Cal Thomas, Cliff May, Stephen Farnsworth and White House’s Mercedes Schlapp joined WMAL on Wednesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C  LATEST ON KAVANAUGH:

• Senate panel schedules Kavanaugh vote for Friday: According to committee rules, Judiciary must schedule a committee vote three days in advance. But the committee said the vote will proceed only if a “majority of the members” of the 21-member panel are ready to vote on Friday.
• Grassley Schedules ‘Potential’ Vote On Kavanaugh Nomination For Friday, Feinstein Is Outraged
• Trump hits ‘con job’ on Kavanaugh before showdown hearing
• Grassley says he ‘is not going to silence’ Ford, vows key Kavanaugh hearing will proceed before possible vote
• Arizona prosecutor Rachel Mitchell is GOP choice to question Kavanaugh and accuser at hearing. Mitchell is the chief of the special victims division of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, which deals with sexual assault cases, among others. A registered Republican, Mitchell has worked in the county attorney’s office for 26 years. […] The division Mitchell heads deals with family violence, physical and sexual abuse of children, and sex offenses, including sex assault cases. Mitchell oversees about 40 to 50 people in the division, said Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery. Mitchell has a long history of investigating years-old sex crimes and allegations that are difficult to corroborate, including in her role re-examining hundreds of cases that were unresolved and inadequately investigated by the sheriff’s office, Montgomery said.

5am – D         President Trump’s UN speech:

• Trump defends ‘America ‘first,’ threatens to cut foreign aid budget in U.N. speech (Washington Times) — President Trump told the United Nations on Tuesday that the U.S. is guided by patriotism instead of globalism, rejecting the authority of world bodies such as the International Criminal Court, the World Trade Organization and a U.N. migration initiative even as he praised the U.N. itself as a force for peace. In the most in-your-face defense yet of his “America First” agenda, a defiant Mr. Trump stood before U.N. delegates who sneered openly at him and told them that the U.S. will never submit to international controls as long as he is in charge.
• Trump bragged about his presidency and world leaders laughed: TRUMP GETS A LAUGH AT THE UN: Praising America’s “booming” economy, the brash billionaire said: “My administration has accomplished more in two years than almost any administration in the history of our country… so true.” Seemingly taken aback by his boast, the audience broke into laughter, prompting a smiling Trump to say: “I wasn’t expecting that reaction but that’s ok.” His ad-lib prompted a round of applause from the assembled world power brokers. Trump then continued to praise his own work, boasting about spending $700billion on the US military.
• TRUMP HITS IRAN AT UN: “Iran’s leaders sow chaos, death, and destruction. They do not respect their neighbors or borders or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, Iran’s leaders [use the] nation’s resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond,” the president said.
• Iran’s president suggests Trump has “Nazi disposition”

 

6am – A/B/C RELATIONSHIPS MAKE YOU GAIN WEIGHT:

• On average, men estimate they put on nearly twice as much weight as women during the first year of their marriage, with 22 pounds and 13 pounds gained respectively.
• Three out of four Americans say they’ve put on a little “love weight” since coupling up
• A study of 2,000 people in relationships found that the average respondent had gained 36 pounds since they’ve first started dating their current partner — 17 pounds of which were gained in the first year alone.
• Men were also much more likely to report a weight gain during the first year of a relationship than women (69 percent and 45 percent respectively.)

6am – D         INTERVIEW – CAL THOMAS – syndicated columnist – discussed Trump’s UN address and Kavanaugh.

6am – E         Avenatti: I wasn’t scammed. (Politico) — Michael Avenatti on Tuesday lashed out at reports that a client who was preparing to level allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was a fake and part of a ruse by an outside group targeting Avenatti. “I made the determination she was 100 percent credible well before Sunday night,” Avenatti, the attorney who also represents the adult-film actress Stormy Daniels in her lawsuit against President Donald Trump, told POLITICO, referring to the first time he disclosed the allegations involving Kavanaugh.  An online post on Tuesday claimed that Avenatti had been scammed by the online forum 4Chan, a place where online users delight in trolling public figures, setting off a firestorm on social media and purportedly jamming up Avenatti’s Twitter account. The attorney said he temporarily shut down the account because of online threats. “This is just crazy that somebody can just tweet something out like this, or post it, and people just take it as truth,” he said. “It’s crazy.” “We’ve received over 3,000 inquiries in the last six months from people with all kinds of crazy stories and fabrications. I’ve heard it all. I’ve seen it all. Like we don’t vet clients. Give me a break.”

6am – F         BETO / CRUZ:

• Beto O’Rourke comes to Ted Cruz’s defense after restaurant confrontation with protesters. After protesters find Cruz at D.C. restaurant, O’Rourke calls it ‘not right’ “Not right that Senator Cruz and his wife Heidi were surrounded and forced to leave a restaurant last night because of protesters. The Cruz family should be treated with respect.”
• Washington Post Fact Checker: Beto O’Rourke’s campaign “know[s] they are in trouble” after Beto lied about trying to flee the scene of a drunk driving accident. Beto O’Rourke’s denial he left DUI crash scene challenged by fact-checker. Texas Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who is leading an insurgent challenge against incumbent Ted Cruz, claimed during a debate on Friday that he never left the scene of a DWI crash near El Paso in 1998, but a leading Washington Post fact-checker challenged the claim, giving it “four Pinocchios.”

