Cal Thomas, Mark Krikorian, Hans Von Spakovsky and Susan Ferrechio joined WMAL on Wednesday morning!

Mornings on the Mall

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C BORDER INVASION: WHAT EMERGENCY?

• BORDER AT ‘BREAKING POINT’: (Fox News) – More than 76,000 people tried to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in February — a “remarkable” leap that more than doubles the number of border apprehensions during the same period of time last year, and is also the highest number of any February in the past 12 years, according to officials … The system is “well beyond capacity, and remains at the breaking point,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan told reporters on Tuesday as the agency released the “record numbers.”
• Washington Post: Border Rush May Hit 100,000 Migrants in March
• NY TIMES: Border at ‘Breaking Point’ as More than 76,000 Migrants Cross in a Month
• February marked 12-year-high for illegal immigration: 76,000 encountered at southern border
• Up to 15 GOP senators may vote against Trump emergency declaration. (The Hill) — Opposition to President Trump’s emergency border declaration is snowballing in the Senate, forcing Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to scramble for a way to avoid a major embarrassment for the president.  While McConnell has long viewed a resolution of disapproval backed by Democrats as likely to pass the Senate, support for the measure is growing. Some senators and aides say they think it could get as many as 15 Republican votes, which would put it in striking distance of a veto-proof majority. “Members of the Senate ought to have a real problem and not be flippant about allowing the president so blatantly to go around the Article I power of the purse. This is what separates us from the rest of the world. We have a rule of law,” said a GOP senator who put the high-water mark for Republican support at 15 senators. New names surfacing as possible defectors on next week’s vote include Sens. Jerry Moran (Kan.), Todd Young (Ind.), Mitt Romney (Utah), Ben Sasse (Neb.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Mike Lee (Utah) and Ron Johnson (Wis.), who all have expressed constitutional concerns in recent days, say colleagues.   In the House, there’s little chance that opponents can get close to a two-thirds majority, but such a large Senate vote against Trump is something that GOP leaders and the White House would deeply love to prevent.
• ALMOST 200 CASES OF MEASLES AT TX DETENTION FACILITY: The Texas Department of State Health Services says 186 people, including immigrants and detention facility employees, had confirmed cases of mumps. Lara Anton, a spokeswoman for the Department of State Health Services, said in an email that patients range in age from 13-66 and that “there has been no reported transmission to the community.”

5am – D         Felony charges filed against alleged attacker of conservative activist at UC-Berkeley. (Fox News) – The Alameda County District Attorney’s office has filed criminal felony charges against a software engineer who allegedly attacked a conservative activist at the University of California, Berkeley campus on Feb. 19. The charges against the engineer, Zachary Greenberg, 28, include three felony counts and one misdemeanor count, according to a criminal complaint obtained by Fox News. The felony counts relate to assault and causing or intending bodily injury, and criminal threats. A misdemeanor count is related to vandalism, the complaint shows. The charges come five days after police arrested Greenberg for allegedly attacking Hayden Williams, who is 26, while he was manning a recruitment table on campus for the conservative group Turning Point USA.

“We are pleased that the good investigative work of our police department has led to the filing of these charges,” Dan Mogoluf, assistant vice chancellor at UC-Berkeley, told Fox News. “The university believes that those who violate the free-speech rights of others must be held accountable and face the appropriate consequences.” Greenberg is scheduled to be arraigned on Wednesday at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse in Oakland. Williams, who is not a student, but rather a field representative for the conservative group The Leadership Institute, was helping Turning Point USA, which is launching a chapter on the campus, to hand out recruitment materials when Greenberg and another man approached him, he said to Fox News.

5am – E         Trump signals White House won’t comply with Democratic probes.

President Trump on Tuesday signaled the White House will not comply with a barrage of congressional investigations, accusing Democrats in the House of launching the probes to hurt his chances of winning reelection in 2020. “It’s a disgrace to our country. I’m not surprised that it’s happening. Basically, they’ve started the campaign. So the campaign begins,” Trump told reporters at the White House after signing an executive order on veterans’ suicide prevention. “Instead of doing infrastructure, instead of doing health care, instead of doing so many things that they should be doing, they want to play games,” he continued. Trump suggested he was unwilling to comply with the House Judiciary Committee’s requests for documents related to 81 of his associates, citing what he said was former President Obama’s handling of congressional probes during his time in office. “They didn’t give one letter. They didn’t do anything. They didn’t give one letter of the requests,” he said.

