Rep. Louie Gohmert, Stuart Varney and Eli Lake joined WMAL Thursday morning.
Mornings on the Mall
Thursday, November 20, 2014
Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor
5am – A/B/C Immigration Speech Preview: 'I had promised': Obama to announce executive action on immigration Thursday in primetime speech. President Obama, following through on his vow to sidestep Congress, will announce in a prime-time TV speech Thursday the executive actions he will take to change U.S. immigration law. Obama will make his announcement, expected to protect roughly 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation, from the White House at 8 p.m. EST.
5am – D Utah Revives Plan for Executions by Firing Squad. Ten years after banning the use of firing squads in state executions, Utah lawmakers on Wednesday endorsed a proposal to allow the practice again to avoid problems with lethal-injection drugs. The proposal from Republican Rep. Paul Ray of Clearfield would call for a firing squad if the state cannot obtain the lethal injection drugs 30 days before the scheduled execution. Utah dropped firing squads out of concern about the media attention, but Ray said it's the most humane way to execute someone because the inmate dies instantly. "We have to have an option," Ray told reporters Wednesday. "If we go hanging, if we go to the guillotine, or we go to the firing squad, electric chair, you're still going to have the same circus atmosphere behind it. So is it really going to matter?" After a 20-minute discussion, an interim panel of Utah lawmakers approved the idea on a 9-2 vote Wednesday. The proposal still needs to go through the full legislative process once lawmakers convene for their annual session in January. Rep. Mark Wheatley, a Democrat from Murray, voted against the measure because he said Utah doesn't have a problem that needs to be fixed. Santaquin Republican Rep. Marc Roberts, who cast the other opposing vote, said he didn't think the proposal was needed and is unsure of his own view on capital punishment. Under current Utah law, death by firing squad is only an option for criminals sentenced to death before 2004. It was last used in 2010.
5am – E Trey Gowdy: Gruber an ‘Insomniac with Tourette’s Syndrome.’ (DC Examiner) — Congressman Trey Gowdy (R., S.C.) said the series of embarrassing statements from Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber should continue to flow uninterrupted because they reveal the true deceptive nature of President Obama’s unpopular health care law. “When you have an insomniac with Tourette’s syndrome, you don’t interrupt him,” Gowdy told Fox’s Greta Van Susteren on Wednesday. “So we’re going to let him keep talking, as long as he will talk.” Gowdy said Gruber’s admission that “lack of transparency” helped push Obamacare through Congress should trigger a congressional investigation on the nearly $2 million Gruber received from U.S. taxpayers during the course of his employment as an advisor to the Obama administration. “Then when he’s through insulting our fellow citizens…I would love to ask him, ‘when you apologized, did you apologize because you said it, or did you apologize because you meant it?’” Gowdy said. “I think he meant that we could not have passed this bill if people had been paying attention.” When Van Susteren pointed out that Gruber had knowingly “undermined the democratic system by being deceitful,” Gowdy responded with a sarcastic swipe at Gruber’s academic arrogance.
6am – A/B/C Michael Phelps' self-proclaimed girlfriend, 41, admits she was born a male as she describes her 'amazing intimacy' with Olympic swimmer. Michael Phelps' self-proclaimed girlfriend Taylor Lianne Chandler has revealed she was born David Roy Fitch. Chandler is intersex, meaning she has male genitalia but no testicles, and a uterus but no ovaries. She is revealing her 'amazing sex life' with Phelps in a new interview, claiming the two had sex at a Baltimore Ravens football game. >>She began taking testosterone blockers as a teenager and had corrective surgery in her early twenties to get rid of her male genitalia. Chandler is now concerned that after this admission Phelps may no longer want to be with her when he leaves rehab.
6am – D Want to avoid paying the "rain tax"? Maryland County To Churches: Preach Environmentalism And Get A Tax Break. (Daily Caller/Derek Hunter) — Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley made national news last year when he fought to pass and signed a tax bill that levied a tax on Marylanders, businesses and churches for the amount of “impervious surface” they have on their property. Roofs, driveways, sidewalks, and parking lots qualify for the “rainwater remediation fee” to “protect the Chesapeake Bay.” Though the O’Malley administration calls it a “fee,” it is commonly called the “rain tax” throughout the state. It is wildly unpopular and the promise to fight to repeal the tax was a large factor in Maryland electing Republican Larry Hogan governor this month. Now Prince George’s County is offering a way for churches to avoid paying the tax, which is estimated to be an average of $744 per year for them — preach “green” to their parishioners. So far 30 pastors have agreed to begin “‘green’ ministries to maintain the improvements at their churches, and to preach environmentally focused sermons to educate their congregations” to avoid being hit with the tax, The Washington Post reports. Prince George’s County’s Department of Environment director Adam Ortiz told WBAL Radio churches “don’t have to preach, per se,” that they could avoid the tax if they “provide educational programs to teach them (parishioners) about how to be more sustainable. And to help them engage in grant programs and other way that they can control the runoff from their property.”
