Mornings on the Mall 03.31.17

Eagle Cam’s Julia Cerere, Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, Rockville parent Richard Jurgena, Washington Post’s Robert Costa and Frederick County Del. William Folden joined WMAL on Friday!

Mornings on the Mall

Friday, March 31, 2017

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Mary Walter

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B/C Why do modern brides insist on weddings so lavish they leave guests BROKE? Exotic destinations. Extravagant gift demands. No wonder some friends are still paying off the debt after the marriage is over! (Daily Mail) — As chief bridesmaid at her best friend’s wedding, Claire Duke knew a certain amount of responsibility and planning would fall to her. What she didn’t imagine was that it would cost her so much money to attend the lavish ceremony that her debt would last longer than her friend’s marriage. Claire’s friend, Siobhan, chose a Caribbean beach setting for her big day four years ago. Claire, 33, a chef from the Isle of Man, says: ‘They wanted us to be there no matter what.’ Claire and her then fiance (now husband) Stephen decided their best option was to turn it into a two-week holiday. They ended up spending £5,000 on flights and accommodation in Jamaica, as well as a further £310 on travelling from the Isle of Man to a London airport. ‘Neither of us had enough savings or high enough salaries to fund the trip, so we had to borrow the money from my dad,’ she says. ‘Not only that, we also had to ask my parents to look after our two children, as there was no way we could afford to go as a family.’ Sadly, despite the exotic location, the free-flowing champagne and the no-expense-spared reception, the marriage was not to last. Eighteen months later, Siobhan told Claire that she had filed for divorce. ‘Meanwhile, we were still paying my dad back in instalments,’ says Claire, who is still smarting at the thought of the money she spent attending what turned out to be a flash-in-the-pan marriage.

5am – D RUSSIA NEWS:

• Mike Flynn willing to testify in Russia investigation in return for immunity: report. President Trump’s former national security adviser, Mike Flynn, is willing to testify to investigators in return for immunity, according to a report Thursday. The Wall Street Journal cited officials in saying Flynn, through his attorney Robert Kelner, has made the offer to both the FBI and the House and Senate intelligence committees that are probing any possible ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.
• Two White House officials helped Nunes get Trump surveillance intel: report. Two White House officials helped House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) acquire information that he says shows President Trump’s transition team was incidentally surveilled, according to The New York Times. The Times identified Ezra Cohen-Watnick of the National Security Council and Michael Ellis, a national security lawyer with the White House Counsel’s Office, as the two officials who played a role. The report did not make clear exactly what the pair did to assist Nunes.
• Ex-Obama Official Responds To Allegations She Spread Trump Intel. A former Obama administration official is responding in an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller to recent claims that she helped disseminate intelligence about Donald Trump and his advisers throughout the federal government. Evelyn Farkas, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia until 2015, says she had no hand in circulating actual intelligence, contrary to claims made this week by conservative media outlets, including Sean Hannity. “I had no intelligence whatsoever, I wasn’t in government anymore and didn’t have access to any,” Farkas said in an interview with TheDC on Thursday. Farkas, a former Clinton campaign adviser, found herself in the media spotlight this week after a video clip resurfaced of an interview she gave on March 2.

5am – E ROCKVILLE NEWS:

• Judge denies bond for 17-year-old suspect in Rockville High School rape case. ROCKVILLE, Md. – A judge denied bond Thursday for one of the men suspected of raping a 14-year-old girl at Rockville High School. Jose Montano, 17, was initially denied bond after his arrest on March 16, along with another student, Henry Sanchez-Milian, 18, for the reported rape of the teenage girl inside the high school. But on Monday, his attorney filed a request for a bond review with the Rockville court, citing new evidence that the sex was consensual. In court on Thursday, Montano’s lawyer said the alleged rape victim had text messages with Montano before the incident agreeing to sex. The judge explained that even if the girl had previously agreed to have sex, it doesn’t mean she couldn’t change her mind, and there is no evidence to show that she agreed to sex with both of the suspects.
• Parents hold protest on school safety concerns; Rockville HS beating victim’s family speaks out. ROCKVILLE, Md. – The stepfather of a Rockville High School student attacked inside the school earlier this month is disputing Montgomery County Public Schools’ account that her family did not want police involved initially after the violent beating happened. The attack happened inside the school’s lobby on March 7. The 17-year-old female victim was beaten by another student she did not know just before classes started, her attorney said. Video of the incident was captured by other students in the area and showed the victim being thrown to the ground by her hair as well as being struck and kicked on the floor.
• A Message from Montgomery County Public Schools. Dear MCPS Community, The recent tragic incident at Rockville High School has caused all of us to stop and reflect on our work to ensure the safety and security of our students. While MCPS has a robust security system that includes thousands of cameras in schools, school- and central office-based security personnel, engaged teachers and administrators, and a partnership with the Montgomery County Police Department, we must always consider opportunities to improve school safety. With this in mind, I want to share with you the steps we are taking to review our school safety and security protocols. In collaboration with school administrators and other departments, the Department of School Safety and Security will be conducting security reviews at all schools, beginning with high schools in early April. As part of the review, we will examine security procedures already in place to determine the appropriate next steps for individual schools.

