National Park Service’s Mike Litterst, Lanny Davis, KT McFarland, DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson and Au professor Allan Lichtmen joined WMAL on Wednesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C DOD chief says 9/11 bill could be devastating to US military. (Fox News) — WASHINGTON –  Defense Secretary Ash Carter says legislation backed by the families of Sept. 11 victims could be devastating to the U.S. military. Carter’s concerns are detailed in a letter to a senior member of Congress that was released Tuesday. Congress is poised to override President Barack Obama’s veto of the bill that would allow the families to sue Saudi Arabia for the kingdom’s alleged backing of the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks. Obama has warned the legislation would make the U.S. vulnerable to retaliatory litigation in foreign courts that could put American troops in legal jeopardy. Carter amplifies Obama’s concerns. He says cases tried overseas could put the U.S. in the difficult position of having to choose between revealing secrets and suffering adverse rulings for refusing to do so.

5am – D         DRIVE AT FIVE INTERVIEW – MIKE LITTERST – Spokesperson, National Park Service – discussed the latest on the Washington Monument being closed indefinitely.

5am – E         Hillary News:

• Poll: Only 36% trust Hillary Clinton’s health. WASHINGTON — The “stamina,” the “look”: A new poll suggests voters are buying in to Donald Trump’s insinuations about Hillary Clinton’s health. They’re ignoring the medical reports. Voters — especially men — have more confidence that Trump is healthy enough for the presidency than Clinton, according to the Associated Press-GfK poll. The AP-GfK poll found 51 percent of voters are very or extremely confident that Trump is healthy enough to be president. In contrast, just over a third of voters — 36 percent — had the same confidence in Clinton’s health.
• Hillary Failed To Take Highest Security Training. (Daily Caller) – Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton failed to complete the highest level of security training mandated by the Department of State for the proper handling of the government’s most secret documents when she entered the department in 2009, according to documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation under the Freedom of Information Act. The State Department released 46 pages of previously unseen documents Tuesday under a Sept. 20, 2016, order issued by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon. The judge angrily told Department of Justice attorneys to stop dragging their feet, and ordered the State Department to conduct an expedited release of all training documents sought in TheDCNF’s FOIA for Clinton and her aides by Oct. 10, 2016. The first batch of documents were to be released Monday, but that was delayed until early Tuesday. According to the documents, Clinton’s chief of staff Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin, her deputy chief, both completed required training on the handling of “Special Compartmented Information” (SCI) when they entered the department.
• James Comey, FBI director: Cheryl Mills immunity was ‘not irregular.’ FBI says time crunch necessitated immunity deal for Clinton aide Cheryl Mills. (Washington Times) –  FBI Director James B. Comey said Tuesday that his agency was nearing a deadline and had to offer Cheryl Mills, one of Hillary Clinton’s top aides, a limited immunity deal in order to get a peek at the former secretary of state’s secret emails and bring its investigation to a quick conclusion. Mr. Comey, testifying to Congress, also said it was “not irregular” for Ms. Mills to then sit in as Mrs. Clinton’s attorney when FBI agents interviewed her this summer.

6am – A/B/C Clintons Vs Women: Should Trump Have Taken on Hillary More In The Debate?

6am – D         Elon Musk Mars mission will send people to die on Red Planet on hope of colonising it. Musk’s private space company, SpaceX, intends to stake a claim to Mars and have people living on it within decades, he said. The ship would take off from Earth carried by a booster, which would get it out of our orbit. It would then make the rest of its way on its own, and the rocket itself would come back down to Earth so that it can be re-used – as many as 1,000 times, Mr Musk said. Once people get to the planet, they will get to work colonising it – a project that will include work to grow things on Mars’s harsh surface. And they will also start working on the fuel to bring them back, which Mr Musk hopes can be made out of materials found on Mars, so that it wouldn’t have to be carried with them there. But the first people who make it Mars as part of his mission will probably never be able to use that fuel. It’s highly likely that they’ll die, he said – and nobody taking part in the mission should be under any illusions otherwise. “I think the first journeys to Mars will be very dangerous,” Mr Musk said in response to an audience question at the event. “The risk of fatality will be very high. There’s just no way around it.” As such, all candidates should be “prepared to die” if they want to be a candidate for going, he said.

6am – E         Israel News:

• Boos for Bibi: Israeli PM Netanyahu is jeered by Broadway crowd as he goes to watch hit musical Hamilton. (Daily Mail) — Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was met with a mixed reception when he went to watch Broadway musical Hamilton. While many in the crowd clapped as the politician arrived at Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York, others booed and yelled out ‘Free Palestine’. Two women were even escorted out of the theatre after trying to shove their way through the politician’s heavy security, witnesses said.
• Boos for Bibi: Israeli PM Netanyahu is jeered by Broadway crowd as he goes to watch hit musical Hamilton. (Daily Mail) — Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was met with a mixed reception when he went to watch Broadway musical Hamilton. While many in the crowd clapped as the politician arrived at Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York, others booed and yelled out ‘Free Palestine’.

