Hans Von Spakovsky, Mario Mancuso, Rep. John Mica, Debra Burlingame, Rep. Rob Wittman, Bret Baier and guest host Katie Pavlich joined WMAL on Friday!

Mornings on the Mall

Friday, September 9, 2016

Hosts: Brian Wilson and guest host Katie Pavlich

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C   Feds to drop charges against former Va. Gov. Bob McDonnell (AP) — Federal prosecutors will not pursue another case against former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell or his wife after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned his corruption conviction last month, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia said Thursday. The decision ends a yearlong legal saga for the former governor and once-rising Republican star, who was convicted in 2014 of violating federal bribery law by accepting luxury gifts and loans from a wealthy businessman in exchange for promoting his dietary supplement. The high court unanimously held that McDonnell’s actions were distasteful but didn’t necessarily violate federal bribery laws. McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, were convicted in 2014 of doing favors for wealthy vitamin executive Jonnie Williams in exchange for more than $165,000 in gifts and loans.

5am – D         Would You Control Your Child’s Cell Phone Remotely? (Time) — With this app, says Ralph Acosta of TeenSafe, I can press a simple button on my phone’s screen and I can pause my child’s access to their phone for as long as I want. No matter where my kids are, the phone won’t work. It will only make calls to me. Or the cops. I can schedule times for the phone to be out of service—during school, or dinner, or homework or when they should be sleeping. Or, when they’re being annoying. Or won’t unpack the dishwasher. Or, you know, always. Little does he know, this tech guy, he’s preaching to the choirmistress. He’s selling me on an app that to my mind, will solve all my parenting problems. Doesn’t every parent of a child older than 12 fantasize about making a juvenile Steve Jobs or mini Mark Zuckerberg or tiny Tim Berners-Lee stand in the corner until they promise not to invent things? That lethal combination of the ability to talk to your friends at all times about anything, with video and photo and, occasionally, anonymity, means my offspring have attention and enthusiasm for virtually no non-virtual interactions. And, yeesh, the stuff they post.

5am – E         Critter News:

• Raccoons force US Park Police out of their headquarters. WASHINGTON – The U.S. Park Police have been forced out of their headquarters in the nation’s capital because of an unwanted house guest. The building they had been working out on Ohio Drive in Southwest D.C. is located nearby the Potomac River and the 14th Street Bridge, but it had to be closed down after a family of raccoons moved in. The raccoons caused such a disruption that they had to move more than 20 employees to another part of the complex where the National Park Service’s National Capital Regional Office is located. “They were using our attic space as a bathroom and some of that made its way through the ceiling tiles and that affected our workday,” said U.S. Park Police Sgt. Anna Rose. “It happened once and we thought maybe it was condensation from an air compressor – we didn’t know. Then progressively it got worse and we hired a trapper to come in and we found a family of five living in the building.” The raccoons consisted of two parents and three babies. They were taken by the trapping company to the Eastern Shore of Maryland where they were set free.
• A new honor for President Obama: Scientists have named a parasite after him. WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s no Nobel Peace Prize, but Barack Obama has a new honor to brag about. Scientists have named a parasite after him — and there’s no worming out of it. Meet Baracktrema obamai, a tiny parasitic flatworm that lives in turtles’ blood. A new study officially names the 2-inch, hair-thin creature after Obama. Thomas Platt, the newly retired biology professor at Saint Mary’s College in Indiana who chose the name, says it’s an honor, not an insult. Really. Platt, who discovered and named the flatworm to crown his career before retiring, has more than 30 new species to his credit. In the past, he’s named them after his father-in-law, his doctorate adviser “and other people I have a great deal of respect for. This is clearly something in my small way done to honor our president,” Platt said Thursday. Platt, who is a distant relative of the president, says people pay thousands of dollars for the privilege of having a species named after them.

6am – A/B     ‘What Is Aleppo?’ Gary Johnson Asks, in an Interview Stumble. (NY Times) — Gary Johnson, the former New Mexico governor and Libertarian Party presidential nominee, revealed a surprising lack of foreign policy knowledge on Thursday that could rock his insurgent candidacy when he could not answer a basic question about the crisis in Aleppo, Syria. “What is Aleppo?” Mr. Johnson said when asked on MSNBC how, as president, he would address the refugee crisis in the war-torn Syrian city. When pressed as to whether he was serious, Mr. Johnson indicated that he really was not aware of the city, which has been widely covered during the years that Syria has been engulfed in civil war. After Mike Barnicle, an MSNBC commentator who is often part of the “Morning Joe” program panel, explained that Aleppo was the center of Syria’s refugee crisis, Mr. Johnson struggled to recover. “O.K., got it,” he said, explaining that he thinks that the United States must partner with Russia to diplomatically improve the situation there. “With regard to Syria, I do think that it’s a mess.”