6am – E 2016 Dems:
- De Blasio: Most Voters See Themselves As Victims. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio was speaking with Mike Allen at Politico’s Playbook Breakfast in Washington, DC. He said that Democrats needed to focus more on economic populism, and that the conversation about economic inequality was missing from this most recent election cycle.
- Elizabeth Warren: "Our Country Is Headed In The Wrong Direction." Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) spoke at the Center for American Progress "Making Progress" conference at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on Wednesday. "Our country is headed in the wrong direction," Warren said. "The game is rigged, but we know how to fix it."
7am – A INTERVIEW — REP LOUIE GOHMERT – R-Texas
- Gohmert Compares White House & Border Security. Rep. Louie Gohmert (TX-01) questioned the acting Secret Service Director about the White House security breach in a House Judiciary Hearing today. He mentioned the “breakdown in White House leadership” as one of his main concerns. He asked the director if he would be in favor of eliminating the fence around the White House – and boldly stated, “If it [ a fence] is not good enough for our border, it should not be good enough for the White House.”
- 'I had promised': Obama to announce executive action on immigration Thursday in primetime speech. President Obama, following through on his vow to sidestep Congress, will announce in a prime-time TV speech Thursday the executive actions he will take to change U.S. immigration law. Obama will make his announcement, expected to protect roughly 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation, from the White House at 8 p.m. EST.
7am – B Jay Gruden: I’ve made this too much about one guy. (NBC Sports) — Wednesday brought another media session for Jay Gruden and that meant more discussion of quarterback Robert Griffin III. Gruden’s Monday press conference set off some sparks when he said that Griffin needed to worry about himself more than he worries about the performance of other Redskins players in reference to Griffin’s own post-loss comments on Sunday, but Gruden went in a different direction on Wednesday. Gruden said that the reasons for the team’s struggles go well beyond Griffin and that he should have been worrying about everyone instead of making it about the quarterback. “I’ve made this too much about one guy,” Gruden said, via Mike Jones of the Washington Post. “Robert has to continue to evolve as a quarterback. That’s all there is to it. All these young quarterbacks are going through it.”
7am – C Bono more seriously injured than reported. (USA Today) — We knew that Bono canceled his weeklong residency with U2 on The Tonight Show due to a bike spill, which led to surgery. What wasn't known was how dangerous that fall was. New York's Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, where Bono was treated, has revealed the singer underwent not one, but two surgical procedures, reports the BBC. On Sunday, his arm fracture involved a five-hour operation and was repaired with three metal plates and 18 screws. On Monday, Bono had surgery on his left hand. The band revealed on its website Monday that Bono had "injured his arm in a cycling spill." In a statement, the hospital expanded on the incident, saying that Bono was involved in "a high-energy bicycle accident when he attempted to avoid another rider."
7am – D INTERVIEW — STUART VARNEY — Anchor, Varney and Company on Fox Business Network, weekdays at 11 am
- 'I had promised': Obama to announce executive action on immigration Thursday in primetime speech
- Stuart discussed changing gas prices
- Daughter Petitions Kmart So Mom Doesn't Have to Work Thanksgiving. A Delaware woman heartbroken that her mom has to work at Kmart on Thanksgiving Day is petitioning the store to change its holiday hours. Jillian Fisher told ABC News she's fed up with retailers opening earlier and closing later to keep up with Black Friday shopping demand. For years, she has watched her mom, Donna Fisher, leave the family every Thanksgiving night to go to work at Kmart in Wilmington, Delaware, to prepare for the rush of bargain-hunters. But in recent years many stores, including Kmart, have been increasing their hours, and employees' family time is being cut short. "Can't those sales wait a few hours?" she said. "This is ridiculous," Fisher, 25, added. "Why are we stealing family time? This is important time." So she launched a Change.org petition urging the store to close early.
7am – E Al Sharpton rails against report that he owes $4.5 million in unpaid taxes. (CNN) — Civil rights leader Al Sharpton sharply denounced an extensive New York Times report that he and his companies are subject to $4.5 million in current state and federal tax liens. The MSNBC host said in a press conference Wednesday that the $4.5 million was the original figure he was ordered to pay back in 2008, but that he has been making regular payments since then and the amount is now less. Sharpton did not give the outstanding balance owed by him and his for-profit companies. Rather, he focused his remarks on how much money his nonprofit group, the National Action Network, has paid back. The liens against that organization, however, were not lumped into the $4.5 million figure reported by the Times. The Times reported that Sharpton is still liable for personal federal tax liens of more than $3 million, and state tax liens of $777,657. The companies owe another $717,329 on state and federal tax liens. But Sharpton argued that it wasn't possible that he still owed $4.5 million. "If we owed $4.5 million in '08 then how could we owe this now, unless you're saying that everybody just went to sleep on this and just gave us a pass, which is ridiculous," he said.