6am – A/B/C Trump: ‘We must fight’ hard-line conservative Freedom Caucus in 2018 midterm elections

• Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 13h13 hours ago: If @RepMarkMeadows, @Jim_Jordan and @Raul_Labrador would get on board we would have both great healthcare and massive tax cuts & reform. 8,901 replies 5,980 retweets 27,156 likes
• Donald J. Trump‏Verified account @realDonaldTrump 21h21 hours ago: The Freedom Caucus will hurt the entire Republican agenda if they don’t get on the team, & fast. We must fight them, & Dems, in 2018!
• Jim Jordan responds, “The Freedom Caucus is trying to change Washington,” he explained. “This bill keeps Washington the same, plain and simple.”

6am – D ‘Super Speeding’ Increasing in DC Area Despite Speed Cameras – 100 mph Drivers Included. Via @NBC4ITeam. Thick traffic and a growing number of speed cameras are not stopping extreme “super speeding” in the Washington, D.C.-area, according to an investigation by the News4 I-Team. A review of state and city court records shows almost 200,000 cases of reckless driving above 80 mph or driving more than 30 mph above the speed limit during the past five years. In some communities, including Arlington County, Virginia, and Prince George’s County, Maryland, the number of reckless or extreme speeders has risen in recent years despite the deployment of speed cameras to reduce speeding. In Fairfax County, Virginia, court records show about 7,000 cases of drivers charged with driving more than 80 mph. They show about 2,000 cases in Prince William County. In several cases reviewed by the I-Team, extreme speeding was recorded by the speed cameras themselves. In recent months, drivers were clocked exceeding 90 mph by cameras in Montgomery County, Maryland, along Germantown Road in Germantown and Connecticut Avenue in Chevy Chase. Montgomery County Police Capt. Thomas Didone said the department will respond whenever extreme speeding is reported.

6am – E INTERVIEW — JULIA CECERE – spokesperson for the American Eagle Foundation. The American Eagle Foundation runs the DC Eagle Cam

• Second eaglet has hatched! Second baby eagle hatches at National Arboretum. WASHINGTON — Make way for eaglet No 2. A day after its sibling hatched, a second eaglet in the National Arboretum’s eagle nest began breaking free of its shell, the American Eagle Foundation said Thursday. The foundation has been tracking the hatching process via a high-definition live stream trained on the eagle nest, known as the DC Eagle Cam. The eaglet officially hatched at 1:54 p.m. Thursday, the foundation said. The baby eagles are the progeny of famous D.C. bald eagle pair “Mr. President” and “First Lady,” who have parented three other eagles from their perch in the D.C. park.

6am – F Twitter account said to be James Comey’s gains thousands of followers almost instantly. (NY Daily News) — A Twitter account named after a prominent theologian has amassed a huge number of followers after a report suggested that it belongs to FBI Director James Comey. The handle @Projectexile7, which goes by the name Reinhold Niebuhr, is “almost certainly” the secret account that Comey recently referenced, according to Gizmodo reporter Ashley Feinberg. Feinberg stops short of saying that the account, which had only a handful of followers before she published her story Thursday afternoon, definitely belongs to the FBI head. Despite a lack of verification about @Projectexile7’s origin, the account had become a phenomenon of its own, with more than 5,000 followers about an hour after the possible Comey connection was alleged. Though it has not been proven to be anything other than a random barely active account on Twitter, it was soon deluged with comments joking about his supposed uncovering or wishing him luck in investigations. Its follower count had ballooned to more than 8,000 by Thursday evening, when it issued what seemed to be a response to the report. “Actually I’m not even mad. That’s amazing,” Reinhold Neibuhr posted with a picture of the movie “Anchorman” and a link to the FBI jobs website.

