Steven Camarota, Shannon Bream, Sara Carter and Larry Kudlow joined WMAL on Tuesday morning!

Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Mary Walter

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B     People Are Removing Tattoos to Avoid ICE Attention. SAN PABLO (KPIX 5) — An East Bay tattoo removal clinic says they’ve treated a record number of clients since the election. Some in the Latino community worry ICE agents will use their tattoos as an excuse to stop them and check immigration status. The number of customers has doubled. Typically, people go in to remove an ex-lover’s name or get rid of tattoos for job interviews. But the fear of deportation is a new reason. “A lot of people don’t want to be a moving target or even seen as a target,” says Nora Ruiz of the San Pablo Economic Development Corporation. “And for fear that they might be seen as a certain type of person or judged in anyway, people want to get their tattoos removed.” There’s no evidence suggesting ICE agents are targeting people based on tattoos but people with gang ties or criminal backgrounds are at risk.

5am – C         Norway Is No. 1 in Happiness. The U.S., Sadly, Is No. 14. Happiness report: Norway is the happiest place on Earth. Norway is the happiest place on Earth, according to a United Nations agency report – toppling neighbour Denmark from the number one position. The World Happiness Report measures “subjective well-being” – how happy the people are, and why. Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland and and Finland round out the top five, while the Central African Republic came last. Western Europe and North America dominated the top of table, with the US and UK at 14th and 19th, respectively. Countries in sub-Saharan Africa and those hit by conflict have predictably low scores. Syria placed 152 of 155 countries – Yemen and South Sudan, which are facing impending famine, came in at 146 and 147.

5am – D         Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch’s first day of hearings featured glowing assessments from Republicans and vows of scrutiny from Democrats

Judge Neil Gorsuch promised to remember the “modest station we judges are meant to occupy in a democracy” if he is elevated to the nation’s highest court, as the hearing on his Supreme Court nomination began Monday amidst Democratic doubts about his impartial­ity and lingering resentment over the circumstances of his selection. The day followed a familiar confirmation hearing script — glowing assessments from senators of the party whose president made the nomination, vows of scrutiny from senators out of power and a humble, deferential opening statement from the nominee. But there was a sharp-edged difference as well. Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee made clear they are not over the decision of their Republican colleagues to keep open the seat held by the late Justice Antonin Scalia for President Trump to fill it. And rarely has there been such a demand that a Supreme Court nominee declare his independence from the president who nominated him.

5am – E         COMEY HEARING HIGHLIGHTS:

• Trey Gowdy grills Comey for details on leaks
• FBI Director Comey admits Obama’s White House had ability to “unmask” American citizens.
• FBI Director Comey refuses to deny he briefed President Obama on calls made by Michael Flynn to Russia.
• FBI: Trump campaign, Russia ties investigated, no wiretap evidence found
• WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI is investigating whether Donald Trump’s associates coordinated with Russian officials in an effort to sway the 2016 presidential election, Director James Comey said Monday in an extraordinary public confirmation of a probe the president has refused to acknowledge, dismissed as fake news and blamed on Democrats. In a bruising five-hour session, the FBI director also knocked down Trump’s claim that his predecessor had wiretapped his New York skyscraper, an assertion that has distracted White House officials and frustrated fellow Republicans who acknowledge they’ve seen no evidence to support it. The revelation of the investigation of possible collusion with Russians, and the first public confirmation of the wider probe that began last summer, came in a remarkable hearing by one branch of government examining serious allegations against another branch and the new president’s election campaign.

