Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

Rep. Louie Gohmert, Dr. Michael Siegel, Richard Kelsey and Raheem Kassam joined WMAL on Tuesday morning!

5am – A/B/C IMMIGRATION NEWS:

• DHS: August Border Apprehensions Down 22% — Major Decrease In Family Units
• ACTING CBP COMMISSIONER MARK MORGAN: During the month of August, CBP apprehended or deemed inadmissible a total of 64,006 people. For July, that number was 82,055. This represents a decline of approximately 22%. Moreover, the August number reflects a decline of 56% since the May peak, which was a staggering 144,255.
• Acting CBP Commissioner Morgan: “President Trump has made it very clear that we will build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border…CBP has constructed more than 65 miles of new border wall…We’re hoping to build between 450 to 500 new miles of new border by the end of 2020.”
• Judge restores nationwide block of asylum ban: A San Francisco-based federal judge on Monday restored a nationwide injunction against President Donald Trump’s move to ban asylum seekers who pass through another country en route to the United States.
• U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar issued the order after considering new evidence presented in an ongoing lawsuit of the third-country asylum ban.
• STATEMENT FROM THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS SEC…Today, a single district judge in California reimposed a nationwide injunction halting the implementation of important rules that reform our broken asylum system — after the Ninth Circuit previously struck down this exact injunction. The Attorney General has recently explained the grave threat such injunctions pose to our Constitutional order. Immigration and border security policy cannot be run by any single district court judge who decides to issue a nationwide injunction. This ruling is a gift to human smugglers and traffickers and undermines the rule of law. We previously asked the Supreme Court to set aside the district court’s injunction in its entirety, our request remains pending with the Court, and we look forward to it acting on our request.
• ANOTHER SEXUAL ASSAULT BY AN ILLEGAL IN MOCO:

• Another illegal alien involved in an alleged sex crime in Montgomery County: Kevin Lewis @ABC7Kevin NEW: Police say 26yo Oluwakayode Adebusuyi raped an intoxicated woman in his car. Per ICE, the Nigerian native is living in the U.S. illegally. This is at least the eighth undocumented immigrant charged with rape or sex abuse of a minor in Montgomery County, Md. since July 25.

• • Kevin Lewis @ABC7Kevin MORE: Last summer, MoCo Police charged Adebusuyi with 2nd-degree assault, 4th-degree sex offense and false imprisonment. Prosecutors dropped all counts in that case for unspecified reasons. Adebusuyi had been employed as a ride-share driver up until his most recent arrest.
• WBTV, North Carolina: ICE: Nearly 500 undocumented immigrants released from NC jails despite detainer. North Carolina Releases Nearly 500 Criminal Illegals in Less than a Year

5am – D         CNN’S DEBUNKED SPY STORY: CIA slams CNN’s ‘misguided’ and ‘simply false’ reporting on alleged spy’s extraction from Kremlin.  (Fox News) – The Central Intelligence Agency on Monday evening slammed what it called CNN’s “misguided” and “simply false” reporting, after the cable channel’s chief national security correspondent authored a hole-filled piece claiming that the CIA had pulled a high-level spy out of Russia because President Trump had “repeatedly mishandled classified intelligence and could contribute to exposing the covert source as a spy.”

The extraordinary CIA rebuke came as the New York Times published a bombshell piece late in the evening, which largely contradicted CNN’s reporting. According to the Times, CIA officials “made the arduous decision in late 2016 to offer to extract the source from Russia” — weeks before Trump even took office.

