Mark Levin, KT McFarland, Del. Jackson Miller and guest host Scottie Hughes joined WMAL on Wednesday!

CLICK HERE to listen to Wednesday’s show!

INTERVIEW – KT MCFARLAND – Fox News National Security Analyst

INTERVIEW – MARK LEVIN – The Great One – radio host on WMAL weekdays from 6 – 9 PM and author of new book “Plunder and Deceit”

INTERVIEW — Virginia Majority Whip JACKSON MILLER (R-Prince William) – Majority Whip, Virginia House of Delegates Representing the 50th District: The City of Manassas and parts of western Prince William County.

Mornings on the Mall

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Hosts: Brian Wilson and guest host Scottie Hughes

Executive Producer: Heather Smith

5am – A/B/C             Debate field is set: Trump, Bush in; Santorum, Fiorina out. CLEVELAND (AP) — Billionaire businessman Donald Trump will be front and center in the Republican Party’s leadoff presidential debate, scoring the top spot in Thursday’s prime-time faceoff where he’ll be joined by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and seven other White House hopefuls who made the campaign’s first cut. But it’s a disappointing situation for seven other Republicans including former technology executive Carly Fiorina and former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who will be relegated to a pre-debate forum and second-tier status in the party’s crowded field. Fox News on Tuesday announced the 10 GOP candidates who will take part in the debate at 9 p.m. EDT Thursday in the crucial swing state of Ohio. Beyond Trump, those selected among the top 10 — based on recent national polls — include Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.

5am – D         Planned Parenthood official: Abortion procedures, prices altered to meet demand. (Fox News) – A Planned Parenthood executive admits in an undercover video that her doctors alter abortion procedures and she manipulates prices to accommodate specific fetal tissue harvesting requests — including delivering fully intact fetuses — though doing so may violate federal law. In the nearly 16-minute, edited video, the fifth released by Center for Medical Progress, a woman identified as Melissa Farrell, director of research for Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, discusses pricing for specimens — ranging from intact fetuses to tissue and organs — for outside tissue procurement companies.

5am – E         Critter News:

• Metro rider sees snake eating a bird at Green Line station. (WTOP) — WASHINGTON — The hits keep coming for Metro. Some of its older railcars contain asbestos and, earlier this year, a person died after smoke filled a train near the L’Enfant Plaza station. On Tuesday, Metro rider Arnebya Herndon saw a 5-foot-long black snake eating a bird at the Naylor Road stop on the Green Line.
• Henrico County records 9th rabies case of 2015: RICHMOND, Va.   RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Henrico County has recorded its ninth rabies case of 2015. According to police, Henrico Animal Protection received a call Friday morning about a dog and raccoon fighting. The dog was injured, and the raccoon was submitted to a state laboratory for rabies testing. Positive test results were received Tuesday. No other animals or humans were exposed.
• Brian tells his story about adorable skunks.

6am – A/B     Netflix to give workers with babies a year of paid leave. LOS GATOS, Calif. (AP) — Netflix is letting new parents on its payroll to take up to a year’s paid leave in a move that could pressure other technology employers to improve their baby benefits as they vie for talent. The employee benefit announced Tuesday on Netflix’s blog is generous even by the high standards of Silicon Valley, where free meals and other perquisites supplement lavish salaries in the fiercely competitive battle for computer programmers and other technology workers. Google, which consistently ranks among the best places to work, offers 18 weeks of paid maternity leave. Parents can also take up to 12 weeks of paid “baby bonding” time during their child’s first year. Netflix says the baby-leave policy applies to all of the roughly 2,000 people working at its Internet video and DVD-by-mail services.

6am – C         IRAN DEAL:

• Virginia Senator Tim Kaine becomes latest Democrat to back the Iran nuclear deal. Obama Nuclear Deal Gets Three Key Backers In The Senate. The Huffington Post — WASHINGTON — Three key swing Democrats announced support for the Iran nuclear agreement on Tuesday, citing it as an improvement over the status quo. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), the first to declare his position, gave a speech on the Senate floor lauding the international community’s use of diplomacy over force to bring about a peaceful agreement that will require Iran to dismantle the bulk of its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. He was followed by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and Bill Nelson (D-Fla.).
• Iran nuclear deal’s fate in Congress rests with undecided Democrats. (Washington Post) –– Congress is not scheduled to weigh in on the Iran agreement for at least six more weeks, but its fate lies in the hands of undecided lawmakers such as Coons who have assumed a meticulous, rigorous approach to making a decision. And, uncomfortably for President Obama and his negotiating team, nearly all of them are Democrats. One Democratic senator, Robert Menendez (N.J.), has been critical of the negotiations and is expected to oppose the deal. A handful of other Democrats also have been critical, if less sharply so, and as many as a dozen senators have taken pains to remain undecided. They include Michael F. Bennet (Colo.), whose 2016 reelection bid is being heavily targeted by Republicans, and centrists such as Joe Donnelly (Ind.), Heidi Heitkamp (N.D.), Joe Manchin III (W.Va.), Bill Nelson (Fla.) and Mark R. Warner (Va.). And perhaps no decision is being watched more closely than that of Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), who is caught between his role as the Senate’s Democratic leader in waiting and his long-standing alliance with pro-Israel groups. He has responded tersely in recent weeks to inquiries about his position.

6am – D/E     Kelly Osborne to Donald Trump: “If you kick all Latinos out of this country, who’s going to be cleaning your toilet?” Kelly Osbourne stepped into it on “The View” Tuesday, challenging Donald Trump’s statement about Mexicans and asking if he has his way … who will clean his toilet? Osbourne quipped, “If you kick every Latino out of this country, then who is going to be cleaning your toilet, Donald Trump?” Rosie Perez challenged Kelly, who immediately tried to clarify. Rosie tweeted after the show, “My apologizes @KellyOsbourne, I took your point wrong – #TrumpLatinos. My Bad. You’re heart is so pure and righteous. I adore you.” For her part, Osbourne wrote about the flub later, saying, “I should have known better as I was on The View and it was live. I’ve learned a very valuable lesson. It is my hope that this situation will open up a conversation about immigration and the Latin community as a whole. By the way I clean my own f**king toilets.”

7am – A         INTERVIEW – MARK LEVIN – The Great One – radio host on WMAL weekdays from 6 – 9 PM and author of new book “Plunder and Deceit”

• BOOK SIGNING THIS MONTH: Saturday, August 22nd – 10 am at Barnes & Noble, 7851 L Tysons Corner Center, McLean, VA 22102
• His thoughts on who made the main stage for the debate: Fox News said Tuesday that Republican presidential candidates Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker, Mike Huckabee, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul, Chris Christie and John Kasich will all appear on the dais Thursday for the premiere event.
• FBI looking into the security of Hillary Clinton’s private e-mail setup. (Washington Post) — The FBI has begun looking into the security of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s private e-mail setup, contacting in the past week a Denver-based technology firm that helped manage the unusual system, according to two government officials. Also last week, the FBI contacted Clinton’s lawyer, David Ken­dall, with questions about the security of a thumb drive in his possession that contains copies of work e-mails Clinton sent during her time as secretary of state.

7am – B        Can genes make us liberal or conservative? (Raw Story) — Working with 1,771 university students of Han Chinese origin in Singapore, researchers compared answers to surveys — including one tailored to hot-button issues in the city-state — with the presence of a permutation of the DRD4 gene. DRD4 is one of several genes that determines the way dopamine — a crucial neurotransmitter, or chemical messenger — is released in the brain. What they found was a robust link between the presence (or not) of the variant and a split between liberals inclined to decry inequality, on the one hand, and die-hard conservative wary of change, on the other. “The association between political attitude and DRD4 was highly significant for females,” and less so for men, said the study, led by Richard Ebstein of the National University of Singapore. Women, it was also shown, tended to be more conservative in general. The results are bolstered by earlier research based on people of European descent that found similar patterns around the same gene, according to the study. In the long-standing “Nature vs. Nurture” debate, it was long assumed that social values — and especially political ones — were rooted in family upbringing, education and class. But a growing body of evidence suggests, in the words of the researchers, that “biology can’t be ignored.” A landmark study published in 1999, for example, of twins separated at or near birth showed a marked strain of heritability for ‘conservatism’.

