Rep. Bradley Byrne (R-AL), Steve Moore, RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel, and MD Del. Terri Hill joined WMAL on Tuesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, February 6, 2018

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

5am – A/B/C Dissection practices in Frederick County questioned after PETA video surfaces. (Frederick News Post) — Addison Lantz remembers seeing vacuum-packed animal parts in the science wing of Frederick High School. To this day, the 2011 graduate recalls a strong scent of formaldehyde. “I never took another science class,” Lantz said at the Board of Education meeting on Jan. 24. Lantz led the charge of a few community members who called for Frederick County Public Schools to sever ties with an organization that was recently accused of using inhumane practices on animals. Bio Corp., a company based in Alexandria, Minnesota, that supplies animals for dissection in classrooms, was charged with 25 counts of animal cruelty in early January after a video produced by the animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals contained examples of pigeons being drowned, crayfish injected with latex and turtles being frozen, coming back to life and being frozen again. Lantz, who is a member of PETA, called the practices “seemingly business as usual.” “Dissection suppliers continue these hideous practices because schools continue to purchase animals for dissection even though more modern and humane alternatives exist and are increasingly being adopted,” she said. While Bio Corp. is listed as a vendor on several previous FCPS contracts for science supplies, which includes supplies needed for dissections, no contract indicated that FCPS has bought anything from the company. When the district writes contracts such as a contract for school supplies, staff compiles a list of several vendors that the Board of Education can then approve. The district then decides what supplies, and from whom to buy the supplies that are needed based on the circumstances of the school system, including the time involved, price and quantity. It is not uncommon for a vendor to be on the district’s list of approved vendors, but not have any transactions with the school system, FCPS Communications Director Michael Doerrer said. But dissection is still a part, albeit a small part, of the science curriculum in the school system, said Colleen Beall, FCPS secondary science curriculum specialist. Most teachers who order animals for dissection do so through science education vendors Carolina Biological Supply Co. and Fisher Science Education, Beall said.

5am – D         Memo News and ‘Little’ Adam Schiff Response

• Committee Votes to Release Democratic Rebuttal to G.O.P. Russia Memo
• ‘Give Him a Time-Out’: Rep Adam Schiff Calls for General Kelly to Reprimand Trump. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) on Monday responded to President Trump calling him “little Adam Schiff” and a liar by saying White House chief of staff John Kelly should give Trump “a timeout.” “Look, first he attacked me some months ago, calling me ‘sleazy Adam Schiff,’ now it’s ‘little Adam Schiff’ which, I don’t know, seems better. It’s also confusing,” he said on CNN. “But bottom line is I think it may be time for Gen. Kelly to give the president a timeout. The country would certainly benefit from that anyway.”

5am – E         North Korea News

• Pence heads to Olympics with stern message for North Korea (Reuters) — WASHINGTON/SEOUL (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Mike Pence was en route to Asia on Tuesday on a trip that takes him to the Winter Olympics in South Korea where his itinerary underlines Washington’s stance that North Korea is trying to use the Games for crude propaganda. As his guest for the Games opening ceremony on Friday, Pence is bringing the father of Otto Warmbier, an American student who was imprisoned in North Korea for 17 months and died in June 2017 from lack of oxygen and blood to the brain. Pence will also visit a memorial for 46 South Korean sailors killed in 2010 in the sinking of a warship that Seoul blamed on a North Korean torpedo attack.
• Otto Warmbier’s father to attend Olympics in South Korea (Fox News) — The father of a US student who died after he was released from a North Korean jail will attend the Olympic Games as the US vice-president’s guest. Mike Pence announced on Twitter that Fred Warmbier, Otto Warmbier’s father, will attend the opening ceremony in Pyeongchang, South Korea on Friday. Both Koreas are set to march under one flag, signalling a thaw in relations.

But Mr. Pence said he wants Mr Warmbier to remind the world of North Korea’s human rights abuses.

6am – A/B/C Should children under 14 be allowed to play tackle football?

• Md. Lawmaker To Propose Bill Banning Tackle Football For Kids Under 14. (CBS) — It’s a question posed in the general assembly with potentially far-reaching implications for youth sports. One Maryland lawmaker is set to propose a bill banning tackle football for children under the age of 14. Del. Terri Hill, a Maryland House of Delegates member representing Baltimore and Howard Counties, is a medical doctor and sits on the Health and Government Operations Committee. Dr. Hill wants state law to prohibit kids under the age of 14 from tackling in football, heading in soccer, and checking in lacrosse and hockey. Her intent is to limit the risk of head injuries. “In reality, what we’re trying to do is minimize the risk of kids getting these injuries, because the younger the brain, the more long-term damage we see,” Dr. Hill said. It’s all in a day’s work for the pros, but the higher risk to kids has already caused both New York and Illinois to consider measures restricting how kids play the game. The under 14 prohibition bill will be introduced Monday night or Tuesday. A hearing on the bill to require experts at games and practices is scheduled for February 15.

