Chef Geoff Tracy, Arthur Brooks, Senator Mike Lee and guest host Del Wilber joined WMAL on Thursday morning.

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Mornings on the Mall

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Hosts: Larry O’Connor and Del Wilber

Executive Producer: Heather Smith

5am – A         Q & A WITH DEL WILBER – Bloomberg Justice Department and Homeland Security Reporter and author of Rawhide Down… Formerly covered crime in Baltimore and for the Washington Post 

5am – B         El Chapo: Mexico searches nationwide for escaped drug lord. MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican authorities have distributed 100,000 photographs of drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman to highway toll booths since his weekend escape from a maximum security prison, the interior ministry announced Wednesday. A ministry statement outlined actions taken so far. It said 10,000 agents of various components of the federal police remain on high alert across Mexico and authorities have established 101 checkpoints on major highways throughout the country Hospitals, hotels and funeral homes are being checked. Forty-eight canine teams are searching passenger and cargo vehicles. Airports are on alert, closely reviewing passengers on private planes. Guzman is once again Mexico’s most wanted criminal since he escaped late Saturday through a mile-long tunnel dug to come up under the shower of his prison cell.

5am – C         George HW Bush, 91, falls at Maine home, breaks bone in neck. Former President George H.W. Bush breaks bone in fall. KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine (AP) — George H.W. Bush, the oldest living former U.S. president, fell at his summer home on Wednesday and broke a bone in his neck but was doing OK, a spokesman said. Bush, 91, was hospitalized in stable condition and was doing “fine” after Wednesday’s fall, spokesman Jim McGrath said. McGrath tweeted that the 41st president would be in a neck brace. Bush was being treated at Portland’s Maine Medical Center, where a children’s hospital is named for his wife. Bush, who has a form of Parkinson’s disease that has forced him to use a motorized scooter or wheelchair for mobility, has suffered a few other recent health setbacks. He was hospitalized in Houston in December for about a week for treatment of shortness of breath. He said he was grateful to the doctors and nurses for their care there. He spent Christmas 2012 in intensive care at the same Houston hospital while being treated for a bronchitis-related cough and other issues. He was discharged in January 2013 after a nearly two-month stay.

5am – D         2016 News:

• Poll: Hillary Clinton’s lead shrinks among Democrats. Hillary Clinton is still leading the Democratic field for 2016, but her lead has shrunk in recent months, according to a Monmouth University poll out Wednesday, as independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders continues to make steady gains, despite trailing by a wide margin. Among Democrats and those leaning toward the Democratic Party, Clinton picked up the support of 51 percent, down from 57 percent in June and 60 percent in April. Sanders came in second with 17 percent, followed by former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and former Virginia Sen. Jim Webb with 1 percent each. Lincoln Chafee, the former governor and senator from Rhode Island, registered no support.
• Hillary Clinton Far Outpaces Democratic Rivals in Spending. Hillary Clinton’s campaign spent $18.7 million since its launch on expenses ranging from payroll to voter files and office furniture, as the Democratic frontrunner sought to build a huge national operation that includes staff in all 50 states. Her campaign has spent more money than both her Democratic rivals have raised. “Thanks to the more than 250,000 Americans who have stepped up to support Hillary Clinton’s campaign, we have had the ability to make critical investments in our organization that will put us in position to win the primary and the White House,” said campaign manager Robby Mook. Some of the campaign’s more significant expenditures included $370,000 for the New Hampshire, Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina Democratic party voter files, nearly $2 million outsourcing its direct marketing to a Washington, D.C.-based firm, and millions of dollars in payroll for the campaign staff of nearly 350. The campaign also spent around $440,000 on legal fees, according to filings, including $163,000 to the law firm of the campaign’s lawyer, Marc Elias.
• Ted Cruz book cracks NYT’s bestseller after “bulk sales” snub. Did the controversy help sales? Ted Cruz’s new book will appear on the New York Times’ bestseller list Friday, a week after the newspaper rejected it as a bestseller because sales were allegedly inflated by “bulk purchases.” Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy said the memoir, “A Time for Truth,” will be listed as number seven on its non-fiction list. She denied that the newspaper altered its method of choosing its bestsellers. “This week’s NYT best seller list was arrived at using the same process as last week’s – and the week before that,” she said. Cruz and his publisher HarperCollins both denied that bulk sales — which are excluded by bestseller lists — were responsible for the strong debut of the book. Amazon (AMZN, Tech30), the giant online bookseller, also said Monday that it found “no evidence of unusual bulk purchase activity.”

