Sen. Tim Kaine, CEI’s Iain Murray, Fairfax School Board’s Elizabeth Schultz and Bret Baier joined WMAL on Friday.
Mornings on the Mall
Friday, May 8, 2015
Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor
Executive Producer: Heather Smith
5am – A DRIVE AT FIVE INTERVIEW: SEN TIM KAINE – D-VA – discussed the Iran vote and our war powers regarding ISIS.
5am – B David Cameron’s Conservatives Sweep to U.K. Election Victory. Pro-independence Scottish National Party emerges as force in British politics. LONDON—Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party swept to an unexpectedly strong election victory, making big gains at the expense of rivals in a vote that reshapes the political landscape. Mr. Cameron’s clear majority gives him the right to govern without a coalition partner, which his party has had to do since 2010, and pushes out a generation of big-name politicians from the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties. But it also forces major challenges on him. The pro-independence Scottish National Partyemerged as a big force in British politics, presenting a strengthened challenge in keeping the U.K. together. Mr. Cameron must also deliver on his promise to hold a referendum on the country’s membership in the European Union.
5am – C McDonald’s News:
- McDonald’s Tests 2 New Breakfast Bowls In Southern California. LOS ANGELES (CBSLA/AP) — The world’s biggest burger chain is testing two new breakfast bowls at several Southern California locations, one of which includes kale. The test comes as McDonald’s Corp. works to shake its junk food image, with sales at established U.S. locations declining for six straight quarters. CEO Steve Easterbrook, who stepped into the top spot March 1, has said he want to turn the chain into a “modern, progressive burger company.” Lisa McComb, the Director of McDonald’s Media Relations, said the freshly-prepared items are a Turkey Sausage & Egg White bowl, which includes the leafy green as well as spinach and bruschetta. The other item is a Chorizo & Egg bowl, which includes a hash brown, cheddar jack cheese and pico de gallo. Both are priced around $4, McComb said. On Wednesday, Janney analyst Mark Kalinowski said McDonald’s was introducing three salads in Canada that use kale as an ingredient as well.
- James Franco defends McDonald’s starter jobs. (CNN) — Not everyone hates low wage fast-food jobs. Actor James Franco has penned an essay that fondly recalls his days manning a McDonald’s drive through. The column, entitled “McDonald’s was there for me when no one else was,” appeared in Thursday’s Washington Post. Franco writes of a three-month stint he had at a location in the San Fernando Valley in 1996. At the time he was 18 and trying to get his acting career started. “I was treated fairly well at McDonald’s,” he wrote. “If anything, they cut me slack. And, just like their food, the job was more available there than anywhere else. When I was hungry for work, they fed the need.” He doesn’t mention his wages, but they probably weren’t much different from today’s pay when adjusted for inflation. The 1996 minimum wage of $4.75 equates to $7.11 today, just pennies below the current minimum. Franco wasn’t living well on that kind of money. He slept on the couch of a rental apartment he shared with two other struggling actors, and ate cheeseburgers that were about to be thrown out to feed himself. But advocates fighting for better wages and working conditions at McDonald’s argue that most fast-food wrokers are not in fact teenagers and struggling actors.
5am – D Court rules NSA program illegal. Washington (CNN)A federal appeals court ruled on Thursday that the telephone metadata collection program, under which the National Security Agency gathers up millions of phone records on an ongoing daily basis, is illegal under the Patriot Act. The government has argued it has the power to carry forward with the program under a section of the Patriot Act, which expires in June. Lawmakers are locked in a debate on whether or how to renew the authority, which was first passed shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington, but has been renewed by both Presidents Bush and Obama in the intervening years.
5am – E Critter news:
- Spider that can give men four-hour erections found in Tesco bananas.(Telegraph) – Maria Layton, 43, says ‘Tesco were a bit useless’ when she found a Brazilian Wandering Spider – the most deadly in the world – in a bunch of shop bought bananas. A mother was scared stiff after opening a bunch of supermarket bananas and finding rare spiders whose bite can give a man a painful four-hour erection. Maria Layton, 43, spotted the arachnids after opening the bag of yellow fruit she bought from Tesco. She found the bananas, shipped from Costa Rica, were infested with eggs from the Brazilian Wandering Spider – the most deadly in the world. As soon as she discovered the cocoon they started to hatch so she quickly put them in a sealed container in the freezer and called Tesco customer services.
