Mornings on the Mall 05.29.19

Cal Thomas, Catherine Glenn Foster, Dan Bongino and Dr. Roy Spencer joined WMAL on Wednesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C Can businesses force workers to get vaccinated? (CBS News) — Business owners worried about the spread of measles may want to be sure their staffers have been vaccinated, but before issuing any orders, they should speak with a labor law attorney or human resources consultant. An employer generally is prohibited from requiring employees to undergo medical procedures including vaccinations under the Americans with Disabilities Act; a company that tries to force staffers to be vaccinated can find itself being sued by angry workers. But there can be exceptions, especially in places where there’s a measles outbreak or where government officials have ordered vaccinations to protect the public’s health. If an employer is sued for requiring vaccinations, or even firing a staffer who refuses to be vaccinated, a court is likely to defer to the judgment of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health officials, said Howard Mavity, an employment law attorney with Fisher Phillips in Atlanta. And the CDC, which has identified nearly 900 measles cases in nearly half the states, has declared outbreaks in parts of New York state and California, and in Michigan, Georgia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Washington state. The CDC considers three or more cases to be an outbreak.

5am – D/E     SUPREME COURT’S ABORTION DECISION:

• Supreme Court Upholds Indiana Provision Mandating Fetal Burial Or Cremation. (NPR) – The Supreme Court is leaving in place part of an Indiana law that mandates that aborted fetuses be buried or cremated. The court did not take up a second part of the law that banned abortions because of fetal abnormality, the fetus’s race, sex or ancestry. A lower court struck down that part of the law in addition to the burial provision. The Supreme Court, though, said it will wait for other lower court rulings before weighing in on the fetal characteristics provision. Vice President Pence signed the legislation when he was governor. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a 20-page, anti-abortion-rights concurrence, warning that by leaving in place a lower court decision that invalidated Indiana’s law banning “discriminatory” abortions, the court was aiding and abetting the possibility of a modern eugenics movement. “This case highlights the fact that abortion is an act rife with the potential for eugenic manipulation,” he wrote. “From the beginning, birth control and abortion were promoted as means of effectuating eugenics.” He pointed to sky-high rates of abortion for fetuses in Iceland and Europe diagnosed in the womb with Down syndrome. “Although the Court declines to wade into these issues today,” Thomas concluded, “we cannot avoid them forever.”
• Justices Ginsburg, Thomas trade barbs in Supreme Court ruling on state abortion matter. (Fox News) — Supreme Court Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas had two very different opinions when it came to a ruling on Tuesday that effectively upheld an Indiana law on disposal of fetal remains. The court’s ruling allowed Indiana to enforce a requirement that abortion clinics either bury or cremate fetal remains following an abortion. The justices said in an unsigned opinion that the case does not involve limits on abortion rights. Ginsburg was one of two liberal-leaning justices who dissented.Ginsburg said in a short solo opinion that she believes the issue does impact a woman’s right to have an abortion “without undue interference from the state.” Ginsburg’s dissent was not met well by Thomas, who said that it “makes little sense” and “lacks evidentiary support.”

6am – A         STEELE / COMEY:

• Christoper Steele refuses to speak to US special prosecutor John Durham. WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The former British spy who produced a dossier describing alleged links between Donald Trump and Russia will not cooperate with a prosecutor assigned by U.S. Attorney General William Barr to review how the investigations of Trump and his 2016 election campaign began, a source with knowledge of the situation said.

• Comey op-ed: ‘There was no treason. There was no attempted coup … dumb lies.’ In an op-ed in the Washington Post on Tuesday, former FBI Director James Comey lambasted the President Trump’s claim that he and his agency committed “treason” during the Russia investigation, noting that although it was tempting to ignore the president, he was acting as a “liar who doesn’t care what damage he does to vital institutions.

6am – B/C     Navy reviewing wearing of Trump patches aboard ship. WASHINGTON (AP) — The Navy says it is reviewing whether service members violated Defense Department policy or regulations by wearing a uniform patch with the words “Make Aircrews Great Again” during President Donald Trump’s visit to their ship in Japan. The phrase emblazoned on the patch, along with a likeness of Trump, is a play on his campaign slogan. The military has uniform dress codes and regulations against partisan political acts while in uniform. In a brief statement Tuesday, the Navy said only that the matter was under review by Navy leadership to ensure that the wearing of the patches did not violate policy or regulations. Trump visited the USS Wasp assault ship on Tuesday before returning to Washington from four days in Japan.