7am – C        Boston mayor wants ban on chewing tobacco at ballparks. BOSTON (AP) — From iconic Fenway Park to little league fields in Southie, Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh wants to ban the use of snuff and chewing tobacco in sports venues across the city. The mayor is expected to discuss the proposal Wednesday morning at a city park where he’ll be joined by public health officials, advocates, local youth and former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling. Schilling, now an ESPN analyst, revealed earlier this year he was diagnosed and treated for mouth cancer. He believes chewing tobacco was the cause. “Our baseball parks are places for creating healthy futures, and this ordinance is about doing the right thing as a community for our young people,” Walsh said in a statement ahead of Wednesday’s announcement. “The consequences of smokeless tobacco are real, and we must do all that we can to set an example.” Walsh plans to officially file the ordinance with the City Council on Monday. Specifically, he wants to prohibit use of “smokeless tobacco” products, which his proposal defines as any product containing “cut, ground, powdered, or leaf tobacco and is intended to be placed in the oral or nasal cavity.” It would include, but not be limited to, snuff, chewing tobacco, dipping tobacco and dissolvable tobacco products, according to his office. The proposed ordinance would cover professional, collegiate, high school or organized amateur sporting events and be effective April 1, 2016.

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

• ISIS or Al Qaeda? American Officials Split Over Top Terror Threat. (NY Times) — WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s top intelligence, counterterrorism and law enforcement officials are divided over which terrorist group poses the biggest threat to the American homeland, the Islamic State or Al Qaeda and its affiliates. This is not an academic argument. It will influence how the government allocates billions of dollars in counterterrorism funds, and how it assigns thousands of federal agents, intelligence analysts and troops to combat a multipronged threat that senior officials say is changing rapidly. The issue already has prompted a White House review of its counterterrorism policy toward the Islamic State. And the National Counterterrorism Center has diverted analysts working on longer-term extremist threats to focus on the Islamic State, also called ISIS or ISIL, intelligence officials said. In June, the F.B.I. had so many people under surveillance in terrorism-related investigations — mostly related to the Islamic State — that supervisors reassigned criminal squads to monitor terrorism suspects.
• IRAN DEAL: Iran nuclear deal’s fate in Congress rests with undecided Democrats.

7am – E         After Cecil The Lion’s Death, Airlines Refuse To Ship Exotic Hunting Trophies. Delta, American and United are leading the charge. (The Huffington Post) — Airlines this week began refusing to ship exotic animal-hunting trophies amid global revulsion to the killing of Cecil the lion. Delta led the charge on Monday, announcing a ban on the freight shipment of all lion, leopard, elephant, rhinoceros and buffalo trophies worldwide. American Airlines soon followed suit, refusing to transport the same list of creatures. The moves come in response to an international brouhaha over the death of a Zimbabwean lion, allegedly lured out of a national park — where he was a widely loved attraction — and slaughtered by Walter Palmer, a Minnesota dentist and hunter. Widely circulated images of Palmer standing behind the slain animal sparked outrage, prompting calls to extradite him to Zimbabwe to face potential charges. U.S. senators even drafted a bill, the Conserving Ecosystems by Ceasing the Importation of Large (CECIL) Animal Trophies Act, to further restrict the import of exotic kills.

UPS is still totally OK with shipping dead animal “trophies.” Now that public outcry has successfully caused three top U.S. airlines to ban freight shipments of hunting trophies, hunters will have to find other ways to transport their morbid trophies home. Luckily for them, UPS will continue to ship animals who were killed and prepared for taxidermy. This arrogant stance has made the global shipping company the “number-one target” of Humane Society International, says Teresa Telecky, Ph.D., director of the wildlife department at Humane Society International. “We urge UPS to join the growing list of airlines that prohibit the transport of trophies,” she told The Dodo. UPS public relations director Susan Rosenberg told the Washington Post on Tuesday that the global shipping giant follows U.S. and international laws — not public opinion — in determining what it will and won’t ship.

8am – A             INTERVIEW — Virginia Majority Whip JACKSON MILLER (R-Prince William) – Majority Whip, Virginia House of Delegates Representing the 50th District: The City of Manassas and parts of western Prince William County.