6am – D         Stock Markets Sink, Suggesting Global Rout Will Go On

• Obama Press Sec. Jay Carney: Good time to recall that in the previous administration, we NEVER boasted about the stock market — even though the Dow more than doubled on Obama’s watch — because we knew two things: 1) the stock market is not the economy; and 2) if you claim the rise, you own the fall.
• “The stock market is booming…I don’t have to tell you about the stock market and where that’s gone” – Barack Obama, July 2014
• Obama tells Marc Maron he saved the stock market
• Obama brags to Wall Street CEOs: ‘The stock market is doing pretty good last time I checked’
• Obama Boasts of Rising Stock Market During His Term
• White House claims Trump is focused on ‘long-term economic fundamentals’ following stock market plunge Monday

6am – E         SUPER BOWL NEWS:

• Super Bowl Ratings Slip To 7-Year Low… (Deadline) — As late as it went and as rowdy as it got, the City of Brotherly Love made pretty swift progress this morning picking up the debris of last night’s victory celebrations for the Philadelphia Eagles’ first Super Bowl win ever. The official parade in Philly for the 41-33 triumph over the New England Patriots isn’t until February 8 but there is certainly one element of Super Bowl LII that wasn’t champion – the ratings. With 103.4 million watching, last night’s game on NBC from Minneapolis is down 7% from the total set of network eyeballs from the 2017 Super Bowl. A steeper fall than even the declining the stock market today, that’s the worst the Super Bowl has done since 2009 when the Pittsburgh Steelers 27-23 defeat of the Arizona Cardinals scored 98.7 million viewers.
• Several Eagles players planning to boycott visit to Trump White House. (The Hill) — Several players on the Philadelphia Eagles have said they are not planning to attend the traditional Super Bowl winners’ White House visit this year. Wide receiver Torrey Smith, defensive end Chris Long and safety Malcolm Jenkins are some of the players who have said they don’t plan to participate in the visit to the White House, NJ.com reported.

6am – F         Edwin Jackson, Indianapolis Colts linebacker, was killed by an illegal immigrant, police say. (Fox News) — The suspected drunk driver who killed Indianapolis Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson in a crash on the morning of the Super Bowl is a Guatemalan citizen who is in the U.S. illegally and has been deported twice, police revealed Monday. Indiana State Police identified the driver of an F-150 truck in the incident as Manuel Orrego-Savala, 37, who had been deported in 2007 and 2009. “State police investigators are working with U.S. Federal Immigration Officials and they have placed a hold on Orrego-Savala,” police said in a statement. Jackson, 26, and Jeffrey Monroe, 54, also in his vehicle, were hit and killed around 4 a.m. on Sunday on Interstate 70 in Indiana. Investigators believe Monroe was Jackson’s Uber driver and Jackson was the passenger, FOX59 reported. The station said at some point during the ride Jackson became sick, and the pair were hit on the emergency shoulder of the highway after Monroe pulled over. A state trooper who responded to the crash also struck the body of one of the victims in the center lane when he slowed his cruiser down to investigate, according to FOX59. Orrego-Savala fled the scene but was arrested shortly thereafter by the responding officer. He then gave police the alias of Alex Cabrera Gonsales. Jail records viewed by Fox News on Monday morning said Orrego-Savala, under the alias of Gonsales, was driving without a license. Orrego-Savala’s blood alcohol level was 0.239 at the time of the crash — three times the legal limit — The Indianapolis Star reported, citing a probable cause affidavit. Drivers in Indiana are presumed intoxicated with a 0.08 percent blood alcohol level.

7am – A         HILLARY AT GEORGETOWN:

• Hillary: 2016 Defeat a Combination of ‘Misogyny’ Caused by Globalization, ‘Old-Fashioned Sexism’ (Breitbart) — Monday at Georgetown University during a panel discussion on women and human rights, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said her loss to Donald Trump was a combination of misogyny caused by globalization anxiety and “old-fashioned sexism and a refusal to accept the equality of women.”
• Hillary Clinton: Women Will Be ‘Primarily Burdened With The Problems Of Climate Change’
• COSTA: Sec. @HillaryClinton attended a book party tonight in Washington for Lanny Davis, whose latest book takes on Comey’s conduct during the election. She didn’t make any remarks but her presence there was a statement of its own.

