Mornings on the Mall 08.25.17

Janice Dean, Larry Michael, Rich Johnson and Ed Henry joined WMAL on Friday!

Mornings on the Mall

Friday, August 25, 2017

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B/C Do You Feel Uncomfortable Talking About The Confederate Statues Issue With Friends, Family and Neighbors?

• ‘Well-oiled’ activist ops targeting GOP reps at their homes, hijacking town halls. (Fox News) — The left has upped the stakes in its guerilla operations against Republicans, as deep-pocketed groups fund protesters to show up to the offices and even houses of congressmen to protest their lack of “town hall” meetings. Earlier this month, protesters targeted the home of Rep. Jason Lewis, a newly elected Republican in Minnesota’s 2nd District. The protests on his doorstep grew big enough that one of his neighbors called the police. “Fortunately my family wasn’t home at the time,” Lewis told Fox News. “I ran for Congress, but my family didn’t run … so to bring them into it I think is not in keeping with the best of American tradition.” Protesters also have shown up at the homes of other Republican lawmakers in swing districts such as Rep. John Faso, R-N.Y., and Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif. Some 200 protesters showed up at Issa’s home to blast him for not holding town hall meetings, leading his spokesman to say: “Dragging the congressman’s wife and family into this goes beyond the pale.”

5am – D         Hurricane Harvey ‘rapidly intensifying,’ expected to make landfall in Texas as major storm. (Fox News) — Hurricane Harvey is now being considered life-threatening and considered a “grave risk” by the National Hurricane Center as the “rapidly intensifying” storm is now forecast to become a Category 3 storm before making landfall on the Texas coast. The head of the National Weather Service said Harvey is a “grave risk to the folks of Texas.” Forecasters believe the storm, predicted to have 125 mph winds, and bringing upwards of 20 inches of rain to parts of Texas, might last for longer than expected, according to the Hurricane Center. The storm is expected to produce devastating floods with up to almost three feet of rain throughout some middle and upper areas along the coast of Texas until next Wednesday. Areas in far South Texas, as well as central parts of Texas and Louisiana, are anticipating more than one foot of rain. Harvey, with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph, is expected to approach the middle Texas coast on Friday and make landfall by Friday night or early Saturday morning.  Tropical Storm Harvey strengthened into a hurricane on Thursday as it headed to coastal Texas, where it was expected to bring life-threatening flooding, meteorologists said.

5am – E         NY Times Op-Ed: Save Us, Obama! (Daily Caller) — The New York Times ran an opinion piece Thursday arguing President Donald Trump’s leadership, or alleged lack thereof, has left the nation is shambles, and only former President Barack Obama can come to its rescue. The author, Caroline Randall Williams, noted former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer “hiding among the bushes,” former FBI Director James Comey learning that he was fired from “television reports,” Russian diplomats “laughing in the Oval Office,” and the Charlottesville protests in an effort to illustrate the poor the state of affairs in America under Trump. Williams solution to this “unprecedented, and frankly, unpresidential,” period in American history: Obama must come and save America. “We are a country troubled by the looming possibility of a constitutional crisis, and hate groups are claiming the president as theirs. We need your voice,” Williams wrote. “There is not a saner, more trustworthy opinion that many of us would rather hear…It’s time for you to come back.” Obama has not stayed out of the public eye since leaving office, publicly opposing the president and describing Trump as “nothing but a bullshitter” after Trump took the Oval Office.

6am – A         Confederate News:

