Cal Thomas, AAA’s John Townsend, Washington Post’s Gregory Schneider and Rep. Barbara Comstock joined WMAL on Wednesday morning!

Mornings on the Mall

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B/C Is Christmas a Religious Holiday? A Growing Number of Americans Say No. Combatants in the annual “War on Christmas” have some new data to chew on, thanks to a survey released this week by the Pew Research Center. While many doubt that Christmas is embattled, as some conservative pundits contend, the new study does suggest American attitudes are changing. The Pew study, based on interviews conducted in recent weeks with 1,503 adults, found that while a vast majority of Americans still celebrate Christmas, most find the religious elements of the holiday are emphasized less than in the past — and few of them care about that change. Like much else in the United States, a strong partisan divide runs through the survey results, with responses from Republicans seeming to place an emphasis on religion and those from Democrats on secularism. But the data complicate efforts to portray Christmas as either in mortal danger or in no trouble at all, a central issue in a yearslong debate over whether Christmas in America respects Christianity or has been undermined by liberalism. Ninety percent of Americans celebrate Christmas in some form, a figure that has “hardly budged at all” since its survey in 2013, the center said.

5am – D/E   TAX CUT BILL:

• Senate passes 1st major rewrite of US tax code in 31 years, setting stage for final House vote on Wednesday. Senate votes 51-48 along strict party lines to pass a $1.5 trillion tax bill, sending the updated bill back to the House to re-vote on the measure Wednesday morning.
• Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump: The United States Senate just passed the biggest in history Tax Cut and Reform Bill. Terrible Individual Mandate (ObamaCare)Repealed. Goes to the House tomorrow morning for final vote. If approved, there will be a News Conference at The White House at approximately 1:00 P.M.
• House will have to vote for tax-cut bill again. House Republicans will need to pass their tax plan for a second time after the Senate parliamentarian ruled that provisions in the bill violated the rules governing the legislation.
• ONLY ROSIE! tries to bribe Jeff Flake and Susan Collins not to vote for tax bill
• Dana Milbank: Republicans have their own Obamacare now
• Bernie Sanders‏ @SenSanders 4h4 hours ago: Senate Republicans just passed their tax reform bill. What an utter disgrace.
• Elizabeth Warren‏Verified account @SenWarren: 4h4 hours ago: The bill that the Republicans jammed through the Senate tonight isn’t tax reform. It’s a heist. Let’s call this out for what it is: Government for sale. #GOPTaxScam
• Cory Booker‏Verified account @SenBooker: 4h4 hours ago: Retweet if you will never forget that tonight Senate Republicans chose corporate profit over the American people. Shame. #GOPTaxScam

6am – A/B/C MOST ANNOYING WORDS TO AMERICANS: For the ninth consecutive year, Americans say “whatever” is the most annoying word or phrase used in casual conversation. But, fewer Americans feel that way than in previous years. Residents under the age of 45, compared with their older counterparts, do not find the word all that bothersome. 33% of Americans consider “whatever” to be the most annoying word or phrase. The recent addition of “fake news” takes second place with 23% followed closely by “no offense, but” with 20%. 11% think “literally” is the most grating word used in conversation while 10% assert “you know what I mean” is the most agitating.

6am – D         INTERVIEW – CAL THOMAS – syndicated columnist – discussed the tax vote.

6am – E         GOP loses control of Virginia House after Dem wins by one vote. Republican seat flipped Democratic in a wild recount Tuesday. A single vote leads to a rare tie for control of the Virginia legislature.

6am – F         Indiana hotel reportedly charges woman $350 for bad review. (Fox News) — A woman in Indiana said she was stunned after she posted a negative review about her bad experience at a hotel — and promptly got an extra $350 charge and a threat of legal action. Katrina Arthur told WRTV she and her husband stayed at the Abbey Inn & Suites in Brown County — about an hour south of Indianapolis — in March 2016, but claimed that their stay at the 40-year-old hotel “was a nightmare.” “The room was unkempt, and it looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the last people stayed there. We checked the sheets and I found hairs and dirt,” Arthur said. She added that it reeked of sewage and had weak water pressure and broken air conditioning. When Arthur tried to find hotel employees, she said she came up short and “had to clean the room myself.” So, when the hotel asked Arthur to review her stay at the Abbey Inn, she made sure her experience was heard.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – JOHN TOWNSEND — Spokesman, AAA

• Dec. 20-21 expected to be busiest holiday travel days

AAA predicts a record number of people will travel for the holidays. Motorists can expect pea

7am – B         TAX VOTE:

• Senate passes 1st major rewrite of US tax code in 31 years, setting stage for final House vote on Wednesday.
• Senate votes 51-48 along strict party lines to pass a $1.5 trillion tax bill, sending the updated bill back to the House to re-vote on the measure Wednesday morning.
• Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 3h3 hours ago: The United States Senate just passed the biggest in history Tax Cut and Reform Bill. Terrible Individual Mandate (ObamaCare)Repealed. Goes to the House tomorrow morning for final vote. If approved, there will be a News Conference at The White House at approximately 1:00 P.M.
• House will have to vote for tax-cut bill again. House Republicans will need to pass their tax plan for a second time after the Senate parliamentarian ruled that provisions in the bill violated the rules governing the legislation.

