Weather Channel's Richard Lewelling, legal analyst Joe diGenova, Virginia Delegate Rob Bell, Lt. Col. Allen West and guest host Dan Bongino joined WMAL Monday morning.
INTERVIEW – LT. COL. ALLEN WEST – former Florida congressman and currently the President and CEO, National Center for Policy Analysis
INTERVIEW – VIRGINIA DELEGATE ROB BELL – Bell was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 2002, representing the 58th district in the Virginia Piedmont, including Greene County and parts of Albemarle, Fluvanna and Rockingham Counties.
INTERVIEW – JOE DIGENOVA – legal analyst and former U.S. Attorney
Mornings on the Mall
Monday, February 16, 2015
Hosts: Larry O’Connor and Dan Bongino
5am – A INTERVIEW – RICHARD LEWELLING – WEATHER CHANNEL
- Today | Partly cloudy VERY COLD this morning followed by periods of snow showers this afternoon. High around 25F. Winds WNW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of snow 60%. Snow accumulations less than one inch.
- Tonight | Snow likely. Low near 20F. Winds light and variable. Chance of snow 100%. 5 to 8 inches of snow expected.
- Tomorrow | Some lingering morning flurries or snow showers. Cloudy early with partial sunshine expected late. High 34F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph.
5am – B Q&A with DAN BONGINO
5am – C Reports: Police charge 2 in Copenhagen attacks. (USA Today) — Danish police have charged two men suspected of helping the gunman who carried out two shooting attacks which killed two people over the weekend in Copenhagen, according to media reports. Police in Copenhagen say the arrests were made Sunday and that the men will face a custody hearing on Monday, the Associated Press says. In a statement, police said: "The two men are charged with helping the perpetrator with advice and deeds," the BBC reported. The broadcaster said the suspects are charged with providing and disposing of the weapon, and with helping the gunman to hide. A defense lawyer said they deny the charges. The gunman was killed after shooting attacks at a cultural center and outside a synagogue. Five police officers were injured in the shootings. The suspect, who has been named by Danish media as Omar El-Hussein, fired multiple shots Saturday through the window of a cafe during a free speech debate, killing one man, and later killed a male guard at a synagogue. By early Sunday morning, a massive manhunt resulted in a shootout near a downtown subway station and the gunman's death.
5am – D John Boehner on Fox News: I'm 'certainly' willing to let Homeland Security funding lapse. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Sunday said he would allow funding for the Department of Homeland Security to lapse if the Senate can't approve the spending bill passed by the House. "Certainly," he said when Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace asked if he was prepared to let the funding expire at the end of the month. "The House has acted. We've done our job." The House passed a bill to fund DHS beyond February, but with strings attached to scuttle President Obama's immigration order. Senate Democrats have filibustered the bill in the upper chamber because they oppose the amendments blocking funding for Obama's plan.
5am – E Christian hostages beheaded in Islamic State video, reports say. Egypt warplanes strike Islamic State targets after mass beheading video. (USA Today) — Egypt has begun airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Libya hours after militants released a video purporting to show the mass beheading of Egyptian Christian hostages. The strikes were announced Monday on state radio by a spokesman for the country's Armed Forces General Command. Weapons caches and training camps were targeted. The strikes were to "avenge the bloodshed and to seek retribution from the killers. Let those far and near know that Egyptians have a shield that protects them," the radio statement said. It is the first time Egypt has publicly acknowledged taking military action in Libya. On Sunday, a video purporting to show the mass beheading the hostages by militants in Libya claiming loyalty to the Islamic State group.