6am – A         ANTISEMITISM VOTE DELAYED:

• DEMS TORN ON RESOLUTION CONDEMNING OMAR: (Fox News) — Infighting among House Democrats could delay consideration of a resolution condemning anti-Semitism in the wake of controversial comments made by freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., a senior source told Fox News … There is internal consternation among Democrats about the text of the resolution and whether Omar will be mentioned by name. The latest text circulated in the House does not mention Omar. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer condemned Omar’s latest remarks on Israel as “wrong and hurtful.” House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., said he was not poised to punish Omar. Fox News is told the fighting could jeopardize bringing up the measure this week because there’s a risk it might not pass. Lawmakers had planned to present it on Wednesday.
• House Dems delay vote on resolution rebuking Omar over Israel remarks. (The Hill) — House Democratic leaders are delaying a vote on a resolution condemning anti-Semitism that had been slated to take place on Wednesday, according to a Democratic aide. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) announced in a closed-door leadership meeting that a vote on the resolution is more likely to occur Thursday instead of the initially expected Wednesday, the aide confirmed to The Hill on Tuesday. They also said that the resolution would be updated to include a nod to anti-Muslim bias.  House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) told reporters that the resolution should emphasize an “anti-hate” message.   Clyburn told Fox News Tuesday evening they were “still drafting” the resolution, but feels it should be “anti-hate.” The measure is expected to be updated to include language condemning anti-Muslim bias. The resolution comes in the wake of Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) most recent controversial comments on Israel. “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country,” she said during a forum at a bookstore last week.
• Linda Sarsour Attacks ‘White Feminist’ Nancy Pelosi Over Resolution Condemning Anti-Semitism. (Daily Caller) – Women’s March co-chair Linda Sarsour attacked Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi Monday night as a “typical white feminist upholding the patriarchy doing the dirty work of powerful white men,” in response to a House resolution condemning anti-Semitism. House Democrats announced the resolution Monday after Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar’s latest anti-Israel comments, which critics — including other Democrats — have denounced as anti-Semitic. “This is why we wanted Congresswoman Barbara Lee to be the Speaker of the House and ‘progressives’ were like ‘nah, Pelosi is a leader and omg you should see how she claps. What a clap!’” Sarsour wrote in a lengthy Facebook post. “Nancy is a typical white feminist upholding the patriarchy doing the dirty work of powerful white men. God forbid the men are upset – no worries, Nancy to the rescue to stroke their egos,” she wrote.

6am – B         ISIS Bride Update:

• ISIS bride Hoda Muthana tells Richard Engel in Syria on Friday that she anticipates “no problem” in returning to the US.
• In the NBC interview, the ISIS bride also called her comments calling for terrorism and death of Americans “just a phase” and she says she was told not to talk about her past comments.
• Judge Rules Former ISIS Bride’s Case Won’t Be Fast-Tracked. Woman Who Left U.S. To Join ISIS Denied Request To Expedite Her Case To Return. (NPR) — A federal judge ruled that a woman who left the U.S. to join the Islamic State and is seeking to return cannot have her case expedited because she does not face imminent harm where she is currently living in a Syrian refugee camp. U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton on Monday said Hoda Muthana’s lawyer had failed to show that the 24-year-old woman would face “irreparable harm” if the case remained on a normal litigation schedule. It is a setback for Muthana who says she and her toddler have already been forced to move camps once due to ISIS threats, and that they face greater danger now that the U.S. plans to withdraw troops from the region, The Associated Press reported. She was hoping fight her citizenship claim from the U.S. Ultimately, Walton agreed with Justice Department lawyer Scott Stewart who said Muthana’s case is a “chain of speculation” and that it is unclear whether the military pullout will have any impact on the pair’s safety. Walton did not weigh in on the central question of Muthana’s case: whether she is a citizen or not. But he did say that her attorney made a “valid argument” for her right to citizenship. The Department of Justice and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo argue the New Jersey-born woman is not a U.S. citizen because her father was a Yemeni diplomat at the time of her birth, making her ineligible for automatic citizenship. Her lawyers say he had left his post before she was born.
• ISIS BRIDE’S VIOLENT SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS REVEALED IN MEMRI REPORT. In 2015, she tweeted “Kill kuffar [infidels] in alleyways, stab them and poison them. Poison your teachers. Go to haram [banned] restaurants and poison the food in large quantities,” MEMRI reported. (Jerusalem Post) – MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, has released a detailed report on Hoda Muthana, the former Alabaman who was an ISIS bride three times in Syria, but now wants to return to the US. For over four years, MEMRI tracked and recorded Muthana’s Twitter and Instagram posts, which often called for or praised terror. Muthana left Alabama for Syria in late 2014, where she married Suhan Rahman, an Australian ISIS fighter who also went by Abu Jihad al-Australi. Muthana, who became known as “Umm Jihad,” became an ardent advocate for ISIS, taking to Twitter to urge Americans to join the jihad, according to the MEMRI report. In January 2015, she tweeted “Allahumma barik [God bless] there are sooo many Aussies and Brits here but where are the Americans, wake up u cowards.” Muhana joined ISIS’s all-female Al-Khansaa Brigade. The brigade often shared photos of themselves brandishing rifles and tweeted threats regularly. After her husband died in a battle in 2015, Muthana eulogized him on Twitter with a picture of his body, saying “May Allah accept my husband, Abu Jihad al Australi. Promised Allah and fought in the front lines until he obtained shahadah [martrydom].”  Later in 2015, she tweeted “Kill kuffar [infidels] in alleyways, stab them and poison them. Poison your teachers. Go to haram [banned] restaurants and poison the food in large quantities,” reported MEMRI.
• ‘She’s a terrorist. We don’t need people like her’: Pompeo slams ‘ISIS bride’ begging to return to US. (Business Insider) — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday that the “ISIS bride” Hoda Muthana is “not a US citizen” and will not be permitted to return to the US. “We don’t need people like her who threatened the lives of Americans,” he told Dave Levora of “AM Quad Cities” on WOC Radio. Muthana was smuggled into Syria in November 2014 to join the Islamic State group, and in 2015 she advocated on Twitter for violence against Americans. Her family, who says she is a US citizen, is suing the US government to allow their daughter to return to the US, where she was born. The lawsuit hit a speed bump on Monday. A federal judge rejected a request to expedite the litigation process, which might not be completed until summer. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo continued his argument against allowing the US-born “ISIS bride” Hoda Muthana to return home, telling a radio host on Monday, “we don’t need people like her who threatened the lives of Americans.” Muthana, 24, left Alabama, where she was living with her family, and she was smuggled into Syria in November 2014 to join the Islamic State group. She married a succession of IS militants there and gave birth to the son of an IS fighter, who has since died.

6am – C         FORBES: At 21, Kylie Jenner becomes world’s youngest billionaire: (BBC) — Kylie Jenner has become the world’s youngest self-made billionaire, according to Forbes billionaires’ list. The youngest Kardashian family member is making her fortune from her best-selling cosmetics business. The 21-year-old founded and owns Kylie Cosmetics, the three-year-old beauty business that generated an estimated $360m in sales last year. She reached the milestone earlier than Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg who became a billionaire aged 23. “I didn’t expect anything. I did not foresee the future. “But [the recognition] feels really good. That’s a nice pat on the back,” Ms Jenner told Forbes. His fortune totals $131bn, according to Forbes, up $19bn from 2018. But the billionaires’ combined worth is down from $9.1 trillion at $8.7tn. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth is among those falling.

6am – D         INTERVIEW – CAL THOMAS – Syndicated columnist

• Trump signals White House won’t comply with Democratic probes.  President Trump on Tuesday signaled the White House will not comply with a barrage of congressional investigations, accusing Democrats in the House of launching the probes to hurt his chances of winning reelection in 2020. “It’s a disgrace to our country. I’m not surprised that it’s happening.
• SCHIFF HIRES MSNBC ANALYST WHO HAS ALREADY DECIDED TRUMP IS A CRIMINAL: House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff has vamped up his investigation of President Trump with the hire of a former federal prosecutor and MSNBC analyst who has already determined that Trump committed numerous felonies. Daniel Goldman, who served as assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York, will oversee the Intelligence Committee’s investigation of Trump, according to NBC News.Goldman joined NBC and MSNBC as a legal analyst after leaving government in 2017.As a pundit, Goldman has made his thoughts about Trump clear, repeatedly asserting, without evidence, that Trump and his campaign associates colluded with the Russian government to influence the 2016 election.
• CLINTON MAKES HER DECISION: Apparently, there will not be a Trump-Clinton rematch in 2020 … Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, said in an interview Monday that she has ruled out a bid for the 2020 presidential election. The former first lady and secretary of state told News 12 Westchester that she will not be running for president next year. “I’m not running, but I’m going to keep on working and speaking and standing up for what I believe,” Clinton told the station, in the first local television interview since the midterm elections. Clinton also said she is “not going anywhere.”
  • NYT’s Maggie Haberman @maggieNYT: Spoke to someone close with Clinton in contact with her today. They say she wasn’t trying to be emphatic and close the door on running when she spoke to a local reporter yesterday, and that she was surprised by how definitively it played. 1/2
• BORDER INVASION: Washington Post: Border Rush May Hit 100,000 Migrants in March.