• NY TIMES CORRECTIONS:  Correction: September 8, 2016: An earlier version of this article misidentified the de facto capital of the Islamic State. It is Raqqa, in northern Syria, not Aleppo.
• Correction: September 8, 2016: An earlier version of the above correction misidentified the Syrian capital as Aleppo. It is Damascus.

6am – C         North Korea conducts 5th nuclear test. (USA Today) – TOKYO — North Korea claimed Friday that it successfully conducted a “higher level” test of a nuclear weapon, its second in eight months and its fifth since 2006. The announcement on state media followed seismic activity near its nuclear site. Pyongyang said the test was of a nuclear warhead designed to be mounted on ballistic rockets and demonstrated that it was prepared to hit back at its enemies including the United States if provoked.  North Korea’s state TV said the test was “examined and confirmed.” The test is a violation of United Nations resolutions and will further strain North Korea’s already tense relations with the U.S. and neighboring countries to the Korean peninsula. China, an ally and economic lifeline for North Korea, condemned the test. The White House said President Obama was briefed about the reported seismic activity and held separate phone calls with South Korean President Park Geun-hye and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Park called the detonation an act of “fanatic recklessness.”

6am – D         INTERVIEW – HANS VON SPAKOVSKY (HAHNZ VON SPAH-KOV-SKEE)

–  A former counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Justice Department, former commissioner for the Federal Election Commission from 2006 to 2007 and senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation

• Prosecutors Drop McDonnell Case – Federal prosecutors will not retry former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell on public corruption charges, and will drop charges against his wife Maureen McDonnell.  Former DOJ Attorney Hans von Spakovsky can discuss what lead to the announcement.

6am – E         School informed parents of low-performing students they could opt out of state tests. (Washington Post) – As schools were busy readying students for state exams, teachers at Cora Kelly School for Math, Science and Technology, a high-poverty school in Alexandria, were poring over data to determine which students would probably not do well on the tests. But according to a school district investigation, the effort wasn’t aimed at giving those students extra help.  Instead, Principal Brandon Davis allegedly told teachers this spring to call the parents of students who appeared on the brink of failing the exams to inform them of their right to opt out of the tests, according to the investigation.  Three dozen parents decided to pull their children from the state Standards of Learning exams; no parents at the school had done so the previous year. The move, which meant those students’ scores would not be considered for state accreditation purposes, probably artificially inflated the school’s overall performance and masked the fact that some students were not performing up to standards.  It also means the data used to evaluate the school is potentially flawed and presents evidence that a new Virginia law allowing students to opt out of tests without it affecting a school’s rating could compromise the ability to assess schools. The findings of the report, which the Virginia Department of Education released to The Washington Post on Thursday, come a week before the state publishes its accreditation ratings. The state Department of Education reported that there has been a rise in the number of opt-outs as a result of the new Virginia law.

7am – A   INTERVIEW: MARIO MANCUSO – former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for Special Operations and Combating Terrorism (2005-2007), Iraq war veteran, and currently a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a partner at the KIRKLAND & ELLIS law firm in DC — reflected on the 15th anniversary of 9/11 this weekend and analyze how far we’ve come in fighting terrorism.

7am – B/C   INTERVIEW – REP. JOHN MICA (R-FLORIDA, 7th district)

• Recap yesterday’s Oversight hearing on compliance at State Department
• Oversight Panel Hammers State Department’s Clinton Email Release Delay
• Lawmakers tangle anew over Clinton’s private email server.  (AP) — WASHINGTON – A House hearing Thursday on the State Department’s record-keeping became a pitched battle over Hillary Clinton’s private email server, with Democrats accusing Republicans of using the forum to advance a partisan agenda and undermine her candidacy for president. Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, opened the hearing by condemning Clinton for intentionally making a “mess” of the system for archiving and retrieving documents at State that has frustrated legitimate requests for information from Congress, the media and the public.

