Mornings on the Mall 11.18.15

Legal analyst Richard Kelsey, KT McFarland, Rep. Mac Thornberry & Sen Rand Paul joined WMAL on Wednesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C INTERVIEW – KEN KLUKOWSKI – legal analyst

• Governors vs Obama: Can states legally stop Obama’s refugees program from coming to their backyard? States cannot refuse refugees, but they can make it difficult.

5am – D         News About Strange Plane Passenger Behavior:

• Terrorism Paranoia Delays Flight Bound For Chicago. Tension and fear are running high after the brutal terrorist attacks by ISIS in Paris last week and there was a brief but unfounded scare on a Chicago-bound plane this morning. Four people were removed from a Spirit Airlines flight from Baltimore to Chicago after a passenger reported suspicious activity to the flight crew, the Tribune reported. It turned out that the activity was one of the passenger watching a news report on a cell phone, Sgt. Jonathan Green, a spokesman with the Maryland Transportation Authority, told the Tribune. The four people were questioned and released without charges. Removing the three men and one woman from the plane was done in the interest of safety, according to Green. “Everything added up to create a situation where she felt concerned,” he told the Baltimore Sun.
• Drunk passenger restrained after trying to open door on flight. (USA Today) —
• An intoxicated passenger had to be restrained after attempting to open an exit door on a flight from London to Boston, authorities said Tuesday. Massachusetts State Police met British Airways Flight 213 upon arrival at Logan Airport to take the passenger, identified as a woman in her 30s, into custody, police said. “Investigation determines passenger was intoxicated, tried to open EXIT door, not cockpit door. No known nexus to terrorism at this time,” State Police said in a tweet. Police said witnesses were being interviewed and that the woman “will most likely face charges of at least interfering with the flight crew.”
• No threat found after passengers removed from plane at BWI. Four people removed Tuesday morning from a Chicago-bound Spirit Airlines flight at BWI Marshall Airport amid concerns about a potential threat were released without charges after being questioned, Maryland Transportation Authority police said. A female passenger told the flight crew she saw suspicious activity, which turned out to be someone watching a news report on a smartphone, said Sgt. Jonathan Green, a spokesman for the authority’s police department, which patrols the airport. “Everything added up to create a situation where she felt concerned,” Green said of the witness. “Everything was done in the interest of safety.”

5am – E        Republicans Call for Halt to Syrian Refugee Program. WASHINGTON — Seizing on the terrorist attacks in Paris, congressional Republicans on Tuesday demanded the suspension of a program to accept Syrian refugees in the United States, but along with Democrats, they continued to shy away from explicit authorization of military force to confront the Islamic State. Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin was the leading voice in his party urging an immediate halt to the refugee program. More than two dozen Republican governors are pledging to try to block the entry of Syrian refugees, and all the Republican presidential candidates have called for barring the refugees entirely or limiting the group to Christians. President Obama, on a trip to Manila, expressed outrage at what he called “political posturing” by Republicans on the issue, accusing them of making statements that the Islamic State could use as a recruiting tool.

6am – A/B/C Vetting: Do you believe the Obama administration can adequately vet the refugees?

6am – D         Louisiana Gov. Jindal ends bid for GOP nomination in 2016. BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal dropped out of the 2016 race for president Tuesday, ending a campaign that failed to gain much support among Republicans sifting through a long list of contenders for the GOP nomination. “I’ve come to the realization that this is not my time,” Jindal said on Fox News Channel as he announced the decision to suspend his campaign. The 44-year-old governor said he wasn’t ready to endorse another candidate, but intended to support the eventual Republican presidential nominee. Term-limited and out of office in January, Jindal said he will work with a think tank he started a few years ago, called America Next, to devise what he called “a blueprint for making this the American century.”