7am – A         INTERVIEW — LANNY DAVIS – former special counsel to President Bill Clinton and author of “Crisis Tales: Five Rules for Coping with Crises in Business, Politics, and Life” – shared his thoughts on the debate, Hillary’s health and emails.

• Poll: Only 36% trust Hillary Clinton’s health. WASHINGTON — The “stamina,” the “look”: A new poll suggests voters are buying in to Donald Trump’s insinuations about Hillary Clinton’s health. They’re ignoring the medical reports. Voters — especially men — have more confidence that Trump is healthy enough for the presidency than Clinton, according to the Associated Press-GfK poll. The AP-GfK poll found 51 percent of voters are very or extremely confident that Trump is healthy enough to be president. In contrast, just over a third of voters — 36 percent — had the same confidence in Clinton’s health.
• James Comey, FBI director: Cheryl Mills immunity was ‘not irregular.’ FBI says time crunch necessitated immunity deal for Clinton aide Cheryl Mills. (Washington Times) –  FBI Director James B. Comey said Tuesday that his agency was nearing a deadline and had to offer Cheryl Mills, one of Hillary Clinton’s top aides, a limited immunity deal in order to get a peek at the former secretary of state’s secret emails and bring its investigation to a quick conclusion. Mr. Comey, testifying to Congress, also said it was “not irregular” for Ms. Mills to then sit in as Mrs. Clinton’s attorney when FBI agents interviewed her this summer.

7am – B         School adopts gender-neutral homecoming court, so there might be no ‘king’ or ‘queen’ (Washington Post) — Breaking with the tradition at many of the nation’s schools, students at Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School will adopt a gender-neutral homecoming court this year, moving away from the longtime practice of electing a boy as “king” and a girl as “queen.” Students in each grade will vote for two classmates from a ballot of finalists, with the top vote-getters crowned at the school’s homecoming football game. It’s a change that means those honored at halftime on Oct. 7 could include two boys, two girls, transgender students or a boy-girl duo. “It provides an opportunity for all students to be involved in something that was exclusionary,” said Jacob Rains, president of the schoolwide Student Government Association. “It is really not our job, especially with a gender-neutral and transgender population at B-CC, to tell people that boys have to be kings and girls have to be queens. Who are we to put people into those categories?” The change at the high-performing school in Montgomery County comes as others across the country have begun to rethink how gender classifications affect students. Many Montgomery high schools changed how they assign graduation robes: Instead of using one color for girls and another for boys, they have all students wear the same color.

7am – C          Debate breaks record as most-watched in U.S. history. Monday night was the most-watched debate in American history. Well over 80 million people tuned in to see Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump face off, setting a new record in the sixty year history of televised presidential debates. According to Nielsen, the debate averaged a total of 84 million viewers across 13 of the TV channels that carried it live. Many millions also watched the debate via live streams on the web. Nielsen’s 84 million total counts people who watched via traditional TV channels at home. People who watched the debate at parties, bars, restaurants, and offices were not counted. Neither were C-SPAN viewers.

7am – D         INTERVIEW — KT MCFARLAND – Fox News National Security Analyst @KTMCFARLAND

• ISRAEL: Shimon Peres: Israel’s warrior for peace dies. (CNN) — Tel Aviv, Israel (CNN) Shimon Peres, the Israeli elder statesman who shared a Nobel Prize for forging a peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians, has died. He served as a constant force for generations in Israeli politics. The 93-year-old died after suffering a massive stroke two weeks ago. He was reported to be making progress but doctors said he took a turn for the worse Tuesday.
• 9/11 BILL:  DOD chief says 9/11 bill could be devastating to US military. (Fox News) — WASHINGTON –  Defense Secretary Ash Carter says legislation backed by the families of Sept. 11 victims could be devastating to the U.S. military. Carter’s concerns are detailed in a letter to a senior member of Congress that was released Tuesday. Congress is poised to override President Barack Obama’s veto of the bill that would allow the families to sue Saudi Arabia for the kingdom’s alleged backing of the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks. Obama has warned the legislation would make the U.S. vulnerable to retaliatory litigation in foreign courts that could put American troops in legal jeopardy. Carter amplifies Obama’s concerns. He says cases tried overseas could put the U.S. in the difficult position of having to choose between revealing secrets and suffering adverse rulings for refusing to do so.

