Mornings on the Mall

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

Cal Thomas, Caroline Glick, Hillsdale’s Dr. Larry Arnn and Parkland father Andrew Pollack joined WMAL on Wednesday morning.

5am – A/B/C Abortion Doctor Who Hoarded Fetuses Faulted WWII Bombings For His ‘Perception’ Of Humanity, Filmmaker Says. (Daily Caller) – An abortion doctor who hoarded fetal remains in his home once blamed World War II bombings in Dresden for his perception of “human beings” and “what they do to each other,” a filmmaker said. Family members discovered a collection of 2,246 medically preserved fetal remains in the Illinois home of 79-year-old Dr. Ulrich George Klopfer after the abortion doctor died on September 3. Klopfer ran three different Indiana abortion clinics during his lifetime and performed over 30,000 abortions since he began operating in 1974.

5am – D         Alex Trebek Has Pancreatic Cancer Setback, Needs More Chemo. “Jeopardy!” host says his numbers “went south” after finishing his first round and immunotherapy didn’t work. (Daily Beast) – Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek revealed Tuesday that he must undergo more chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer because the progress he made after the first round was short-lived. In a video message and an interview on Good Morning America, the 79-year-old said that his early treatment was so successful, he thought he was done with grueling chemo sessions. “That was a bit premature and certainly over-optimistic,” he said in the video. Doctors started him on a course of immunotherapy, but “that didn’t go very well,” he said. “My numbers went south—dramatically and quickly.” Trebek was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer, the most advanced kind, in March. The prognosis for the disease at that stage is grim—just 3 percent of patients survive for five years or longer. When Trebek announced his diagnosis six months ago, he said he was determined to fight it. And he sounded a hopeful note again Tuesday as he disclosed he is back for more chemo. “Hey, they worked very well the first time so we’re expecting good results again,” he told his fans. “But please keep me in your good thoughts and prayers.” In his GMA interview, Trebek said he’s been battling depression and would get teary-eyed while filming the 35th season of Jeopardy! But, he said, he is not afraid of dying.

5am – E         Scarborough Blasts Kamala Harris for Believing ‘Botched’ and ‘Baffling’ NY Times Kavanaugh Essay. (Mediaite) — Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough took issue with recent comments made by Senator Kamala Harris after the Democratic hopeful reacted to a controversial New York Times report about new and unverified allegations of sexual misconduct made by Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh from events that occurred roughly 35 years ago. Harris notably claimed that she thinks we have to believe the victims in these sort of cases. Scarborough believes that take is far too broad and missing a keyword: “allleged.” Scarborough opened with “I heard Kamala Harris say we have to believe the victims,” before chiding Harris with “as a prosecutor she really should put an alleged in front of the word victims, especially in the case in the New York Times essay, the baffling essay, the baffling editing process that they put forward.” He clarified “because, if you believed the alleged victim in the alleged incident, the alleged victim in the alleged incident doesn’t even remember the alleged incident occurring. So if Kamala Harris is believing the, quote, victim, the alleged victim, the alleged victim says, I don’t ever remember that happening, according to friends. So I’m just — again, for a lawyer, I’m confused.”

6am – A         OMAR DELETES MYSTERIOUS TWEETS:

• LUKE ROSIAK: Ilhan Omar Deletes 2013 Tweet That Revealed Her Father’s Name — The Same As Her Husband’s
• JON LEVINE: A spokesperson for Rep. Ilhan Omar sends me the following statement on her deleted tweet from 2013 (SCREENGRAB)
• ANDY NGO: If it is just a nickname, why did Ilhan Omar’s sister list that as her father’s name on a legal marriage document in 1997?

6am – B/C     Undocumented immigrant living in Montgomery Co accused of sexually assaulting woman in car, police say. MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. (FOX 5 DC) – An undocumented immigrant living in Montgomery County is facing decades in prison after being accused of rape. According to charging documents, Josue Gomez-Gonzalez picked up a female friend from her home on September 10.  The two then purchased a bottle of Hennessey and drove to a park in Gaithersburg where police say Gomez-Gonzalez sexually assaulted the woman in the back seat of his car.  Gomez-Gonzalez then took the woman back to his home and sexually assaulted her on his bed, charging documents say. Gomez-Gonzalez has been charged with two counts of second-degree rape. If convicted, he faces up to 50 years behind bars. FOX 5’s Ike Ejiochi reports Gomez-Gonzalez is at least the ninth undocumented immigrant charged with rape or sex abuse in the county since July.  ICE released the following statement Tuesday after filing a detainer on Sept. 12: “Josue A. Gomez-Gonzalez, a native of El Salvador, is the subject of a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainer lodged with the Montgomery County Detention Center, Md., on Sept. 12, after his arrest for rape.”

6am – D         INTERVIEW – CAL THOMAS – Syndicated columnist

• Cokie Roberts Dies; Veteran Broadcast Journalist Was 75. She was known to millions for her pioneering work for ABC News and NPR.
• Israel’s two main parties deadlocked after election, Netanyahu’s future in doubt. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political future was in doubt Wednesday, as Israel’s two main political parties were deadlocked after an unprecedented repeat election.

