Amb. John Bolton, AMVETS’ Sherman Gillums, Gordon Chang, Dr. Sebastian Gorka and Fox’s Kevin Corke joined WMAL on Friday!

Mornings on the Mall

Friday, March 9, 2018

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B/C Florida lawmakers vote to stay in Daylight Saving Time all year long.  (CNN)Lawmakers in Florida are tired of the whole “fall back” and “spring forward” rigamarole. So they’ve approved a bill to keep Daylight Saving Time going throughout the year in their state. It took the state Senate less than a minute Tuesday to pass the “Sunshine Protection Act.” There were only two dissenters. (The House passed it 103-11 on February 14.) The bill now goes to the desk of Gov. Rick Scott — but it’s far from a done deal after that, Even if the governor approves, a change like this will literally take an act of Congress.  But if all is approved, Floridians — who’ll set their clocks ahead one hour this Sunday when Daylight Saving Time begins — won’t have to mess with it ever again. Florida will then join Hawaii and most of Arizona, the two places that are exempt from the Uniform Time Act of 1966. The Act established the system of uniform Daylight Saving Time throughout the US.

5am – D         NORTH KOREA NEWS:

• Trump agrees to meet with North Korea’s leader by end of May, South Korea says (Washington Post) — President Trump has agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for talks by the end of May, an extraordinary development following months of heightened nuclear tension during which the two leaders exchanged frequent military threats and insults. Kim has also committed to stopping nuclear and missile testing, even during joint military drills in South Korea next month, 
• Maddow Seethes Over Trump Leading Possible Peace Talks With North Korea. “You might think another president in this circumstance, you can imagine a president asking himself or herself, “why has no other American president ever agreed to do this? Why has no sitting American president ever met with a leader from North Korea? Why has that never happened in all the decades North Korea existed as a nation? Should I take that to mean that this might be particularly risky or even an unwise move?
• CNN’s Burnett: If Trump Solves North Korea Problem, He Will Go Down as a ‘Great President’

5am – E         Army: No more kissing soldiers on St. Patrick’s in Savannah. SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — The Army wants to halt a favorite St. Patrick’s Day shenanigan in Savannah that for decades has left marching soldiers with lipstick-smeared cheeks. Roughly 200 soldiers from nearby Fort Stewart are expected to march in the coastal Georgia city’s sprawling St. Patrick’s Day parade March 17. Traditionally, women wearing bright lipstick dart from the crowd to plant kisses on the faces of passing troops. A Fort Stewart spokesman and the parade’s chief organizer said Thursday the Army wants the soldier smooching stopped. Fort Stewart spokesman Kevin Larson said the marching soldiers “need to look professional” and “red lipstick is not part of the uniform.” Brian Counihan is chairman of the Savannah parade’s organizing committee. He says having spectators dash into the moving parade raises safety and security concerns.

6am – A         NORTH KOREA NEWS:

•  Trump agrees to meet with North Korea’s leader by end of May, South Korea says (Washington Post) — President Trump has agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for talks by the end of May, an extraordinary development following months of heightened nuclear tension during which the two leaders exchanged frequent military threats and insults.
• Dennis Rodman praises Trump for planned meeting with Kim (NY Post) — Former NBA star Dennis Rodman, who has traveled several times to North Korea and is one of the few Americans to have met its leader, is praising President Donald Trump for planning a summit with Kim Jong Un. Rodman tells The Associated Press he looks forward to returning to the pariah nation for “basketball diplomacy” in the coming months. He says: “Well done, President Trump. You’re on the way to a historical meeting no U.S. president has ever done.” Rodman adds, “Please send my regards to Marshal Kim Jong Un and his family.” Rodman was speaking by phone soon after the planned summit was announced in Washington — a major surprise after a year of rising tensions over North Korea’s nuclear weapons. Rodman met Kim in 2013 and 2014.
• Lindsey Graham warns Kim Jong Un: If you play Trump, we’ll end you (NY Post) —  Senator Lindsey Graham said Thursday that he hoped for peace on the Korean peninsula but warned Kim Jong Un that “it will be the end” of him and his regime if he tried to take advantage of President Trump. The GOP senator said that Trump’s diplomatic showdown with the North Korean leader presented the “best hope in decades” to peacefully resolve the threat of nuclear conflict — but Graham added that he is “not naive.” “I understand that if the past is an indications of the future, North Korea will be all talk and no action,” the South Carolina senator said in a statement.

6am – B         China, overrun by frustrated bachelors, tells women to settle for Mr. OK. Chinese men have been warned they face a bleak, sexless future as the country’s infamous one-child policy will leave a massive gender gap. Experts say that within a few decades, there will be 30 million more men than women, creating swaths of lonely and frustrated bachelors. Now young women are being urged to lower their sights in marriage and settle for a “more or less OK” groom rather than waiting for Mr. Right. The bizarre recommendation is part of an official effort to increase the country’s birth rate and balance out the stats hit by historic abortions. “Marriage is a process of tolerating each other and it’s impossible that everything goes your way,” said the state-run newspaper Sichuan Daily.