7am – A INTERVIEW — LT. COL TONY SHAFFER – a CIA trained former senior intelligence officer and the New York Times bestselling author of ” Operation Dark Heart: Spycraft an Special Operations on the Frontlines of Afghanistan – And The Path to Victory.” His last book was “The Last Line.”

• Mike Flynn willing to testify in Russia investigation in return for immunity: report.
• Two White House officials helped Nunes get Trump surveillance intel: report.
• Ex-Obama Official Responds To Allegations She Spread Trump Intel

7am – B INTERVIEW — RICHARD JURGENA (JUR-GUN-NEE) — Spokesperson, Concerned MoCo Tax Payer

• Richard is a MoCo taxpayer and grandparent who spoke at last night’s rally and testified before the Montgomery County (MoCo) Board of Education last night.
• Background on rally: The rally was to bring accountability and commonsense back to Montgomery County’s public schools following the recent alleged rape of a 14 year old freshman during the school day on school property.

7am – C Comedian Rob Schneider to Democrats: Russia is not the problem, you are. Comedian Rob Schneider had a blunt response for Democrats who put the blame on Russia for their loss in the 2016 election. “2010 Dems lost the House. 2012 Dems lost the Senate. 2016 Dems lost the White House. 2017 Dems lost the ability to reason,” he tweeted Wednesday. “It’s not Russia, it’s YOU.” Schneider became a Republican in 2013, telling The Blaze the Democratic Party no longer “serves the people” of California. “The state of California is a mess, and the super majority of Democrats is not working,” he said.

7am – D INTERVIEW – ROBERT COSTA – National political reporter, Washington Post

• Trump: ‘We must fight’ hard-line conservative Freedom Caucus in 2018 midterm elections

7am – E Crayola is retiring one of its iconic colors on National Crayon Day. NEW YORK – Friday is National Crayon Day and Crayola says it will mark the occasion by retiring one of its colors. Crayola, the supplier of colorful art materials, was set to announce the retirement of one of its classic colors in the popular 24-count pack of crayons. The company planned to do the big reveal during a live broadcast on Facebook Friday morning in New York’s Times Square. Instead, on Thursday, the colorful company announced that Dandelion — that bright yellow hue — is the crayon retiring to the Crayola Hall of Fame, calling the color “an adventurous spirit” with “a case of wanderlust.” But Dandelion is pretty young for retirement: It was introduced in 1990, after the Crayola Hall of Fame inducted its first eight members.

8am – A INTERVIEW – Frederick County DELEGATE WILLIAM FOLDEN — a Republican member of the Maryland House of Delegates, representing District 3B. He was first elected to the chamber in 2014.

• Drive slow in the left lane? Md. considering a crackdown. The bill introduced by Frederick County Del. William Folden has cleared the Maryland House of Delegates, and now awaits a vote in the Senate. If passed, it would only affect numbered highways with at least three lanes going in the same direction, and a speed limit of at least 55 mph. That would include the beltway, Route 50, and Interstate 270. But it would not apply during rush hour or any other time traffic is bottling up, or if that driver was about to turn or exit from the left lane. Folden tells The Washington Post it’s about easing up some of the bottlenecks that occur on the roads when one person stifles the flow of traffic around them. He also argues it would reduce incidents of road rage and aggressive driving, since fewer drivers would be weaving in and out of other lanes so they could pass on the right.
• BIO BACKGROUND: Deputy Sheriff, Frederick County, 1994-2011. Police officer, Frederick, Maryland, 2011-14. Born in Hagerstown, Maryland, April 5, 1972. Frederick Community College, A.A. (criminal justice); School of Police Staff and Command, Northwestern University. Served in U.S. Army (military police corps, infantry sniper). Member, Francis Scott Key Lodge no. 91, Fraternal Order of Police (president, 2002-06)

