Cal Thomas, Raheem Kassam, Joe Concha, Saagar Enjeti and Howard Kurtz joined WMAL on Wednesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C ROSEANNE CANCELED:

• Valerie Jarrett Calls Roseanne Barr’s Racist Tweet a ‘Teaching Moment’
• ABC Entertainment cancels Roseanne Barr’s show, calling her comment on Twitter “abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values.”
• ‘Roseanne’ cancellation to cost ABC tens of millions in ad revenue (Fox Business) — ABC’s decision to cancel “Roseanne” after star Roseanne Barr made a racist remark on Twitter will cost the broadcast network tens of millions of dollars in advertising revenue, according to multiple estimates. “Roseanne” was the highest-rated series on broadcast television during its nine-episode revival run, averaging more than 10 million viewers per episode. Pre-production for the revival’s next season, the series’ 11th overall, was already under way when Barr made disparaging remarks about former White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, prompting Disney and ABC executives to cancel one of its most popular prime-time programs. Barr’s controversial sitcom earned $39.6 million in national advertising revenue since its debut on March 27, according to estimates from tracking service iSpot TV. Ad-tracker Kantar Media estimated the show’s total advertising haul at $45 million this season and projected that the next season could have fetched $60 million more, according to The Wrap.
• DISNEY Shares Drop Following Soft ‘SOLO’, ‘ROSEANNE’ Cancellation… (The Wrap) — Disney HQ likely wasn’t the happiest place on Earth on Tuesday, as shares of the entertainment giant closed at $99.72, down 2.4 percent after a double-whammy of bad news. The decline followed a tough weekend at the box office for Disney as the film studio’s latest Lucasfilm project, “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” underperformed, bringing in just $103 million in box office receipts for the 4-day Memorial Day weekend. Disney’s tough day was compounded by more controversy surrounding Roseanne Barr, the star of its No. 1 show on ABC. The network canceled “Roseanne” on Tuesday after the actress tweeted a comparison of former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett to “The Planet of the Apes” — a joke that the comedian quickly deleted and apologized for.
• Roseanne fired by her talent agency after racist tweet (The Hill) — Roseanne Barr on Tuesday was dropped by her talent agency following her racially charged tweet about former Obama adviser Valerie Jarret.“We are all greatly distressed by the disgraceful and unacceptable tweet from Roseanne Barr this morning,” ICM said in a statement Tuesday, according to Variety. “What she wrote is antithetical to our core values, both as individuals and as an agency. Consequently, we have notified her that we will not represent her. Effective immediately, Roseanne Barr is no longer a client.”
• “Roseanne” star Sara Gilbert: Roseanne’s recent remarks “and so much more” are “abhorrent”
• Just Before ABC Canceled Roseanne, MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Pondered Online Enmity With Joy Reid. Despite Joy Reid’s Personal Social Media Scandal, Andrea Mitchell Asks What It Takes To Get Fired

5am – D         MUELLER NEWS:

• ANOTHER TRUMP JR CONNECTION TO RUSSIA (Yahoo) — The FBI has obtained secret wiretaps collected by Spanish police of conversations involving Alexander Torshin, a deputy governor of Russia’s Central Bank who has forged close ties with U.S. lawmakers and the National Rifle Association,that ledto a meeting with Donald Trump Jr. during the gun lobby’s annual convention in Louisville, Ky., in May 2016, a top Spanish prosecutor said Friday.
• RUSSIAN LOBBYIST’S TIES TO CLINTON (Breitbart) — In recently released testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, a key participant at the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower with President Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. said that he “knows” Hillary Clinton and has a personal relationship with her that dates back to the late-1990s. Besides describing a direct connection to Clinton, Russian-born Washington lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin also testified that he “knew some people who worked on” Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign.
• GIULIANI LISTS CONDITIONS FOR TRUMP/MUELLER INTERVIEW (Washington Post) — President Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani said Tuesday that Trump will not agree to an interview with the special counsel until prosecutors allow the president’s legal team to review documents related to the FBI’s use of an informant to interact with members of Trump’s 2016 campaign. “We need all the documents before we can decide whether we are going to do an interview,” Giuliani said in an interview with The Washington Post, using Trump’s term “spygate” to refer to the FBI actions, which former officials have said were well within bounds.
• MUELLER MOVING TOWARD SENTENCING SOMEONE WHO HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH TRUMP (Politico) — Special counsel Robert Mueller’s prosecutors indicated Tuesday that they’re ready to move toward sentencing of another defendant who pleaded guilty in the ongoing probe of Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election. Prosecutors asked a federal judge to order a pre-sentencing report for Richard Pinedo, a Santa Paula, California, man who admitted in February to a felony identity fraud charge relating to the sale of bank account numbers that apparently helped Russian internet trolls pay for social media ads related to the U.S. presidential race.
• NYT: Trump Asked Sessions to Retain Control of Russia Inquiry After His Recusal