• Pelosi Mum on Her Father Dedicating Lee, Jackson Statues. (Newsmax) – In the days following events Aug. 12 in Charlottesville, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called on Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to remove all of the Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol “if Republicans are serious about rejecting white supremacy.” “The Confederate statues in the halls of Congress have always been reprehensible,” declared Pelosi. Pelosi will have to explain why she never tried to take down any of those “reprehensible” statues during her own stint as House speaker herself from 2007-11. Newsmax also called Pelosi’s office to ask her opinion on another issue regarding her call for the removal of Confederate statues: the powerful praise for statues of Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson from the Democratic mayor of her own home city of Baltimore,  Maryland, when they were dedicated in 1948. Her office did not return our call.
• Nancy Pelosi’s father helped dedicate Confederate monument (Fox News) — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has ramped up calls to remove “reprehensible” Confederate statues from the halls of Congress — but left unsaid in her public denunciations is that her father helped dedicate such a statue decades ago while mayor of Baltimore.  It was May 2, 1948, when, according to a Baltimore Sun article from that day, “3,000” looked on as then-Governor William Preston Lane Jr. and Pelosi’s father, the late Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., spoke at the dedication of a monument to honor Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.  The article said Lane delivered a speech, and Mayor D’Alesandro “accepted” the memorial. “Today, with our nation beset by subversive groups and propaganda which seeks to destroy our national unity, we can look for inspiration to the lives of Lee and Jackson to remind us to be resolute and determined in preserving our sacred institutions,” D’Alesandro said in his dedication. “We must remain steadfast in our determination to preserve freedom, not only for ourselves, but for the other liberty-loving nations who are striving to preserve their national unity as free nations.” He added: “In these days of uncertainty and turmoil, Americans must emulate Jackson’s example and stand like a stone wall against aggression in any form that would seek to destroy the liberty of the world.”
• National Cathedral mulls removal of stained glass windows featuring Confederate generals. (DC Examiner) — Washington’s National Cathedral is mulling whether it needs to remove two stained glass windows that feature Confederate generals, a year after it removed a Confederate flag from another window. The windows, sponsored by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, depict Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen. Stonewall Jackson and were installed in 1953.
• Confederate Monument Controversy Makes Way to Ireland. TUAM, IRELAND (CNN) — The controversy over America’s Confederate monuments has made its way across the pond. On the facade of the Tuam Town Hall in County Galway is an unassuming bronze plaque that, after two decades in the damp climate of western Ireland, almost blends into the building’s gray stone facade. It honors Dick Dowling, an Irish-born hero of the Confederacy. After hundreds of white nationalists and other right-wing groups converged on Charlottesville, Virginia, to protest the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee, calls to take down homages to the Confederacy reached their zenith. From Baltimore and Florida to Texas and California, memorials came down. More than 3,000 miles away from Charlottesville, County Galway Councilor Shaun Cunniffe heard calls as well — six, to be exact. The callers had read about the Dowling plaque and wanted it removed, Cunniffe said. “The difficulty that they had is that it’s on our Town Hall,” Cunniffe said, explaining that the callers felt the plaque’s location amounted to town leaders’ “tacit approval” of the Confederacy and what it stood for.
• Confederate Flag Sales Are Booming. Despite attempts to shame Confederate history and symbols, sales of Confederate flags are booming, AL.com reports. Alabama Flag & Banner in Huntsville, Alabama is doing its best to meet the demand. It’s receiving up to 100 orders a day. Other manufacturers stopped producing the flag after the church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina and the subsequent decision by then-governor Nikki Haley to remove the Confederate flag from the state capitol building. Orders came streaming into the Flag & Banner store.

6am – B         Entertainment:

• Taylor Swift Lashes Out at Kanye, Katy with ‘Look What You Made Me Do.’ It’s now obvious Taylor Swift’s been sharpening her lyrical knives during her hiatus — she whipped ’em out for Katy Perry AND Kanye West in her new track, “Look What You Made Me Do.” Tay Tay just dropped a music video for the track, and the lyrics leave no doubt who she’s attacking. She sings, “I don’t like your little games … Don’t like your tilted stage” in the opening verse — a clear reference to Kanye’s last tour. Taylor also clearly refers to ‘Ye calling her a bitch in, “Famous” — “The role you made me play of the fool … No, I don’t like you.”
• Katy Perry teases star-studded ‘Swish Swish’ video. Katy Perry is looking to settle a score in the teaser for the video of her rumored Taylor Swift diss track “Swish Swish.” On Monday, the singer released the first look at the visual for the hit song from her latest album Witness. Billed as the “hottest mess in history” and playing off of the track’s name, the video takes place during a basketball game featuring plenty of high-profile names, including Molly Shannon, Strangers Things’ Gaten Matarazzo, and Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson a.k.a. The Mountain from Game of Thrones. Promised, but not seen, is Nicki Minaj, who lends a verse to “Swish Swish.” The teaser also says there will be “many more surprises” in the video, which will be released this week — no specific day is given.
• Mayweather fight-week prep: Late nights at strip club… (Yahoo Sports) — LAS VEGAS – It’s 2:47 a.m. Thursday morning, maybe 66 hours from the richest fight of his career, and Floyd Mayweather is bouncing around the Girl Collection gentlemen’s club here. All around him music booms and women dance and singles flitter through the air. Mayweather greets friends and checks in with management. This is his club. He bought it and opened it a few months back. It’s become a home away from home, including or even especially, during the grind of his final training camp, even here on fight week. Some would wonder if hanging out in a gentlemen’s club into the wee hours of the morning is the best way to prepare for a fast approaching fight, but Mayweather laughs that off. He is, as a matter of point, 49-0 in his career heading into Saturday’s bout with Conor McGregor.

