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Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday June 27, 2017

Hosts: Mary Walter and Tom Fitton

5am – A/B/C Does the CBO score bother you? 22 million fewer Americans insured under Senate GOP bill (CNN)  The highly anticipated score answers key questions about the impact of the Senate’s controversial legislation made public last Thursday. The analysis also offers clarity to wavering Senate Republicans on whether to vote for the bill later this week. The CBO also found the bill would reduce deficits by $321 billion over the next decade. The House passed its version of an Obamacare repeal bill in May. That legislation would leave 23 million fewer Americans with health insurance by 2026 than under the Affordable Care Act, CBO said earlier. The largest savings in the Senate bill would come from reducing federal spending on Medicaid, which would decline by 26% by 2026, compared to current law. Like the House plan, the Senate’s version would end enhanced funding for Medicaid expansion, though at a slower pace, while overhauling the entire Medicaid program.

5am – D/E SCOTUS Rulings: Supreme Court takes on new clash of gay rights, religion. The Supreme Court is taking on a new clash between gay rights and religion in a case about a wedding cake for a same-sex couple in Colorado. The justices said Monday they will consider whether a baker who objects to same-sex marriage on religious grounds can refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple. The case asks the high court to balance the religious rights of the baker against the couple’s right to equal treatment under the law. Similar disputes have popped up across the United States. Supreme Court Declines To Hear Case On Gun Ownership By Felons The Supreme Court declined the opportunity Monday to hear a case involving an appellate court ruling that restored the Second Amendment rights of two Pennsylvania men who had been convicted of non-violent misdemeanor crimes but treated as felons under the federal gun ban. Julio Suarez of Gettysburg and Daniel Binderup of Manheim were both convicted of non-violent misdemeanors, but their punishments carried maximum possible sentences of more than two years. Neither man served jail time, but their gun rights were rescinded because the maximum possible sentences for their crimes were within the definition of a felony in the federal gun ban. Justice Thomas Calls Out The Supreme Court For Not Believing In The Second Amendment  (Daily Caller) Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had stern words for his colleagues when the Court declined to hear a case challenging California’s handgun laws, saying that the jurists do not understand the importance of self-defense. The case, supported by the National Rifle Association, involves San Diego resident Edward Peruta, who challenged his county’s refusal to grant him permission to carry a concealed firearm outside of his home. “For those of us who work in marbled halls, guarded constantly by a vigilant and dedicated police force, the guarantees of the Second Amendment might seem antiquated and superfluous,” Thomas wrote after most members of the court declined to hear the California case. Trump travel ban: Supreme Court reinstates key parts of executive order (Fox News)  In a victory for the Trump administration, the Supreme Court on Monday lifted key components of an injunction against President Trump’s proposed ban on travel from six majority-Muslim nations, reinstating much of the policy and promising to hear full arguments as early as this fall. “Today’s unanimous Supreme Court decision is a clear victory for our national security,” Trump said in a statement. “…As President, I cannot allow people into our country who want to do us harm. I want people who can love the United States and all of its citizens, and who will be hardworking and productive.”

6am – A/B/C Did Comey throw Loretta Lynch under the bus? Second Dem Made ‘Queasy’ By Lynch Interference In Clinton Email Investigation (Daily Caller) Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff said on Sunday that Loretta Lynch’s reported directive to former FBI Director James Comey to mislead the public about the Clinton email investigation gives him a “queasy feeling,” echoing similar comments from Comey and Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein. “You know, I think Senator Feinstein’s comment, I would agree with. It does give me a queasy feeling as well,” said Schiff, the ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee, in an interview on CNN. Comey testified earlier this month that Lynch ordered him to refer to the Clinton email investigation as a “matter,” a term that he admitted was “inaccurate.” Lynch’s directive, Comey said, “concerned me because that language tracked the way the campaign was talking about the FBI’s work and that’s concerning.” 