5am – E         Please don’t roast marshmallows over the erupting Hawaii volcano, USGS warns.  The U.S. Geological Survey took a break from giving serious updates about Hawaii’s Kilauea volcanic eruption to confirm that no, you should not roast marshmallows over the scorching hot volcanic vents. The USGS responded to one twitter user who asked, “Is it safe to roast marshmallows over volcanic vents? Assuming you had a long enough stick, that is? Or would the resulting marshmallows be poisonous?” “Erm,” the USGS replied. “We’re going to have to say no, that’s not safe. (Please don’t try!)” Not only would it be unsafe, the USGS said, but the marshmallows would simply taste bad. The vent could be releasing sulfur dioxide or hydrogen sulfide — which both emit not-so-pleasant smells — and the sulfuric acid from vog, or volcanic smog, could create a “pretty spectacular reaction,” the USGS said.

6am – A/B     STARBUCKS HAD THEIR RACIAL BIAS TRAINING YESTERDAY:

• Starbucks Chairman Blames Trump For ‘Racist Behavior’ Before Closing Stores For Racial Bias Training. (Daily Caller) — Starbucks executive chairman Howard Schultz will be closing all Starbucks stores nationwide on Tuesday for racial bias training. The move is a public relations response to the national outrage that surfaced when footage was released of two black men getting arrested inside a Starbucks and charged with loitering. Schultz believes Donald Trump is partially to blame for the incident. In an interview with CNN this morning, Schultz blamed Trump’s rhetoric for giving people “license” to behave in racist ways. The CNN anchor asked Schultz if the rhetoric from the White House was “opening the door to increased overt racist behavior,” to which Shultz responded, in part, “I think the totality of the issue is beyond the White House.” The anchor asked again, “Has President Trump’s rhetoric, personally, on race exacerbated racism in America?” “On a personal level, it probably has given license to people to feel as if they can emulate and copy the kind of behavior and language that comes out of this administration,” Schultz said. He continued, “The racial divide and the inequities that exist between people of color and Caucasians in America is a problem that has existed for quite some time…”

6am – C         TOMMY ROBINSON AND FREE SPEECH IN THE UK:

• EDL founder Tommy Robinson jailed for contempt of court. (Guardian) – Robinson sentenced to 13 months after admitting offence following Facebook broadcast. Tommy Robinson, the founder of the far-right English Defence League, has been jailed for 13 months for contempt of court. The 35-year-old’s sentence can be revealed after a judge lifted reporting restrictions on the case on Tuesday. The case had been widely discussed on social media, where rightwing activists claimed that the restrictions amounted to state censorship. Robinson was arrested on Friday after broadcasting an hour-long video over Facebook from outside Leeds crown court. In the video he made comments that risked causing a trial to collapse.

• Washington Post: Conservative outrage after anti-Muslim campaigner Tommy Robinson secretly jailed in Britain. Donald Trump Jr. compared it to the cause for the American Revolution, and Mike Cernovich said a compilation of deleted news articles about the arrest was “the most terrifying video you’ll see today.” U.S. websites ignored the ban. Conservative outlets and alt-right blogs accused the British media of abetting a coverup. Drudge blasted the arrest across its front page, and 500,000 people signed a “Free Tommy” petition. The movement swelled until hundreds marched in London over the weekend.

6am – D         INTERVIEW – CAL THOMAS – Syndicated columnist — discussed Roseanne getting canceled and Starbucks’ racial bias training.