• NY TIMES CONTRADICTS JIM SCIUTTO’S REPORTING: The decision to extract the informant was driven “in part” because of concerns that Mr. Trump and his administration had mishandled delicate intelligence, CNN reported. But former intelligence officials said there was no public evidence that Mr. Trump directly endangered the source, and other current American officials insisted that media scrutiny of the agency’s sources alone was the impetus for the extraction.
• CNN’s Jim Sciutto on The New York Times debunking his report: “Now the New York Times has confirmed our story”

5am – E         Tulsi Gabbard Comes Out Against Third Trimester Abortions Except If Mother’s Life Is At Risk. (Daily Caller) — Democratic 2020 presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard said Monday that she is against third-trimester abortions except in cases where the mother’s health is at risk. Gabbard spoke on “The Rubin Report” Monday and discussed the abortion debate with host Dave Rubin. The Hawaii representative emphasized that the woman should be the one in charge of making decisions about her body. However, Gabbard also said she is against allowing third trimester abortions except in cases in which the mother’s health is in danger. “Do you have a cut off point, for that?” Rubin asked Gabbard, regarding abortion.  “I think the third trimester unless a woman’s life or severe health consequences is at risk, then there shouldn’t be an abortion in the third trimester,” Gabbard responded, shaking her head. Gabbard also said that she agrees with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when Clinton said that abortions should be “safe, legal, and rare.”

6am – A         Left-wing principal of DC school fails to protect Trump-supporting student. The principal of a high-performing magnet high school located in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. has jeopardized the safety of one of his students because of her support for President Trump. Jayne Zirkle, a senior at School Without Walls High School, known as “Walls,” will spend the rest of the school year taking classes online.  The severity of threats and harassment coming from her classmates has made it impossible for her to attend the public school without fear of physical harm. When Zirkle went to D.C. public school leaders, including the principal of Walls, Richard Trogisch, she presented them with 200 pages of evidence outlining harassment, threats, and cyber-bullying from fellow students. Zirkle told One America News reporter Neil McCabe that officials were not sympathetic, stating that “it would all blow over in a couple of weeks.”  Incredibly, she also was informed by those at the meeting that some of the “things these kids were saying were arrestable but not actually suspendable.”

6am – B/C     ‘Brady Bunch’ actress says she paid a price for admitting she backed Trump. (Fox News) – Ahead of the show’s 50th anniversary, “The Brady Bunch” cast is reuniting to renovate the family’s famous TV digs in HGTV’s “A Very Brady Renovation.” Olsen famously starred as pigtail-wearing Cindy Brady in the beloved series, which chronicled the misadventures of a large family united when a widower (Robert Reed) and a widow (Florence Henderson) tie the knot. “The Brady Bunch” ran from 1969 until 1974. But since the show came to an end — and before the “Brady” home became the subject of its new reality TV series, Olsen has kept herself busy not in Hollywood, but pursuing her passion for radio. Most recently, the now-58-year-old, along with ‘50s actress Kathleen Hughes, attended The Hollywood Museum to commemorate the life of Ida Lupino, as well as Olivia De Havilland’s 103rd birthday. The former child star is currently the host of a KABC Radio show on Sundays called “Sunday Night Live” with Frank Sheftel.

Fox News: How are you keeping busy today?

Olsen: I started doing radio in 1995. In terms of entertainment, it was always my favorite medium because I could just be myself. I wasn’t much of a career woman when I was raising my son. I kind of believe in stay-at-home moms. I know that’s a form of luxury a lot of women can’t afford, so I was incredibly lucky. I did things that weren’t in the limelight but allowed me to be a stay-at -home mom and pay the mortgage *laughs*. But now that he’s 22, I am free. I can work *laughs*.

Fox News: It’s been said you’re more politically conscious. Are you ever worried that people might think of you differently based on your beliefs?

Olsen: All the time… I’ve been the subject of fake news. And it was shocking to me. The story was that I had been fired for a homophobic rant on the air. Yeah, I did rant at a guy, but it was not on the air. And I never got fired. But it was all part of my punishment for admitting that I voted for Trump.

