Mornings on the Mall

Thursday, September 5, 2019

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

Tyler Cralle, Sean Parnell, Marc Morano and Luke Rosiak joined WMAL on Thursday!

5am – A/B/C DO THE BLACKLISTINGS AND ATTACKS ON TRUMP SUPPORTERS MAKE YOU LESS LIKELY TO DONATE?

• Debra Messing responds to intense backlash against her call for blacklist of Trump supporters.   “NUMBER 1– I apologized for liking that church sign. I said I regret it. I shud have thought before recklessly suppprting. You won’t accept this but black people are targeted by Trump’s GOP for voter supression. Charlottesville was about Trump supporters hating POC and Jews,” she tweeted in response to a video from Terrence Williams, a Trump supporter. “THAT is where my support of a sign at a southern black church came from. The use of the term ‘mentally ill’ was wrong & hurtful. NUMBER 2 I NEVER NOR WOULD I EVER call for a blacklist of anyone for any reason,” she claimed.
• San Francisco passes resolution to declare NRA a ‘domestic terrorist organization.’ (SAN FRANCISCO) — San Francisco directed the fight over increased gun control directly at the National Rifle Association this week, passing a resolution that declares the organization a “domestic terrorist organization.” The San Francisco board of supervisors voted unanimously to approve the resolution on Tuesday and urged other cities, states and the federal government to do the same. Board member Catherine Stefani wrote the resolution in July after a gunman opened fire at a festival in Gilroy, California, killing four, including two children. There have been several deadly mass shootings across the country since then.

5am – D          Interview – Tyler Cralle – radio show host on WAAV in Wilmington, NC – discussed the hurricane preparations in his area.

• Coast of the Carolinas preps for a strengthened Hurricane Dorian. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper warned residents Wednesday to adhere to evacuation orders and finish last-minute storm preparations as the coast of the Carolinas braces for Hurricane Dorian, a Category 3 storm whose center is projected to come within 40 miles off Charleston, S.C. “Today is the day to finish preparing,” Cooper said Wednesday afternoon. “Do not underestimate this dangerous storm. Listen to your local emergency officials and leave now if they have ordered evacuations.” The National Hurricane Center in Miami said at 5 a.m. ET Thursday that the Category 3 storm’s maximum sustained winds were at 115 mph. Dorian was located about 80 miles southeast of Charleston, S.C., moving north at 8 mph. A federal state of emergency was issued in North Carolina. Nearly 8,000 troops across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina and nearly 400 North Carolina National Guard soldiers are also positioned in armories across the state.

5am – E         BERNIE SANDERS YELLS AT CRYING BABY:

• Bernie Sanders tells a crying baby to “keep that down a little bit.”
• Crying baby irritates Bernie Sanders during event. Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders tells a crying baby to “keep it down.” CNN’s Jeanne Moos reports on how babies delight and annoy the candidates.
  

6am – A         Jussie Smollett lawyers: Even if actor faked attack, it was cops’ call to investigate it so vigorously. SNEED EXCLUSIVE: The ex-”Empire’’ actor’s latest court filing, while not admitting he staged the incident, pins the decision to spend so much time and resources investigating squarely on law enforcement. (Chicago Sun-Times) — The actor, once a star of the hit-TV series “Empire,” is making one last attempt to get a city lawsuit against him tossed out of federal court before it proceeds to trial. Sneed learned exclusively that late Tuesday night, his attorneys filed a motion responding to the city’s claim that he should pay the city more than $130,000 to cover police overtime and other costs. The city says the costs were incurred in connection with an investigation into a report he filed claiming he was the victim of a racist and homophobic attack in River North. Police later charged Smollett with staging the attack. Attorneys for Smollett deny the actor made up the attack, and note charges were ultimately dropped by Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx. “My client from the beginning has maintained his innocence and disputed the city’s allegations,” said William J. Quinlan, of The Quinlan Law Firm, who filed the motion. He noted that “it’s going to be very difficult for the city to prevail in making a case my client should pay for overtime for a case ultimately dismissed by the state’s attorney. “It’s ridiculous and a stretch to require him to do so.” But the latest court filing contends even if Smollett did make a false report, there is no way the city can assert he would have known the city would investigate — and investigate it to the extent cops did.  “We contend the city is wrong,” Quinlan said of the city’s assertion that Smollett should have known the police would log nearly 2,000 hours in overtime trying to resolve the case. “ … The mere fact somebody filed a police report doesn’t presume the investigation will be done and certainly not to the extent of what the city is claiming.”