7am – A         LATEST ON KAVANAUGH

7am – B/C     INTERVIEW – CLIFF MAY – President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies – recapped the president’s UN speech.

7am – D         COSBY SENTENCED:

• Bill Cosby was sentenced to three to 10 years in prison.

• Bill Cosby escorted from courtroom in handcuffs after judge denied him bail during pending appeals.
• Bill Cosby 1st Meal in Jail Includes Pudding … Yes, Seriously
• CNN Guest compares convicted rapist Bill Cosby to Judge Brett Kavanaugh: “I’m looking at people actually saying and applauding the judge [O’Neill] and his sentence and then in the same breath wanting to defend Kavanaugh,” criminal defense attorney Yodit Tewolde said on CNN’s “Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin” on Tuesday. “It’s disturbing to me because … this is a monumental, defining moment this week when you have someone like Cosby going to prison and then in the same breath having Kavanaugh possibly going to the highest court in the land,” Tewolde continued.  “Anyone that’s defending Kavanagh could not in the same breath now applaud this verdict that this judge has handed down … it just doesn’t make sense,” she added.

 7am – E         Teacher Claims She Was Fired for Giving Students Zeroes for Unsubmitted Homework (Breitbart) — Port St. Lucie, Florida, teacher Diane Tirado claims she lost her job because she would not give students a 50% grade for work they did not turn in. “I got fired. I was packing my stuff, and I was not going to see the kids,” Tirado said. Instead of saying goodbye to them personally, she left a simple message on the classroom whiteboard: “Bye kids, Mrs. Tirado loves you and wishes you the best in life! I have been fired for refusing to give you a 50% for not handing anything in. [heart] Mrs. Tirado.” Tirado then took a picture of the message, which she posted to Facebook. Almost immediately, messages of support flooded the post. “You showed me to be responsible for my work and the things that I do. I hope you don’t forget me,” said one student. Many others called the school board’s decision “unbelievable,” and “ridiculous. Tirado had assigned an “explorer’s notebook” to the students, and given them two weeks to submit it.  When some of them did not, she discovered that the school prohibited grades lower than 50%. “NO ZERO’S – LOWEST POSSIBLE GRADE IS 50%” her handbook said. She refused on the grounds that such a policy “sends the wrong message,” and now believes it cost her her job. “If there’s nothing to grade, how can I give somebody a 50 percent?” she asked.

 

8am – A         INTERVIEW – DR. STEPHEN FARNSWORTH – Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA  @drsfarnsworth – discussed the latest on top VA races.

• Preview: Kaine, Stewart Set to Debate on Wednesday.  NBC News political director and “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd will moderate the debate at 7 p.m., and News4 Northern Virginia Bureau Chief Julie Carey and anchor Aaron Gilchrist are on the panel.
• Kaine Leads in UMW Statewide Survey. Sen. Tim Kaine holds double-digit leads over Republican nominee Corey Stewart among both registered and likely voters, according to a new University of Mary Washington statewide survey. The survey, conducted September 4-9 for UMW by the national research firm SSRS, found that Kaine had a 51 percent to 33 percent margin among registered voters and a 52 percent to 36 percent margin among likely voters. Libertarian candidate Matt Waters received 5 percent support in both subsets of Virginians. Among all respondents, Kaine held a 49 percent to 30 percent advantage. The remaining respondents were uncertain or declined to express a preference.
• Latest on the Wexton-Comstock fight: Comstock and Wexton debate ‘results verses the resistance.’ LEESBURG, Va. – Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., and Democratic challenger Jennifer Wexton debated economic issues, immigration and Metro funding in their first faceoff Friday in one of the nation’s most competitive races of the mid-term election. President Donald Trump’s influence on the race was on display from the start. Comstock, 59, declared the race was about “results verses the resistance” while Wexton, 50, promised to stand up to the president.

8am – B         Dunkin’ Donuts is changing its name. Doughnuts are still on the menu, but the company is renaming itself “Dunkin'” to reflect its increasing emphasis on coffee and other drinks.

8am – C         Why aren’t liberals fun anymore? (The Hill/economist Stephen Moore) — Several months ago, the very night the Stormy Daniels story broke, I appeared on Don Lemon’s show on CNN. The producer told the guests a few minutes before we went on air that Lemon wanted our reaction to the Daniels allegations. The first guest said something trite about how “she may be doing this to call attention to herself, but we have to treat these charges against Trump very seriously.”  Next, Lemon turned to me for my reaction. I really had no opinion about this story, so I just blurted out the first thing that popped into my head: “Gee, Don, who would have ever thought a stripper would want to call attention to herself?” Now, if you are a normal person, you probably at least laugh a little or smile about that line. But the video went viral on YouTube because the other three guests, all liberals, and Lemon sat stone faced when I said that. They didn’t crack even the slightest hint of a smile. There was just a long awkward silence until I finally said, “Hello, that’s a joke.” The point of this story is that liberals just don’t have a sense of humor anymore.

8am – D         INTERVIEW – MERCEDES SCHLAPP – White House Director of Strategic Communications @mercedesschlapp – discussed President Trump’s UN speech and the latest on the Kavanaugh confirmation fight.