6am – E         H.I.V. Is Reported Cured in a Second Patient, a Milestone in the Global AIDS Epidemic. Scientists have long tried to duplicate the procedure that led to the first long-term remission 12 years ago. With the so-called London patient, they seem to have succeeded. A colored transmission electron micrograph of the H.I.V. virus, in green, attaching to a white blood cell, in orange. (NY Times) — For just the second time since the global epidemic began, a patient appears to have been cured of infection with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The news comes nearly 12 years to the day after the first patient known to be cured, a feat that researchers have long tried, and failed, to duplicate. The surprise success now confirms that a cure for H.I.V. infection is possible, if difficult, researchers said. The investigators are to publish their report on Tuesday in the journal Nature and to present some of the details at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Seattle. Publicly, the scientists are describing the case as a long-term remission. In interviews, most experts are calling it a cure, with the caveat that it is hard to know how to define the word when there are only two known instances. Both milestones resulted from bone-marrow transplants given to infected patients. But the transplants were intended to treat cancer in the patients, not H.I.V. Bone-marrow transplantation is unlikely to be a realistic treatment option in the near future. Powerful drugs are now available to control H.I.V. infection, while the transplants are risky, with harsh side effects that can last for years. But rearming the body with immune cells similarly modified to resist H.I.V. might well succeed as a practical treatment, experts said.

6am – F         CAPTAIN MARVEL COMING OUT THIS WEEK BUT BRIE LARSON HAS BECOME INSUFFERABLE:

• Brie Larson is sick of being interviewed by ‘white dudes.’ (Irish Times / Feb 2019) -The ‘Captain Marvel’ star is campaigning for more diversity in the press pool. Brie Larson, star of the upcoming Captain Marvel, has always seemed like a good egg. Since securing grade-A status after winning an Oscar for Room, she has worked for survivors of sexual assault and has become an active force in the Times Up movement. Now she’s making efforts to increase diversity in the press pool. “About a year ago, I started paying attention to what my press days looked like and the critics reviewing movies, and noticed it appeared to be overwhelmingly white male,” she said. With this in mind, Larson personally selected Keah Brown – a woman of colour with cerebral palsy – as her interviewer for a Marie Claire feature. Brown noted that: “Nobody usually wants to take a chance on a disabled journalist.” Larson made a rigorous attempt to confirm that her eyes weren’t deceiving her. There really did seem to be a bias towards the male and the pale. “I spoke to Dr Stacy Smith at the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, who put together a study to confirm that,” she said. “Moving forward, I decided to make sure my press days were more inclusive.”
• Who the hell wants to watch ‘Captain Marvel’ with screeching like this going on?
  • Alyssa Klein ‏@dj_diabeatic I’m so excited to finally see Marvel’s first woman superhero movie. I’m less excited about the fact that many of the biggest publications are having men write their #CaptainMarvel reviews. Want proof? Here’s a thread of Captain Marvel reviews written by men. #WomensHistoryMonth 3:11 PM – 5 Mar 2019
  • SLATE: Finally, Women Have Their Own Mediocre Marvel Movie. Captain Marvel is just as formulaic as countless other superhero films. That’s a triumph.
  • ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Captain Marvel reviews aren’t as bright as Brie Larson’s star
  • Vanity Fair: Captain Marvel Asks Age-Old Question: Can One Superhero Movie Have It All? The Marvel Cinematic Universe’s latest is a double origin story, a period piece, a space adventure, and an attempt at feminist filmmaking—and it mostly succeeds.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – MARK KRIKORIAN – Executive Director of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS)

