Lt. Col. Bill Cowan, Trevor Matich, Maryland Lt. Gov.-Elect Boyd Rutherford and Bret Baier joined WMAL on Friday.
Mornings on the Mall
Friday, December 12, 2014
Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor
5am – A/B/C Geraldo: Lebron Should Wear a Shirt That Says ‘Be a Better Father.’ During a “Race in America” panel that did not contain any African-American participants on last night’s Hannity, Geraldo Rivera took the opportunity to criticize LeBron James and other NBA players for wearing “I Can’t Breathe” t-shirts during warm-up practice at this weeks Cavaliers-Nets game in Brooklyn: “I wondered to myself, what if LeBron James instead had a shirt, ‘Be a better father to your dad’ — I mean, ‘Be a better father to your son,’ ‘Raise your children,’” Rivera suggested. “Those difficult issues are not being dealt with by the black community because they are so complex, they are so deep-rooted, they are really so profoundly troubling that they don’t want to try.” “And it is a victimization mentality that we can only motivate, when we are the victims,” he continued. “It goes in keeping with everything that’s happened to the black community and the generations preceding. It’s easy to demonstrate and be outraged when we are the victims. ‘Look what we are doing to us rather than what we are doing to ourselves.’ There’s a kind of urban suicide happening here that has to be dealt with.” If you recall, Rivera is the same pundit who said, “the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.” So, at least we can be confident he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to this issue.
5am – D DRIVE AT FIVE INTERVIEW: ROBERT THOMSON – Washington Post's Dr. Gridlock
- 95 Express Lanes to open, temporarily free, on Sunday. The D.C. region’s drivers may see this as a bit of a holiday present: The 95 Express Lanes are set to open on Sunday along the project’s full 29 miles in Northern Virginia. But for the first two weeks, drivers can use them for free. The road surface is ready, project spokesman Michael McGurk said Wednesday morning. But project managers want to continue testing the tolling equipment. They can do this, as they have been doing, without billing any of the motorists driving in the lanes, including those who have E-ZPass transponders.
5am – E 'Cromnibus' Spending Bill Passes, Just Hours Before Deadline. A massive federal spending bill finally won the House's approval Thursday night, less than 3 hours before a midnight deadline that threatened a federal shutdown. The measure's fate had been in doubt after it narrowly survived a rules vote earlier in the day. The final tally was 219-206.
6am – A/B/C Time capsule found at Massachusetts Statehouse. (AP) — BOSTON – Crews removed a time capsule dating back to 1795 on Thursday from the granite cornerstone of the Massachusetts Statehouse, where historians believe it was originally placed by Revolutionary War luminaries Samuel Adams and Paul Revere among others. The time capsule is believed to contain items such as old coins and newspapers, but the condition of the contents is not known and Secretary of State William Galvin speculated that some could have deteriorated over time. Officials won't open the capsule until after it is X-rayed at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts to determine its contents. The X-ray is scheduled for Sunday. Originally made of cowhide, the time capsule was believed to have been embedded in the cornerstone when construction on the state Capitol began in 1795. Adams was governor of Massachusetts at the time.
6am – D INTERVIEW — LT COL BILL COWAN – USMC (Ret) and Fox News Channel Military Analyst and author of new book “Snatching Hillary.”
- Col. Cowan interrogated numerous prisoners while working CIA operations in Vietnam.
- CIA director defends agency's performance. WASHINGTON — The director of the CIA mounted a forceful but nuanced defense of the spy agency Thursday in response to a damning Senate report on its use of torture during the George W. Bush administration. "In many respects the program was uncharted territory for the CIA, and we were unprepared," John Brennan said in an unprecedented 45-minute televised press conference Thursday afternoon from the agency's headquarters in Langley, Va. "But the president authorized the program six days after 9/11, and it was our job to carry it out."
6am – E Hacking Keurigs for cheaper coffee. NEW YORK (CNNMoney) – You can make your caffeine addiction a lot less expensive with a piece of tape and a pair of scissors. A Keurig coffee machine owner found a simple hack to get around Keurig Green Mountain's (GMCR) notorious K-cup restrictions. The coffee maker company only allows its new Keurig 2.0 machines to brew coffee from coffee brands that are licensed to use K-cups. Keurig mandates that its licensed K-cups come equipped with tiny radio frequency emitters. Without the correct signal, Keurig 2.0 machines won't brew coffee. But a video posted to KeurigHack.com shows that placing the lid of a licensed K-Cup on top of the lid of an unlicensed cup will fool a Keurig 2.0 machine into brewing your off-brand coffee.
7am – A/B/C INTERVIEW — TREVOR MATICH – WMAL's Redskins Analyst
- Trevor discussed the next Redskins game: Redskins vs New York Giants
- Colt McCoy on track to start for Redskins in Week 15. McCoy To Start If Medically Cleared. Jay Gruden may be in the middle of a mess in Washington, but he knows the quarterback he wants leading the offensive part of it. Gruden said Thursday that Colt McCoy put in another good practice and that he’s the choice to start as long as doctors give the final green light on Friday. Gruden didn’t sound too worried about the chances that McCoy’s neck injury will keep him from hitting the field on Sunday afternoon. “Just a precautionary thing, just to make sure everything is good and there’s no risk of any injury,” Gruden said, via CSNWashington.com. “It looks pretty positive right now.”