7am – E         INTERVIEW — DC COUNCIL CHAIRMAN PHIL MENDELSON

• DC Council considers rush on New Columbia statehood constitution. WASHINGTON — One step closer to statehood, the D.C. Council heard and discussed what could be the state constitution for “New Columbia.” “The question is not why statehood, but what it should look like,” said D.C. council member Mary Cheh during Tuesday’s hearing. To create the state of New Columbia, the citizens of the District are following what’s called the “Tennessee Plan.” “The citizens, of in this case of the District, get their proposal together before they petition Congress for admission into the union,” Council Chair Phil Mendelson explained at the hearing’s outset. But there’s little time to waste to get the referendum to voters by Nov. 8. It will need to be approved by voters in November to be sent to Congress. It’s a big job to be done in a small window of time.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – PROFESSOR ALLAN LICHTMAN –  Distinguished Professor of History: American University – shared his thoughts on the election how he predicted Trump winning this year’s election.

• 2016 election puts AU prof’s presidential prediction model to the test. WASHINGTON — The American University professor who has correctly predicted every election since 1984 is hedging his bets on 2016. Allan Lichtman, a history professor at AU, told WTOP on Monday that presidential elections, for all the pundit-fueled dissection of polls, momentum and narrative, are “primarily referenda on the performance of the party holding the White House.” He developed his 13-point system in 1981 for predicting the popular vote based on the results and analysis of presidential elections from 1860 to 1980. He started making his predictions in 1984.

8am – B         Pumpkin Spice Craze Is Back:

• McDonald’s tests pumpkin spice fries in Japan. The signature flavor of fall is no longer just for lattes and muffin mixes.  In Japan, McDonald’s is serving pumpkin and chocolate covered french fries, Food and Wine reports. The fries, drizzled in a sweet chocolate and pumpkin sauce, are available from Sept. 28 through Halloween.
• Pumpkin spice is everywhere this Halloween, but maybe it shouldn’t be. Consumers crave pumpkin spice everything — and companies are delivering. It all started with the Starbucks SBUX, +0.28% pumpkin spice latte in 2003. To say it was well-received would be an understatement and, now, 13 years later, brands across numerous industries have joined the pumpkin party. This year, General Mills GIS, +0.03%   introduced pumpkin spice Cheerios and Kellogg’s K, -0.01%   debuted pumpkin spice Nutri-Grain bars, Lindt LISN, +0.68%  released its pumpkin spice chocolates and McDonald’s MCD, +0.30% in Japan created pumpkin spice-inspired fries. This adds to the overwhelming number of other pumpkin products, including but not limited to: coffees, teas, Twinkies, Oreos, cookies, cupcakes, peanuts, sausage, beer, pastas, sauce, milk, doughnuts, chips, gum, ice cream, soap – both dish and hand, shampoo, peanut butter, pudding, popcorn, candles, hummus… and, yes, even dog food.

8am – C         ‘DWTS’ Season 23: Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry Booted From Ballroom in Week 3. During his time on the show, the 66-year-old former longtime governor who twice unsuccessfully sought the Republican party’s nomination for president turned in ebullient routines that pleased the audience but which judges found lacking in polish, artistry and technical ability. Judge Bruno Tonioli earned boos from the ballroom audience when he compared the footwork on one of Perry’s routines -– a quickstep — to “heavy machinery.” “One thing is for sure your performances are very, very catchy. It’s like a bad cold. You can’t get rid of it,” the judge noted, even as he gave Perry credit for enthusiastic delivery. After he learned his fate Perry hugged his pro partner Emma Slater, then said he participated on the show to highlight veterans’ issues and invited viewers to find a veterans cause to support. “My daughter’s getting married October 15th and I can promise you I will look good on the dance floor for her,” Perry said, referring to the instruction he had received on the show.

8am – D/E     Clownpocalypse: Clown Sightings Spread to Florida, Virginia and Colorado.  Reports of “killer clowns” have emerged in three new states, as Virginia, Florida and Colorado struggle with Internet rumors and reported sightings that have left several towns shaken. Residents and authorities in Palm Bay, Fla., have been on high alert since a resident reported seeing two “creepy clowns” staring at her from across a road as she walked her dog. And in Marion County, Fla., deputies are concerned after it emerged that a Facebook viral video, depicting a clown standing silently on the side of the road in the dark, had been filmed along a main thoroughfare in the area. The video has more than a million views on Facebook. Reports of “killer clowns” have emerged in three new states, as Virginia, Florida and Colorado struggle with Internet rumors and reported sightings that have left several towns shaken. Residents and authorities in Palm Bay, Fla., have been on high alert since a resident reported seeing two “creepy clowns” staring at her from across a road as she walked her dog. And in Marion County, Fla., deputies are concerned after it emerged that a Facebook viral video, depicting a clown standing silently on the side of the road in the dark, had been filmed along a main thoroughfare in the area. The video has more than a million views on Facebook. In Henrico County, Va., a mother and daughter captured a “creepy clown” leering at them from another car during rush hour.