- Black bear spotted in Virginia Beach. VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (WVEC) — Officials are warning Virginia Beach residents to stay alert after a black bear was spotted roaming the streets. The report came in late last week in the Indian River Plantation neighborhood off of Indian River Road. Kathy McNamara remembers the heart-dropping moments when she spotted a huge black bear outside her home last year. “I first saw it in the grassy area. He was sniffing around and just looking for food, I guess. And then he came back to the fence over here and jumped over that fence into her yard. It was huge,” she said. After learning another bear was recently spotted in her neighborhood, she’s worried about her dogs. “The dogs were out here and they hadn’t seen it yet, so I quickly got them in the house because they would have gone nuts! It’s scary because we allow our dogs to run free in the backyard. It’s fenced and we feel safe that way. But with these bear sightings, it leaves us a little bit nervous,” she said.
- Great White Shark Pings Off Maryland, Virginia Coasts. ASSATEAGUE, Va. (WJZ) — Just weeks before the start of beach season, the Eastern Shore is on shark watch. A great white shark scientists have been tracking for years appears to be right off the coast of Maryland. Experts say it’s possible it could get even closer to shore. Rick Ritter with more on what you need to know. The 3,000 pound shark was pinged near the Maryland-Virginia line Tuesday morning. With summer just around the corner, experts are keeping a close eye on this great white. Surging through the waters of the Eastern Shore, at 3,500 pounds and 16 feet long, a great white has beachgoers on edge. “The size of this guy kind of surprised me,” said one beachgoer. Experts are intrigued.
6am – A/B/C Fairfax school board approves transgender protections.(Washington Post) — The Fairfax County School Board voted to approve expanding protections to transgender students and staff Thursday night at a rambunctious meeting that included chants, jeers and vocal opposition from hundreds of parents. The School Board voted 10 to 1 with one abstention to add “gender identity” to its non-discrimination policy, two months after Virginia Attorney General Mark R. Herring (D) issued an opinion granting local school boards the authority to expand protections to transgender people. The School Board voted in November to include sexual orientation in its non-discrimination policy after the Supreme Court let stand rulings that allow gay marriages in Virginia and other states. “The decision by the Fairfax County School Board to add ‘gender identity’ to our nondiscrimination policy is to provide an environment which promotes equality where every student and employee is treated with dignity and respect,” board Chair Tammy Derenak Kaufax (Lee) said. School Board members acknowledged that in the days before Thursday’s vote they had received thousands e-mails from parents and others in the community.
6am – D Record Number Give Up U.S. Citizenship. (WSJ) – A record 1,335 people renounced their U.S. citizenship or long-term residency during the first quarter of 2015, according to a list released by the Treasury Department on Thursday. The total is the highest quarterly number of expatriates since a law requiring the publication of their names was enacted in the 1990s, according to Andrew Mitchel, a lawyer in Centerbrook, Conn., who tallies the lists of names. The previous quarterly record was 1,130 for the second quarter of 2013, he says. The new figure puts 2015 on pace to exceed the total of 3,415 renunciations in 2014, which was itself a record. That was up 14% from 2,999 individuals in 2013, the previous record.
6am – E 7 Year Old Writes George Lucas a Letter About Jedis Not Marrying.(WMAL) — A young boy named Colin wrote Star Wars director George Lucas about wanting to abide by the Jedi code but really wants to get married one day. The letter was fairly blunt: “I want to get married without becoming a Sith. Please change the rule.”
7am – A INTERVIEW: IAIN MURRAY – Vice President for Strategy, Competitive Enterprise Institute – analyzed the U.K. elections.
7am – B Dad bods become new trend. While some still like the guys with six packs, right now dad bods appear to be the new hot bod. Whatever your preference, most people said it’s just important to be healthy and love whatever kind of body you’ve got. Business Insider said the term dad bod has been traced back to a 19-year-old sophomore at Clemson University. The website said she wrote the first article on the dad bod for a site called The Odyssey.
7am – C Maryland cuts tolls on Bay Bridge, ICC. ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan announced that tolls across the state will drop on July 1, after the Maryland Transportation Authority approved the decreases on Thursday morning. The authority also eliminated the monthly maintenance fee charged to E-ZPass holders. Hogan says he has heard repeated complaints from Marylanders about the tolls on the state’s roads, tunnels and bridges. During his campaign for governor, he pledged to reduce the burden of fees and taxes on the state’s businesses and residents. “This is the first time tolls have been lowered in Maryland in 50 years. Most importantly, we are allowing Maryland families and businesses to keep more of their hard earned money, which helps our struggling economy,” Hogan says. Toll increases approved during former Gov. Martin O’Malley’s two terms in office cost the average Maryland family $4,600 a year, Hogan says.