6am – A/B/C ROCKVILLE HIGH PARENT MEETING TONIGHT:

• Both students accused of raping a 14-year-old student in a bathroom at Rockville HS have pending ICE cases, County Executive says in a statement
• Parents at Rockville HS are meeting tonight, meeting is only open to parents
• County Council President Roger Berliner rejects blaming the county, says local law enforcement carrying out immigration enforcement makes community less safe, though they don’t coddle law-breakers
• Leggett, in a statement, says the county will cooperate with ICE if and when the suspects are convicted and serve sentences
• Help Save Maryland’s Jeff Werner isn’t surprised this happened in MoCo, crime is up, people are living in fear
• Emotions Run High After Reported Rape at Rockville High School. (Bethesda magazine) — Name-calling and finger-pointing spreads as anti-undocumented immigrant group inflames discourse. The usually civil political discourse in Montgomery County turned aggressive over the weekend as residents who oppose the county’s liberal policy toward undocumented immigrants angrily emerged in reaction to the brutal alleged rape of a Rockville High School freshman girl by 17- and 18-year-old recent Central American immigrants. “People are angry, people are nervous, people are concerned,” County Council President Roger Berliner said Monday morning during his weekly press conference. “I’ve gotten some very ugly emails accusing us of being a sanctuary county.” The county and City of Rockville for many years have had a policy in place that directs their police officers not to ask about an individual’s immigration status during interactions. However, the county and city both share information about individuals who are arrested with federal agencies such as the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in case those agencies have pending issues with the individuals. This policy, according to county officials, is different from true sanctuary jurisdictions that don’t cooperate with federal immigration agencies. Some local residents believe the county’s immigration policy and welcoming statements toward undocumented immigrants have made the county a destination for individuals entering the country illegally.

6am – D         Ivanka is getting an office in the West Wing, security clearance, a gov’t communications device. But no real WH job.

• Ivanka Trump set to get West Wing office as role expands. The first daughter will not, however, become a government employee, raising ethics questions. (Politico) — Ivanka Trump, who moved to Washington saying she would play no formal role in her father’s administration, is now officially setting up shop in the White House. The powerful first daughter has secured her own office on the West Wing’s second floor — a space next to senior adviser Dina Powell, who was recently promoted to a position on the National Security Council. She is also in the process of obtaining a security clearance and is set to receive government-issued communications devices this week. In everything but name, Trump is settling in as what appears to be a full-time staffer in her father’s administration, with a broad and growing portfolio — except she is not being sworn in, will hold no official position and is not pocketing a salary, her attorney said. Trump’s role, according to her attorney Jamie Gorelick, will be to serve as the president’s “eyes and ears” while providing broad-ranging advice, not just limited to women’s empowerment issues. Last week, for instance, Trump raised eyebrows when she was seated next to Angela Merkel for the German chancellor’s first official visit to Trump’s White House. As her role in the White House grows — a role that comes with no playbook — Trump plans to adhere to the same ethics and records retention rules that apply to government employees, Gorelick said, even though she is not technically an employee. But ethics watchdogs immediately questioned whether she is going far enough to eliminate conflicts of interest, especially because she will not be automatically subjected to certain ethics rules while serving as a de facto White House adviser.

6am – E         Electronics will soon be restricted on flights to the U.S. from certain airports in the Middle East and Africa. (ABC News) — Passengers travelling on certain airlines from countries in the Middle East and Africa to the United States will no longer be allowed to carry-on some electronic devices with them, according to a new Homeland Security directive. The emergency rule specifically targets nine airlines operating flights to the U.S. from 10 airports in eight countries, among them Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey. Fliers will be banned from bringing electronic devices larger than a cellular phone aboard the plane with them, and must instead include objects like laptops, tablets and cameras in checked luggage. “Evaluated intelligence indicates that terrorist groups continue to target commercial aviation, to include smuggling explosive devices in various consumer items,” notes the Department of Homeland Security in a release explaining the order. The department did not cite a specific threat in its explanation of the decision, but did indicate that “new intelligence” led to the rule’s implementation.