6am – C         OREGON’S FREE COLLEGE PROGRAM: Oregon became one of the first states to make tuition free for new students at community colleges last year, but the cash-strapped state can’t fully fund the program this fall.

6am – D         ‘Ridiculous And Outrageous’ — Sarah Sanders Rips GOP Sen For Questioning Trump’s Competence (Daily Caller) – White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders ripped Republican Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker’s questioning of Trump’s “stability” and “competence” on Thursday, calling Corker’s claim “ridiculous and outrageous.” Corker, who has been one of the more supportive voices of Trump in the Senate, raised questions about Trump’s competence last week in the wake of the president’s comments on the violence in Charlottesville. “He recently has not demonstrated that he understands the character of our nation — what has made it great and what it is today. He’s got to demonstrate the characteristics of a president who understands that. Without those things happening, our nation is going to go through great peril,” Corker said of Trump.

6am – E         Radical University Of Virginia Students Call Thomas Jefferson Statue ‘Emblem Of White Supremacy’ (Daily Caller) — A coalition of far-left student groups at the University of Virginia has issued a lengthy set of demands which describes Thomas Jefferson as “an emblem of white supremacy” and calls on officials at the taxpayer-funded school to set racial quotas for admissions and faculty. The Minority Rights Coalition at the University of Virginia issued the set of 10 demands earlier this week to coincide with an event called the “March to Reclaim Our Grounds.” “UVA’s historical landscape must be balanced,” the list of demands announces. “The statue of Jefferson serves as an emblem of white supremacy, and should be re-contextualized with a plaque to include that history.” The student coalition also wants to force all students the prestigious public school to submit to training about “white supremacy” in connection with Jefferson, “All students, regardless of area of study, should have required education (either inside or outside the classroom) on white supremacy, colonization, and slavery as they directly relate to Thomas Jefferson, the University and the city of Charlottesville,” the set of demands says.

6am – F         ‘We Will Shoot’ Anyone Who Shouts ‘Allahu Akbar,’ Says Venice Mayor (Daily Caller) – The mayor of Venice declared that if anyone shouts ‘Allahu Akbar,’ authorities will “send them straight to Allah” in light of the Barcelona terror attacks. Mayor Luigi Brugnaro made the remark at a conference where he also stated that Venice’s more aggressive approach to thwarting terrorists made the city far more secure than Barcelona, according to The Times. Other Italian leaders, such as Mayor Andrea Gnassi of Rimini, expressed disdain for Brugnaro’s blunt warning to Islamic terrorists, but Brugnaro said Venice’s success in routing out terrorists speaks for itself. “In contrast with Barcelona, where they had not set up protection, we keep our guard up,” Burgnaro said. “If anyone runs into St Mark’s Square shouting ‘Allahu Akhbar’, we will take him down. A year ago I said after four steps, now after three. I will say it in Venetian: ‘Ghe Sparemo’ (We will shoot him).” Venetian authorities arrested four jihadists from Kosovo in March who allegedly planned to bomb a bridge and kill hundreds of people. Brugnaro hailed the arrest as an example of the success of Venice’s tough stance toward threats of terror.

7am – A         SENATE NEWS:

• Susan Collins to make decision on governor bid by end of Sept. (The Hill) –  GOP Sen. Susan Collins will make a decision about whether to run for Maine governor by the end of September.  Collins told WCSH that she was still weighing whether to stay in the Senate and hoped to discuss the decision with family and advisers next week.  “I had scores of people saying we really need you in the Senate, your voice is important for Maine and nationally. On the other hand, I have people come up to me every day saying we need strong leadership in Augusta, someone who can work with Democrats and Republicans,” she told the Maine TV station.  Collins isn’t up for reelection for her Senate seat until 2020. She would have to resign her seat if she ran for governor and won, a move that could allow GOP Gov. Paul LePage, who is term limited, to pick her successor.  As one of the Senate’s most moderate Republicans, Collins has been at the center of the chamber’s action this year — joining with GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and John McCain (Ariz.) to block the “skinny” ObamaCare repeal bill — and is poised to have an influential role in Congress’s fall fights.  Collins said she’s been discussing a potential bid for the state’s top office since shortly after she won reelection to the Senate in 2014, adding that the role would be more “hands on.”  But she noted that her work in the Senate, particularly her attempts to work with Democrats, “is very important, perhaps more important than ever in some ways.”  A source told a separate Maine TV station, WMTV, that Collins was now leaning more toward running for governor than she was earlier in the summer. But a spokeswoman for Colllins disputed that, saying she is neither closer nor farther away from making a decision.
• NEW POLL: McConnell is the least popular politician in the country, Sanders is the most popular. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has the lowest favorability rating of any elected official with a national profile, according to a new Harvard-Harris poll provided exclusively to The Hill. McConnell scores just a 19 percent favorable rating in the national poll, worse than President Trump and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.). Forty-nine percent of voters polled have a negative view of the Senate leader. The rest of those polled didn’t know McConnell, or didn’t know enough to have an opinion.

• “I think the relationships are fine,” Sarah Huckabee Sanders says of POTUS and Senator Mitch McConnell.
• TRUMP / MCCONNELL: WASHINGTON — President Trump started his day on Thursday publicly criticizing leaders of his own party for not advancing his legislative agenda, which the president called “so easy.” Mr. Trump said he asked Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, and Representative Paul Ryan, the House speaker, to include language about the debt ceiling in a recent Department of Veterans Affairs bill. “They didn’t do it so now we have a big deal with Dems holding them up (as usual) on Debt Ceiling approval,” Mr. Trump said in a pair of Twitter posts.
• Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump: I requested that Mitch M & Paul R tie the Debt Ceiling legislation into the popular V.A. Bill (which just passed) for easy approval. They… 8:19 AM – Aug 24, 2017
• Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump: …didn’t do it so now we have a big deal with Dems holding them up (as usual) on Debt Ceiling approval. Could have been so easy-now a mess! 8:25 AM – Aug 24, 2017

7am – B/C PELOSI NEWS:

• Pelosi: You Can’t Yell ‘Wolf’ In A Crowded Theater. (Daily Caller) – House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi appeared confused in an interview this week about what kind of speech is protected by the U.S. Constitution. “The Constitution does not say that a person can shout…yell ‘wolf’ in a crowded theater. If you are endangering people, then you don’t have a constitutional right to do that,” Pelosi said in an interview on Wednesday with San Francisco TV station KRON. The Democrat seemingly meant to paraphrase an opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in the landmark free speech case, Schenck v. United States (1919).  “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic,” Holmes wrote in his opinion.
• Nancy Pelosi’s father helped dedicate Confederate monument – (Fox News) — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has ramped up calls to remove “reprehensible” Confederate statues from the halls of Congress — but left unsaid in her public denunciations is that her father helped dedicate such a statue decades ago while mayor of Baltimore.  It was May 2, 1948, when, according to a Baltimore Sun article from that day, “3,000” looked on as then-Governor William Preston Lane Jr. and Pelosi’s father, the late Thomas D’Alesandro Jr., spoke at the dedication of a monument to honor Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.  The article said Lane delivered a speech, and Mayor D’Alesandro “accepted” the memorial. “Today, with our nation beset by subversive groups and propaganda which seeks to destroy our national unity, we can look for inspiration to the lives of Lee and Jackson to remind us to be resolute and determined in preserving our sacred institutions,” D’Alesandro said in his dedication. “We must remain steadfast in our determination to preserve freedom, not only for ourselves, but for the other liberty-loving nations who are striving to preserve their national unity as free nations.”

7am – C         DC ranks 13th on list of top bedbug-infested cities. WASHINGTON — It’s not exactly the kind of thing that will fill D.C. residents with pride, but the District ranked 13th in the top-20 bedbug-infested cities in America. The list was released by the pest control company, Terminix, and based on service requests from the first half of 2017. Experts at Terminix said bedbug infestations have increased since the late 1990s, and while researchers aren’t sure of an exact cause, they do think things like more international travel and insecticide resistance could bear some responsibility.