8am – A INTERVIEW – ELI LAKE – columnist, Bloomberg View
- IRAN negotiations: Kerry in Diplomatic Overdrive on Iran Nuclear Deal. Kerry to Join Iran Nuclear Talks in Vienna.
- JERUSALEM ATTACK: Israel demolishes home of terrorist responsible for October 22. Jerusalem light rail attack. Two people were killed and seven were wounded when Abdel Rahman Al-Shaludi rammed his car into a Jerusalem light rail station in late October.
- ISIS: Gitmo 'Poet' Now Recruiting for Islamic State. An ex-Guantanamo detainee based in northern Pakistan is leading an effort to recruit jihadists for the Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot that controls large portions of Iraq and Syria.
- Months of Bombing Makes Small Impact on ISIS' Military Capabilities.
8am – B White House Didn’t Ask For Broadcast Network Airtime For Immigration Speech. President Barack Obama will announce his highly anticipated plan to deal with millions of illegal immigrants tomorrow night. While the cable news networks will carry the 8pm ET announcement, the broadcast networks — deep into November sweeps — will not. According to network insiders, the White House did not request time from the networks for tomorrow night’s primetime speech. But because it comes at 5pmPT the network evening newscasts will have to update their programs.
Univision’s Jorge Ramos Calls President Obama Immigration Actions a “Triumph For The Latino Community.” The most influential Latino news anchor is taking a stand and wants you to notice. Shortly after President Obama scheduled his Thursday primetime address to announce new executive actions on immigration, his top White House communications advisor, Dan Pfeiffer, took to Twitter to boast. “Great timing,” he wrote, noting a rather glaring non-coincidence. As it turned out, Obama had arranged to start speaking at the very moment Univision, America’s largest Spanish-language television network, planned to begin broadcasting the 2015 Latin Grammy Awards, one of the network’s biggest shows of the year, with a 2014 viewership of nearly 10 million. Indeed, Univision promptly announced that it would delay the start of the live event to take Obama’s remarks, in translation, ensuring the President a massive platform in the most crucial political demographic, even as many of the English-language networks said they would skip the address. The chances are high that the leading lights of Latin pop music will follow up his words tonight with on-stage celebrations of the President’s actions.
8am – C Mike Nichols, director of The Graduate, dies at 83. The director Mike Nichols, who won the 1968 best director Oscar and enjoyed a long screen and stage career, has died at the age of 83. Mike Nichols, the German-born renaissance man of American entertainment, has died at the age of 83. Nichols won the best director Oscar for his 1967 classic The Graduate, although his cabinet also contained a Golden Globe, a Grammy, four Emmys and nine Tony awards. His career embraced comedy and drama and straddled film, TV and theatre. The immigrant auteur seemed at home in every discipline. Born Mikhail Igor Peschowski into an artistic family in Berlin, Nichols fled to the US in 1939. He first worked in an improv troupe and found early fame as as part of comedy duo with Elaine May, peppering the audience with such quick-fire repartee that the pair became known as “the world’s fastest humans”. Nichols made his film directing debut with 1966’s scabrous Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor as a warring married couple. He then went on to further acclaim with The Graduate, a film that perfectly caught the uneasy, questioning mood of late-60s America. The Graduate famously opened to the strains of Simon and Garfunkel’s The Sound of Silence and bowed out with Dustin Hoffman and Katharine Ross’s bus-ride into the unknown – a final shot which remains one of cinema’s greatest hanging endings.
8am – D Diplomatic Drivers: Hundreds Pulled Over for Serious Offenses. (Tisha Thompson/NBC 4) — It took the News4 I-Team six years to find Rufin Mandzandza. When our cameras found him, he didn’t like it, telling us to “Stop following me.” He's been charged with more than a dozen of the most serious driving violations but has never gone to jail. And the News 4 I-Team found he's not alone. In 2008, we filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the U.S. Department of State and spent six years fighting to get a list never before released to the public showing hundreds of diplomats pulled over for our most serious driving offenses. The records show one-third were caught drinking and driving, including a Russian first secretary charged with DWI and trying to elude police in Chevy Chase. Also on the list? A defense attaché for Yemen whose Mercedes was involved in a hit-and-run in Great Falls. He'd been pulled over three years earlier for reckless driving on Gallows Road. Most on the list were pulled over for reckless driving. The son of the former Cameroon ambassador was pulled over for going 93 mph in a 55 mph zone in Chantilly. Records show a first secretary of Jordan was clocked going 100 mph in Fairfax. One year later, police charged him with DWI while driving the same Mercedes in Rockville. The I-Team took the documents to Tom Blanton at the National Security Archive, who quickly noticed they had been declassified. He said, "All it takes is some bureaucrat to think, 'Oh, this might be sensitive, this might be embarrassing,' and they can put a classification stamp on it.”
TOMORROW: Trevor Matich and Andrew McCarthy