6am – D         INTERVIEW – CAL THOMAS – Syndicated columnist

• Supreme Court upholds Indiana abortion law requiring fetal remains be buried or cremated. WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld Indiana’s law requiring abortion providers to bury or cremate fetal remains, but left lower court rulings intact that invalidated a broader measure that would prevent a woman from having an abortion based on a fetus’s gender, race or genetic disorder.Passed in 2016 and signed by then-Gov. Mike Pence, the law prohibited what the state called discriminatory abortions — those sought because of characteristics of the fetus, including gender, race or a diagnosis of Down syndrome or other congenital condition. Supporters of the measure said the law responded to medical developments that were not contemplated at the time of Roe v. Wade.

6am – E         NBC WASHINGTON: Many commuters navigating Metro’s summer shutdown say their shuttle bus drivers got lost

• ‘Absolute zoo’: More Metro complaints as evening commute gets underway. (WTOP) — The first workday affected by a summer shutdown on Metro’s Blue and Yellow lines ended the way it began Tuesday morning, with many frustrated, confused riders enduring long lines and other glitches. Six Blue and Yellow line stations south of Reagan National Airport have been closed for platform repairs and other upgrades. The 106 days of closures on the two heavily trafficked lines (scheduled to end on Sept. 8) are unprecedented, even for Metro shutdowns. A fleet of shuttle buses are transporting riders south of Reagan.  At the Pentagon, the evening rush hour looked particularly bad. “I think there was maybe probably two, three hundred people waiting in line on the platform just to get the shuttle buses from Pentagon to get back to Huntington, so that was awful,” said one rider, Jordan. Late Tuesday afternoon, NBC Washington reported that many of the shuttle drivers contracted by Metro were unfamiliar with their routes and were from Texas, Florida and Georgia. In response to that report, Metro admitted that there were “some hiccups” but that a “vast majority” of buses ran on schedule (i.e., every 5 minutes or less) and that concerns would be addressed.

6am – F         WAVE OF TORNADOES:

• Trump declares emergency in Kansas after tornado destroys several homes, leaves at least 11 injured. President Trump on Tuesday evening approved a disaster declaration in Kansas at the request of the governor, making federal aid available to the state after a tornado destroyed multiple homes and left several injured. The National Weather Service (NWS) declared a tornado emergency for the area as the storm was approaching Interstate 70 near the Kansas Speedway, which hosts NASCAR races. Douglas County Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Jenn Hethcoat told the Lawrence Journal-World that 11 people were taken to the hospital with injuries — including one with serious injuries. Several homes throughout the county sustained damage, the department said.
• 5 million without power as destructive tornado hits Dayton, Ohio.  “It looks in areas like a war zone, some of the houses were completely moved off their foundations and gone,” says the mayor of Celina, Ohio. At least one person is dead and 12 injured after a severe storm system including tornadoes hit the Dayton, Ohio, area late Monday night, authorities said. About 68,000 households and businesses in the state were without power Tuesday morning. Mayor Jeffrey Hazel of Celina, Ohio, about 80 miles north of Dayton, said in a news conference Tuesday that Melvin Delhanna, 81, died when the storm pushed a vehicle into his home.
• Apparent tornadoes tore across Indiana and Ohio, packed so closely together that one crossed the path carved by another. Some 70,000 power outages in Ohio were affecting over 5 million people.
• FLASHBACK LAST WEEK: AOC called out by meteorologist after linking DC tornado warning to climate change. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., took to social media on Thursday during a tornado warning in Washington, D.C., and swiftly tried to connect it to climate change — prompting one meteorologist to call her out for not knowing “the difference between weather and climate.”
• Roy Spencer: Why so many tornadoes this year? It’s not what AOC, Bernie Sanders (or maybe even you) think. (By Roy Spencer | Fox News) — Progressive politicians like Al Gore, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D.N.Y., don’t hesitate to blame any kind of severe weather – even if it is decreasing over time – on global warming. With the devastating Dayton, Ohio tornadoes fresh on our minds, it is useful to examine exactly why (modest) global warming has produced fewer – not more – of such events. The simple answer is that tornado formation requires unusually cool air.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – CATHERINE GLENN FOSTER – attorney and President & CEO of Americans United for Life, America’s first national pro-life organization and the nation’s premier pro-life legal team – analyzed the SCOTUS decision on the Indiana abortion law.