5am – E         Murder charges filed in Lyon sisters’ disappearance. WASHINGTON — A convicted sex offender has been indicted on first-degree murder charges for the deaths and disappearance of two sisters who went missing in Montgomery County more than 40 years ago, and newly unsealed court documents suggest what investigators believe may have happened to the girls. Lloyd Lee Welch, 58, is charged in Bedford County, Virginia, for the deaths of Sheila, 12, and Katherine, 10, Lyon, who were last seen at Wheaton Plaza, now known as Westfield Wheaton Mall, where they had gone to look at Easter decorations and to eat lunch on March 25, 1975. They never returned to their family’s home, which was just a few blocks away.

6am – A/B/C Major Garrett dares to ask Obama about Americans still held in Iran and liberal media freaks out. You would think Garrett dropped the “N” word. Oh wait, that’s precisely what sometime comedian and 24-7 liberal nutbar Bill Maher asked on Twitter. “If U wanna ‘strike a nerve’ with POTUS, why not just scream the N word? That shld [should] get his attention,” wrote Maher, who also called Garrett “a huge asshole.” Maher loves protecting the president by playing Secret Service, saying Obama’s detractors “hate him in a way they never hated before.” OK, Maher is a bomb-thrower. If he’s not provocative, no one watches. But journalists are supposed to know better. CNN, sadly proves me wrong. CNN’s own Dana Bash called it “being disrespectful,” evoking her own experience “asking a tough question,” a network rarity usually reserved for conservatives. Anchor Don Lemon pretended to speak for Obama, not that such a world view is anything new. In Lemon’s mind, Obama was thinking: “’Man, look here, are you out of your damn mind,'” said the anchor. Yes, how dare a journalist concern himself with the lives of those held hostage by terror sponsors? Especially when one of them is a journalist? NBC “Today,” co-host Savannah Guthrie praised the presser as “unplugged,” “unfiltered” and feisty. Perhaps because he was targeting CBS and not NBC. Not that CBS had Garrett’s back either. “CBS This Morning” co-host Charlie Rose talked to Garrett and said “all of us have asked questions that we wished we had asked differently.” Then Rose asked if he had any “second thoughts.”

6am – D         Nicolle Wallace Axed as ‘The View’ Co-Host. After just one season at the Hot Topics table, Nicolle Wallace will not be returning to “The View” next season as a daily co-host, Variety has learned. The network has, however, offered the conservative personality a contract to appear as a contributor on the show from time to time. According to a source, Wallace has yet to decide if she’ll continue in that capacity or leave “The View” entirely. An ABC News spokesperson declined to comment on staffing changes, and a rep for Wallace didn’t respond to an email and phone call.

6am – E         Confederate News:

• Rockville, Montgomery County Debating What to Do with Confederate Statue. The statue is located near the Red Brick Courthouse in Rockville. On Monday afternoon, the Confederate soldier stood high on his perch above a young family having a picnic on the lawn near the Red Brick Courthouse in Rockville. The statue, erected in 1913 by The United Daughters of the Confederacy, is a life-sized bronze of a cavalry private and was created to commemorate the soldiers from Montgomery County who served the Confederacy during the Civil War. The plaque on the statue reads, “To Our Heroes of Montgomery Co., Maryland, that we through life may not forget to love the thin gray line.”

• Al Sharpton’s Group Pressures GM to Drop Kid Rock over Confederate Flag. The Detroit chapter of Al Sharpton‘s National Action Network plan to meet with General Motors executives to ask them to drop their sponsorship of Kid Rock over his display of the Confederate flag in performances. The GM-owned Chevrolet brand is one of the sponsors of the Detroit-based rocker’s summer tour. In a statement to the Associated Press, Rev. Charles Williams said that “the best resolution is for GM to pull their sponsorship.”

7am – A         INTERVIEW – CHEF GEOFF TRACY — owns and oversees restaurants in Washington DC including Chef Geoff’s, Chef Geoff’s Downtown, Chef Geoff’s Tysons, and LIA’S

• Navy Banning Fried Food: Fried food on the outs in changes for Navy chow halls. JOINT EXPEDITIONARY BASE LITTLE CREEK-FORT STORY, Va. — Fried food is out and nutritional nagging is in as part of the big changes coming to your chow hall. Menus will not see significant changes — not yet, at least. But you can say goodbye to the fried foods you have come to know and love; breaded chicken, French fries, and the like will be baked in state-of-the-art ovens rather than deep fried. Whole milk will be replaced by skim and soy; fruits and vegetables will be on prominent display. The fast line will remain, but its offerings will be cut back. And this is just the beginning. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced a host of sweeping changes in May that will affect everything from promotions and training to uniforms and fitness. As part of that, he has set his sights on a well-balanced diet, which he calls “the foundation of a healthy lifestyle” that will provide capable warfighters and lower medical costs.
• Thanks, Michelle! Navy sailors blame fried food ban on First Lady. First Lady Michelle Obama has earned a lot of attention for trying to get Americans, especially children, to eat healthier foods, but now a host of former and current members of the Navy are criticizing her for the service’s plan to ditch fried food. According to a recent article in the Navy Times, the military branch is experimenting with healthier food offerings at a couple of units for the remainder of the year. The plans involve swapping fried food and French fries for baked versions, replacing whole milk with skim and soy alternatives, and generally including more vegetables.