7am – D        INTERVIEW – JANICE DEAN – Senior Meteorologist, Fox News Channel and Author of Freddy the Frogcaster and the Flash Flood

• Hurricane Harvey ‘rapidly intensifying,’ expected to make landfall in Texas as major storm. Hurricane Harvey is now being considered life-threatening and considered a “grave risk” by the National Hurricane Center as the “rapidly intensifying” storm is now forecast to become a Category 3 storm before making landfall on the Texas coast. The head of the National Weather Service said Harvey is a “grave risk to the folks of Texas.” Forecasters believe the storm, predicted to have 125 mph winds, and bringing upwards of 20 inches of rain to parts of Texas, might last for longer than expected, according to the Hurricane Center.

7am – E         INTERVIEW – LARRY MICHAEL – the “Voice of the Washington Redskins”

• PRESEASON GAME: Sunday, August 27, 4:30 PM on FOX @ FedExField, Maryland // Cincinnati Bengals vs. @Washington Redskins
• The Cincinnati Bengals this Sunday take on their former offensive coordinator Jay Gruden and the Redskins, who he is leading in his fourth season as their head coach. The Redskins are 15-14-1 during the past two seasons with that tie coming last season against the Bengals in London.  The Bengals gave up 546 total yards of offense in that game, which marked the first of four consecutive games in which the Bengals failed to win, dropping them to 3-7-1 and eroding any playoff aspirations. In the preseason dress rehearsal, Bengals fans will surely hope for a better showing from the defense. But what can we expect from Washington?

8am – A         INTERVIEW – RICH JOHNSON – our Correspondent in Las Vegas

• Floyd Mayweather squares off against Conor McGregor in a highly anticipated fight in Las Vegas Saturday night. 
• Rich has a preview of the boxing match between the undefeated boxer and one of the most dominant mixed martial arts fighters in the world.
• HIGHLY AWAITED FIGHT COMING AUG 26TH — MAYWEATHER VS MCGREGOR PREVIEW: Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Conor McGregor, billed as The Money Fight and The 180 Million Dollar Dance, is an upcoming professional boxing superfight between undefeated eleven-time five-division professional boxing champion of the world Floyd Mayweather Jr. and the current UFC Lightweight champion Conor McGregor.

8am – B         Confederate News:

• Pelosi Mum on Her Father Dedicating Lee, Jackson Statues.
• Nancy Pelosi’s father helped dedicate Confederate monument
• National Cathedral mulls removal of stained glass windows featuring Confederate generals.
• Confederate Monument Controversy Makes Way to Ireland.
• Confederate Flag Sales Are Booming.

8am – C         French President Emmanuel Macron has spent $30,695 on makeup during his first three months in power. (AP) – PARIS – President Emmanuel Macron’s office has confirmed a report that the French leader spent 26,000 euros ($30,695) on makeup during his first three months in power, and says it’s trying to find a cheaper alternative. The report in Le Point news magazine prompted harsh criticism of the president from French social media users.  It said the cost includes the pay of a freelance makeup artist following Macron during television appearances and trips abroad.

8am – D         INTERVIEW — ED HENRY – Fox News Chief National Correspondent and New York Times Bestselling Author “42 Faith” – discussed the president’s feud with Mitch McConnell and the president’s plan to go on the road to promote legislative priorities.

8am – E         James Cameron: ‘WONDER WOMAN’ A Step Backwards…

• EARLIER: James Cameron claims “all of the self-congratulatory back-patting Hollywood’s been doing over Wonder Woman has been so misguided.” The Terminator director told The Guardian in a new interview that the Patty Jenkins blockbuster is just “male Hollywood doing the same old thing” on account of the fact that he feels Wonder Woman as a character is “an objectified icon.” “I’m not saying I didn’t like the movie but, to me, it’s a step backwards,” Cameron said. UPDATE: Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins has responded to James Cameron. “James Cameron’s inability to understand what Wonder Woman is, or stands for, to women all over the world is unsurprising as, though he is a great filmmaker, he is not a woman,” Jenkins wrote in a note she posted to Twitter. “Strong women are great. His praise of my film Monster, and our portrayal of a strong yet damaged woman was so appreciated. But if women have to always be hard, tough and troubled to be strong, and we aren’t free to be multidimensional or celebrate an icon of women everywhere because she is attractive and loving, then we haven’t come very far have we. I believe women can and should be EVERYTHING just like male lead characters should be. There is no right and wrong kind of powerful woman. And the massive female audience who made the film a hit it is, can surely choose to judge their own icons of progress.”