7am – D/E The ‘immature teen brain’ defense and the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial.(Washington Post/dr. Sally Satel and Prof. Scott O. Lilienfeld) – Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted earlier this month in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, faces the death penalty on 17 separate counts. Later this week, according to the Boston Herald, his lawyers will call a neuroscientist — perhaps the first of several — as a witness. Almost certainly this will be part of a strategy to show that Tsarnaev, who was 19 when he committed the crime, possessed an “immature teen brain,” which made him especially susceptible to the influence of his deceased radicalized brother, Tamerlan. By saying that Tsarnaev possessed an “immature teen brain,” the defense is citing a well-established neuroscientific finding that the killer’s brain, like all teenage brains, was still in a formative stage. Indeed, researchers have shown that the human brain is not fully developed until the mid-20s. The “immature brain” and its implications for reduced culpability has become a staple of the juvenile justice movement. The National Juvenile Justice Network has asserted that brain science “gives advocates and lawyers working on behalf of juveniles scientific proof for their claims.” At least five percent of all murder cases that go to trial feature the introduction of have neuroscience evidence, according to Nina Farahany, professor of law at Duke University. Ten years ago, that percentage was less than 0.01 percent. Fully 24 percent of capital cases invoke neuroscience as part of a mitigation strategy.
8am – A INTERVIEW – ELIZABETH SCHULTZ – Fairfax County School Board Member (Springfield)
- Fairfax school board approves transgender protections
- Her amendment to postpone was rejected by the board
- She was the lone vote against the new transgender policy
8am – B Putin’s new tank designed to ‘outclass the West’ breaks down.Russia’s state of the art T-14 Armata tank stops during final rehearsal for Saturday’s Moscow commemorations. A new Russian tank announced with much fanfare as superior to Western machines stalled during a dress rehearsal for Victory Day celebrations in Moscow on Thursday. The T-14 Armata, making only its second public appearance, ground to a halt on Red Square, opposite Vladimir Lenin’s mausoleum. Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minster, was reportedly forced to approach the tank to find out what had happened; servicemen then tried to hook it up to another military vehicle and tow it away. That attempt was unsuccessful but the tank finally moved off after an expert from the Urals factory – where it was made – took the controls, according to Alexei Zharich, the deputy general director of Uralvagonzavod, the tank’s manufacturer.
WWII warbirds to rumble over National Mall Friday. WASHINGTON — It will be quite the air show Friday morning, when 56 World War II warbirds will rumble over the National Mall in honor of the 70th anniversary of Victory in Europe Day, also known as V-E Day. The day will start at the World War II Memorial, with a wreath laying in the presence of America’s war heroes from 10:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. “There will be 400 World War II veterans there to participate in that ceremony,” says Paul Feldman, who organized the Arsenal Democracy Flyover event. The planes will fly in 15 formations, in historical sequence, representing battles from the pearl Harbor era to Midway, D-Day and Iwo Jima, organizers say. The final flyover will involve a missing-man formation. Flyovers will last from 90 seconds to two minutes, and will be at an altitude of at least 1,000 feet, flying west to east along Independence Avenue on the south side of the Mall.
8am – C Japan zoo apologizes for naming newborn monkey Charlotte. TOKYO(AP) — A Japanese zoo has apologized after being criticized for naming a baby monkey Charlotte, the name of the newborn British princess. The Takasakiyama Natural Zoological Garden said Thursday it was considering renaming the macaque. It was flooded with angry calls and emails Wednesday after announcing the name for its first monkey born this year, a tradition at the zoo run by the southern city of Oita. Charlotte was the favorite in a public ballot, receiving 59 out of 853 votes in the counting, conducted after the female monkey was born Wednesday. Votes for Charlotte surged after the British princess was named Monday and topped the ballot in the last three days of voting, which ran from March 27 to May 6. Many critics said giving the princess’ name to a monkey was disrespectful to British royals. According to zoo official Akira Asano, some said the Japanese people would feel offended if a monkey were named after Japanese princesses.
8am – D INTERVIEW — BRET BAIER – Anchor of Special Report, Fox News Channel
- Bret MC’ing the Children’s Ball tonight
- Court rules NSA program illegal.
- This week was a busy 2016 week: New polls and Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and Mike Huckabee jumped into the presidential race.
- Senate approves Iran nuclear bill
- David Cameron and Conservatives Get Majority in British Election
MONDAY: Joe diGenova and Tucker Carlson