6am – E         Merriam-Webster adds the nonbinary pronoun ‘they’ to its dictionary.  Merriam-Webster has officially added the nonbinary pronoun “they” as an entry in its dictionary. Merriam-Webster announced Tuesday that the word “they” can be used to refer to a single person whose gender identity is nonbinary along with three other separate definitions.

6am – F         Trump goes on $15M fundraising blitz in California, irritating liberals and Hollywood elites. (Fox News) – President Trump sent liberal California activists into a tizzy on Tuesday, as he executed a lunch-dinner-breakfast-lunch fundraising blitz expected to scoop up $15 million from wealthy Republicans in the state in the span of just two days. The president’s undeterred push westward came a day after he headlined a fiery rally in New Mexico, long a reliably liberal state that the Trump campaign has hoped to turn red in 2020. Trump has been looking to find the next Wisconsin or Michigan — states that Democrats generally have won in presidential elections but that could surprise under certain conditions, as they did in 2016. Also on the Trump team’s shortlist in the new strategy: Nevada, New Hampshire and Minnesota. Trump’s West Coast fundraising efforts come as the Republican National Committee (RNC) is expected to announce this week that it raised a record-setting $23.5 million in August and had $53.8 million cash on hand as of the end of that month — signaling growing GOP momentum heading into the 2020 elections.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – CAROLINE GLICK – author of “The Israeli Solution: A One-State Plan for Peace in the Middle East” and senior columnist of Israel Hayom, Israel’s widest circulation newspaper

• Israel’s two main parties deadlocked after election, Netanyahu’s future in doubt. (Fox News) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s political future was in doubt Wednesday, as Israel’s two main political parties were deadlocked after an unprecedented repeat election.  The election’s seeming political kingmaker, Avigdor Lieberman, said he’ll insist upon a secular unity government between Netanyahu’s Likud and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White parties, who, based on partial results, are currently tied at 32 seats each out of the 120 in parliament.  The 69-year-old Netanyahu, the longest-serving leader in Israeli history, was seeking a fifth term in office but faced a stiff challenge from Gantz. Official results were not expected until sometime Wednesday and the race was still too close to call
• Israeli exit polls show Netanyahu short of majority in year’s second election. (Fox News) – Exit polls published by Israel’s three main television stations early Wednesday projected Blue and White to win 32 seats in the Knesset. Channel 11’s poll projected Likud to win 31 seats, Channel 13’s projected Likud to win 30 seats and Channel 12’s poll projected Likud to win 32 seats. Like Likud, Blue and White and its allies were projected to fall several seats short of the 61 needed to form a coalition, meaning there was no obvious winner in the race. Channel 13’s full exit poll projected the conservative bloc led by Likud to have 53 seats and Blue and White’s center-left bloc to hold 44 seats. If the so-called Joint List — a coalition of Arab-dominated political parties that was projected to take 15 seats — endorses the center-left bloc led by Ganz, that would put them just two seats short of the 61 needed to command a Knesset majority and likely signal the end of Netanyahu’s premiership. Official results were not expected until sometime Wednesday and the race was still too close to call. A member of the Blue and White party said that Tuesday’s polls showed “the era of Netanyahu is over,” according to The Times of Israel.

7am –B/C/D              Combative Lewandowski frustrates Democrats, as impeachment-probe hearing descends into disarray. (Fox News) – Democrats, Lewandowski clash in House committee’s first impeachment hearing; Lewandowski slams Dems for ‘disservice to the American people.’ The House Judiciary Committee’s first hearing as part of its Trump impeachment investigation descended into chaos Tuesday as Democrats clashed with a combative Corey Lewandowski as he refused to answer many of their questions. In an interview with Fox News’ Martha MacCallum on “The Story,” the former Trump campaign manager slammed the hearing as a “disservice to the American people.” “What we know is that the far-left wing of the Democratic Party has to have these hearings to protect themselves in their congressional districts from further left progressives who want to take them out in their primary races,” he said. “This is all politics.” After five hours of testimony before lawmakers, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y. and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, told Lewandowski his “behavior in this hearing room has been completely unacceptable,” and said holding him “in contempt” is “certainly under consideration.”

7am – E         Democratic megadonor arrested, charged with running drug den after third man reportedly overdoses at his home. (Fox News) – Ed Buck, the California Democratic megadonor, was arrested Tuesday and charged with operating a drug house after a third man reportedly suffered an overdose inside his West Hollywood home last week and survived. Buck was charged with three counts of battery and is accused of injecting the alleged third victim with methamphetamine on Sept. 11, the Los Angeles Times reported. He has faced public scrutiny after two black men died from overdoses 18 months apart inside his home. Buck was not charged in those cases. 

8am – A         INTERVIEW – DR. LARRY ARNN – Hillsdale College President — discussed how the university opened a new grad school program at their Washington, D.C. campus.