• February marked 12-year-high for illegal immigration: 76,000 encountered at southern border
• Washington Post: Border Rush May Hit 100,000 Migrants in March
• BORDER AT ‘BREAKING POINT’: (Fox News) – More than 76,000 people tried to cross the U.S.-Mexico border in February — a “remarkable” leap that more than doubles the number of border apprehensions during the same period of time last year, and is also the highest number of any February in the past 12 years, according to officials … The system is “well beyond capacity, and remains at the breaking point,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan told reporters on Tuesday as the agency released the “record numbers.”
• Up to 15 GOP senators may vote against Trump emergency declaration. (The Hill) — Opposition to President Trump’s emergency border declaration is snowballing in the Senate, forcing Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to scramble for a way to avoid a major embarrassment for the president. While McConnell has long viewed a resolution of disapproval backed by Democrats as likely to pass the Senate, support for the measure is growing. Some senators and aides say they think it could get as many as 15 Republican votes, which would put it in striking distance of a veto-proof majority.

7am – B         2020 NEWS:

• HILLARY 2020: CLINTON MAKES HER DECISION: Apparently, there will not be a Trump-Clinton rematch in 2020 … Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate, said in an interview Monday that she has ruled out a bid for the 2020 presidential election. The former first lady and secretary of state told News 12 Westchester that she will not be running for president next year. “I’m not running, but I’m going to keep on working and speaking and standing up for what I believe,” Clinton told the station, in the first local television interview since the midterm elections. Clinton also said she is “not going anywhere.”
• MAGGIE HABERMAN DISAGREES!
  • NYT’s Maggie Haberman @maggieNYT: Spoke to someone close with Clinton in contact with her today. They say she wasn’t trying to be emphatic and close the door on running when she spoke to a local reporter yesterday, and that she was surprised by how definitively it played. ½
  • Maggie Haberman @maggieNYT: The person also says she is extremely unlikely to run, but that she remains bothered that she’s expected to close the door on it when, say, John Kerry isn’t. She has told her team she is waiting at least to see the Mueller report. 2/2
  • President Trump responds to Hillary Clinton ruling out 2020 run: Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump “(Crooked) Hillary Clinton confirms she will not run in 2020, rules out a third bid for White House.” Aw-shucks, does that mean I won’t get to run against her again? She will be sorely missed!
  • Clinton tweets ‘Mean Girls’ image after Trump mocks her 2020 decision. Hillary Clinton fired back on Tuesday after President Trump mocked her decision not to run for president again in 2020. The former secretary of State and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee tweeted out a gif from the movie “Mean Girls” in which Regina George, played by Rachel McAdams, asks Lindsay Lohan’s character, “Why are you so obsessed with me?”
• BLOOMBERG WILL NOT RUN: “I am clear-eyed about the difficulty of winning the Democratic nomination in such a crowded field,” he wrote. Though Bloomberg will not run for president, he wrote he would expand his environmental philanthropy, and announced the launch of a new project, Beyond Carbon, that he described as a “grassroots effort to begin moving America as quickly as possible away from oil and gas and toward a 100 percent clean energy economy.”
• BIDEN 2020: CNN focus group rejects Joe Biden: A CNN focus group comprised of Democratic voters has rejected former Vice President Joe Biden as their presidential nominee. The focus group’s dismissal of Biden is notable since the former vice president, who is expected to join the Democratic primary soon, has been leading a number of public opinion polls and is seen as the potential front-runner.  The focus group was moderated by “New Day” co-anchor Alisyn Camerota at CNN’s New York City bureau. When she asked if any of the focus group members would like Biden to enter the race, none of the six people raised their hands.

7am – C         Poll: Marylanders don’t support ‘X’ gender on driver’s licenses. (Washington Post) – Roughly half of Maryland voters oppose a bill that is moving through the General Assembly that would allow gender-neutral driver’s licenses, according to a poll released Tuesday by Gonzales Research and Media Services. According to the findings, 51 percent of Marylander voters said they do not favor giving drivers the option to identify as “unspecified” on their licenses. The legislation approved by the Senate last month would require the state Motor Vehicle Administration to issue licenses or identification cards that show an “M” for male drivers, an “F” for female drivers and an “X” for drivers who don’t identify with a specific gender. The legislation has been heard by a committee in the House of Delegates and is awaiting a vote there. A smaller 37 percent of the respondents said they favor the bill, while 12 percent did not answer the poll question. The poll, which surveyed 817 registered voters, was conducted from Feb. 22 through March 1. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