6am – F         Study: Solar system could have more than 100 planets (including Pluto). Remember when Pluto was demoted to a dwarf planet in 2006? Well, a group of scientists is making a case for its comeback as the proper planet many of us grew up knowing. Johns Hopkins University scientist Kirby Runyon and his colleagues have proposed new criteria for classifying a planet that would not only label Pluto a planet again, but would label 100 other objects in the solar system as planets, too. According to Tech Times, the current definition of a planet — last changed by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in 2006 — requires that a celestial body is in orbit around the Sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome “rigid body forces” so that it retains a nearly round shape and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit. Pluto was demoted because it doesn’t meet IAU’s requirement of a clear area throughout its orbit. But according to Runyon and his colleagues, no planet has actually completely cleared its orbit. Even Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Neptune share their orbits with asteroids, according to Science Daily.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – STEVEN CAMAROTA – Director of Research for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) – discussed his research on the impact of immigration in public schools.

• Mapping the Impact of Immigration on Public Schools. (CIS / By Bryan Griffith, Karen Zeigler, Steven Camarota) — The number of children from immigrant households in schools is now so high in some areas that it raises profound questions about assimilation. What’s more, immigration has added enormously to the number of public school students who are in poverty and the number who speak a foreign language. This cannot help but to create significant challenges for schools, often in areas already struggling to educate students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
• Percentage of students from immigrant hosueholds in Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, 37 percent: Among the findings: Almost one out of four (23 percent) public school students in the United States came from an immigrant household in 2015. As recently as 1990 it was 11 percent, and in 1980 it was just 7 percent. In 2015, between one-fourth and one-third of public school students from immigrant households were the children of illegal immigrants; the remainder were the children from legal immigrant households. Immigrant households are concentrated; just 700 Census Bureau-designated PUMAs account for two-thirds of students from immigrant households, these same PUMAs account for nearly one-third of total public school enrollment.  In these 700 immigrant-heavy areas, half the students are from immigrant households.

7am – B         Trump, Embattled in Washington, Recharges Among Fans in Kentucky. LOUISVILLE, Ky. — President Trump, embattled in Washington, traveled here on Monday to deliver a rollicking populist and nationalist appeal, promising to rewrite trade agreements, clamp down on illegal immigration and keep terrorists out of the country — all in the service of putting “America first.” In a speech ostensibly timed to push the Republican health care law through Congress, Mr. Trump drew deeply on the themes that animated his 2016 campaign, whipping up a rapturous crowd with promises to reopen shuttered coal mines and throw lawless immigrants out of the country. Mr. Trump promised that health care legislation would undo the “disaster” of President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. But he presented it less as a cornerstone of his legislative agenda than as a necessary prerequisite to finance deep tax cuts. “We have to get this done to do the other,” Mr. Trump declared.

Trump heads to Capitol Hill to close the deal on health care. President Donald Trump heads to Capitol Hill Tuesday morning with a clear message for Republicans who have been wobbly about dismantling Obamacare: don’t blow this for me. Trump is taking his case directly to Congress, huddling privately with the House GOP conference two days ahead of a planned vote to repeal the 2010 health care overhaul. That roll call could determine the course of his entire first-term legislative agenda.

7am – C         New Wild And Exotic Pet Ban Would Exempt Hedgehogs. (ArlNow) — Arlington residents will be allowed to own hedgehogs under the latest draft of a plan to ban “wild and exotic” pets in the county. The County Board voted unanimously Saturday to revisit the proposed ban, with some modifications, at its June 17 meeting after more public discussion. A previous version of the proposal had included hedgehogs among the banned species. Lyn Hainge, assistant division chief of the county’s public health division, said she received feedback from several hundred people, many of them pro-hedgehog, after the ban plan was publicized. Snake owners, however, might still run afoul of the new rules. Hainge said the original plan to ban non-venomous snakes that measured more than 4 feet in length has been changed. Now, those that weigh more than 10 pounds would be banned.

7am – D         INTERVIEW — SHANNON BREAM — Fox News Chief Legal Correspondent and has a podcast Livin the Bream on iTunes – recapped Day 1 and Preview Day 2 of the Gorsuch Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings.

• Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch’s first day of hearings featured glowing assessments from Republicans and vows of scrutiny from Democrats. Judge Neil Gorsuch promised to remember the “modest station we judges are meant to occupy in a democracy” if he is elevated to the nation’s highest court, as the hearing on his Supreme Court nomination began Monday amidst Democratic doubts about his impartial­ity and lingering resentment over the circumstances of his selection. The day followed a familiar confirmation hearing script — glowing assessments from senators of the party whose president made the nomination, vows of scrutiny from senators out of power and a humble, deferential opening statement from the nominee. But there was a sharp-edged difference as well. Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee made clear they are not over the decision of their Republican colleagues to keep open the seat held by the late Justice Antonin Scalia for President Trump to fill it. And rarely has there been such a demand that a Supreme Court nominee declare his independence from the president who nominated him.

7am – E         SECRET SERVICE NEWS:

• Trump Tower Secret Service Theft Caught on Video Thief Knew What He Was After. (TMZ) — The thief who swiped a Secret Service agent’s laptop targeted the agent in question and knew exactly what he was after … law enforcement sources tell TMZ. Our sources say the thief — whom they say is a man — was caught on surveillance video pulling up to the agent’s driveway in an Uber at around 3 AM Thursday. The video shows the man make a beeline for the agent’s car, removing a backpack with the computer inside and then walking off. As we reported, the hard drive contained Trump Tower floor plans and evacuation protocols, but the agency insists there was no classified info inside. The thief also made off with a passport and several Secret Service lapel pins.
• Secret Service had removed alarm sensors from fence intruder scaled. (Washington Examiner) — The fence-jumper who wandered around the White House complex for 17 minutes was able to elude the Secret Service in part because the agency has taken down alarm sensors along an area of one fence that he scaled, according to two sources familiar with details of the incident. The intruder, identified as Jonathan Tran, was able to jump over three different fences, including at least one between the Treasury Department and the east area of the White House complex shortly before midnight March 10. Tran was able to scale that particular area of the fence without setting off alarms because they had been removed, leading to confusion among officers about his whereabouts and whether an intruder was inside the White House complex, the sources told the Examiner. The initial fence Tran jumped did trip alarms in that area of the fence-line, but squirrels or even birds sometimes also set off the sensitive sensors, which could have lead to uncertainty about whether someone had jumped the fence or not. Secret Service personnel removed the alarm sensors along an area of fence line when the agency raised its height in response to previous fence-jumping incidents as a way to make it harder to scale, the sources told the Examiner. Ironically, the very effort to prevent fence jumping appears to have permitted a particularly egregious intrusion. One source said superiors in the Uniformed Division told Secret Service personnel to remove the sensors and piece them together for use elsewhere. They were never replaced.

8am – A         INTERVIEW — SARA CARTER – National Security Correspondent at Circa News – analyzed the Comey hearing yesterday.

>> WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI is investigating whether Donald Trump’s associates coordinated with Russian officials in an effort to sway the 2016 presidential election, Director James Comey said Monday in an extraordinary public confirmation of a probe the president has refused to acknowledge, dismissed as fake news and blamed on Democrats. In a bruising five-hour session, the FBI director also knocked down Trump’s claim that his predecessor had wiretapped his New York skyscraper, an assertion that has distracted White House officials and frustrated fellow Republicans who acknowledge they’ve seen no evidence to support it. The revelation of the investigation of possible collusion with Russians, and the first public confirmation of the wider probe that began last summer, came in a remarkable hearing by one branch of government examining serious allegations against another branch and the new president’s election campaign.