6am – D California Travel Ban May Keep Its Schools Out of Final Four, Football Championship (Breitbart) California’s Democratic-controlled government fought tooth-and-nail with the Trump administration about a travel ban, but has no problem imposing one of its own to forbid its employees from traveling to other states that don’t share its progressive agenda. On Thursday, California expanded its ban list to include four more states, adding Texas, Alabama, Kentucky, and South Dakota to go with Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Tennessee. These states apparently have laws that were deemed by California’s leaders as hostile and discriminatory against gay and transgender people. But the travel ban may prove highly problematic for the state’s public universities competing in NCAA championships that are held all over the country and frequently hosted in the eight states that are now on the ban list–particularly Texas. The next Final Four for men’s basketball championship will be held in San Antonio in April 2018. Four of the eight sites for next year’s NCAA tournament first-round games are in the “banned” states–in Dallas, Nashville, Charlotte, and Wichita, Kansas.

6am – E WaPo Writer Accuses Bruno Mars Of Appropriating Black Culture And Funk Music (Daily Caller) The Washington Post’s Jenn M. Jackson has had enough of people praising Bruno Mars and is accusing the singer of appropriating black culture and funk music for financial gain. “I really need y’all to stop with this Bruno Mars praise and be more critical about the ways we understand appropriation,” Jackson began. “Bruno Mars does not identify as black. Let’s get that clear at the outset,” she clarified. “He is a non-Black person of color (POC) who has recently decided that singing Funk music is economically productive.”

6am – F Salvador Dali’s body to be exhumed to resolve paternity case (The Telegraph) A Spanish judge has ordered the exhumation of Salvador Dalí’s body for DNA testing to settle a claim by a TV fortune-teller that she is the secret daughter of the Surrealist painter. Pilar Abel Martínez, 61, from Dalí’s home town of Figueres in Catalonia, has for years insisted that she is the product of a “clandestine love affair” between her mother and the then married artist. She is now suing the Gala-Salvador Dalí Foundation and the Spanish state, which inherited his works, to be recognised as his biological daughter. The verdict is due later this year.

7am – A INTERVIEW – SHANNON BREAM – Fox News Correspondent 

Topic : SCOTUS rulings 

• The Supreme Court is taking on a new clash between gay rights and religion in a case about a wedding cake for a same-sex couple in Colorado. The justices said Monday they will consider whether a baker who objects to same-sex marriage on religious grounds can refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple
• In a victory for the Trump administration, the Supreme Court on Monday lifted key components of an injunction against President Trump’s proposed ban on travel from six majority-Muslim nations, reinstating much of the policy and promising to hear full arguments as early as this fall. 

7am-B Md. Gov. Hogan explains why he requested probe on grade fixing allegations against PGCPS (Fox 5 News) Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan says he wants independent investigators to look into allegations of fraud and grade fixing in Prince George’s County Public Schools. In his first interview on this topic, Hogan said the Maryland State Board of Education would oversee the investigation. “We will let the state board decide the best way to pursue it,” he said. “I think we should have an independent body take a look at this.” “We keep hearing all of this outcry,” Hogan said. “We haven’t seen any evidence, but when there’s smoke, there’s usually fire and there’s an awful lot of smoke out there. We just want to find out if something is on fire.”

7am-C Three journalists quit CNN in fallout from retracted Russia story (Fox News) Three CNN journalists who worked on a now-retracted story about Russia and a top Trump adviser are leaving the network. CNN is casting their departure as resignations in the wake of the fiasco, but the network has come under substantial criticism since apologizing for the story. The move would also help CNN’s legal position in case of a lawsuit. Anthony Scaramucci, the Trump adviser who is the target of the story, told me that he has no plans to sue. He said he has accepted CNN’s apology and wants to move on.