6am – A/B/C Vint Cerf worries about a 'digital dark age,' and your data could be at risk. (PC World) — In this era of the all-pervasive cloud, it’s easy to assume that the data we store will somehow be preserved forever. The only thing to fret about from a posterity perspective, we might think, is the analog information from days gone by—all the stuff on papers, tapes and other pre-digital formats that haven’t been explicitly converted. Vinton Cerf, often called “the father of the Internet,” has other ideas. Now chief Internet evangelist at Google, Cerf spoke this week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and he painted a very different picture. Rather than a world where longevity is a given, Cerf fears a “digital dark age” in which the rapid evolution of technology quickly makes storage formats obsolete thanks to a phenomenon he calls “bit rot.” In that world, the applications needed to read files we so confidently store today could be lost because they’re incompatible with new hardware technologies that emerge. The result, he contends, could be that many of our those files will be rendered useless, inaccessible to future generations. Cerf’s proposed solution is something he calls “digital vellum”—essentially, a tool for preserving old technologies so that even obsolete files can be recovered. “At a high level, the way to solve this would be to maintain at a minimum read compatibility with older data even as new technologies are introduced without worrying about performance, capacity or cost,” said Eric Burgener, a research director with IDC. “The devil, of course, is in the details.” The Olive project at Carnegie Mellon University could be a prime example. Led by Mahadev Satyanarayanan, a professor of computer science, the project aims to develop the technology needed for long-term preservation of software, games and other executable content.
6am – D 'Fifty Shades' explodes to record box office. (USA Today) — The only real box office question on Valentine's Day weekend was just how high the R-rated Fifty Shades of Grey would go. The answer Sunday morning was a resounding $81.7 million for the three-day weekend, according to studio estimates. The film is predicted to take in $90.7 million for the four-day Presidents Day holiday. The record-setting began with Friday's $30 million opening, the biggest for any film released in February (beating out 2004's The Passion of the Christ with $26.6 million). Fifty Shades easily became the highest-grossing Valentine's/Presidents Day weekend opener of all time, beating out the 2010 romantic comedy Valentine's Day, which earned $56.3 million in three days and $63.1 million in four. It's also the second-biggest February weekend debut ever, behind The Passion of Christ at $84 million.
6am – E Oregon’s Governor resigns. Washington (CNN)An emotional John Kitzhaber announced his resignation as governor of Oregon on Friday, acknowledging he had "become a liability" to his state but asserting his innocence of any wrongdoing in a scandal surrounding his fiancee's consulting and policy work. "I have always had the deepest respect for the remarkable institution that is the Oregon Legislature; and for the office of the Governor," Kitzhaber said in a recorded message. "And I cannot in good conscience continue to be the element that undermines it. I have always tried to do the right thing and now the right thing to do is to step aside." The resignation will take effect next Wednesday, at which point Democratic Secretary of State Kate Brown will take over as governor. Human Rights Campaign, the nation's largest LGBT rights organization, trumpeted her promotion Friday as the ascension of the nation's first openly bisexual governor. Kitzhaber's decision to step down came as little surprise, as he had faced mounting calls to resign this week over reports indicating his finacee, Clivia Lynne Hayes, advised the governor and state employees on energy policy while getting paid by a group advocating on the issue. The state Attorney General opened a criminal investigation into the case on Monday, and on Thursday night, state troopers gathered outside his Portland-area home, leaving after a fruitless hours-long stakeout with no sighting of the governor. The resignation came as the Oregon Department of Administrative Services served criminal subpoenas on Kitzhaber and Hayes. The subpoenas seek emails, letters and financial information concerning a wide range of activities, including state business.
Kitzhaber Gives Way To First Openly Bisexual Governor. Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown (D) will become the first openly bisexual governor in U.S. history when Gov. John Kitzhaber (D) resigns Wednesday. An open LGBT governor has never been elected, although New Jersey did have an openly gay governor briefly in 2004, after Gov. Jim McGreevey (D) came out as gay and admitted an affair with a man he had appointed to a key job. He resigned three months later. Brown is married to husband Dan Little; she has publicly discussed her bisexuality in past campaigns. She is already arguably the highest-ranking bisexual elected official in America; Rep. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) became the first bisexual member of Congress in 2013. There are about 525 openly LGBT public officials in office at all levels of government, according to the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund. Most of them are Democrats, said interim executive director Denis Dison, and only about 20 are Republicans.