7am – B         MCCONNELL ANSWERS QUESTION ABOUT SCOTUS:

• McConnell was asked, “Should a Supreme Court justice die next year, what will your position be on filling that spot?” The leader took a long sip of his drink before announcing with a smile, “Oh, we’d fill it,” triggering loud laughter from the audience.
• CNN HEADLINE: In reversal from 2016, McConnell says he would fill a potential Supreme Court vacancy in 2020
• LOGAN DOBSON: This is not at all a reversal — McConnell in 2016 was clear that because voters have delivered a Senate and President of *different* parties, they should be allowed to have their say in the next election. Not so in 2020.
• FRANK THORP: McConnell said this on March 1, 2016: “you’d have to go back to 1888 when Grover Cleveland was in the WH to find the last time a vacancy created in a presidential year was confirmed by the party opposite the occupant of the WH. So this vacancy will not be filled this year.”

7am – C         MICHAEL WOLFF GIVES IT ANOTHER SHOT WITH “SIEGE”:

• ‘Fire and Fury’ author claims Mueller drafted three-count indictment charging Trump with obstruction and witness tampering – but special counsel’s office says supposed internal documents ‘do not exist’ (Daily Mail) —  ‘Fire and Fury’ author Michael Wolff is back with another explosive claim about President Trump in a new book titled ‘Siege.’ Wolff claims to have a draft of a Special Counsel indictment charging Trump with obstruction of justice, witness tampering and retaliating against a witness. Special counsel’s office tells DailyMail.com that such documents ‘do not exist.’ The author of last year’s biggest bombshell political bestseller claims in his new book that Special Counsel Robert Mueller drafted a three-count obstruction of justice indictment against President Donald Trump but decided not to pursue it. Michael Wolff’s first anti-Trump tome, ‘Fire and Fury,’ largely fell apart under the withering eye of fact-checkers and his own admission that he included stories he believed were untrue. A week before book number two, ‘Siege,’ hits stores, Mueller’s spokesman Peter Carr – known in Washington mostly for holding his tongue – says flatly that its marquee claim is false. Wolff writes that his claim is ‘based on internal documents given to me by sources close to the Office of the Special Counsel.’
• ‘The Jews always flip.’ What Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff claims Trump said as series of associates including Michael Cohen did deals with investigators. (Daily Mail) – In a new book by Michael Wolff, the author and journalist claims President Donald Trump accused Jewish people of flipping loyalty, especially in reference to his former Jewish associates. ‘The Jews always flip,’ Trump said, according to Wolff’s upcoming book Siege: Trump Under Fire. According to the excerpt from the book, which was obtained by The Guardian a week before its publication date, Trump made this remark after his associates made deals to cooperate with Special Counsel Robert Mueller. Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen, Trump Organization accountant Allen Weisselberg and American Media CEO David Pecker all made cooperating plea deals with Mueller’s team – they are also all Jewish. The book is set to be released June 4 and is a sequel to his 2018 book ‘Fire and Fury,’ which detailed Trump and his staff’s behavior during the 2016 campaign and the first year he was in office.