8am – B/C  ROCKVILLE HIGH PARENT MEETING TONIGHT:

• Both students accused of raping a 14-year-old student in a bathroom at Rockville HS have pending ICE cases, County Executive says in a statement
• Parents at Rockville HS are meeting tonight, meeting is only open to parents
• County Council President Roger Berliner rejects blaming the county, says local law enforcement carrying out immigration enforcement makes community less safe, though they don’t coddle law-breakers
• Leggett, in a statement, says the county will cooperate with ICE if and when the suspects are convicted and serve sentences
• Help Save Maryland’s Jeff Werner isn’t surprised this happened in MoCo, crime is up, people are living in fear
• Emotions Run High After Reported Rape at Rockville High School. (Bethesda magazine) — Name-calling and finger-pointing spreads as anti-undocumented immigrant group inflames discourse. The usually civil political discourse in Montgomery County turned aggressive over the weekend as residents who oppose the county’s liberal policy toward undocumented immigrants angrily emerged in reaction to the brutal alleged rape of a Rockville High School freshman girl by 17- and 18-year-old recent Central American immigrants. “People are angry, people are nervous, people are concerned,” County Council President Roger Berliner said Monday morning during his weekly press conference.

8am – D         INTERVIEW — LARRY KUDLOW – CNBC Senior Contributor and host of The Larry Kudlow Show on WMAL Saturdays at 7 pm and author of “JFK and the Reagan Revolution: A Secret History of American Prosperity”

• Trump heads to Capitol Hill to close the deal on health care. President Donald Trump heads to Capitol Hill Tuesday morning with a clear message for Republicans who have been wobbly about dismantling Obamacare: don’t blow this for me. Trump is taking his case directly to Congress, huddling privately with the House GOP conference two days ahead of a planned vote to repeal the 2010 health care overhaul. That roll call could determine the course of his entire first-term legislative agenda.
• Trump, Embattled in Washington, Recharges Among Fans in Kentucky. LOUISVILLE, Ky. — President Trump, embattled in Washington, traveled here on Monday to deliver a rollicking populist and nationalist appeal, promising to rewrite trade agreements, clamp down on illegal immigration and keep terrorists out of the country — all in the service of putting “America first.”
• Republicans just released big changes to their Obamacare replacement bill days before its most important vote yet

8am – E         Tom Brady’s Jersey Found:

• Mexican media company apologizes for theft of Tom Brady jersey. OEM, the largest newspaper company in Mexico, has apologized after one of its former employees was identified as the suspect in the theft of Tom Brady’s Super Bowl LI jersey. In a statement written in Spanish, OEM said the employee, Martin Mauricio Ortega Camberos, resigned from the newspaper La Prensa on March 14 for personal reasons. At the time, the company says, it had no knowledge of Ortega being a suspect in the jersey theft.
• Tom Brady’s stolen Super Bowl jerseys found in possession of international media member. (ESPN) — Tom Brady’s stolen jersey from this year’s Super Bowl has been recovered after being found in the possession of a member of the international media, according to the NFL. The league announced Monday that the New England Patriots quarterback’s game-worn jersey from Super Bowl LI and another jersey, missing from Super Bowl XLIX, were retrieved after an investigation led by the FBI. The jerseys were found in Mexico and currently are being authenticated by authorities, Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo said. The Mexican Editorial Organization (OEM), a major newspaper publishing company, has identified the man allegedly involved in the case as Martin Mauricio Ortega, who was a director of one of its newspapers, Diario La Prensa, until he resigned last Tuesday. OEM announced in a statement Monday that it accepted Ortega’s resignation, citing his previous mentions of family health issues, and said it had no previous knowledge of his alleged involvement in the case. A Denver Broncos helmet, believed to belong to star pass-rusher Von Miller, from Super Bowl 50, also was recovered with the two Brady jerseys, sources confirmed to ESPN’s Jeff Legwold. Officials currently are trying to authenticate the helmet. A law enforcement source told ESPN that authorities used footage from Fox, which showed Ortega entering the locker room and, with his back to the camera, reaching into Brady’s bag and putting the jersey into a black plastic bag and leaving.