Gen. Jack Keane, DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson, Father Jonathan Morris, Larry Kudlow and guest host Scottie Hughes joined WMAL on Tuesday morning!

Listen here to Tuesday’s show!

Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Hosts: Larry O’Connor and Scottie Hughes

Executive Producer: Heather Smith

5am – A/B/C Marines looking at deploying aboard foreign ships. (USA Today) — Faced with a shortage of U.S. Navy ships, the Marine Corps is exploring a plan to deploy its forces aboard foreign vessels to ensure they can respond quickly to global crises around Europe and western Africa. The initiative is a stopgap way to deploy Marines aboard ships overseas until more American vessels are available, said Brig. Gen. Norman Cooling, deputy commander, U.S. Marine Corps Forces Europe and Africa. The Marines will be able to respond quickly to evacuate embassies or protect U.S. property and citizens, a need highlighted by the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador. “There’s no substitute for U.S. amphibious” vessels, Cooling said. “We’re looking at other options” in the meantime, he added.

5am – D         GAY MARRIAGE NEWS:

• FACEBOOK: 26 Million People Changed Their Facebook Profile Photo to Celebrate Gay Marriage. Facebook says your rainbow profile pictures won’t be used to sell ads.
• “RELENTLESSLY GAY” FRAUDSTER: Baltimore woman taking donations after a neighbor called her house “relentlessly gay” could be defrauding people.
• RAND PAUL ON MARRIAGE: Rand Paul: Perhaps Government Should No Longer Recognize Marriage. Reason Magazine: Sen. Rand Paul Wants Government Out of Marriage. Great! How? Raises questions, but doesn’t provide answers, even though he has some.

5am – E         Escaped North Carolina inmate back in custody, prison worker charged. (AP) — LEXINGTON, N.C. – An inmate who authorities say escaped from a North Carolina lockup with the help of a prison employee has been recaptured, according to a state prisons spokeswoman. Kristopher McNeil, 29, was in custody in the Davidson County Jail, Department of Public Safety Communications Director Pamela Walker said early Monday morning. Authorities have said McNeil, who was serving a sentence for second-degree murder, escaped Saturday. A day later, a 33-year-old prison kitchen worker was charged with helping him escape.

6am – A/B/C Obama to propose expanding overtime for millions. (USA Today) — President Obama detailed a proposed plan on Monday that would widen the circle of salaried employees able to receive overtime benefits in an opinion piece published in The Huffington Post. In the piece, Obama asserts that an exemption that was intended for highly paid white collar employees affects workers making as little as $23,660. Under the president’s plan, overtime protections would go to salaried employees who make up to $50,400 per year. “We’ve got to keep making sure hard work is rewarded,” the president writes. “Right now, too many Americans are working long days for less pay than they deserve.” Obama maintains this is not only good for employees, but also for employers who are now paying employees what they deserve and are being undercut by those who don’t.

6am – D         Holy mess! Katy Perry battles nuns over sale of former Los Angeles convent. Katy Perry goes to battle with nuns after shady property purchase. The “Roar” superstar singer recently made a $14.5 million deal with Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez to purchase a hilltop property that was once the convent of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. But the sisters had their own sale pending, and recently signed papers to sell the acreage and villa-style building to a restaurateur for $15.5 million. That sale went through two weeks ago, reported the Los Angeles Times. Now, things have gotten into a holy mess as the archbishop argues with the sisters over who actually has the right to sell the property. At one point, 52 Immaculate Heart sisters lived in the convent, said the Times, but in 2011, the diocese moved the remaining sisters to other locations. There are five sisters still living, and two of them are saying the property is theirs.