6am – C Lack Of Sleep Can Lead To Weight Gain. MIAMI (CBSMiami) – If you don’t sleep well during the night, you may be experiencing more than just a little grumpiness.  You may also notice the effects when you step on the scale. It’s an everyday battle. Getting to bed on-time, setting your alarm for the next day, and sometimes even counting the few hours of sleep you’re hoping to get. “You know caffeine, or trying to think ‘yes, I can have this soda before I go to bed’, that sort of thing,” said Sarah Sporrer. After struggling with sleep for years, Sporrer noticed the effects on her body and knew it was time to make changes. “Changing my diet was a big thing and then adding in exercise as well helped with my sleep patterns, ” Sporrer said. Eric Noyes with Avera Health says it’s not uncommon to see weight gain when you’re not getting enough sleep. “The normal hormones that make us hungry, those see a spike if we’ve missed sleep and then some of the hormones that our body uses to regulate our appetite to keep us from getting hungry, we run out of those,” Noyes said.

6am – D         Erik Prince fights accusations he tried to help set up Russia back channel at secret Seychelles meeting. (Fox News) — EXCLUSIVE –  Erik Prince tells Fox News that there was no perjury, no collusion and no attempt to set up a back channel to the Kremlin when he met with a Russian oligarch weeks before President Donald Trump’s inauguration. Prince, who is the founder of the Blackwater private security firm and brother to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, says accusations that he lied to the House Intelligence Committee simply aren’t true. The Washington Post cites anonymous sources in its report that Special Counsel Robert Mueller “has gathered evidence that a secret meeting in Seychelles just before the inauguration of Donald Trump was an effort to establish a back channel between the incoming administration and the Kremlin.” Prince testified last year before the House Intelligence Committee about his meeting and Thursday, Democrats pounced on reports that Lebanese-American businessman George Nader told the special counsel he was at the meeting.

6am – E         Barack Obama in talks with Netflix for ‘production’ deal. (CNN) — Barack Obama might appear on-camera as the moderator of a new series on Netflix. Or he might stay off-camera as a producer of a show about uplifting American stories. Or maybe he’ll do both. Talks are underway between Obama and Netflix (NFLX), according to a source familiar with the discussions. The source characterized it as a “production partnership” and said the deal has not been finalized yet. If it happens, both the former president and his wife, Michelle, will be involved in a series of shows for Netflix.   It would be a triumph for the streaming service, providing the kind of exclusive programming that sells subscriptions. And it would give the Obamas a platform to reach a huge audience around the world. Netflix says it has more than 117 million subscribers, 55 million of whom are in the United States.

6am – F         County proposes 2.5-cent real estate tax increase. (Fairfax County Times) – Teachers, county workers, and other community members who have pushed Fairfax County for better employee compensation over the course of the past few years received promising news on Tuesday when new County Executive Bryan Hill presented his budget recommendations for Fiscal Year 2019. The FY 2019 advertised budget fully funds both the Fairfax County School Board’s requested transfer, which prioritizes salary increases for teachers and other staff, and compensation for all county employees. Of the proposed $4.29 billion general fund budget, $2.26 billion would go to FCPS, representing a nearly 4.38 percent overall increase of $95.1 million over the current FY 2018 budget. About $53 million of those additional funds have been earmarked for improving employee salaries, particularly for teachers, which will go up by 2.25 percent in addition to better market-based compensation, according to FCPS Superintendent Scott Brabrand. “As we invest in the best employees, we can ensure our students have the best possible education experience,” Brabrand said. “Specifically, we are continuing to invest in our teachers and making sure that they have the market based compensation necessary to live, work, and teach in Fairfax County.” Brabrand and a handful of Fairfax County School Board members attended the advertised budget presentation to the Board of Supervisors on Feb. 20 to demonstrate FCPS’s commitment to working more closely with the county on budget-related matters in the future. “The “us versus them” mentality doesn’t work anymore,” Brabrand said. “We’re going to bring a new age of collaboration and cooperation to schools and county, and I think our residents and our students are going to be better for it.”

7am – A         Disney Exec Tells Shareholders Behar Apologized To Pence For Anti-Christian Remark. Disney CEO Bob Iger told shareholders Thursday that “The View” co-host Joy Behar apologized to Vice President Mike Pence for her anti-Christian comment. Iger shared in a video posted from the National Center for Public Policy Research, that Behar “apologized to Vice President Pence directly. She made a call to him and apologized.” “Iger says Joy Behar apologized for things she has said about Christians and the Trump administration,” L.A. Times reporter Daniel Miller also tweeted. “Iger agrees that was appropriate.” Behar and her co-host Sunny Hostin mocked Vice President Mike Pence last month after he said he believed Jesus spoke to him.