7am – B/C     INTERVIEW – REP. BRADLEY BYRNE – R-AL – House Armed Services Committee – discussed military funding in-spite of looming budget battles

• House GOP’s six-week continuing resolution offers military, health care funding (Defense News) — WASHINGTON – House GOP leadership is tying a continuing resolution that averts a government shutdown through March 23 to a $659.2 billion defense spending measure for fiscal 2018 and health care items. Introduced late Monday, this fifth funding patch is meant to attract votes from both sides of the aisle, but its fate is uncertain in the Senate, where Democrats are seeking defense spending increases be matched on the non-defense side of the budget. By advancing the bill, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., is seeking to satisfy a large chunk of his caucus in the lower chamber. Republicans with the House Armed Services Committee and the House Freedom Caucus have teamed up to support defense spending legislation, threatening to withhold their votes on continuing resolutions over their disruptive effects on the military. The next continuing resolution will be the fifth of the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. Military leaders have decried the practice of passing short-term spending legislation in lieu of a full-year budget, saying it severely hurts efforts to start new programs and maintain multi-year equipment purchase plans. Its unclear whether the package’s inclusion of funding for a range of items outside defense, including community health centers, the 2020 Census and the Small Business Administration, will secure needed Democratic votes in the Senate, where Republicans have a 51-vote majority. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., suggested on Senate floor Monday that Ryan was wasting time with the “cromnibus” gambit. “Speaker Ryan needs to do what’s best for the country and work in a bipartisan way to fund the government, even if not every faction of his caucus will go along,” Schumer said. “Ii he lets the Freedom Caucus be the tail that wags the dog, there’s no way we’ll reach an agreement that can pass the Senate. And it would jeopardize the positive discussions going on right now about the budget, disaster aid, immigration aid and more.”

7am – D         INTERVIEW – STEVE MOORE – Economist at The Heritage Foundation and served as an economic adviser to the Trump campaign – discussed stock market and economy under President Trump.

 7am – E         Food News

• Doritos To Make Less Crunchy Chips For Women So They Don’t Look Gross Eating (Daily Caller) — Doritos is preparing to launch a new version chips for women, featuring less crunch and messy crumbs so that women don’t look gross while they indulge. “Although women would love to crunch crisps loudly, lick their fingers and pour crumbs from the bag into their mouth afterwards, they prefer not to do this in public,” global chief executive Indra Nooyi told the New York Post, pointing to research that indicates women don’t like to crunch loudly or lick their fingers in front of others. Nooyi indicated that the company is not attempting to create a male vs. female dynamic, but is simply looking to create a product that is designed for and will appeal more to women. “We’re getting ready to launch a bunch of them soon,” she said. She added that along with the updated chips, the company will also be launching special packs of purse-friendly chips that fit nicely into ladies’ handbags. Women’s advocates, however, aren’t pleased with the company’s announcement to make chips more female friendly, seeing the move as a bow down to stereotypes about women. “Companies that perpetuate these tired gender stereotypes will continue to lose out on the single biggest consumer group: women,” a Women’s Equality Party spokesman told the NY Post. “I think the idea of crisps for women is a bit daft, although I do think women are generally a bit fussier than men about these things,” said British politician Ann Widdecombe, expressing tepid support for the new product, adding that “polite crisps” may not be so bad. The chip company also aired an ad during Sunday night’s Super Bowl, advertising its new spicy chip flavor.
• McDonalds french fries contain chemical that may cure baldness, study says. (Fox News) — McDonalds french fries contain chemical that may cure baldness, study says: McDonald’s “world famous french fries” may be the cure for more than just hunger. A Japanese stem cell research team may have found a way to eliminate baldness by using an ingredient in McDonald’s french fries. The scientists from Yokohama National University discovered the chemical dimethylpolysiloxane, a silicone used in McDonald’s fry oil to prevent splashing, can be used to mass produce hair follicles on mice. The “simple method” has proved widely successful in creating “hair follicle germs” (HFG), or cells that help grow hair follicles, according to the study. The research team credits the use of dimethylpolysiloxane in the ground-breaking experiment that has resulted in thousands of simultaneous hair follicle germs. “The key for the mass production of HFGs was a choice of substrate materials for the culture vessel,” Professor Junji Fukuda said in the study. “We used oxygen-permeable dimethylpolysiloxane (PDMS) at the bottom of culture vessel, and it worked very well.” Once the HGFs were transplanted into the backs of the mice, new black hairs began to sprout in those areas. The technique created “5,000 HFGs simultaneously, and report[ed] new hair growth from the HFGs after transplantation into mice,” the study said. Though the method has only been used in mice, the team feels the technique will be able to be used on humans with similarly impressive results. “This simple method is very robust and promising,” Fukuda said. “We hope this technique will improve human hair regenerative therapy to treat hair loss such as androgenic alopecia (male pattern baldness). In fact, we have preliminary data that suggests human HFG formation using human keratinocytes and dermal papilla cells.”