6am – E         Islam News:

• NYC Muslims shocked when they were forced to obey the law. Devout New York City Muslim cabbies got a rude awakening when they got tickets for double-parking outside a Manhattan mosque while they were inside saying Friday prayers for Ramadan. One officer single-handedly placed nearly 100 tickets on cabs parked in the vicinity of the Islamic Cultural Center in the city’s Upper West Side neighborhood, cab driver Mohammad Zaman told the New York Post. “This is a special prayer time, a time for religion. We double-park here every Friday and they [allow it], but today they gave us all tickets, almost 100 cabs,’’ he said. Zaman, who has been a worshiper at the mosque for nine years, was ticketed, and it wasn’t cheap: $115 for double-parking. This has never happened ­before,’’ he told the Post. “I can’t help but to think they are being prejudiced. They don’t understand. We have to be here.” Double-parking is a practice in which someone parks in the street straddling two cars already parked at the curb so that each of the two cars already parked can get out, at least theoretically.
• France says 40 imams deported for hate speech. France has deported 40 foreign imams for “preaching hatred” in the past three years, a quarter of them since the January terror attacks in Paris, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on Monday. The minister vowed to clamp down on mosques and preachers inciting hatred after a suspected Islamist beheaded his boss during an attack on a gas factory last week. The attack, which had the hallmarks of a jihadist act but is also believed to have personal motivations, was the second in six months in France which is battling to curb radicalisation that has seen hundreds of citizens leave to wage jihad in Iraq and Syria. Any “foreign preacher of hate will be deported,” said Cazeneuve, adding that several mosques were being investigated for inciting terrorism and if found to be doing so, “will be shut down”.
• 11 dead in 2 suicide bombings in Chad, Boko Haram suspected. (AP) — N’DJAMENA, Chad – Two suicide bombings rocked Chad’s capital, killing at least 11 people weeks after suicide bombings killed dozens, an official said Monday. Five police officers were among the 11 dead, said Chad’s Minister of Public Security, Abderahim Bireme Hamid. He blamed extremists for the attack, saying that “the mastermind of the network was arrested yesterday.” The other six killed were extremists, he said. “This is a result of the search this morning. When five members of Boko Haram saw police arrest a member, they set off the explosives,” Bireme Hamid said on national radio. Three others were injured in the blasts, he said.
• New Jersey man charged with supporting ISIS. (CNN) – Federal officials on Monday arrested a New Jersey man who was allegedly plotting to provide material support to ISIS. Alaa Saadeh, a 23-year-old man living in West New York, New Jersey planned to travel to ISIS territory to join the militant Islamist group that has taken over swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq. He also allegedly purchased a plane ticket for his brother to travel abroad and join ISIS, the Department of Justice disclosed on Monday.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – GENERAL JACK KEANE – four star general, former acting Chief of Staff and Vice Chair of the U.S. Army.

• Authorities Warn Possible Fourth of July ISIS Terror Threat Is Real
• Tunisia attack followed attacks in Kuwait and France
• Negotiators Will Miss Deadline on Iran Nuclear Deal
• Marines looking at deploying aboard foreign ships

7am – B         NBC to Donald Trump: You’re fired. (USA Today) — More consequences for Donald Trump after his comments about Mexican immigrants: NBC dumped his beauty pageants and reiterated he will not be in The Apprentice anymore. The network, which has been under pressure to fire Trump since last week when Univision announced it would not air Trump’s Miss USA pageant in Spanish, said in a statement that “respect and dignity for all people are cornerstones of our values.” “Due to the recent derogatory statements by Donald Trump regarding immigrants, NBCUniversal is ending its business relationship with Mr. Trump,” the statement said.

7am – C         Md. officials continue crackdown on illegal crabbing. ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland’s Natural Resources Police say they’re continuing a crackdown on illegal crabbing that began last year. Tuesday’s announcement in Annapolis marks the second year of a campaign dubbed, “Don’t Get Pinched.” Officials say the number of spawning-age female blue crabs in the Chesapeake Bay has risen substantially since 2014. But they say the adult female population remains well below peak levels recorded in 2010 and 2011. And it’s less than half of the target level of 215 million. The campaign focuses on minimum sizes, possession limits, harvest hours and crab pot registration rules.