7am – D         BIDEN NEWS:

• Creepy Joe Biden Tells 10-Year-Old Girl at Rally: “I’ll Bet You’re as Bright as You are Good Looking.”  Joe Biden, who has publicly stated that he would stop touching women without their permission and would respect their space, touches a young girl at a campaign rally Biden tells her, “I bet you’re as bright as you are good looking”
• Biden campaign slams Trump for criticizing former vice president on foreign soil. (The Hill) — Joe Biden’s campaign on Tuesday issued a sharp response to President Trump’s criticism of the former vice president while on a state visit to Japan, calling the president’s attacks on his potential 2020 rival “beneath the dignity of the office.” Biden’s office waited for Trump to land in the United States before issuing the statement, a nod toward the old adage that criticism stops while the president is abroad. “To be on foreign soil, on Memorial Day, and to side repeatedly with a murderous dictator against a fellow American and former Vice President speaks for itself,” deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said in a statement. “And it’s part of a pattern of embracing autocrats at the expense of our institutions – whether taking Putin’s word at face value in Helsinki or exchanging ‘love letters’ with Kim Jong Un.”
• Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump: 11h11 hours ago I was actually sticking up for Sleepy Joe Biden while on foreign soil. Kim Jong Un called him a “low IQ idiot,” and many other things, whereas I related the quote of Chairman Kim as a much softer “low IQ individual.” Who could possibly be upset with that?

7am – E         CNN’s Jim Acosta says media ‘neutrality’ doesn’t serve us in the age of Trump, admits to ‘showboating’ and ‘grandstanding’ (Fox News) — CNN’s White House star, and frequent Trump foil, Jim Acosta has declared that media ‘neutrality’ is no longer a possibility under this president. In his new book, “The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America,” Acosta admits to occasionally “grandstanding” and “showboating” during White House press briefings and that he “opts for the bait.” “Neutrality for the sake of neutrality doesn’t really serve us in the age of Trump,” Acosta writes, according to excerpts from his upcoming book obtained by The Guardian. The book also recounts the time Trump had then-White House aide Hope Hicks called him in February 2017 to commend him for being “very professional today,” adding that the president said “Jim gets it” of Acosta despite recently calling the reporter “very fake news” after he brought up Kremlin medaling during a presser.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – DAN BONGINO – author of the upcoming book “Exonerated: The Failed Takedown of President Donald Trump by the Swamp”

• Christoper Steele refuses to speak to US special prosecutor John Durham. WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The former British spy who produced a dossier describing alleged links between Donald Trump and Russia will not cooperate with a prosecutor assigned by U.S. Attorney General William Barr to review how the investigations of Trump and his 2016 election campaign began, a source with knowledge of the situation said
• Comey op-ed: ‘There was no treason. There was no attempted coup … dumb lies.’ In an op-ed in the Washington Post on Tuesday, former FBI Director James Comey lambasted the President Trump’s claim that he and his agency committed “treason” during the Russia investigation, noting that although it was tempting to ignore the president, he was acting as a “liar who doesn’t care what damage he does to vital institutions.
• Hillary Clinton was ‘ecstatic’ when Trump fired Comey, new book says. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has opposed virtually everything President Trump has done since he took office, but she apparently cheered at his firing of FBI Director James Comey according to a new book. In the volume, “We’ve Got People: From Jesse Jackson to AOC, the End of Big Money and the Rise of a Movement,” author Ryan Grim, the Washington bureau chief of The Intercept, interviewed people in Clinton’s inner circle, including former spokesman Brian Fallon. Grim said Clinton was “ecstatic” when news of the Comey move broke.

8am – B/C  ENTERTAINMENT NEWS:

• Taylor Swift Says Her Upcoming New Music Will Have ‘Political Undertones’ “I’m not planning to stop encouraging young people to vote and to try to get them to talk about what’s going on in our country,” Taylor Swift told RTL. Nearly eight months after breaking her silence on politics, Taylor Swift is planning to channel her outspokenness through her new music. In a new interview with German outlet RTL, the “Look What You Made Me Do” singer said that her highly anticipated upcoming seventh studio album will include music with a political message. “I definitely think there are political undertones in the new music I made,” Swift said, according to translations as reported by multiple outlets. “I’m not planning to stop encouraging young people to vote and to try to get them to talk about what’s going on in our country. I think that’s one of the most important things I could do.”
• Nathan McDermott ‏ @natemcdermott 19h19 hours ago Finally, Taylor wil break her silence on the renegotiated NAFTA
• Kanye West To David Letterman: “Liberals Bully People Who Are Trump Supporters.” Kanye West refused to back down in his support of President Donald Trump in an appearance on David Letterman’s new Netflix series. West, a guest Letterman’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, claimed liberals bully Trump supporters. “This is like my thing with Trump — we don’t have to feel the same way, but we have the right to feel what we feel,” West said. His decision to wear a “Make American Great Again” hat is a way to show people they shouldn’t be afraid to express opinions, West said, adding that it’s “not about politics.” Letterman challenged West on allegations of voter suppression during mid-term elections. “So if I see a person that I admire talking about Donald Trump can think whatever he does,” Letterman said, “I wonder if those thoughts, indirectly, aren’t hurting people who are already being hurt.”