7am – D         INTERVIEW – HANS VON SPAKOVSKY — former commissioner for the Federal Election Commission from 2006 to 2007 and senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation

• ‘There is no violation!’ Ocasio-Cortez denies watchdog’s complaint to the FEC that her chief of staff funneled $1MILLION in campaign cash to his own firm. The National Legal and Policy Center watchdog filed the complaint.  It accuses top aide Saikat Chakrabarti of funneling contributions to his own companies. The former Sanders aide funded the Brand New Congress PAC. (Daily Mail) — Rep. Alexanadria Ocasio-Cortez is denying any violation in campaign finance law after a conservative watchdog group filed a complaint charging that her top aide funneled $1 million in contributions from a PAC he controlled to his own companies. ‘There is no violation,’ the first-term lawmaker told Fox News as she arrived in Washington, D.C. for a day when votes in the House are scheduled. She also denied that the Federal Election complaint, filed against her and her chief of staff, connected her to ‘dark money’ in her campaign. ‘No, no,’ she responded.    Ocasio-Cortez responded after the National Legal and Policy Center’s Government Integrity Project filed an FEC complaint saying her top aide shifted the funds in what it argued could have been a bid to avoid disclosure. The aide, chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti, set up the Brand New Congress PAC as a way to collect contributions to boost new members of Congress.  PACs face disclosure requirements beyond what a company would be required to reveal about how funds get spent.  Chakrabarti tweeted about the unusual arrangement in response to media reports Monday. ‘We were doing something totally new, which meant a new setup. So, we were transparent about it from the start,’ he said.   Conservative watchdog group National Legal and Policy Center, which previously had researchers investigating longtime New York Rep. Charles Rangel – a senior lawmaker like the one Ocasio-Cortez knocked off in a primary in her Queens district – named both Ocasio-Cortez and her top aide in the complaint.

7am – E         R. Kelly denies sexual abuse allegations in explosive interview. (CBS NEWS) – In an exclusive interview airing Wednesday, singer R. Kelly told “CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King that the sexual abuse allegations against him are lies. The charges involve four women, three of whom were underage at the time of the alleged events. King also sat down with two young women who currently live with the singer, Azriel Clary and Joycelyn Savage, in an interview that will air Friday, March 8 on “CBS This Morning.” Savage’s parents have accused R. Kelly of kidnapping their daughter. She said she’s living with the singer on her own free will. R. Kelly also faces accusations of maintaining a sex cult. Friends and family members believe Clary and Savage are a part of it.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – SUSAN FERRECHIO – chief congressional correspondent for the Washington Examiner – discussed the delated anti-semitism vote, emergency declaration and Dem probes.

• ANTI-SEMITISM VOTE: House Dems delay vote on resolution in response to Ilhan Omar’s latest Israel remarks
• EMERGENCY DECLARATION: Up to 15 GOP senators may vote against Trump emergency declaration
• Washington Post: Border Rush May Hit 100,000 Migrants in March
• DEM PROBES: Trump signals White House won’t comply with Democratic probes

8am – B         Ocasio-Cortez admits she throws away plastic bags! Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is on a roll lately with crazy ideas for saving the world. While speaking with Spectrum News, the New York lawmaker lamented her frustrations with plastic bags and how a mass overhaul of the recycling industry is another key to preserving the planet. “I can be upset that I get ten plastic bags at the grocery store and then have to toss out my plastic bags because the recycling program in the area is tough, and that’s ok,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “All of these are not reasons to stop fighting,” she continued, looking around while getting more animated with her hands. She added, “All of these are reasons to keep fighting. And these are all reasons and pieces of evidence to say, hey, we need to make it easier to recycle.”

8am – C         SHAMROCK RAVIOLI — CONFUSING CULTURAL APPROPRIATION AT COSTCO: Irish symbol meets Italian cuisine?? THIS DISH IS DEEPLY CONFUSING.