Bushel of crabs worth $100 stolen from Annapolis man. (WMAR) — ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Someone stole a bushel of crabs valued at $100 from an Annapolis man trying to sell them in Eastport. Annapolis Police said Rudy Quade was in the 1000 block of Frederick Douglass Street Tuesday when he left to say hi to someone. Then he saw the thief take his bushel off the back of his pickup truck and run into a house. Police were called to the scene, but no crabs were located.

7am – D         INTERVIEW – DC COUNCIL CHAIRMAN PHIL MENDELSON

• Washington Post: Meet the Democrat in D.C. who is cutting taxes for the rich – and for everyone else. “Mendelson has been labeled by Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) as a man cutting taxes for the city’s wealthy and its businesses. What’s more, Bowser charges, he’s on the verge of a power play to rush into law those tax cuts for the rich. In truth, the District’s most powerful politician you’ve probably never heard of is in the middle of a once-in-a-generation campaign to cut taxes for almost every D.C. resident.”

7am – E         EL James takes Fifty Shades of heat on Twitter. NEW YORK (AP) — Twitter had a bit of fun Monday at the expense of EL James. The hashtag “AskELJames” trended nationwide as the “Fifty Shades of Grey” writer took questions, including some not- ready-for-prime-time doozies, but surely she’s immune at this point to hurt feelings. Among the printable, cheeky queries: — “Is it true that you’re actually just a burlap sack full of bad ideas and spiders?” — “When do you think your writer’s block will kick in? Signed Ev R Hopeful” — “Is it only ok for Christian to stalk, coerce, threaten & manipulate Ana because he’s hot, or is it also ok because he’s rich?”

8am – A         INTERVIEW – FATHER JONATHAN MORRIS – Priest at Our Lady of Mt Carmel church in Bronx; NY Times bestselling author of “The Way of Serenity” and a Fox News Channel analyst – discussed his experience at a Gay Pride Parade and his thoughts on religious freedom after the Supreme Court’s same-sex ruling. FatherJonathan.com / @fatherjonathan

8am – B         2016 News:

• Chris Christie video signals 2016 bid. (CNN) – Chris Christie leaves little room for interpretation about his presidential ambitions in a new video released Sunday in which the New Jersey governor all but declares his candidacy. The video ends with the words “Christie 2016” in large type on the screen, leaving little doubt of what this signals. Both the video and the new website prominently feature a slogan, “Telling It Like It Is.”
• Ted Cruz watched porn with Supreme Court justices: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), a 2016 contender, reveals in his new book out Tuesday that he once watched pornography with Supreme Court justices while serving as a law clerk. Cruz was clerking for then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist and recalls standing behind Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in his book, A Time for Truth. “We were in front of a large computer screen gazing at explicit, hard-core pornography,” Cruz wrote, according to The Washington Post.

8am – C         Bristol Palin blasts critics: ‘I do not regret this baby’ Bristol Palin is striking a more positive tone over her second pregnancy following backlash against her decidedly gloomy announcement. The 24-year-old reality TV star and daughter of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) admonished critics in a post on her blog published on Sunday. “I made a mistake, but it’s not the mistake all these giddy a$$holes have loved to assume,” Bristol wrote in the post titled “My Little Blessing.” “This pregnancy was actually planned,” she continued. “Everyone knows I wanted more kids, to have a bigger family. Believing I was heading that way, I got ahead of myself.” “But I do not regret this baby,” she added. “This baby is not a disappointment, and I cannot wait to be a mom times two.”

8am – D         INTERVIEW: LARRY KUDLOW – CNBC Senior Contributor and host of The Larry Kudlow Show on WMAL Saturdays at 7 pm

• GREECE: Greece’s Debt Crisis Sends Stocks Falling Around the Globe. Greece Hours Away From Defaulting On IMF Loan. What the crisis in Greece means for the US and global economies.
• SENATE RUN? Larry Kudlow Considering Senate Bid in NY, Conn.
• OVERTIME: Obama to propose expanding overtime for millions

TOMORROW: KT MCFarland