7am – B 'Cromnibus' Spending Bill Passes, Just Hours Before Deadline. A massive federal spending bill finally won the House's approval Thursday night, less than 3 hours before a midnight deadline that threatened a federal shutdown. The measure's fate had been in doubt after it narrowly survived a rules vote earlier in the day. The final tally was 219-206.
7am – C Sony Hack: Scott Rudin, Amy Pascal Made Racist President Obama Jokes in Leaked Emails, Apologize for Insensitive Remarks. All-around awful. Sony Pictures chair Amy Pascal and high-powered producer Scott Rudin joked about President Barack Obama's race in an incendiary email exchange leaked by hackers, as posted by BuzzFeed on Wednesday, Dec. 10. They later issued apologies for their insensitive remarks. In the messages, Pascal allegedly asked Rudin for suggestions on what she should discuss with Obama at a "stupid" fundraising breakfast hosted by DreamWorks Animation head Jeffrey Katzenberg, a big Democratic donor, in November 2013. Rudin, 56, whose producing credits include Moneyball, Captain Phillips, and The Social Network, asked whether he would like to help finance any films. "I doubt it," Pascal responded. "Should I ask him if he liked Django [Unchained]?" Rudin replied: "12 Years [a Slave]," to which Pascal brought up a series of other films starring African-Americans. "Or the butler. Or think like a man?" "Ride-along," responded Rudin. "I bet he likes Kevin Hart."
7am – D INTERVIEW – MARYLAND LT. GOV-ELECT BOYD RUTHERFORD – discussed his plans as Lt. Governor to assess and review every state agency as part of the transition.
>> Hogan says Maryland needs 'strong medicine' to cure budget woes. Republican Gov.-elect Larry Hogan on Thursday painted a grim portrait of the financial house he'll inherit next year, saying Maryland needs "strong medicine" to end an era of outsized spending. Hogan, citing the same financial numbers released by legislative analysts last month, decried a $1 billion structural deficit expected for next year and promised not to use the "gimmicks" he said his predecessor employed to balance the budget. "The tough decisions have not been made, and the wrong decisions have been made for far too long," Hogan told reporters in Annapolis.
7am – E Golden Globe Nominations: 26 Biggest Snubs and Surprises. The Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. loves to nominate celebrities, but this year, voters left a few off the list — no Angelina Jolie for directing “Unbroken,” no Ben Affleck for “Gone Girl,” no Bradley Cooper for “American Sniper” and no Julia Roberts for HBO’s “The Normal Heart.” The Golden Globes voters, made up of fewer than 100 foreign journalists, don’t overlap with the Academy, but because their nominations are announced just days before the Oscars nominating window, they are an influential group in terms of giving performances a boost. And the big winners after Thursday morning’s announcement included Jake Gyllenhaal for “Nightcrawler,” Jennifer Aniston in “Cake,” David Oyelowo for “Selma” and “Birdman,” which landed more nominations than any other film (seven). On the TV side, the Globes proved to once again be the hippest awards show, by including freshman series like “Jane the Virgin,” “Silicon Valley” and “Transparent.”
Stephen Colbert Won't Take Over the Late Show Until Late Summer 2015. Stephen Colbert will step down from his Comedy Central show next Thursday, December 18, but it will be quite awhile before he reemerges at his new gig on CBS. According to the Los Angeles Times, Colbert won't take his seat behind the Late Show desk until late August or early September. That's a good eight months with no Colbert on the small screen. [Insert all the sad emojis here.] According the newspaper, the purpose of the long break is to provide Colbert with plenty of time to develop a new version of Late Show and settle on a persona that's different from his Colbert Report character. After all, he's been busy recently, interviewing the POTUS and, perhaps more importantly, the creator of the highly addictive Serial podcast. The time will also be used to hire writers and a production staff and to construct a new set in the Ed Sullivan Theater. Colbert's exact start date will be announced in January. On Wednesday, CBS revealed that David Letterman will officially exit the Late Show on May 20, 2015.
8am – A/B/C Rick Perry: Presidential Campaign's 'Not an IQ Test.' (NBC News) — AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Gov. Rick Perry says life experience is more important than book smarts in a president, telling NBC News he's not the same candidate who ran in the Republican primaries in 2012 and that he can win the White House in 2016. "Running for the presidency's not an IQ test. It is a test of an individual's resolve. It's a test of an individual's philosophy. It's a test of an individual's life's experiences," Perry said in an interview at the Governor's Mansion, which he's leaving as his term ends. "And I think Americans are really ready for a leader that will give them a great hope about the future." Perry said he probably has less "margin for error" after he famously couldn't remember one of the federal agencies he said he'd ax during a November 2011 Republican debate. But "I think, over the course of the last two years, people realize that what they saw in 2011 is certainly not the person they're looking at at 2013, 2014, 2015," he said.
8am – D INTERVIEW — BRET BAIER – Anchor, Special Report, Fox News Channel — discussed Bret's interview with former VP Dick Cheney who called the torture report 'full of crap' and the Cromnibus spending bill.
MONDAY: Joe diGenova, Trevor Matich, Washington Post’s Robert Costa and Torie Clarke.