• Costco’s shamrock-shaped ravioli is the perfect St. Patrick’s Day meal! (PopSugar) – If you’re still stressing about a somewhat elaborate St. Patrick’s Day menu, you might want to put a hard stop on planning and get this shamrock-shaped ravioli instead.  Costco is now carrying the festive item from Nuovo Pasta, the same company that sold its adorable heart-shaped ravioli for Valentine’s Day. As cute as the themed ravioli is, it’s all about taste, too — there’s a blend of five cheeses in each little pillowy pocket of dough. Imported Irish aged cheddar gives it sharpness, while mozzarella, ricotta, parmesan, and white cheddar add creaminess and a salty bite.  Serve it simply with butter and parmesan cheese, or dress it up with your favorite sauce (Might I suggest pesto for an extra dose of green?). At $10 for two big 20-ounce packages in one, this grocery-store gem has us feeling pretty lucky.  Nuovo has had the popular shamrock-shaped pasta for years, so if you’ve yet to try it, stock up ahead of March 17.

8am – D         New Polling Ranks Arlington Among Country’s Most Politically Intolerant Counties. (ArlNow) — Arlington is among the country’s least politically open-minded counties, according to new polling published in The Atlantic. The magazine partnered with polling company PredictWise to rank all 3,000 U.S. counties on an interactive map published today (Monday) by how much “partisan prejudice” citizens from the areas expressed.  PredictWise is run by economist David Rothschild and is dedicated to “help progressive change-makers,” per its website. Counties were ranked based off of surveys of 2,000 respondents who were asked questions such as, how they felt about family members marrying across the political aisle, and whether Democrats or Republicans were “selfish, compassionate, or patriotic.” PredictWise then combined the data was combined with county “voter files” that record voter turnout and registration. The result is a heat map ranking every county from “less prejudiced” to “more prejudiced.” The polling places Arlington County in the most “prejudiced” category of the map.  Not only that, but the polling data ranked Arlington in the 100th percentile of most prejudiced counties — that’s higher than Alexandria (99th percentile), D.C. (98th percentile of most prejudiced), Prince William (81 percentile), and Fairfax (95 percentile.) The least prejudiced county in the Greater Washington Area area is St. Mary’s County which was ranked at the 52nd percentile, meaning 48 out of 100 counties have more politically divided citizens. PredictWise found that demographic variables like age, race, education, and proximity to cities correlated with the amount of prejudice in a county. They reported predicted more prejudice in communities that are whiter, older, urban, and more highly educated. A subsequent poll showed that Arlington also ranked in the highest category for Democrats being dismissive of Republicans. But a third poll indicated Arlington’s Republicans are not very dismissive of Democrats — bucking a national trend showing Republicans are more dismissive of Democrats on average.

THE ATLANTIC: THE MOST POLITICALLY INTOLERANT AMERICANS ARE OLDER WHITE LIBERALS. (Daily Caller) — Research commissioned by The Atlantic Magazine shows that older white liberals may just be the most politically intolerant group in the country. The article by Amanda Ripley, Rekha Tenjarla and Angela Y. He, published Monday and titled “The Geography of Partisan Prejudice,” utilized polling and analytics firm PredictWise to “create a ranking of counties in the U.S. based on partisan prejudice.” While its findings showed “significant variations in Americans’ political ill will from place to place, regardless of party,” it also found that groups the authors expected to display partisan animosity, such as immigrants, paled in comparison to “the most politically intolerant Americans,” who “tend to be whiter, more highly educated, older, more urban, and more partisan themselves.”

8am – E         ON THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE PODCAST, TIM POOL and JOE ROGAN catches Twitter in a blatant lie that everyone saying “Learn to Code” is code words for death threats:

• Tim Pool and Joe Rogan take Twitter to task. On the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Tim Pool and Joe Rogan unleashed a torrent of research and specific proof that seemed to confirm that Twitter is censorious, has a bias against conservative users and operates with ideological blinders on.  The guests on the podcast were independent journalist Pool, Twitter boss, Jack Dorsey, and Head of Trust and Safety, Vijaya Gadde.  Rogan suggested to Dorsey and Gadde that by choosing to forbid linguistic acts such as “deadnaming” and misgendering” Twitter has, in effect, created a protected class. Rogan pointed out that the gender debate is a legitimate debate within the liberal and progressive communities. And by favoring the ideology of trans-people over radical feminists, Twitter was not operating in good faith. Pool invoked the Ray Bradbury novel Fahrenheit 451, suggesting that Twitter’s terms of service, which skew toward censorship will lead to totalitarianism.