7am – D         Alphabet and Chipotle Are Bringing Burrito Delivery Drones to Campus. In what’s sure to be a college student’s dream come true, drones will soon be delivering burritos on the campus of Virginia Tech. The experimental service, to begin this month and last just a few weeks, is a test by Project Wing, a unit of Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. and the Blacksburg, Virginia, university have agreed to participate. The Federal Aviation Administration approved the venture, the most extensive test yet in the U.S. of what many companies — including Amazon.com Inc. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. — hope will eventually become routine drone deliveries of products. Amazon has begun a round of trials at a location in the U.K. “It’s the first time that we’re actually out there delivering stuff to people who want that stuff,” said Dave Vos, who heads Project Wing. Project Wing will use self-guided hybrids that can fly like a plane or hover like a helicopter. They will make deliveries from a Chipotle food truck to assess the accuracy of navigation systems and how people respond. The devices will hover overhead and lower the Chipotle edibles with a winch.

7am – E         Towson basketball coach requiring players to vote in November election. BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Towson University’s men’s basketball coach Pat Skerry is trying something new this season and requiring every member of his team to register to vote in the election this November. Skerry says he doesn’t care who his players vote for, as long as they vote. The Tiger players will not be able to make it to polls on Election Day, due to preparing for the opening game against George Mason University, but Skerry will have his players fill out absentee ballots in the coming weeks. Skerry said, “I’m not a big political guy, or on a soapbox, but with this I think it’s important this year, more than any other, for them to cast their vote for whomever they want.”

8am – A         INTERVIEW – DEBRA BURLINGAME – is the sister of Charles “Chic” Burlingame III, the pilot of the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 that was flown into the Pentagon on 9/11 by Al Qaeda terrorists.

• She is an attorney, a housewife, and a former airline flight attendant.
• She is the Co-founder of 9/11 Families for a Safe & Strong America and Keep America Safe http://www.911familiesforamerica.org
• Reflect on the 15th anniversary of 9/11 this weekend and analyze how far we’ve come in fighting terrorism.
• House to vote this week on a bill that would allow 9/11 victims’ families to sue Saudi Arabia in U.S. court.  The House will vote later this week on a bill that would allow 9/11 victims’ families to sue Saudi Arabia in U.S. court, according to a House GOP leadership aide. Saudi Arabia has criticized the bill, which was passed by a voice vote in the Senate in May. President Obama is expected to veto the measure, known as the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act. The proposal, from Sens. Chuck Schumer, D-New York, and John Cornyn, R-Texas, would give families of 9/11 victims the ability to sue Saudi Arabia for any alleged role in the 2001 terror attacks.

8am – B/C     INTERVIEW — REP. ROB WITTMAN — (R-VA), Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness

• His thoughts on Trump and Clinton sparring over the direction the military and national security needs to go.
• What should be our plan to take out ISIS?
• Trump proposed ending sequester, using military build-up to create jobs
• Donald Trump Wants Military to Hatch Plan to Stop ISIS in 30 Days If election.
• Hillary Clinton Rips Donald Trump for Lauding Vladimir Putin

8am – D         INTERVIEW – BRET BAIER – Anchor, Special Report, Fox News Channel, weekdays at 6 pm

• Bret’s thoughts on Clinton and Trump sparring about national security and military
• ‘What Is Aleppo?’ Gary Johnson Asks, in an Interview Stumble. Was this stumble a harmless mistake or damaging to his candidacy?
• Bret’s thoughts on the 15th anniversary of 911
• Bret has a new show on Sundays “Special Report” 8pm every Sunday ‘til the election.

8am – E         Amtrak Waited 6 Months To Ask If A Trapped Woman Made It Out Of An Elevator. “Are you still in the elevator?”

• Last February, a woman tweeted that she was trapped inside an Amtrak elevator at the Baltimore-Washington International airport in Baltimore, Maryland. “Guys. I’m trapped in an Amtrak elevator at Bwi airport,” Amanda Carpenter, a former staffer for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), tweeted on February 14, 2016. “Help?”
• Amanda Carpenter @amandacarpenter  14 Feb Guys. I’m trapped in an amtrak elevator at Bwi airport. Help?
• @Amtrak: @amandacarpenter We are sorry to hear that. Are you still in the elevator? 10:48 AM – 7 Sep 2016  
• A woman got stuck in an Amtrak elevator on Valentine’s Day, and it took 207 days for Amtrak to ask if she had been rescued. Granted, Amtrak did initially respond on February 14 by telling Carpenter that airport agents were aware that she was trapped: @Amtrak @amandacarpenter BWI agents are aware of you, and are working to get you out. 9:23 AM – 14 Feb 2016  But it wasn’t until September 7 that Amtrak followed up with Carpenter to ask if she had been rescued from the Amtrak elevator that had trapped her in Baltimore.
• “Are you still in the elevator?” the taxpayer-funded rail company’s Twitter account asked on Thursday.