6am – E         CA Mayor To Offer $1K/Mo Stipend To “Those Most Likely To Shoot Somebody” (Hot Air/Jazz Shaw) — Sometimes you just need to think outside of the box. That’s apparently the key to success in Stockton, California where their young mayor, Michael Tubbs, has some interesting plans to turn things around for the citizens of his community. One idea, which we’ve seen before in Europe on occasion (without much success), is a guaranteed basic income for some of his residents. Nothing to retire on, mind you. Just $500 per month to keep the basics covered. But Stockton has other problems, including some gang violence issues. How do you deal with that successfully when so many larger cities have failed? By taking the same approach. Tubbs wants to identify the people most likely to shoot someone and pay them $1,000 a month not to. And before you ask… no. I’m not even joking. (LA Times) — Tubbs, a Stockton native and Stanford graduate who is all of 27 years old, wants to give at least $500 a month to a select group of residents. They’ll be able to spend it as they wish, for 18 months, in a pilot program to test the impact of what’s called guaranteed basic income. If the very sound of that knocked you half off your chair, this next initiative might finish the job. Stockton is about to award stipends of up to $1,000 a month to residents deemed most likely to shoot somebody. This program is called Advance Peace, and it’s modeled after a crime reduction program in the Bay Area city of Richmond.

6am – F         NORTH KOREA NEWS:

• Pompeo going to meet with the North Korean delegation… Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will meet with Kim Yong Chol, one of North Korea’s highest-ranking officials, in New York later this week, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement Tuesday.
• NBC: CIA report says North Korea won’t denuclearize, but might open a burger joint. In an odd twist, a list of potential concessions by North Korea in the CIA analysis included the possibility that Kim Jong Un may consider offering to open a Western hamburger franchise in Pyongyang as a show of goodwill, according to three national security officials. It suggests Kim is interested in a peaceful gesture to an American president whose love of fast-food burgers is well known — and who, during the 2016 campaign, had said he wanted to talk nukes over a burger with the North Korean leader. On the nuclear question, the analysis suggests that a more realistic immediate objective would be convincing Kim to walk back recent progress on the country’s nuclear weapons program, the officials said.

 

7am – A/B/C INTERVIEW – RAHEEM KASSAM – Fellow at Middle East Forum and Gatestone Institute and author of “No Go Zones” – discussed the free press assault surrounding the jailing of activist Tommy Robinson and explained why worldwide stocks are tumbling because of political turmoil in Italy.

• ITALY: Raheem is currently in Rome. U.S. stocks tumbled on Tuesday as political turbulence in Italy sparked concerns that the newly elected populist government could push country toward eurozone exit. Italy Could Withdraw from EU.  Italy could be heading for a euro exit that’s more destabilising than Brexit.
• Raheem organized the Free Tommy Robinson protest over the weekend
• EDL founder Tommy Robinson jailed for contempt of court. (Guardian) – Robinson sentenced to 13 months after admitting offence following Facebook broadcast. Tommy Robinson, the founder of the far-right English Defence League, has been jailed for 13 months for contempt of court. The 35-year-old’s sentence can be revealed after a judge lifted reporting restrictions on the case on Tuesday. The case had been widely discussed on social media, where rightwing activists claimed that the restrictions amounted to state censorship. Robinson was arrested on Friday after broadcasting an hour-long video over Facebook from outside Leeds crown court. In the video he made comments that risked causing a trial to collapse.
• Washington Post: Conservative outrage after anti-Muslim campaigner Tommy Robinson secretly jailed in Britain. Donald Trump Jr. compared it to the cause for the American Revolution, and Mike Cernovich said a compilation of deleted news articles about the arrest was “the most terrifying video you’ll see today.” U.S. websites ignored the ban. Conservative outlets and alt-right blogs accused the British media of abetting a coverup. Drudge blasted the arrest across its front page, and 500,000 people signed a “Free Tommy” petition. The movement swelled until hundreds marched in London over the weekend.

7am – D         INTERVIEW – JOE CONCHA – Media reporter, The Hill – shared his thoughts on the cancelation of Roseanne.

7am – E         Media Fawn Over Teacher Who Incorrectly ‘Corrected’ Letter From Trump. (Washington Free Beacon/Alex Griswold) — Grammar Nazis suck. We all know this. Most Grammar Nazis are quarantined into editor positions where their evil can be best contained and used for good, but many exist in the wild. Most recently, 61-year-old retired teacher Yvonne Mason went viral and earned widespread media coverage for correcting a series of grammatical errors in a White House letter sent under Donald Trump’s name, and promising to mail it back. As bad as Grammar Nazis are, incompetent Grammar Nazis might be the worst people alive. It’s bad enough to act like an annoying pedant, but doing it wrong ensures that the rest of us have to also become annoying pedants in order to correct your misinformation. Bad Grammar Nazis are the zombies of discourse, spreading their infection to the healthy. Alas, Mason is a bad Grammar Nazi. And the media fell for it, hard.