7am – B        What Taylor Swift taught a 39-year-old ex-jock. (By Jonathan Allen/Vox) — I should have been watching the Major League Baseball All-Star Game on Tuesday night. I’m a former college baseball player. I’ve attended two Midsummer Classics — Camden Yards in ’93 and Fenway Park in ’99. I even went to a major league stadium on Tuesday night: Nationals Park in Washington, DC. And if you follow pop music the way I follow baseball, you just discovered my secret. I charged a Taylor Swift ticket to my man card. And it was worth it.

7am – C        Obama on Bill Cosby: No Way to Revoke Cosby’s Medal of Freedom. President Barack Obama answered a question about Bill Cosby on Wednesday by saying that no civilized country should tolerate rape. Obama, at a White House press conference, said that there was no way to revoke the Presidential Medal of Freedom from Cosby, who has been accused of sexual assault by dozens of women. Obama declined to address those allegations. Then he said: “I’ll say this. If you give a woman — or a man, for that matter — without his or her knowledge a drug, and then have sex with that person without consent, that’s rape. And I think this country, any civilized country, should have no tolerance for rape.” Cosby said in a 2005 legal deposition that he obtained prescriptions of a powerful sedative to give to women he wanted to have sex with, according to documents released last week in a Pennsylvania court. Cosby has never been charged and denies sexual assault allegations. Cosby publicist Andrew Wyatt declined to comment on the president’s remarks Wednesday. Cosby was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the country’s highest civilian honor, in 2002.

7am – D         Caitlyn Jenner: Trans people deserve your respect. Caitlyn Jenner received the prestigious Arthur Ashe Courage Award during ESPN’s 2015 ESPY Awards ceremony.

7am – E         Ben Rhodes Misled About ‘Anywhere, Anytime’ Inspections of Iran’s Nuclear Program. President Obama’s deputy national security adviser, Ben Rhodes, has been using doublespeak to sell the nuclear deal to the American people. In April of this year, Rhodes claimed that the nuclear deal would include “anywhere, anytime” access to Iranian nuclear sites. Last night, the top Obama adviser said, “We never sought in this negotiation the capacity for so-called anytime, anywhere” inspections. Ben Rhodes tells CNN, ‘We never sought anytime/anywhere inspections’ in Iran.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – ARTHUR BROOKS – president of the American Enterprise Institute and author of new book “The Conservative Heart: How to Build a Fairer, Happier, and More Prosperous America”

• ABOUT BOOK: Many Americans feel caught between two dispiriting political choices: ineffective compassion and heartless pragmatism. They know that outmoded redistribution yields bad results. But there seems to be no conservative alternative for those struggling to get by. Arthur Brooks, best-selling author and AEI’s president, has a plan to change that. His new book, “The Conservative Heart,” envisions a bold “new right” that fights for happiness, unity, and social justice.

8am – B         George H.W. Bush hospitalized after breaking neck bone. Former U.S. President GEORGE H.W. BUSH has been hospitalized after breaking a bone in his neck on Wednesday (15Jul15). The 91 year old, who suffers from a form of Parkinson’s disease and uses a wheelchair, fell at his home in Kennebunkport, Maine and was taken to hospital, but his spokesman insists Bush’s injury is not serious.

8am – C         Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor working on ‘Fight Club’ rock opera. Trent Reznor, best known as the frontman and de-facto leader of Nine Inch Nails, is reportedly working on a new project to bring much-loved novel and film Fight Club to the stage. Reznor last released an album with Nine Inch Nails in 2013, more recently working with Apple Music on their new Beats 1 radio station. Now, it has been claimed that Reznor is developing a “rock opera” version of Fight Club with intent of transferring it to Broadway. Author Chuck Palahniuk and director David Fincher are said to be involved in the project. Reznor and Fincher have previously teamed up for several movie scores, including The Social Network, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and Gone Girl. The news comes from journalist Jeff Goldsmith, who claims the project was confirmed at a Fight Club panel at last weekend’s Comic-Con in San Diego.

8am – D         INTERVIEW — SENATOR MIKE LEE – R-UTAH – discussed prison reform and the Iran deal.