• Washington Post – “Va. Republicans to oust McAuliffe’s Supreme Court pick, install their own” – Virginia Republicans say they will reject Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s pick for the state’s newest Supreme Court justice and install their own choice — an unprecedented move in modern Virginia history. The decision added another layer of tension to the already fraught relationship between McAuliffe (D) and the GOP-controlled legislature, with the governor accusing legislative leaders of throwing “a political temper tantrum.”
• McAuliffe miffed by Republicans’ choice for next Virginia Supreme Court justice. RICHMOND, Va. — Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe’s office called what state Republicans did a tragedy. Days after the governor introduced his choice for the open Virginia Supreme Court seat, Republicans said no thank you and named their own choice for the prestigious spot. On Thursday, July 27, Governor McAuliffe said Fairfax Circuit Court Judge Jane Marum Roush was the perfect person to replace retiring Justice LeRoy F. Millette Jr. on the Virginia Supreme Court. But on Sunday night, Republican leaders offered up their own candidate and made it sound like their choice would be the one who got the seat. Virginia House of Delegates Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford) and Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr. (R-James City) announced they would support Virginia Court of Appeals Judge Rossie D. Alston, Jr.

8am – B         Entertainment News:

• Lenny Kravitz Wardrobe Malfunction Inspires Jokes From PETA, Andy Richter & More. Lenny Kravitz had a major wardrobe malfunction in Sweden on Monday from rocking out a little too hard during a concert. Kravitz was strumming on his guitar and went down to squat when his leather pants ripped right down the middle, exposing his penis to an audience of thousands. So… Lenny Kravitz’s Penis Popped Out On Stage in Sweden. he “Fly Away” singer wasn’t wearing any underwear, but quickly stood up and continued on with his song like a professional as seen in videos posted online. Celebrities such as Andy Richter and Bryan Greenberg have commented on the penis incident, and PETA offered to send Kravtiz a pair of vegan leather pants because they’re “extra sturdy.”
• Gavin-Gwen, Ben-Jen, Miranda-Blake… Now this? / It’s official! Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog have broken up: (E! Online) — Amid high-profile breakups (Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner; Gavin Rossdale and Gwen Stefani), The Muppets’ Miss Piggy announced via social media Tuesday that she is no longer with Kermit the Frog. Naturally, the spotlight-loving swine and her former paramour also managed to plug their new half-hour show. “After careful thought, thoughtful consideration and considerable squabbling, Kermit the Frog and moi have made the difficult decision to terminate our romantic relationship. We will continue to work together on television (The Muppets/Tuesdays 8 p.m, this fall on ABC) and in all media now known or hereafter devised, in perpetuity, throughout the universe. However, our personal lives are now distinct and separate, and we will be seeing other people, pigs, frogs, et al.,” she wrote on Facebook. “This is our only comment on this private matter…unless we get the right offer. Thank you for your understanding.” Kermit the Frog shared the same statement via his own social media. The former couple’s Muppet friends have yet to comment on the split.

8am – C         Local counties top list of happiest places in the U.S. The company examined 978 counties in the U.S. WASHINGTON — Local counties in Virginia and Maryland top a list of the happiest places in the United States. SmartAsset ranks Loudoun and Fairfax counties in Virginia, as well as Howard County, Maryland, in the top 10. The company, which focuses on financial technology, says it collected data on every county in the country with at least 50,000 residents. It looked at eight metrics that reflect four factors to determine a region’s quality of life: family stability; physical health; personal financial health; and economic security. Loudoun County came out at the very top of the list, with a calculated life expectancy of 82.6 years, an unemployment rate of 4.5 percent and a physical activity rate of 59.65 percent. According to SmartAsset, the population in the county has grown from around 90,000 in 1990 to more than 310,000 residents today. Fairfax County ranked third, with a higher life expectancy (83.1 years) and a higher physical activity rate (62.85 percent), but also a higher poverty rate.

8am – D         Debate field is set: Trump, Bush in; Santorum, Fiorina out.

8am – E         FBI has questions about Hillary Clinton’s email security, Washington Post reports. The FBI is asking questions about the security of former secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s private email server and has contacted the Denver-based company that managed the system, The Washington Post reported Tuesday, citing two unnamed government officials. The reported FBI probe comes on the heels of a request from two government inspectors general for a Justice Department review of a “potential compromise of classified information” on Clinton’s email server. Four emails containing classified information were identified among 30,000 emails that Clinton handed over to the State Department for review, the inspectors general for the State Department and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said in a joint statement last month. The FBI also contacted Clinton’s lawyer, David Kendall, last week with questions about the security of a thumb drive he has with copies of emails from Clinton’s tenure as secretary of State, according to the Post.