6am – B/C     Labor Department To Reinstate Aide Wrongfully Accused Of Anti-Semitism. (Daily Caller/Luke Rosiak) — The Department of Labor reinstated a political appointee Wednesday night who resigned under pressure after a Bloomberg Law reporter accused him of anti-Semitism for a Facebook post in which he was actually condemning anti-Semites in the alt-right, the Daily Caller News Foundation exclusively learned. Acting Secretary Patrick Pizzella “personally made this decision after carefully reviewing all the facts and circumstances,” a senior Labor Department official told the DCNF. “He concluded that a correction is much better than an injustice.” Leif Olson abruptly left the department 18 days after joining the federal government, after moving his family from Texas to take the job. The departure came after Bloomberg Law reporter Ben Penn contacted the White House and Labor Department about what he portrayed as an anti-Semitic Facebook post from 2016. Penn cropped out in a Tuesday article portions of the exchange that directly referenced it being “epic sarcasm.”

6am – D/E/F  Highlights of the CNN Climate Change Town Halls

• Joe Biden says the extreme #GreenNewDeal doesn’t go too far and he is “not opposed” to it. Says his plan goes “beyond” the Green New Deal “in more detail.”
• Joe Biden says “We’ve got to shut down” all coal-fueled power plants, which provided 27% of all electricity in the United States last year. (Get ready for higher electric bills!)
• Joe Biden says he might reconsider a fundraiser scheduled for Thursday after being confronted and told about its host’s connections to the energy industry. A far-left activist calls out Joe Biden his plans to go to a fundraiser with a fossil fuel executive tomorrow. Biden claims the man is not a fossil fuel executive. The man *is* a fossil fuel executive:
• BIDEN Rambles About Something To Do With Midwest Bases… Gets Lost
• Elizabeth Warren says she supports a carbon tax, which would increase gas prices, the cost of household goods, and monthly energy bills.
• When asked about nuclear energy–the single most efficient and clean energy source currently available–Elizabeth Warren says her administration will build no new plants
• WARREN DODGES ON QUESTION ABOUT LIGHTBULBS: Elizabeth Warren and the radical Green New Deal Democrats have their eyes set on Americans’ straws, cheeseburgers, and light bulbs to “change our energy consumption.”
• Kamala Harris says if Congress does not pass the $93 trillion Green New Deal that she will take over the Senate as President and eliminate the filibuster to ram the agenda through
• Kamala Harris backs a federal ban on fracking

7am – A         Interview – Sean Parnell – author of new book “All Out War”

• Parnell is the author of the bestselling memoir Outlaw Platoon and the novels All Out War (on sale 9/3) and Man of War. He is a retired U.S. Army Infantry captain who served in some of the heaviest combat of the Afghan War.

7am – B/C/D/E         More Highlights of the CNN Climate Change Town Halls:

• Bernie Sanders said he’s open to a discussion about population control.
• CNN town hall audience member wonders if kids should ‘continue the cycle of family’ amid climate crisis. In the first hour of CNN’s seven-hour long climate change town hall, an audience member asked former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro if it was fair to expect the younger generation to have children, given the looming catastrophe of climate change.
• “Is it fair for us to expect our children to continue the cycle of family and generation in a world whose chaotic climate future we knowingly create and so far have done little to address?” John Ingram, a retired teacher, asked Wednesday.
• Robert Francis O’Rourke says he told his 8-year-old that where they lived would be “uninhabitable and “would not sustain human life”
• KAMALA ON PLASTIC STRAWS: Kamala: I will ban plastic straws. Literally one second later: Paper straws do not work
• KAMALA ON MEAT CONSUMPTION: Kamala suggests banning cheeseburgers – Kamala Harris says Americans need to be “educated about the effect of our eating habits on our environment,” and says she would change the dietary guidelines to reduce the amount of red meat you can eat.
• YANG ON MEAT CONSUMPTION: Yang wants gov’t to “shape our system” to discourage meat consumption
  

8am – A         Interview – Marc Morano – author of “Politically Incorrect Guide to Climate Change and runs ClimateDepot.com — analyzed CNN’s 7-hour climate town halls.