7am – B/C     INTERVIEW – AMB. JOHN BOLTON – former UN Ambassador – analyzed the North Korea meeting with President Trump.

7am – D         INTERVIEW – SHERMAN GILLUMS, Jr., – Chief Strategy Officer at American Veterans (AMVETS) – discussed his thoughts on the VA Secretary Shulkin’s job in reforming the VA and his concerns about experiments of canines.

7am – E         OPRAH NEWS:

• Oprah’s ultra-PC ‘Wrinkle in Time’ stung with bad reviews as ‘cringeworthy’ $100M Disney movie could bomb, experts say. (By Brian Flood | Fox News) — Disney’s $100 million gamble to turn the classic children’s book “A Wrinkle in Time” into a politically correct film filled with liberal talking points on feminism and diversity may be backfiring badly, with the poorly reviewed Oprah Winfrey-starring movie possibly teetering toward a tank job at the box office this weekend, according to some predictions. The film is currently rated a “rotten” 43 percent on “Rotten Tomatoes,” but “woke” cultural critics don’t seem to mind. They say that the movie, directed by anti-Trump filmmaker Ava DuVernay, is so important in terms of its social justice messages that whether it’s a terrible movie or not just doesn’t matter. Parade Magazine said the film is a “crinkled, jammed, over-crammed hot mess,” but praised the casting of Hollywood’s favorite 2020 presidential possibility. “There’s 20-foot Oprah, and what she represents in America as a self-made black billionaire, media mogul, philanthropist, and a living symbol of survival and success. She radiates empowerment—even when, later in the film, her character ‘shrinks’ down to regular size,” Parade’s Neil Pond wrote.
• Oprah Winfrey recalls Harvey Weinstein’s bullying phone calls. (CNN) Oprah Winfrey discussed some of her past interactions with disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein in a wide ranging interview with Gwyneth Paltrow published Thursday. “What I knew about Harvey was that Harvey was a bully and that if Harvey’s on the phone, you go ‘God, you don’t want to take the call,’ because you’re going to get bullied in some way,” Winfrey said in an episode of Paltrow’s newly launched podcast. What that meant for Winfrey, she recalled, was that Weinstein pressured her to have certain guests on her long-running talk show. Winfrey reiterated that she had no knowledge of Weinstein’s alleged sexual misconduct prior to reports by the New York Times and The New Yorker last fall.  “Was I friendly with Harvey? Yes, I was friendly with Harvey. Was I in association with Harvey for the ‘Butler’ movie? Yes, but of course I didn’t know any of this was going on,” Winfrey said.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – GORDON CHANG – Daily Beast columnist,  author of “The Coming Collapse of China” and “Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World” – analyzed the North Korea meeting.

8am – B/C     INTERVIEW – DR. SEBASTIAN GORKA –  – FOXNews National Security Strategist, NYT Bestseller author of “DEFEATING JIHAD” and Fmr deputy assistant to President Donald Trump – discussed the historic North Korea meeting.

8am – D         INTERVIEW – KEVIN CORKE – White House Correspondent for Fox News Channel

• HISTORIC NORTH KOREA: President Trump has agreed to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, setting the scene for an encounter between two nations that only recently threatened to wipe each other out. The meeting would be the first between a sitting U.S. President and a North Korean leader and will take place by May, according to a South Korean official.
• TRUMP’S TARIFFS: *Surrounded by American steel and aluminum workers, President Trump signed proclamations imposing a 25 percent tariff on steel imports and a 10 percent penalty on foreign-made aluminum. The tariffs are to take effect in 15 days, and Canada and Mexico could be exempt based on the outcome of talks to rework the North American Free Trade Agreement.

8am – E         Dem Candidate Under Investigation For Destroying AR-15 During Protest Stunt (Daily Caller) — Virginia, congressional Democratic candidate Karen Mallard is under investigation after she posted a video of herself on social media cutting apart an AR-15 rifle to advocate for gun reform, according to a local news report. The Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is investigating Mallard after she posted a video Wednesday on Facebook of herself sawing off the barrel of her husband’s rifle. Several people who replied to the post said Mallard broke the law. Virginia’s Sawed-Off Shotgun and Sawed-Off Rifle Act prohibits people from having a rifle that has been “modified to an overall length of less than 26 inches.” “I grew up in Wise County, surrounded by guns. Our family had guns my whole life. We use them for hunting, for protection and recreation,” she said in the video before noting the Feb. 14 shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School convinced Mallard and her husband to destroy the rifle. “So, today, we’re going to destroy it,” Mallard said before using a handheld power saw to slice and dice the semi-automatic weapon. Mallard, a school teacher and Democrat running for Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, said she followed legal procedure for destroying a firearm.