compassion and humility that are her hallmarks, Dunham broadcast this conversation, and her reporting of it, to her millions of social media followers. American Airlines is reportedly looking into it…. Dunham, who claims she was animated by a desire for “love and inclusivity,” could have actually spoken to the flight attendants in question, but she did not. There are so many things that are creepy about this. The initial eavesdropping, the immediate appeal to authority, the desire to threaten livelihoods over snippets of conversation for which one has no context. Then there’s the ever-present Dunham show. Not only does she want to be a minder of her fellow citizens, she wants everyone to know she’s a proud minder of her fellow citizens and she wants to recruit more minders. The message is clear: Someone is watching you and you’ll pay for being out of line.”

8am – E         TRUMP MORNING TWEETSTORM:

• Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump 40m40 minutes ago: …conquests, how brave he was, and it was all a lie. He cried like a baby and begged for forgiveness like a child. Now he judges collusion?
• Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump 48m48 minutes ago: Never in U.S.history has anyone lied or defrauded voters like Senator Richard Blumenthal. He told stories about his Vietnam battles and….
• Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump 53m53 minutes ago: Interesting to watch Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut talking about hoax Russian collusion when he was a  phony Vietnam con artist!
• Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump 1h1 hour ago: Working hard from New Jersey while White House goes through long planned renovation. Going to New York next week for more meetings.
• Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 1h1 hour ago: Replying to  realDonaldTrump Hard to believe that with 24/7 #Fake News on CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, NYTIMES & WAPO, the Trump base is getting stronger!
• Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump 1h1 hour ago: … Supreme Court pick, economic enthusiasm, deregulation & so much more have driven the Trump base even closer together. Will never change!  
• Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump 2h2 hours ago: …and West Virginia. The fact is the Fake News Russian collusion story, record Stock Market, border security, military strength, jobs….. 2,872 replies 4,054 retweets 17,825 likes
• Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump 2h2 hours ago: The Trump base is far bigger &  stronger than ever before (despite some phony Fake News polling). Look at rallies in Penn, Iowa, Ohio…….
• Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump 2h2 hours ago: The failing @nytimes, which has made every wrong prediction about me including my big election win (apologized), is totally inept!