8am – B/C     ‘No Zero’ policy at Maryland school draws scrutiny. POTOMAC, Md. (FOX 5 DC) – A Montgomery County high school has created its own grading policy, telling teachers they can no longer give students a grade of “zero” even if the student doesn’t do any work. A source provided FOX 5 material from the presentation given to teachers on the “No Zero Policy” at Winston Churchill High School in Potomac. The mandate goes beyond the school district’s grading policy. A Montgomery County Public Schools spokesman said Wednesday that the school district was not aware of it until FOX 5 reached out. In Montgomery County, it’s already pretty difficult for a student to fail. Under the school district’s policy, if a middle or high school student takes a test and gets every answer wrong, the grade is not a zero, it’s a 50 percent. MCPS policy prohibits teachers from “assigning a grade lower than 50 percent to a task/assessment,” but goes on to say, “if a student does no work on the task/assessment, the teacher will assign a zero. If a teacher determines the student did not attempt to meet the basic requirements of the task/assessment or the student engaged in academic dishonesty, the teacher may assign a zero.” A Churchill high school teacher, who didn’t want to be identified, said he feels the policy sends students the wrong message. He’s also concerned that it deviates from the districtwide policy. “If it’s an MCPS policy, fine,” he said. “I have a problem with it being policy in some high schools and not others because that’s lack of consistency across the school system.” MCPS spokesman Derek Turner said school district officials are now investigating whether this is a violation of policy. He said leadership at Churchill believes they have authority to make the change. Turner said he’s not aware of other MCPS schools with the “No Zero” policy. Michael Petrilli is a Montgomery County parent and president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a conservative-leaning education think tank. He said educators’ power to enforce standards is being taken away.

8am – D         Interview – Luke Rosiak – Investigative Reporter at The Daily Caller News Foundation

• EXCLUSIVE: Labor Department To Reinstate Aide Wrongfully Accused Of Anti-Semitism. The Labor Department has reinstated Leif Olson, the Trump aide who resigned 18 days after moving his family across the country because a reporter falsely called him anti-Semitic based on a Facebook post that actually condemned anti-Semitism.

8am – E         TOWN HALLS:

• Biden’s eye fills with blood during CNN climate town hall. Former Vice President Joe Biden appeared to have a blood vessel burst in his left eye while participating in CNN’s town hall on climate change. A broken blood vessel in the eye, also known as a subconjuctival hemorrhage, can be caused by several things, including high blood pressure, bleeding disorders, blood thinners, or even excessive straining. Biden, 76, has long been plagued by health issues. In 1988, he suffered an aneurysm that burst and required him to undergo emergency surgery. The then-senator was so close to death that a Catholic priest began preparing to administer the sacrament of last rites. Months later, surgeons clipped a second aneurysm before it burst. Biden then took a seven-month leave from the Senate following the surgery. Describing the operation, he once said, “They literally had to take the top of my head off.”
• CNN, Human Rights Campaign to host Democratic presidential town hall focused on LGBTQ issues. (CNN)The Human Rights Campaign Foundation announced Thursday it will host a CNN Democratic presidential town hall in California this fall focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer issues. HRC said the October 10 primetime event, airing live on the eve of National Coming Out Day, will feature the largest ever audience for a Democratic presidential town hall devoted to LGBTQ issues. The candidates will take questions from the audience and CNN journalists on specific LGBTQ concerns as well as their plans to promote equality and civility. “This town hall comes at a critical time in our fight to achieve equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people in this nation,” said Alphonso David, who was recently named HRC president. “Today, in 30 states, LGBTQ people remain at risk of being fired, evicted or denied services because of who we are. Thirty-five states have yet to ban the dangerous and debunked practice of ‘conversion therapy,’ which is harming our young people. Hate crimes are rising, and more than 100 transgender people — most of whom are transgender women of color — have been killed in the United States in the last five years.