7am – A INTERVIEW – JOE DIGENOVA – legal analyst and former U.S. Attorney
- John Boehner on Fox News: I'm 'certainly' willing to let Homeland Security funding lapse. In a funding spat that could effectively shut down the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), House Republicans don't appear to be backing down from a fight. House Speaker John Boehner said Sunday he's even readying himself for it.
- "American Sniper" trial: Man says defendant said he killed Chris Kyle and friend "because they wouldn't talk to me." (CNN) – A former deputy testified last week that he overheard the defendant in the "American Sniper" murder trial explain why he killed two men. Gene Cole, who worked for the Erath County Sheriff's Office at the time, testified Friday that on June 22, 2013, he "heard Mr. [Eddie Ray] Routh say, 'I shot them because they wouldn't talk to me. I was just riding in the back seat of the truck and nobody would talk to me.
- Ash Carter vs. Loretta Lynch: Why One Obama Nominee Sailed Through But the Other Is Stuck. (ABC News) – Obama nominated Lynch to succeed current Attorney General Eric Holder on November 8, 2014 — just over three months ago. Carter, on the other hand, was nominated nearly a month later, on December 5, 2014, and was confirmed on Thursday — a process that took less than 70 days.
- President Obama speaks on Chapel Hill Shooting; says 'we are all one American family' (CNN) — Yusor Mohammad's light, her idealism, was extinguished Tuesday with gunshots that killed not only her, but her 23-year-old husband, Deah Shaddy Barakat, and 19-year-old sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha. All three were shot in the head. A neighbor of the victims, Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, turned himself in to police the same night and has been charged with murder. Authorities haven't announced any motive, but Mohammad's father thinks he knows. His daughters and son-in-law died, Mohammad Abu-Salha said, because they were Muslim. If so, that constitutes a hate crime.
- One man killed, 3 police officers injured in Copenhagen shooting attended by Swedish cartoonist, police say. Danish police shot and killed a man early Sunday after he fired at them in the capital of Copenhagen, a journalist for TV2 reported Sunday.
7am – B 'The Breakfast Club' Turns 30! What Have The Cast Been Up To Since That Dreary Saturday Detention? The Breakfast Club was the greatest coming-of-age Brat Pack movie of all time and even after thirty years, it remains the archetypal high school feature that epitomizes the experience of adolescence, something each and every one of us can relate to. Sentenced to Saturday detention, we soon learn that there is something of the brain, the athlete, the basket case, the princess and the criminal in all of us.
- Molly Ringwald as Claire Standish: Fun Fact: Claire's entire wardrobe was specially bought from Ralph Lauren. Since, Ringwald's biggest regret from filming the movie was not asking to keep Claire's boots. Thanks to the movie, Molly Ringwald was ranked No.1 on VH1's 100 Greatest Teen Stars list, yet having played a great number of teen sweetheart roles in the '80s, her career went downhill in the following decade. Despite appearing in some movies such as The Stand and Betsy's Wedding, she largely fell off the acting radar until her cameo in Not Another Teen Movie in 2001. She has also released a jazz album, written a novel and writes an advice column for a British newspaper.
- Judd Nelson as John Bender: Fun Fact: Before Judd Nelson was cast as Bender, Nicolas Cage and John Cusack were considered for the role. Judd Nelson was the quintessential bad boy in the movie and he somewhat remained so in his real-life. Following the movie's release, he made headlines for taking part in a bar brawl and for his volatile romance with Shannen Doherty. On the screen, he can be seen in TV series Suddenly Susan and in cameos such as in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. In 2015 however, expect to see him in many more prominent roles including in series Empire and movies This Is Happening and 1/1.
- Anthony Michael Hall as Brian Johnson: Fun Fact: At the beginning of the movie, Brian is dropped off at school by his real mother and sister. At the end of the film, he is picked up by John Hughes, the director of The Breakfast Club. In 1990, you can recognize Hall as the villain in Edward Scissorhands and as the con man in Will Smith's Six Degrees of Separation. He also continued to channel his geeky charm as Bill Gates in Pirates of Silicon Valley. Amongst quite a long string of successful movies, he also starred in The Dark Knight in 2008 and most recently, you can catch him in Oscar nominated movie Foxcatcher. Take a look at the trailer:
- Emilio Estevez as Andrew Clark: Fun Fact: Estevez was originally set to play Bender but because the director could not find anyone for the role of Andrew Clark, he agreed to switch characters. Back in the '80s, Estevez was very much the teen heartthrob and was widely known for his role in hit Stakeout. In 1992, he played a disgruntled hockey coach in The Mighty Ducks, which went on to spawn two more sequels. Most recently, his only high profile role saw him star on Two and a Half Men in 2008, opposite his brother Charlie Sheen.