7am – D Did the FBI retaliate against Michael Flynn by launching Russia probe? (Circa News) The FBI launched a criminal probe against former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn two years after the retired Army general roiled the bureau’s leadership by intervening on behalf of a decorated counterterrorism agent who accused now-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and other top officials of sexual discrimination, according to documents and interviews. Flynn’s intervention on behalf of Supervisory Special Agent Robyn Gritz was highly unusual, and included a letter in 2014 on his official Pentagon stationary, a public interview in 2015 supporting Gritz’s case and an offer to testify on her behalf. His offer put him as a hostile witness in a case against McCabe, who was soaring through the bureau’s leadership ranks. The FBI sought to block Flynn’s support for the agent, asking a federal administrative law judge in May 2014 to keep Flynn and others from becoming a witness in her Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) case, memos obtained by Circa show. Two years later, the FBI opened its inquiry of Flynn.

7am – E  Montage of Weirdness: University of Arizona Says They Have No Relationship with Visiting Scholar Who Identifies as a Hippo Florentin Félix Morin, who is listed on the University of Arizona’s website as a visiting scholar, argued in the Journal of Theoretical Humanities that his hippo alter-ego has allowed him to navigate the world free from the constraints that “govern human bodies.” Dems give politically connected judge six-figure gig she’s too obese to do Members of the all-Democratic City Council in suburban White Plains rewarded their party’s well-connected chairwoman with a plum six-figure judicial seat — even though she was too sickly to work, critics charge. City Judge Elizabeth Shollenberger — who suffers from a digestive disorder and morbid obesity, among other ailments — was unable to climb the three steps to her courtroom bench, even with the help of a specially installed railing, sources said. Police say a mall store employee is recovering after a woman bit her while attempting to steal a stripper pole. An employee said she was working at Spencer’s in Park Plaza Mall in Little Rock when the suspect came and tried to return an item for cash or store credit. The employee told police she recognized the woman because she had suspected her of previously stealing from the store. According to the store manager, the woman decided she would rather take a stripper pole in place of store credit; however, she did not have enough money. The woman then became frustrated and attempted to leave the store with the stripper pole. The employee chased her into the common area of the mall and wrestled the pole from the suspect who then bit her on the upper right arm during the altercation. The woman then fled the mall. Bikini Contest Marred When Woman Clobbers Fellow Competitor In Head With High-Heeled Shoes A bikini contest competitor is facing a battery charge for allegedly clobbering another female contestant over the head with high-heeled shoes, Florida police report. According to cops, Erica Kaitlyn Mize, 24, tangled with the victim last month during the Miss Sailfish Regatta Bikini Contest in Stuart on Florida’s Treasure Coast. Investigators allege that after the 11 bikini-clad contestants left the stage in Stuart’s waterfront Causeway Park, Mize tussled with the 23-year-old victim (who is the current girlfriend of Mize’s former boyfriend).

8am  A/B/C–  Should Trump expand the travel ban? Trump travel ban: Supreme Court reinstates key parts of executive order (Fox News) In a victory for the Trump administration, the Supreme Court on Monday lifted key components of an injunction against President Trump’s proposed ban on travel from six majority-Muslim nations, reinstating much of the policy and promising to hear full arguments as early as this fall. “Today’s unanimous Supreme Court decision is a clear victory for our national security,” Trump said in a statement. “…As President, I cannot allow people into our country who want to do us harm. I want people who can love the United States and all of its citizens, and who will be hardworking and productive.”

8am – D INTERVIEW – LARRY KUDLOW – CNBC Senior Contributor and host of The Larry Kudlow Show on WMAL Saturdays

Topic: Healthcare

• The Senate Republican health care bill teetered on the edge of collapse Monday evening after the Congressional Budget Office released a devastating report on its impact and multiple Republicans announced they would not vote to advance the legislation.
• The CBO also found the bill would reduce deficits by $321 billion over the next decade.

8am – E  Feds Spend $20,000 on Musical About Illegal Immigrant Lesbian (FreeBeacon) The National Endowment for the Arts is spending $20,000 for a musical about a lesbian illegal immigrant who is in love with an ICE agent.  The San Francisco Mime Troupe, a self-described socialist theater group, received the funding in the first round of grants awarded under the Trump administration. Jane Chu is the current chairman of the NEA, who was appointed by former The musical is entitled “WALLS!” and stars a “bad hombre,” mocking a phrase used by Trump to describe criminal illegal aliens during a presidential debate.