8am – A         INTERVIEW – RONNA ROMNEY MCDANIEL – Chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) – discussed latest fundraising, 2018 outlook, SOTU bump or budget agreement.

• Trump: Pelosi is GOP’s ‘secret weapon’ in midterm elections
• Trump: “We’ve got to do well in ’18 and I know we’re going to do well in ’20, but I think we’re going to do well in ’18”
• RNC Co-Chair Paduchik on Record Fundraising: ‘The Greatest Amount of Credit Goes to President Trump’  (Breitbart) — Republican National Comittee (RNC) Co-Chair Bob Paduchik credited President Donald Trump for the RNC’s record fundraising in 2017. When asked about Republican fundraising basically doubling that of Democrats in 2017, Paduchik said, “The greatest amount of credit goes to President Trump and his steadfast resolve to keep the promises he made on the campaign.” “It’s such a refreshing thing,” he added, “an elected official who actually does what he says he’s going to do – that’s a big part of it.” He also credited the hardworking of RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel while pointing out that a large amount of the money raised came from small donors across the country.
• Trump blasts ‘treasonous’ Democrats for not applauding at his State of the Union address

8am – B/C     INTERVIEW – MD DELEGATE. TERRI HILL – discussed proposed bill to ban tackle football for kids under 14.

8am – D         Economic News:

• Stock Markets Sink, Suggesting Global Rout Will Go On
• Dow Jones plummets over 1,100 points in largest single-day stock market decline ever
• White House claims Trump is focused on “long-term economic fundamentals” following stock market plunge. (Washington Examiner) — The White House said President Trump is focused on “long-term economic fundamentals” after the stock market took a steep dive on Monday. “The President’s focus is on our long-term economic fundamentals, which remain exceptionally strong, with strengthening U.S. economic growth, historically low unemployment, and increasing wages for American workers,” White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement Monday. “The President’s tax cuts and regulatory reforms will further enhance the U.S. economy and continue to increase prosperity for the American people.”
• Obama Press Sec. Jay Carney: Good time to recall that in the previous administration, we NEVER boasted about the stock market –– even though the Dow more than doubled on Obama’s watch — because we knew two things: 1) the stock market is not the economy; and 2) if you claim the rise, you own the fall. “The stock market is booming…I don’t have to tell you about the stock market and where that’s gone” – Barack Obama, July 2014

8am – E         ‘Flipping the bird’ at police: Crime or free speech? (Washington Post) — Mark May, a self-employed carpet cleaner from rural western Indiana, was driving his car through the town of Terre Haute on Aug. 17 when he spotted an Indiana State Police patrol car zooming up from behind. As May slowed at an intersection, the police vehicle cut in front of him — too aggressively, May thought, according to his federal lawsuit. If May had pulled that maneuver in front of a police officer, he would have earned a ticket, he believed. May correctly guessed that the trooper was pulling ahead to stop another motorist, and as he passed the patrol car, he signaled his displeasure. He waved a middle-finger in the trooper’s direction. The universal single-digit gesture of contempt is now the center of a federal lawsuit May filed last week against the man behind the patrol car’s wheel, Indiana State Police Master Trooper Matt Ames. According to the legal complaint, after seeing May’s middle-finger, Ames went after the driver, issuing him a ticket for “provocation.” But May’s middle finger is his constitutional right, his attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union argue. “While perhaps ill advised, Mr. May’s gesture, which in no way interfered with the Master Trooper’s lawful activities, was fully protected by the First Amendment,” the complaint states. “The traffic stop was unreasonable under the circumstances and was made without probable cause.” Captain David R. Bursten, the chief public information officer with the Indiana State Police told The Washington Post the agency has yet to be served with the legal and complaint, and cannot comment on any pending litigation. May’s situation, however, is not unique. The same month May was pulled over in Indiana, the ACLU of Louisiana complained to the Louisiana State Police after an officer from the agency pulled over and ticketed a finger-flashing driver on the Bayou State’s Interstate 20.