Hans Von Spakovsky, Montgomery Councilmember Marc Elrich and Larry Kudlow joined WMAL on Tuesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C  Trump on Delegate Fight: ‘I Don’t Care About the Rules.’ ’Donald Trump is having a bit of a delegate problem lately, but it’s okay because he doesn’t care. Ted Cruz ended up with more delegates than him in Louisiana because of his campaign’s delegate operation, and Trump was naturally pissed. Tonight he said, “Somebody said, ‘Well, there’s a rule and another rule.’ I don’t care about rules, folks… We win, we get the delegates.” Earlier today Trump complained about how it’s “unfair” for 1237 delegates to be the endgame.

5am – D         Law school professors say posting ‘All Lives Matter’ flier was an ‘incident of intolerance’ Earlier this month, someone left a hand-written flier on the door of a faculty member’s office at American University’s Washington College of Law that read, “All Lives Matter.” It didn’t go unnoticed. That phrase — to some, code language for a racist rejection of an important cultural wake-up call, for others, an idealistic appeal for a simple, more universal truth — set off a series of reactions. A large group of faculty were offended, saying the phrase was used by white supremacists. Students held a community forum. And a couple of professors on a national civil-rights commission asked the dean, incredulously, “What is wrong with your faculty and staff members?” The variety of responses, and their intensity, illustrated how fraught the topic of race is on campuses across the country, how divisive, and how alert people are to differences. Last year, the slogan “Black Lives Matter” spread nationally after several black men were killed by police in circumstances that touched off controversy and protests; the phrase became for many a symbol of a nascent and powerful civil-rights movement.

5am – E         Public Vote On $15 Minimum Wage Moves Forward After D.C. Judge Reverses Course. The minimum wage in D.C. is going up to $11.50 in July, but activists want it to go even higher — to $15. A D.C. judge ruled on Monday that the question of whether the city should raise its minimum wage to $15 can be put to voters in November, reversing a prior ruling that had stopped the campaign for a wage hike in its tracks. Though the ruling is a win for proponents of the ballot initiative, they still face the difficult challenge of collecting close to 25,000 signatures from D.C. voters by early July to place the measure on the November ballot.  An appeal from opponents of the higher wage could also delay that process. Under the proposed ballot measure, the city’s minimum wage — now $10.50, but set to rise to $11.50 in July — would increase progressively to $15 by 2020. The wage for tipped restaurant and bar workers would likewise increase to $15, albeit more slowly, by 2024.

Gov. Brown Admits $15 Minimum Wage Does Not Make Economic Sense, Approves It Anyway. Jerry BrownCredit: Neon Tommy / photo on flickrCalifornia Gov. Jerry Brown simply does not care about what will happen to citizens in non-urban parts of the state under a $15 minimum wage. He didn’t literally say that, but what he did say when today was that he understood that there may be some bad outcomes for such a massive, unprecedented mandate. And then he signed it into law anyway.

6am – A/B/C Neighbors divided after Pitbull returns home after attack. WASHINGTON (WUSA9) — A Pitbull guilty of attacking and sending a dog and its owner to the hospital two months ago is back home, leaving the victims wondering, how is this possible? Ross Yerger and his dog Moby were on a Sunday stroll in their Parkview neighborhood of Northwest D.C. when the other dog bolted from its owner and right at them. The other day, Ross heard a familiar bark, looked in his neighbor’s backyard and saw that other dog again, bringing back his memories of the attack on January 31. “He got across the street and got Moby by the neck and cheek,” he said.  This is when Ross intervened, trying to pry the pit loose with his hands. But he was no match for the other dog’s strength — forcing him to put his whole fist inside the attacker’s mouth, letting the pit chew on it like a toy, anything to free Moby.   “So for the next 10 or 12 minutes, I spent that time fighting the dog off,” Yerger said.One witness to the attack said six men tried “to move the dog from his mouth and they couldn’t.” Another witness said, “I hope it’s something I never see again. It was a lot of blood.”