8am – B FOOD NEWS:

• What do you call a Beyonce statue made of cheese? Brie-Once, obvi. (CNN) Joining the ranks of iconic works of art such as the Mona Lisa and The Creation of Adam is a new masterpiece simply known as Brie-Oncé. The 45-pound cheesy Bey-hemoth was made for the East Village Cheese and Wine festival in London. Apparently nothing, even Queen Bee herself, is sacred anymore. Sculptor David Bradley worked with The Robin Collective, an ad agency out of London, to create the cheese sculpture. The sculpture took around 28 hours to make and, despite its name, is actually made out of five blocks of cheddar. It took the team 28 hours, 45 pounds of mild cheddar, one knife, a paint brush and a magnifying glass to complete. Sculpting Brie-Oncé was just practice for Bradley as he prepares to go head-to-head with two other cheese sculptors during the Cheese Carving Championship.
• McDonald’s Quarter Pounders to be made with fresh beef. Fast food chain McDonald’s Corp said on Thursday it would make its popular “Quarter Pounder” hamburgers with fresh beef, prepared when ordered, by mid-2018 in most of its U.S. restaurants. Investors and analysts said the move, which would compete with rival Wendy’s Co’s promise of “fresh never frozen beef”, could bolster sales but would require restaurant operators to make changes to cooking routines that could slow service. It was not immediately clear what impact the use of fresh beef would have on margins at McDonald’s USA, which does not disclose what percentage of sales come from the Quarter Pounder. McDonald’s U.S. restaurants have suffered four straight years of traffic declines, resulting in 500 million lost transactions since 2012.
• Carls Jr ending run of commercials featuring half-naked women eating obscenely large burgers. Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s are ditching the bikinis and getting back to the burgers. The chains are famous for advertisements featuring models and celebrities like Paris Hilton, Kate Upton and Emily Ratajkowski munching on burgers while scantily clad. A new commercial for the chains shows the imagined Carl Hardee Sr. taking back control of the operation from immature son Carl Hardee Jr. Carl Sr. rips down photos of swimsuit models and puts up framed pictures of hamburgers. The chains are now calling themselves “pioneers of the great American burger.” The company’s racy advertising campaign had a defender in Andrew Puzder, who is stepping down as CEO of the chains’ parent company, Carpinteria, California-based CKE Restaurant Holdings. Puzder withdrew as President Donald Trump’s nominee for Labor Department secretary last month.

8am – C Gorsuch News:

• Grassley: Gorsuch will fall short of 60 votes. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) predicted on Thursday that Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch will fall short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a Democratic filibuster. Asked how he was feeling about Gorsuch’s nomination ahead of next week’s vote, the Judiciary Committee chairman told reporters that President Trump’s pick “gets 57 or 58 votes.”
• Manchin, Heitkamp become first Senate Dems to back Gorsuch. Sens. Joe Manchin and Heidi Heitkamp on Thursday became the first Senate Democrats to announce their support for Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch — breaking with their colleagues who have blasted President Trump’s pick. “Senators have a constitutional obligation to advice (sic) and consent on a nominee to fill this Supreme Court vacancy and, simply put, we have a responsibility to do our jobs as elected officials,” Manchin, of West Virginia, said in a statement Thursday. “I will vote to confirm him to be the ninth justice on the Supreme Court.”

8am – D/E Florida Uber driver discovers her boyfriend is cheating on her when she drops off a female fare — at HIS apartment. (Daily Mail) — A Florida Uber driver was surprised to discover that her boyfriend was cheating on her — after she picked up a female fare at the airport and dropped her off at her boyfriend’s building’s front door. The driver, who only identifies herself as ‘Bree,’ took to Twitter to reveal the details of how she discovered the affair, shortly after she dropped off the rider — and simultaneously confronted her now ex-beau — on March 27. Much to her apparent surprise, Bree’s story instantly became a viral sensation, one that got her crowed with the nickname ‘#UberBae.’ ‘I’ve talked about my ex-boyfriend in the past, but nobody’s really paid attention, so I just thought, “This time, nobody’s really gonna pay attention to this,” and that’s what happened,’ Bree told Complex.