- Ally Sheedy as Allison Reynolds: Fun Fact: Allison's costume had to be hand-made because she was meant to wear something black and that was hard to come by in the kaleidoscope of color that was the '80s. Ally Sheedy starred in Short Circuit following her success on The Breakfast Club. It was a movie about a sentient robot and was a big hit. Following this, her career came to a sudden standstill due to drug problems and by the beginning of the '90s, she appeared in cable soft-corn erotica series called Red Shoe Diaries. She bounced back in 1998 in her role as a lesbian drug addict in High Art. Starring in Psych, she played a crazy killer for many years. Most recently, she appeared in James Franco's theatre production The Long Shrift. When she isn't making sporadic appearances on the screen, she teaches acting at LaGuardia High.
- The Breakfast Club 30th Anniversary Edition debuts on March 10, 2015 and the celebration continues with two nights on the big screen March 26 and March 31, 2015. Go to BreakfastClub30.com to find a screening near you and get back that 80s feeling.
7am – C In Maryland, more voters object to growing casino industry, poll finds. (Washington Post) — Maryland has gone all in on gambling. But with its sixth casino set to open next year, more voters are voicing opposition to the bet. In one of the country’s most concentrated casino markets, 38 percent of Free State voters said the expansion of casino gambling has been a “bad thing” in a new Washington Post-University of Maryland poll. That’s up 11 points from a 2012 poll, when 27 percent of respondents felt negatively toward the state’s addition of slots casinos. The growing disapproval comes as the $925 million MGM National Harbor prepares to open next year in Prince George’s County. Negative views about gambling increased primarily in Baltimore and Baltimore County and in rural parts of Maryland. Baltimore is home to the Horseshoe Casino Baltimore, which opened in August. The $422 million casino, with its 122,000-square-foot gambling floor, is located just off of Interstate 95 in the shadow of the city’s sports stadiums, making it easily accessible to city residents and out-of-towners alike. According to the new poll, the share of respondents who said casinos are bad for the state rose 15 points in Baltimore and Baltimore County.
7am – D INTERVIEW – VIRGINIA DELEGATE ROB BELL – Bell was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates in 2002, representing the 58th district in the Virginia Piedmont, including Greene County and parts of Albemarle, Fluvanna and Rockingham Counties.
- 'Tebow Bill' advances in Virginia Senate. This time Del. Robert B. Bell and his well-traveled “Tebow Bill” — a bid for home-schooled children to participate in public interscholastic athletics — finally won an “away” game. Bell’s House Bill 1626, which passed the House of Delegates on Jan. 29 on a 57-41 tally, went through the uprights of the Republican-controlled Senate Education and Health Committee on Thursday on an 8-6 vote. The Albemarle County Republican has carried the ball for the past five years on the bill — nicknamed for the former University of Florida standout quarterback Tim Tebow, who was home-schooled.
- LAST WEEK: House Passes Del. Rob Bell's Charter School Constitutional Amendment. The Virginia House of Delegates today passed an amendment to Virginia's Constitution that would grant the Virginia Board of Education authority to establish charter schools in the Commonwealth. House Joint Resolution No. 577 was introduced by Del. Rob Bell (R-Albemarle).