6am – D          Valerie Plame Lied To Voters In Her Very First Campaign Ad. Former CIA spy Valerie Plame released her first campaign ad for Congress on Monday. In the ad she lies that former Vice President Dick Cheney and his chief of staff Scooter Libby Scooter betrayed her. “I come from Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants. My dad was in the Air Force, my brother almost died in Vietnam. My service was cut short when my own government betrayed me,” Plame says in the video. However, Plame’s government did not betray her. Libby did not leak Plame’s identity as a CIA officer, Richard Armitage did. Armitage and the columnist to whom he leaked, Robert Novak, have both confirmed that. President Donald Trump pardoned Libby in April of 2018, telling reporters at the White House, “I don’t know Mr. Libby, but for years I have heard that he has been treated unfairly. Hopefully, this full pardon will help rectify a very sad portion of his life.”  Plame, who was exposed during her time at the CIA under former President George W. Bush, announced May 9 that she would be running for Congress in New Mexico as a Democrat. In the ad, Plame suggests she was stationed in Iran and the DPRK, which she was not. She also uses the CIA seal, which is illegal, as use the use of official government seals and logos without permission is restricted by federal law. Plame also randomly mentions that she is descended from “Ukrainian-Jewish immigrants,” after being accused of being anti-Semitic. In 2017, Plame retweeted an article titled “America’s Jews Are Driving America’s Wars” from a website run by a Holocaust denier. The article said that Jewish people “own the media,” and that their beliefs were as dangerous as “a bottle of rat poison.” “The only thing I focused on in that article was: I thought it was a very bad idea to get out of the Iran nuclear deal,” she told CNN’s John Berman in May. “I stupidly did not read the rest of the article. When I did, I was really horrified. It’s anti-Semitic.”

6am – E         Sarah Palin’s husband Todd files for divorce from former Alaska governor after 31 years of marriage and five children together because they find it ‘impossible to live together any longer.’ Todd moved to dissolve his marriage in Anchorage Superior Court on Friday. A court filing cited an ‘incompatibility of temperament between the parties such that they find it impossible to live together as husband and wife.’ Sarah and Todd, both 55, have been married since 1988 and share five children. He requested joint custody of their only child who is a minor, 11-year-old son Trig. (Daily Mail) – Todd Palin has filed for divorce from former Alaska governor and 2008 vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin after 31 years of marriage.  Todd moved to dissolve his marriage in a document filed in Anchorage Superior Court on Friday.  The filing cited an ‘incompatibility of temperament between the parties such that they find it impossible to live together as husband and wife’. Sarah has not yet responded publicly to reports about the divorce. She and Todd, both 55, have been married since 1988 and share five children and five grandchildren.   The petition, which was filed on Todd’s 55th birthday, uses initials – TMP and SLP – rather than full names. It was traced back to the couple by Anchorage-based blogger Craig Medred  through the marriage date and the birth date of their only child who is a minor, 11-year-old son Trig.  The father asked for joint legal custody of Trig. The divorce will not be of legal concern to their four adult children: Track, 30, Bristol, 28, Willow, 25, and Piper, 18.  Todd is being represented by Anchorage attorney Kimberlee Colbo, who has declined to comment. Colbo filed an official request with the court to designate the divorce confidential as it moves forward. Sarah’s net worth is estimated at $12million while Todd’s is estimated at $2million. Sarah Palin was elected governor of Alaska in 2006 and her family was thrust into the national spotlight two years later when Republican presidential nominee John McCain added her to his ticket as vice president.

6am – F         73-year-old Prince George’s County woman murdered 82-year-old neighbor with a brick, police say. (Fox5DC) – BLADENSBURG, Md. – A 73-year-old Bladensburg woman is jailed without bond after she allegedly used a brick to murder her 82-year-old neighbor early Sunday morning. Prince George’s County police investigators say Chun Yong Oh of Emerson Street repeatedly struck Hwa Cha Pak with a brick after a dispute. A source told FOX 5 that the pair were arguing about money. They say Oh had loaned Pak tens of thousands of dollars. Pak reportedly stopped re-paying Oh two years ago. According to the source, Oh admitted to the crime.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – REP. LOUIE GOHMERT – R-TX, member of the House Judiciary Committee – discussed what’s on the legislative agenda (guns, impeachment push, budget fight) as Congress returns from recess.