 

8am – A/B/C INTERVIEW – SAAGAR ENJETI – White House correspondent, The Daily Caller – discuss the latest White House news.

• Trump rally in Nashville: Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump lambasted “Chuck and Nancy” and told supporters in Tennessee at a rally on Tuesday that Democratic Senate candidate Phil Bredesen would do the bidding of Democratic congressional leaders. Trump was in Nashville to campaign for Bredesen’s Republican opponent, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, in the race to replace the retiring Sen. Bob Corker. “I never heard of this guy, who is he? Who is he?” Trump said of Bredesen. “He’s an absolute, total tool of Chuck — of Chuck Schumer. He’s a tool of Chuck Schumer and of course the MS-13 lover Nancy Pelosi.” Bredesen is, in fact, a popular former Nashville mayor and Tennessee governor, but he last ran for public office in 2006. He has led Blackburn in recent polls. Trump latched Bredesen to Schumer, the Senate minority leader, and Pelosi, the House minority leader, as well as former President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
• Pompeo heading to NYC today to meet with North Korean delegation.  (WSJ) — The U.S. moved on three fronts to prepare the ground for a potential summit with North Korea, as officials said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo would head to New York on Wednesday for a meeting with a top North Korean official.
• NYT: Trump Asked Sessions to Retain Control of Russia Inquiry After His Recusal  
• Giuliani says Trump won’t sit for Mueller interview unless all FBI source documents can be reviewed. (Washington Post) – President Trump’s lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani said Tuesday that Trump will not agree to an interview with the special counsel until prosecutors allow the president’s legal team to review documents related to the FBI’s use of a source to interact with members of Trump’s 2016 campaign. “We need all the documents before we can decide whether we are going to do an interview,” Giuliani said in an interview with The Washington Post, using Trump’s term “spygate” to refer to the FBI actions, which former officials have said were well within bounds. Giuliani’s latest demand further ratcheted up the pressure that Trump and his lawyers are trying to place on special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team as his investigation into alleged coordination between Trump’s campaign and Russia reaches a key juncture. Earlier Tuesday, Trump lashed out at the “Rigged Russia Witch Hunt” on Twitter, casting Mueller’s probe as partisan and saying it could amount to “MEDDLING” to the detriment of Republicans in this year’s midterm elections.

8am – D         INTERVIEW –  HOWARD KURTZ – author of new book “MEDIA MADNESS” and hosts the weekend show Media Buzz on Fox News and writes a weekly column on FoxNews.com – shared his thoughts on the cancelation of Roseanne.

8am – E         HUFFINGTON POST: The Right-Wing Millennial Machine — Conservatives are building an army of fired-up young people. How? By offering them salaries. For a movement that wants to reach young people, low-income workers and people of color, progressive organizations and candidates don’t offer many paid opportunities. “This is why we see attrition in the movement,” said Maggie Thompson, executive director of Generation Progress, the youth arm of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress (which pays its interns, incidentally). For decades, internships, fellowships and paid travel to conferences have acted like a tractor beam, drawing young people into political movements and holding them long enough to become researchers, strategists and candidates. But the funding to support those kinds of programs hasn’t kept up with the economic realities of the young people who today’s progressives are trying to reach.  “The pipeline of young people who can get through school, deal with student debt and stay involved in politics has shrunk dramatically compared to previous generations,” Thompson said. Progressives aren’t just out of sync with their own need to recruit and retain young people. They’re also lagging behind conservative interests.  A 2017 study found that between 2008 and 2014, conservative donors gave three times more to millennial outreach groups than liberal donors. Much of that funding, Thompson says, went to things like paid fellowships, travel stipends and study grants ― creating the feeder system that will guide young people into actual jobs with political campaigns and think tanks. “The Republicans are building an army, while the Democrats are still paying you in ‘making the world a better place,’” said Carlos Vera, the executive director of Pay Our Interns, a watchdog group. “I’ve had older people say to me, ‘Well, I did unpaid internships and I was fine.’ Then you ask them when that was and they say, ‘1972.’ You could work your way through college back then. That simply is not the case anymore.”