6am – D         INTERVIEW – HANS VON SPAKOVSKY –  A former counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Justice Department, former commissioner for the Federal Election Commission from 2006 to 2007, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, co-author of book “Who’s Counting? How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk” and co-author of  book “Obama’s Enforcer: Eric Holder’s Justice Department”

• Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to ‘One Person One Vote’— Yesterday SCOTUS unanimously ruled that states may count all residents, whether or not they are eligible to vote, in drawing election districts. Until this decision, the court had never resolved whether voting districts should contain the same number of people, or the same number of eligible voters. Counting all people amplifies the voting power of places that have large numbers of residents who cannot vote legally — including immigrants who are here legally but are not citizens, illegal immigrants, children and prisoners.

6am – E         2016 News:

• So MSNBC Just Basically Hijacked Part of Fox News’ Cruz Town Hall. So something pretty awkward happened this morning: a big chunk of a Fox News town hall ended up airing on MSNBC. A lot of these network town halls are taped hours in advance before you watch them in primetime. Apparently this Ted Cruz–Megyn Kelly one––which you would expect would have first aired on Fox––kinda sorta first aired on a competitor. MSNBC’s Tamron Hall intro to their live feed of the town hall was a bit awkward, as was the long awkward pause that followed as Fox was getting ready to tape the next segment of the town hall. MSNBC only showed 12 minutes of it, but it was still pretty weird. It’s unclear why a cable competitor had a camera in the room and was able to carry this live.
• Megyn Kelly: There have been threats against my life since Trump questioning.  Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly said in an interview broadcast Sunday that there have been threats against her life since her hard-lined questioning of GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump. “It’s how he gins up anger among so many. So it manifests in my life in several ways,” Kelly said during an interview with Charlie Rose on “CBS Sunday Morning.” “It’s not that I’m worried someone’s actually going to come shoot me down. But I do worry someone’s going to try to hurt me in the presence of my children.”

7am – A         INTERVIEW — MONTGOMERY COUNTY COUNCILMEMBER MARC ELRICH  – Councilmember At-Large

• Montgomery County to consider raising minimum wage to $15

7am – B         Europe:

• Spain announces plans to axe its famous three-hour siestas in a bid to drag its workforce into the 21st Century and increase productivity. Spain has announced plans to axe its famous three-hour siestas in a bid to drag its workforce into the 21st Century and increase productivity. The country’s Prime Minister said he wanted the working day to end at 6pm, bringing an end to the traditional three-hour midday break. Workers currently start at about 9am and stay in the office until about 8pm – with the siesta breaking up the day at lunchtime.
• Greece sends first migrants back to Turkey under new EU deal. Lesbos, Greece and Dikili, Turkey (CNN) The first migrants to be deported from Greece as part of a controversial new EU plan to tackle the migration crisis have landed on Turkish soil. Three boats carrying 202 people departed in the early hours of the morning from the Greek islands of Lesbos and Chios. Migrants on board the first ferry were escorted ashore by Turkish police in the port town of Dikili on Monday morning, as authorities set up a tarp to prevent gathered media from seeing on board. A second boat docked shortly afterward.

7am – C         Speed limit revving up to 70 mph on much of I-70.  FREDERICK, Md. (AP) — Drivers in central and western Maryland can pick up the pace a little on parts of Interstate 70. The State Highway Administration is raising the speed limit from 65 mph to 70 mph on two segments of the highway that stretches from Baltimore’s western suburbs to the Pennsylvania line in Washington County. The change went into effect Monday. The speed limit is being raised along the 31 miles from U.S. Route 29 in Howard County to state Route 144 in Frederick County and a 45-mile stretch between state Route 180 in Frederick County and the Pennsylvania line. The speed limit will remain 65 mph near the Baltimore beltway and around Frederick.

7am – D/E     2016 News:

• Donald Trump: John Kasich ‘Ought to Get the Hell Out’ of Race. GOP frontrunner Donald Trump told his supporters during his morning campaign event in La Crosse, Wisconsin that Ohio Gov. John Kasich should “get the hell out” of the race. “He’s one and 30,” Trump said, meaning how many states Kasich has won. “He ought to get the hell out.” “In all fairness to Jeb Bush and to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and to Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and to every single candidate that went out and worked hard that frankly, in most cases have done much better than Kasich, they could have stayed. He’s just a stubborn guy. He doesn’t want to leave,” Trump added.
• Clinton, Sanders agree to New York debate ahead of primary. WASHINGTON (AP) — Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have agreed to a Democratic presidential debate next week in New York, ensuring a high-stakes televised showdown ahead of the state’s influential primary. The two campaigns confirmed Monday the candidates would appear at the debate April 14 in Brooklyn, New York, putting the Democratic rivals onstage together before New York’s April 19 primary.