7am – E Plane news:
- Dulles airport back to normal after burst pipe. (USA Today) — Arriving and departing flights have returned to normal at Washington Dulles International Airport after delays caused by a burst pipe. A pipe burst around 10:30 p.m. Sunday, triggering an alarm and leading to the evacuation of the FAA tower at the northern Virginina airport, spokesman Chris Paolino said. That resulted in the shuttering of departures and limiting of arrivals at the airport. Some flights were diverted to other airports in the Washington, D.C. area, including Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport. No numbers were available on how many flights have been delayed. Single-digit temperatures and frigid winds gripped the Washington area over the weekend. Dulles International is the nation's 23rd busiest airport. It served nearly 10.6 million passengers during 2013, the latest year those statistics were available from the Federal Aviation Administration.
- Scorpion stings woman on plane, delaying flight at LAX. (Yahoo News) — An Alaska Airlines flight en route to Portland had to return to the gate at Los Angeles International Airport Saturday night after a woman was stung by a scorpion, airline officials said. Medical personnel responded to the woman, who was stung in the arm, according to Cole Cosgrove, a spokesman for the airline. Flight attendants killed the scorpion and searched overhead compartments for "any additional, unwanted arachnids." The unidentified woman refused additional medical treatment but did not get back on the plane, Cosgrove told the Associated Press. The flight took off at about 8:40 p.m., 50 minutes behind schedule. It landed safely in Portland late Saturday night. It's unclear how the scorpion got on the flight, which originated in Los Cabos, Mexico.
8am – A INTERVIEW – LT. COL. ALLEN WEST – former Florida congressman and currently the President and CEO, National Center for Policy Analysis
- Christian hostages beheaded in Islamic State video, reports say. Egypt warplanes strike Islamic State targets after mass beheading video.
- ISIS closing in? Terror group seizes Iraqi town 5 miles from Marine base
- Don’t disrespect our president, black lawmakers tell Netanyahu. Many members of the Congressional Black Caucus say they’re planning to skip the speech, calling it a slight to President Barack Obama that they can’t and won’t support.
8am – B 'Saturday Night Live' celebrates 40-year run with massive retrospective. (AP) -NEW YORK – With a measure of anniversary hoopla perhaps exceeded only by the nation's bicentennial, "Saturday Night Live" celebrated its 40th season on Sunday with a 3½-hour gala of stars, laughs and memories. It aired live from New York's Studio 8H at NBC, which has been "SNL" HQ since premiering on a Saturday night in October 1975. It was a black-tie event so jammed with "SNL" alumni and other celebs they fueled an hour-long red carpet event before the big show even began. Some 80 names were listed in the opening credits. It started with a medley of catchphrases, music and characters performed by Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake that concluded, inevitably, with their pronouncement, "Live from New York, it's Saturday Night!" Who was the rightful host? Steve Martin stepped up first, but was joined one by one by stars including Peyton Manning, Tom Hanks, Alec Baldwin, Billy Crystal, Melissa McCarthy, Paul McCartney and Paul Simon to dispute his selection. Among the night's many tributes, Jack Nicholson noted that "when 'SNL' started, the last helicopter had just flown out of Vietnam, Watergate was still fresh in everyone's minds, and New York was broke." Robert De Niro marveled that, 40 years later, "SNL" is "still at it. Forty years! That's like back when TV was still watched on TV."
8am – C John Boehner on Fox News: I'm 'certainly' willing to let Homeland Security funding lapse. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Sunday said he would allow funding for the Department of Homeland Security to lapse if the Senate can't approve the spending bill passed by the House. "Certainly," he said when Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace asked if he was prepared to let the funding expire at the end of the month. "The House has acted. We've done our job."
8am – D California carjacker thwarted by confusion over stick shift. (KTVL) — CONCORD, Calif. (AP) — Police in Northern California say a man attempting an armed carjacking bailed when he couldn't drive a stick shift. Concord police Lt. Tim Runyon told the Contra Costa Times that the owner got into his car early Sunday to find the carjacker in the passenger seat, apparently in the middle of a burglary. Runyon says the carjacker ordered the victim at gunpoint to drive him to another location, where he forced the owner out of the car. Runyon says the carjacker tried to drive off, but gave up when he couldn't operate the manual transmission. Runyon says officers couldn't find the carjacker, who had run away.
TOMORROW: Guest host Dan Bongino is back!