6am – E         Out of Touch Administration:

• John Kerry: Charlie Hebdo Attack Had ‘Legitimacy,’ ‘Rationale’ Behind It. (Mediaite) — In Secretary of State John Kerry‘s remarks at the U.S. Embassy in Paris Tuesday morning, he suggested Friday’s attack was different from the Charlie Hebdo attacks earlier in the year, because the latter had a sort of “legitimacy” and “particularized focus” behind them. “There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that,” Kerry said according to the State Department’s transcript. “There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of – not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that.” By comparison, Kerry argued, the simultaneous attacks Friday were “absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn’t to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people. It was to attack everything that we do stand for.”
• Obama torches GOP on Syrian refugees: ‘Now they are scared of 3-year-old orphans.‘ President Barack Obama is taking an even harsher tone against governors and lawmakers who want to stop the U.S. resettlement of Syrian refugees, blasting them for being “scared of widows and orphans” while playing into the hands of the Islamic State terrorist group. “We are not well served when, in response to a terrorist attack, we descend into fear and panic. We don’t make good decisions if its based on hysteria or an exaggeration of risks,” Obama said while visiting the Philippines for an economic summit. “I cannot think of a more potent recruitment tool for ISIL than some of the rhetoric that’s been coming out of here during the course of this debate.”

7am – A         INTERVIEW – RICHARD KELSEY – legal analyst

• LEGAL ANALYSIS: States cannot refuse refugees, but they can make it difficult
• White House Holds Call With 34 Governors on Syrian Refugees. In a call with senior Obama administration officials Tuesday evening, several governors demanded they be given access to information about Syrian refugees about to be resettled by the federal government in their states. Top White House officials refused.
• Speaker Ryan On Refugees: ‘We Cannot Let Terrorists Take Advantage… take a pause in this particular aspect of this refugee program in order to verify that terrorists are not trying to infiltrate the refugee population.”

7am – B         GOP Candidates:

• Jeb Bush Says US Should Allow Syrian Refugees Who Can Prove They’re Christian.
• Trump Proposes Building ‘A Big Beautiful Safe Zone’ in Syria for Refugees. Donald Trump held a rally in Knoxville, Tennessee tonight in which he proposed building a “safe zone” in Syria for refugees instead of bringing them into the United States.

7am – C         Unbearable wait over on Jan. 16, with DC panda cub’s debut. WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly three months after the birth of its panda cub, The National Zoo says Bei Bei will make his public debut Jan. 16. The zoo made the announcement Tuesday on Twitter. The zoo says members will be able to get an early glimpse of the cub, starting Jan. 8. Bei Bei was born Aug. 22, and the zoo announced earlier this month that he had taken his first steps.

7am – D         INTERVIEW — KT MCFARLAND – Fox News National Security Analyst @KTMCFARLAND

• Speaker Ryan On Refugees: ‘We Cannot Let Terrorists Take Advantage… take a pause in this particular aspect of this refugee program in order to verify that terrorists are not trying to infiltrate the refugee population.”
• John Kerry: Charlie Hebdo Attack Had ‘Legitimacy,’ ‘Rationale’ Behind It.
• White House Holds Call With 34 Governors on Syrian Refugees.

7am – E         Entertainment News:

• ‘Secret Agent Man’ songwriter P.F. Sloan dies at 70. LOS ANGELES (AP) — P.F. Sloan, the troubled songwriter behind such classic 1960s tunes as Johnny Rivers’ “Secret Agent Man” and Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction,” has died. He was 70. Howard Wuelfing, a spokesman for Sloan, said the singer-songwriter died Sunday at his home in Los Angeles after battling pancreatic cancer for several weeks. Born Philip Gary Schlein in New York City, Sloan signed his first record deal when he was 13 and went on to write songs for such artists as the Turtles, the Grass Roots and the 5th Dimension. He also released several of his own albums and published the memoir “What’s Exactly The Matter With Me?” last year. His biggest hit was “Eve of Destruction,” which he wrote in a single day in 1964 when he was still in his teens and living at home. The apocalyptic protest anthem came out in 1965, as opposition grew against the Vietnam War, and caused a sensation. The song topped the charts in August, although its strident lyrics infuriated conservatives, who responded with such records as the Spokesmen’s “The Dawn of Correction.”
• Val Kilmer confirms he’s back for ‘Top Gun 2’ in Facebook post, starts other sequel rumors. Val Kilmer took to his official Facebook page to announce his role in “Top Gun 2,” the sequel to the 1986 original film. According to his status, he had no reservations about accepting the script without even reading it. He’ll presumably reprise his role as Iceman. But his status also gave some false hope that Gene Hackman would be coming out of retirement or that Francis Ford Coppola would take over directing for the late Tony Scott. In a comment, Kilmer clarified that those examples are fantasy scenarios.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – REP. MAC THORNBERRY – (R-TX) – CHAIRMAN, HOUSE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE

• BIO: Rep. Mac Thornberry serves the 13th District of TX, which spans from Amarillo to Wichita Falls & is larger than 13 states. H has served since 1995, when the House seated its first Republican majority in forty years.
• Obama Admin Refuses to Testify at Classified Brief on Hack Attack. An hour before they were scheduled to brief Members at a classified briefing on the data breach, OPM, OMB, and DHS canceled. BECAUSE THE BRIEFING WOULD BE TRANSCRIBED
• Obama under pressure to intensify fight against Islamic State after Paris attacks. The deadly Paris attacks are putting pressure on President Obama to confront Islamic State militants more aggressively than he has been willing to consider in the past, opening a difficult deliberation for a leader who has tried to build a legacy on ending America’s wars, not extending them.

8am – B/C     Senior Obama officials have warned of challenges in screening refugees. The Obama administration is fighting a growing national backlash against accepting Syrian refugees, saying the government’s exhaustive screening process and security checks for new arrivals mean they can be safely brought to American soil. FBI Director James Comey added in congressional testimony last month that “a number of people who were of serious concern” slipped through the screening of Iraq War refugees, including two arrested on terrorism-related charges. “There’s no doubt that was the product of a less than excellent vetting,” he said. Although Comey said the process has since “improved dramatically,” Syrian refugees will be even harder to check because, unlike in Iraq, U.S. soldiers have not been on the ground collecting information on the local population. “If we don’t know much about somebody, there won’t be anything in our data,” he said. “I can’t sit here and offer anybody an absolute assurance that there’s no risk associated with this.”

8am – D         INTERVIEW — SENATOR RAND PAUL – (R-KY) – GOP presidential candidate

• Rand Paul introduces bill to bar refugees from Syria
• Rand Paul Slams Marco Rubio In Florida On Immigration After Paris
• Some are blaming Snowden for our intel problems, what does he make of the criticism?

8am – E         Local Areas Welcoming Refugees:

• Arlington County is ready and willing to help resettle Syrian refugees. (ARLnow.com) – Syrian Refugee Blanket and Coat Drive (via Arlington County) Arlington County is ready and willing to help resettle Syrian refugees, a county official said Tuesday. Following the terror attacks in Paris, there has been a backlash against plans to bring refugees from Syria’s bloody civil war to the U.S. More than half of the nation’s governors — mostly Republicans — have expressed opposition to hosting Syrian refugees in their states. In Virginia, Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) says he will not ban refugees from the Commonwealth. Arlington, meanwhile, says it’s ready to help refugees who are sent to the county. “While there is no official role for the Arlington County government in resettlement decisions or in receiving refugees, we have expressed our interest in serving as a receiving community for refugees,” said Brian Stout, Arlington County’s federal liaison.
• Baltimore Mayor says city will welcome Syrian refugees. BALTIMORE (WUSA9) — Going against the sentiment expressed by her governor, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie-Rawlings Blake says she will welcome Syrian refugees to her city. In a statement Tuesday, Rawlings-Blake said the city, Maryland and the United States have “proud traditions welcoming refugees seeking assistance from crisis around the world.” Hours before Rawlings-Blake’s statement, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan said he is requesting that federal authorities do not allow Syrian refugees to settle in Maryland. Hogan is one of 30 governors across the country to have made similar statements.
• Frederick County lawmakers express opposition, caution on Syrian refugees. Following a stream of statements by elected leaders across the country, Frederick County lawmakers weighed in Monday on the debate over whether to stop Syrian refugees from settling in Maryland. In a series of emails exchanged Monday afternoon, lawmakers including County Councilman Kirby Delauter and state Delegate Barrie S. Ciliberti, R-District 4, voiced opposition to the resettlement of refugees in the state. “None should come until we have the credible intelligence to vet these people. We should declare an immediate moratorium,” Ciliberti said in a phone interview. He wants to seek a broader coalition of support in Annapolis, Ciliberti said. “I think it is worthwhile to show the people of Maryland that the Republican Party is willing to take a stand and say no to Syrian immigrants,” he said.