8am – D         INTERVIEW – DR. ROY SPENCER – Climatologist, weather and climate researcher at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, former NASA scientist

• Spencer (Ph.D. Meteorology) is a weather and climate researcher at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. During his college years, he performed tornado damage surveys for the National Weather Service, and has published studies on the use of satellite data to identify severe thunderstorms.
• TOPIC: The Wave of Tornadoes – Why? Is It Climate Change? AND TRUMP ADMIN HAS PLANS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
• Roy Spencer: Why so many tornadoes this year? It’s not what AOC, Bernie Sanders (or maybe even you) think. By Roy Spencer | Fox News Progressive politicians like Al Gore, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D.N.Y., don’t hesitate to blame any kind of severe weather – even if it is decreasing over time – on global warming. With the devastating Dayton, Ohio tornadoes fresh on our minds, it is useful to examine exactly why (modest) global warming has produced fewer – not more – of such events. The simple answer is that tornado formation requires unusually cool air.
• Trump declares emergency in Kansas after tornado destroys several homes, leaves at least 11 injured
• 5 million without power as destructive tornado hits Dayton, Ohio.  “It looks in areas like a war zone, some of the houses were completely moved off their foundations and gone,” says the mayor of Celina, Ohio.
• FLASHBACK LAST WEEK: AOC called out by meteorologist after linking DC tornado warning to climate change.
• President Donald Trump and his administration are planning an attack on the science upon which climate change policy rests. President Donald Trump and his administration are planning an attack on the science upon which climate change policy rests, it was revealed on Tuesday. (Daily Mail) President Donald Trump and his administration are planning an attack on the science upon which climate change policy rests, it was revealed on Tuesday. Leading the charge will be the administration’s new climate review panel led by a 79-year-old Princeton physicist who has become famous for defending the use of carbon dioxide – even comparing its demonization to the treatment of Jews under German dictator Adolf Hitler.  ‘The demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler,’ said William Happer, who serves on the National Security Council as the president’s deputy assistant for emerging technologies, to The New York Times. Happer is backed by National Security Adviser John Bolton, who brought him on board and supports the new climate panel. The two men are also backed by Robert and Rebekah Mercer, the ultra-conservative billionaire and his daughter who have funded efforts to debunk climate science.  But some administration officials – such as economic adviser Larry Kudlow – have advised the president not to follow Happer’s recommendations as it would be seen as an attack on science.

8am – E   Parents with college students making this dangerous mistake, financial expert says. (Fox Business) – It’s graduation season again. As college students graduate, they walk across the stage to pick up their diplomas and then walk right back home to mom and dad’s house. More than one third of young adults between ages 18 and 34 lived at home in 2015, up from 26 percent  in 2005, according to census data. Many parents don’t charge rent to their returning progeny, but some financial experts say they should pay their share of the real estate. Financial expert and author of ‘Everyday Millionaires’ Chris Hogan  believes this is an opportunity to help young people to really step into adulthood. They need guidance and steps that are necessary. “If they are gonna come back home before college or starting their career, parents need to have an open ended, realistic conversation. Set boundaries. Start to talk about the conversation. How long are they gonna live there? What are they gonna be responsible for paying while they’re there? The most dangerous thing I’ve seen is letting young adults come home without any kind financial expectation,” Hogan told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo on Tuesday.  Young adults often take a lot of flak for moving back home after college, and are called lazy and entitled for living with their parents. But that’s not always the case. Some millennials use the opportunity, thanks to their parents’ generosity, to find a job, get situated and save money for their futures. As a result, when they do buy homes, they’re skipping the starter home buying and saving for a big home in the suburbs as they look for a larger home.