• CONGRESS IS BACK: Congress returns with guns, presidential probes and government funding on its plate. Lawmakers haven’t left themselves much time: The House is scheduled to be in session for only 45 days through the end of the year.
• IMPEACHMENT PUSH: Democrats on House Judiciary Committee to vote on formal impeachment investigation this week in dramatic escalation of hostilities with Donald Trump. (Daily Mail) – The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee announced on Monday that it will consider steps this week to formalize its investigation to determine whether to impeach President Donald Trump. he panel, which hopes to determine whether to recommend Trump’s impeachment to the full House by the end of the year, will meet on Thursday at 8 a.m. to consider a resolution that would open the door to the more aggressive questioning of witnesses at hearings and allow the White House to respond in writing to evidence and testimony. The five-page measure also sets procedures for reviewing sensitive material, including grand jury evidence in closed-door sessions.
• GUNS: Pelosi Warns ‘ Grim Reaper’ Mitch: ‘ Hell to pay’ if gun control not passed. Pelosi: ‘Hell to pay’ if Senate doesn’t pass universal background check bill. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) warned on Monday that there would be “hell to pay” for Senate Republicans if they don’t pass a universal background check bill. “Some of the gun violence prevention groups have upped the ante even further to say that if this bill is not passed, Mitch McConnell and Republicans in the Senate and the president will have hell to pay,” Pelosi said at a press conference with other Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). “So let’s save time.”  Congress returned to Washington for the first time on Monday since the mass shootings in El Paso and Odessa, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, where nearly 40 people were killed. Democrats are trying to build pressure on Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and President Trump to pass and sign a House background checks bill, which has stalled in the GOP-controlled Senate. The House bill cleared the chamber in February but no Senate Republican has signed on as a co-sponsor, giving it long odds for clearing the upper chamber. Schumer on Monday said the two roadblocks to the House bill becoming law are Trump and McConnell.

7am – B/C     2020 NEWS:

• Andrew Yang crowd-surfed at a 2020 town hall.  (The Week) – The 2020 Democrat and entrepreneur was spotted performing what might be a presidential campaign first on Saturday: crowd surfing across a wave of supporters at the AAPI Democratic Presidential Forum in California. And if the sight of Yang’s ride wasn’t triumphant enough, the fact that two other presidential candidates were at the forum makes it even sweeter. Yang joined Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) and billionaire Tom Steyer at the event, which is put on by an Asian American and Pacific Islander-focused super PAC. Yang is currently beating those two contenders in polls and number of legs off the ground, and is polling around the same 3 percent as fellow ex-punk O’Rourke.
• Beto O’Rourke: Cops Won’t Go ‘Door To Door’ With Mandatory Gun Buyback Plan, Americans Will Comply. (Daily Caller) – Democratic 2020 hopeful Beto O’Rourke assured a reporter in Manchester, New Hampshire this weekend that he doesn’t think law enforcement would have to go “door to door” to confiscate Americans’ guns under his mandatory buy back plan, but that people would simply comply with the law. “I don’t see the law enforcement going door to door. I see Americans complying with the law,” O’Rourke told the Washington Examiner.

7am – D         INTERVIEW – MICHAEL SIEGEL – a physician and professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the Boston University School of Public Health. He has been a tobacco researcher and anti-tobacco advocate for the past 30 years.