7am – C         The Mooch rips ‘loser’ Steve Bannon at Hanukkah party. (PageSix) —

Potty-mouthed flameout White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci spoke to NYC Jews about his inspiring pilgrimage to Israel — but still couldn’t resist laying into his nemesis Steve Bannon as a “messianic loser.” For unfathomable reasons, the Mooch was invited to Rabbi Shmuley Boteach’s Hanukkah party to speak about his trip to Israel, just weeks after a tone-deaf Holocaust poll appeared in the Scaramucci Post. But the man who lasted a mere 10 days in the West Wing before being fired over an obscenity-filled interview, once again went wildly off-script during his Sunday night sermon at the rabbi’s Upper West Side townhouse. Of Bannon, he told the crowd, “He’s a loser. He’ll be a stalwart defender of Israel until he’s not. That’s how this guy operates. I’ve seen this guy operate. He was a stalwart defender of me until it became better for him not to be.” The Mooch added, “The problem with Bannon is he’s a messianic figure. It’s his way or the highway. He was dramatically and incredibly divisive in the White House . . . He was leaking on everybody . . . You don’t leak on the president if you’re the president’s senior adviser. So the guy’s a loser.”

7am – D         RACISM NEWS:

• University teaches white employees how to overcome the ‘discomfort’ of being white. (College Fix) — University of Michigan training session used ‘Privileged Identity Exploration Model’. A two-day professional development conference held recently at the University of Michigan included a training session that aimed to help white employees deal with their “whiteness” so they could become better equipped to fight for social justice causes, according to organizers. Participants who took part in the “Conversations on Whiteness” session, held December 5 during the university’s Student Life Professional Development Conference, were taught to “recognize the difficulties they face when talking about social justice issues related to their White identity, explore this discomfort, and devise ways to work through it,” the university’s website states. The goal was to help participants in “unpacking Whiteness” to support students and staff with issues and efforts “related to identity and social justice,” the website added.
• California city promises to remove 50-foot-tall ‘racist’ trees planted in the 1960s that separate a historically black neighborhood from a golf course. (Daily Mail) — A row of ‘racist’ trees standing between an African-American neighborhood and a city golf course will be removed, local officials in Palm Springs, California, told neighborhood residents. On Sunday, Palm Springs Mayor Robert Moon told residents of the historically black Crossley Tract neighborhood that the city would remove the line of tamarisk trees and a chain link fence that runs between the neighborhood and the Tahquitz Creek Golf Course, reports the Desert Sun.   The decision to remove the trees and fence comes after neighborhood residents complained that the 50-foot tall tamarisk trees — an invasive species that blocks views of both the golf course and the San Jacinto mountains — have been lowering property values for decades.

7am – E         NETFLIX AS POPULAR AS CABLE: According to a new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, the number of Americans who subscribe to cable TV is now on par with the number who subscribe to Netflix, and it’s only a matter of time before Reed Hastings and company pull ahead of the pack. Based on a survey of 2,000 consumers, PwC found that 73% subscribe to a traditional pay-TV service, down from 76% in 2016 and 79% in 2015. Meanwhile, the percentage who said they subscribe to Netflix is also at 73%–putting it dead even with cable.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – GREGORY SCHNEIDER – Virginia politics reporter at The Washington Post

• A single vote leads to a rare tie for control of the Virginia legislature
• Republican seat flipped Democratic in a wild recount Tuesday.
• NEWPORT NEWS —The balance of power in Virginia’s legislature turned on a single vote in a recount Tuesday that flipped a seat in the House of Delegates from Republican to Democratic, leaving control of the lower chamber evenly split. The outcome, which reverberated across Virginia, ends 17 years of GOP control of the House and forces Republicans into a rare episode of power sharing with Democrats that will refashion the political landscape in Richmond. It was the culmination of last month’s Democratic wave that had diminished Republican power in purple Virginia.

8am – B/C     INTERVIEW – REP. BARBARA COMSTOCK – R-VA

• TOPICS: Tax vote, sexual harassment in Congress and her metro reform plan
• Senate passes 1st major rewrite of US tax code in 31 years, setting stage for final House vote on Wednesday.
• House will have to vote for tax-cut bill again.
• Rep. Comstock Statement On The Pro-Growth, Pro-Jobs, Pro-Family Tax Relief Package.

8am – D         WASHINGTONIAN: Wawa Opens Its First DC Location and Everyone Goes Nuts. Red alert. Red alert. Wawa opened its first DC outpost—and largest location ever—last week.  Given the mob that descended on the beloved convenience store on day one, you’d think Bruce Springsteen was behind the counter making hoagies and serving coffee.  Those nostalgic for the suburb standby ought to note that this location has been retooled for an urban, Millennial crowd, complete with free Wi-Fi, nitro coffee, and a bike pump station. All day, Wawa fans have been swarming the company’s first DC location for free coffee and much-hyped subs, ahem, hoagies. Never mind that this is a millennial-geared, upscaled version of the nostalgia-rich suburban standby. At one point, an employee says, they had a back-up of 200 hoagie orders.

8am – E         Ring in 2018 with WMAL at the Hilton McLean Tysons Corner!

Join WMAL’s Chris Plante, Larry O’Connor, Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese at the WMAL New Year’s Eve all-inclusive gala! https://www.wmal.com/newyear/