8am – B/C     ‘America’s Got Talent’ Finals: Simon Cowell Calls Kodi Lee’s Performance the ‘Most Beautiful’ He’s Ever Heard. (E! Online) – Kodi Lee has been one of the frontrunners on America’s Got Talent since the start of the season when Gabrielle Union awarded him the Golden Buzzer and brought him one step closer to his AGT dreams. On Tuesday, delivering the penultimate performance of the live finals, fans learned even more about Lee and fell even deeper in love with his inspirational story and his incredible voice. Life hasn’t been a smooth road for Lee, or his family. The talented pianist was only a few months old when doctors discovered he was blind, and it wasn’t long after that he was diagnosed with autism. But, as he explains in his finals pre-taped package, music has meant everything to him. To see if Lee ends up winning it all, fans will have to tune in to the America’s Got Talent season 14 finale and results show on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.

8am – D         INTERVIEW – ANDREW POLLACK – Parkland School father of Meadow Pollack and author of new book “Why Meadow Died”

• • Andrew Pollack’s new book searches for answers about why his daughter died in Parkland.  (Sun-Sentinel) — A 19-year-old lunatic shot and killed Meadow Pollack in her school hallway. But in a new book, her dad tries to answer: “Why?” Andrew Pollack quickly became a national figure after the Feb. 14, 2018, Parkland massacre that ended the lives of 14 students. A teacher, football coach and athletic director also died. Pollack channeled his anguish and fury into a public crusade to hold people accountable for systemic failings in school security and in the police response. He sued a school deputy, got a campus watchman fired, and campaigned to elect new school board members and a sympathetic governor. He took to Twitter, gathering up followers with the refrain: #Fixit. And he lobbied to train and arm willing guardians in schools, including teachers. Ultimately, he teamed up with Max Eden, an education researcher at a conservative-leaning New York City think tank, to write: “Why Meadow Died: the People and Policies that Created the Parkland Shooter and Endanger America’s Students.”
  • Parkland dad uncovers how district enabled deranged student-turned-shooter.  The former student who later shot up Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was such a threat in school that he was searched every morning for weapons, new testimony shows. The search procedure was revealed in a sworn deposition from Kelvin Greenleaf, the security guard who searched Cruz. The South Florida Sun Sentinel obtained a copy of the deposition this week. “Never found a weapon on him,” Greenleaf explained in the testimony July 11. “I think we got concerned when, I think, we found out he drank bleach, tried to hurt himself or something like that, the kid. That’s when we started, like, having the kid come in every morning to be searched by me, but never found a weapon on the kid, never.” His surprising testimony shows the school recognized the extreme danger the gun-obsessed, mentally disturbed youth posed. “They frisked him. … They had to frisk him every day,” said Andy Pollack, father of Meadow. “They knew that he was a threat. And they subjected all the kids and my daughter to this. Where were their rights? They didn’t tell us that they’re letting a kid in the school that he’s so violent and dangerous we won’t let him in with his backpack and we have to frisk him. But they let this kid into the school with our children.”
  • BOOK EXCERPT: On Nov. 4, after two months of gathering “data” for Cruz’s “Functional Behavior Assessment,” teachers were sent his “Positive Behavior Intervention Plan.” The plan included helpful tips, like:
    • If Nikolas destroys property at a lower level,
      • Calmly let him know he has not followed one of the expectations. Remind him what he is working for.
      • Prompt him to use a cool down pass and walk away to diffuse [sic] the situation.
    • If Nikolas engages in major disruption/property destruction:
      • Let Nikolas know, “you’re getting too loud. I need for you to get back into control by using a cool down pass or calming down at your desk. If you get back into control, you can stay in class. If you continue, I’ll need for you leave [sic].”
      • Walk away and do not pay attention to his behavior.
      • Do not argue with Nikolas or engage with him.
    • When class is over, Nikolas needs to go to his next class and behavior plan should re-set with able to [sic] earn reward breaks again.
    • Teachers were required to implement this plan for at least six weeks until Cruz could become eligible for further evaluation. In late November, Cruz attempted to commit suicide at school by running into oncoming traffic. But that did not accelerate the process.

8am – E         Sharpton Eulogizes Cokie Roberts with Picture of Christiane Amanpour. MSNBC host has historical issues with facts, names, spelling. (Washington Free Beacon) – MSNBC PoliticsNation host Al Sharpton mourned the passing of journalist Cokie Roberts on Tuesday by sending out a tweet with pictures of the still-living journalist Christiane Amanpour. Sharpton tweeted, “Saddened to hear of the passing of legendary journalist Cookie [sic] Roberts. Here is a Easter Sunday special we did in 2011. May she Rest In Peace,” along with several pictures of Amanpour. Aside from the obvious misidentification of the deceased, Sharpton misspelled Roberts’s name. Critics were quick to point out Sharpton’s errors, and he deleted the tweet. Roberts worked for decades as a political reporter and analyst for National Public Radio and ABC News. She died on Tuesday in Washington, D.C., after a long battle with breast cancer. Amanpour is the chief international anchor for CNN and hosts Amanpour & Company on PBS. She lives in London.