8am – A/B/C Bryce Harper wore a ‘Make Baseball Fun Again’ hat after the Nationals’ win. Bryce Harper hit a home run in his first at-bat of the Nationals’ 4-3 win over the Atlanta Braves, but his hat stole the show. According to multiple reporters inside the Nationals’ clubhouse, Harper wore a Donald Trump-esque white hat that read, “Make Baseball Fun Again.” Harper has been outspoken in his dissatisfaction with baseball’s unwritten rules. He wants players to express themselves and have fun on the field. He is in favor of the bat flip, and bat flips are awesome.

8am – D         INTERVIEW — LARRY KUDLOW – CNBC Senior Contributor and host of The Larry Kudlow Show on WMAL Saturdays at 7 pm – discussed the Wisconsin primary today.

• Trump’s prediction of ‘massive recession’ puzzles economists. Donald Trump’s prediction over the weekend that the U.S. economy was on the verge of a “very massive recession” hit a wall of skepticism on Sunday from economists who questioned the Republican presidential front-runner’s calculations. In an interview with the Washington Post published on Saturday, the billionaire businessman said a combination of high unemployment and an overvalued stock market had set the stage for another economic slump. He put real unemployment above 20 percent.
• John Kasich ‘Ought to Get the Hell Out’ of Race. GOP frontrunner Donald Trump told his supporters during his morning campaign event in La Crosse, Wisconsin that Ohio Gov. John Kasich should “get the hell out” of the race. “He’s one and 30,” Trump said, meaning how many states Kasich has won. “He ought to get the hell out.”

8am – E         Entertainment News:

• Erik Bauersfeld, Admiral Ackbar Voice Actor in ‘Star Wars’ Films, Dies at 93. Erik Bauersfeld, who memorably voiced the Rebellion’s Admiral Ackbar in Return of the Jedi and Star Wars: The Force Awakens, has died. He was 93. The voice actor and radio drama producer passed away on Sunday morning at his home in Berkeley, Calif., his manager, Derek Maki, confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter. In the 1983 space opera, Bauersfeld voiced Ackbar— delivering the iconic line, “It’s a trap!” — when the fate of the alliance looks grim during the Death Star fleet attack. He also voiced Jabba the Hutt’s staffer Bib Fortuna in the same film. He returned to voice Ackbar in last year’s J.J. Abrams-directed blockbuster Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  Bauersfeld’s other roles include voice work in last year’s Guillermo Del Toro film Crimson Peak and Steven Spielberg’s 2001 film A.I. Artificial Intelligence.
• ‘Jeopardy!’ shuts down roads intermittently in D.C. for 2 weeks. WASHINGTON — The Metropolitan Police Department has released a list of roads around the White House that will be closed for periods of time during the shooting of Jeopardy! Production on the trivia game show, hosted by Alex Trebek, will be at the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Constitution Hall from April 3-14.
• Disneyland Paris worker dies in haunted house. A technician working at Disneyland Paris died inside the theme park’s haunted house Saturday. The Phantom Manor attraction remained closed Monday following the discovery of the 45-year-old man’s body, according to the BBC. “We are truly saddened to learn of the passing of one of our Cast Members, and our hearts go out to his family and friends during this very difficult time,” the resort said in a statement to the network. The investigation remained ongoing as of Monday, Sky News reported, but the technician was believed to have been electrocuted between 8 and 9 a.m., before the park opened for the day. He was working on the attraction’s lighting, according to several reports. Patrick Maldidier, a Disney union representative, told the French newspaper Le Parisien that the employee, whose name has not been released, “always had a smile on his face.’ The accident marked the first death in years at Disneyland Paris, billed as Europe’s top tourist attraction with 14.2 million visits in 2014.