• Fifth person dies from lung illness caused by vaping, CDC confirms. Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported three deaths from Minnesota, California and Indiana related to use of e-cigarettes. Health officials confirmed on Friday that a fifth victim has died to due to a vaping-related lung disease that has affected over 450 patients across the country. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed a victim over the age of 55 died on Friday related to the severe lung disease caused by the use of e-cigarettes in California. Los Angeles health officials said the patient had chronic health problems, but no other information was released, CBS News reports.  CDC confirmed two others deaths on Friday related to e-cigarettes. The fourth patient was over the age of 65 and passed away in Minnesota after sustaining a lung injury from vaping. The third victim, who was only over 18-years-old, was confirmed in Indiana. The first vaping-related death was confirmed on Aug. 23 in Illinois. A second death was reported in Oregon earlier last week.  The CDC has confirmed over 450 lung illnesses related to vaping in 33 states and one territory. Most of the victims are males with a median age of 19, according to the Washington Post.
• Melania Trump is ‘deeply concerned’ about teen vaping as CDC investigates 450 cases of ‘new lung disease’ linked to e-cigarettes. First lady Melania Trump says she is worried about the ‘growing epidemic’ of e-cigarette use among US adolescents and teens. In a tweet on Monday afternoon, she called for action to fight ‘nicotine addiction’, but didn’t mention any specific plans. ‘I am deeply concerned about the growing epidemic of e-cigarette use in our children,’ she tweeted.‘We need to do all we can to protect the public from tobacco-related disease and death, and prevent e-cigarettes from becoming an on-ramp to nicotine addiction for a generation of youth.’
• Michael Siegel: CDC’s Bias Against E-Cigarettes Is Putting Kids’ Lives at Risk. (National Review) –  “…this isn’t the whole story. In most cases where there has been a serious illness as a result of vaping, the individual has not been using a legal, nicotine-containing e-cigarette liquid. Rather, such individuals have been vaping e-liquids containing THC — the drug commonly found in marijuana. These THC e-liquids are typically purchased on the street, often in open cartridges that could contain a contaminant or other drug. In at least some of the cases, the use of a THC oil, such as butane hash oil, has been implicated. In January of this year, there was a published case report of a severe, acute respiratory illness attributable to the use of butane hash oil. All 21 cases reported in California were apparently attributed to vaping marijuana, with all the THC e-liquids being purchased on the street. The reported cases of lipoid pneumonia are serious, and they are known to be caused by oil inhalation…”

7am – E         NEW IPHONE AND APPLE PRODUCTS TO BE REVEALED:

• Innovation unveiled: Apple plans to unveil new products, including three new iPhones, a new laptop, and streaming Apple TV, according to media reports.  Samsung recently introduced a foldable smartphone.
• Here’s what to expect: iPhone: Apple is planning to launch three new iPhones, as it has done each year since 2017: “Pro” iPhone models to succeed the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max as well as a successor to the iPhone XR. The main feature of the Pro iPhones will be a new camera system on the back with a third sensor for capturing ultra-wide-angle photos and videos. The extra camera will let users zoom out and capture a larger field of view. The sensors will capture three images simultaneously and use new artificial intelligence software to automatically correct the combined photo if, for example, a person is accidentally cut out of one of the shots. The new system will also take higher resolution pictures rivaling some traditional cameras. Photos taken in very low-light environments will improve, too.
  

8am – A         INTERVIEW – RICHARD KELSEY – a former Assistant Law School Dean at George Mason University and is now in private practice. He is the author of a book on Higher Education: “Of Serfs and Lords: Why College is Creating a Debtor Class” 

• His 2018 book tackles the issue of donor influence … and specifically speaks about the prior 30 million given to George Mason for the name-change to Scalia Law.
• ‘Conservative’ string attached to $50 million college gift. Anti-conservative UnKoch My Campus is freaking out over the donation to George Mason University. (AP) — FAIRFAX, Va. —A $50 million gift made earlier this year to Virginia’s largest public university was given specifically to “promote the conservative principles of governance,” newly released documents show, raising concerns from critics that it compromises academic freedom at the school. George Mason University announced the gift earlier this year — the largest ever received in the school’s history — from the estate of Allison and Dorothy Rouse to Mason’s Antonin Scalia Law School. Documents obtained by the group UnKoch My Campus under the Freedom of Information Act and made public this week show that the Rouse trust specified its bequest be used “as an endowment to fund a chair or chairs that will promote the conservative principles of governance, statesmanship, high morals, civil and religious freedom and the study of the United States Constitution.” University officials say the Rouse trust won’t have any say in selecting faculty at the law school and that there was nothing improper about specifying conservative governance as a principle to be promoted. “What has been outlined in the agreement are important topics for any law school, and many of these topics are already an integral part of the curriculum at the Scalia School,” Provost S. David Wu said in a statement. But when school administrators presented the deal to the university’s gift acceptance committee last year, it appears they knew the language in the bequest was problematic.  George Mason, which has developed a reputation over the years as a conservative powerhouse in law and economics, has received increased scrutiny about influence of conservative donors since 2016, when Mason renamed its law school for conservative jurist Antonin Scalia. The renaming came in conjunction with an anonymous $20 million donation to the law school that was accompanied by $10 million from the Koch Foundation. The Koch Foundation now gives hundreds of millions of dollars to universities across the nation, but tax records show that George Mason has received more money from over the years from the foundation than any other school.

8am – B         House Republicans demand details on Dems’ mysterious trips to Mexico. Republicans on the House Oversight Committee are calling on their Democratic colleagues to provide more details about a series of trips taken to Mexico while staff were touring border detention facilities, amid reports that at least one Democrat has been involved in “coaching” migrants there on how to exploit U.S. immigration law. In a letter to Chairman Elijah Cummings, D-Md., obtained by Fox News, ranking member Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said there were at least two committee staff trips into Mexico in August — one of which required Border Patrol agents to provide a special escort back into the U.S.

8am – C         Northam names first diversity chief for Virginia state government. (Washington Post) – RICHMOND — Gov. Ralph Northam (D) on Monday named a former university official as Virginia’s first director of diversity, equity and inclusion, charged with improving practices throughout the staffing and activities of state government. Janice Underwood, who had been in charge of diversity initiatives at Old Dominion University, was selected for the role after a summerlong search. She will report directly to Northam and his chief of staff. She starts Sept. 16. A cabinet-level position devoted to diversity across state government is unusual. A spokesman for the National Governors Association said no other states appear to have such a position. Northam announced in May that he would create the position, after pledging to spend the rest of his term in office fighting racial inequity in the wake of a race-related scandal.  He had defied calls to resign in February after a photo surfaced from his 1984 medical school yearbook page showing one person in blackface and another in Ku Klux Klan robes.

8am – D         INTERVIEW – RAHEEM KASSAM – Editor-in-Chief of Human Events and former chief advisor to former UK Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage – discussed the latest news on what’s happening with the Brexit battle in Parliament.

• U.K. lawmakers again reject Boris Johnson’s call for election, extending Brexit chaos. After another remarkable day in Parliament, The U.K. is still unsure when the Brexit saga will end. LONDON — Britain’s embattled Prime Minister Boris Johnson suffered yet another political defeat on Monday as he failed for a second time to convince lawmakers to back his call for an election to solve the Brexit deadlock. Johnson’s bid failed, with 293 Members of Parliament supporting the motion, 46 voting against it and multiple abstentions. The prime minister needed two-thirds of support of the House of Commons, at least 434 votes, for the election to take place. Johnson blamed opposition lawmakers for delaying “Brexit yet again” and promised that his government would “press on negotiating a deal while preparing to leave without one.” “No matter how many devices this Parliament invents to tie my hands, I will strive” to get an agreement in Brussels, he said. Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn, meanwhile, described Johnson’s shutdown of Parliament — that began Monday night — as a way to avoid any discussion of that deal. “This government is a disgrace and the way the prime minister operates is a disgrace,” Corbyn said. Longtime House Speaker John Bercow, who earlier announced his decision to step down from the job and has repeatedly urged lawmakers to wrest control of Brexit’s future, told the chamber that there was nothing “normal” about Johnson’s suspension of parliament.
• Queen Elizabeth approves law seeking to block October 31 no-deal Brexit. Britain’s Queen Elizabeth on Monday gave final approval to a piece of legislation which seeks to prevent Prime Minister Boris Johnson from taking the country out of the European Union without an exit deal on Oct. 31. 
• What’s happening in Brexit yesterday? Lawmakers rejected Boris Johnson’s efforts to force a snap general election for the second time.
• What happened earlier? MPs forced Downing Street to publish internal documents, and debated whether Johnson will follow a law blocking a no-deal Brexit.
• When will Parliament be suspended? The government will prorogue parliament at the end of today’s sitting. MPs won’t return until October 14.
• Boris Johnson’s bid for an early election fails. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has lost a second attempt in the House of Commons to force an early general election. The motion, which needed a majority of two thirds to pass, fell far short of that threshold. Only 293 MPs voted for the motion, with 46 against. Johnson needed the support of two-thirds of MPs (at least 434) to trigger an early election.