DC Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, Amb. John Bolton, Stuart Varney, Dr. Jeff Gardere and guest host Jessie Jane Duff joined WMAL’s morning drive show.

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Mornings on the Mall

Thursday, August 27, 2015

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Jessie Jane Duff

Executive Producer: Heather Smith

5am – A/B/C             Clinton And Virginia Governor Call For Gun Restrictions. Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe called for tighter gun laws in response to the deadly shooting of two Roanoke, Virginia-based TV journalists during a live broadcast this morning in his state. “There are too many guns in the hands of people that shouldn’t have guns,” McAuliffe said during an interview with WTOP. “There is too much gun violence in America,” he said, adding that he has long advocated for strengthening gun background checks and that it should be made a priority.

5am – D                     Hillary Clinton Takes ‘Responsibility’ for Email Use, Saying It ‘Wasn’t the Best Choice’ (NY TIMES) — Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that she understood why people had questions about her decision to use only private email while she was secretary of state and that she took responsibility for that decision, a shift from her past remarks about an issue that has dogged her since shortly before she began her presidential campaign. “What, like with a cloth or something?” she said to a Fox News reporter last week who had asked whether she had “wiped,” or erased, her email server before turning it over to the F.B.I. recently.

GOP senator accuses Clinton of improperly passing state secrets to her lawyer. WASHINGTON — In a “serious risk” to national security, Hillary Clinton gave her State Department emails containing Top Secret and other classified information to her lawyer, who lacked sufficient clearances to possess it and who kept it for as long as eight months, the Republican Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee charged Tuesday. In a letter to her successor Secretary of State John Kerry, Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said when she turned over thumb drives containing her official emails to her lawyer, “it appears Secretary Clinton sent (Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information) to an unauthorized person.”

5am – E         Watchdog: Solyndra misrepresented facts to get loan guarantee. (Fox News) — A four-year investigation has concluded that officials of the solar company Solyndra misrepresented facts and omitted key information in their efforts to get a $535 million loan guarantee from the federal government. The company’s collapse soon after getting federal backing provided ammunition to lawmakers and other critics who portrayed it as wasteful government spending. The company’s failure likely will cost taxpayers more than $500 million. The report by the Energy Department’s inspector general was released Wednesday. It’s designed to provide federal officials with lessons learned as it proceeds to grant billions of dollars in additional loan guarantees. The inspector general found fault with the Department of Energy, describing its due diligence work as “less than fully effective.” The report also said department employees felt tremendous pressure to process loan guarantee applications.

6am – A/B/C Jeb on Trump Ejecting Ramos: Journalists Deserve More ‘Respect and Dignity’ Than That. (Mediaite) – Jeb Bush today backed up Jorge Ramos after he was booted out of Donald Trump‘s presser last night. Ramos called out to ask Trump a question and Trump didn’t like him speaking out of turn, so Ramos got kicked out of the room. Ramos was eventually let back in and confronted Trump over his immigration plan. According to NBC News, Bush told reporters today, in response to the kerfuffle, “I think people with the press ought to be treated with a little more respect and dignity.”

6am – D/E     D.C. tops list of nation’s worst traffic gridlock. (WTOP) – WASHINGTON — This may come as no surprise to anyone who has been stuck in traffic on Interstate 66, Interstate 95 or the Capital Beltway. The Washington, D.C. area has the worst traffic gridlock in the United States. Now, there’s a report to prove it. Researchers at Texas A&M’s Transportation Institute, and INRIX, a data technology company, have released their 2015 Urban Mobility Scorecard. The scorecard ranks cities based on traffic statistics, including “congested travel,” also known as gridlock. The report shows that D.C. auto commuters waste more time and more fuel in traffic delays than commuters elsewhere. “Washington, D.C. once again tops the list,” says Bill Eisele, senior research engineer and co-author of the report. The researchers estimate that the daily auto commuter in the D.C. area suffered through a total of 82 hours of delays in 2014, compared to 80 for Los Angeles commuters, 78 for those in San Francisco and 74 for New York City commuters.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – DR. JEFF GARDERE – Psychologist – discussed the mental health of the gunman who killed 2 on live TV.

7am – B        Critter News:

• Man may lose hand after attempting ‘selfie’ with rattlesnake… Lake Elsinore Man May Lose Hand After Attempting To Take Selfie With Rattlesnake. LAKE ELSINORE (CBSLA.com) — A Lake Elsinore man was bitten by a rattlesnake Monday as he picked it up and attempted to take a selfie. Alex Gomez, 36, spotted the four-foot rattler in a field by his family’s ranch on Cielito Drive, shortly before he made the potentially deadly mistake. “I’m shocked that he would have that things around his neck,” Alex’s mother Deborah said. “It could’ve bit his neck, and that would have been it. That’s just being a fool.” Alex’s nephew, Ronnie, was with him when the snake was discovered, and says the reptile gave plenty of warning. “It was really think and had ten rattles on it, it was rattling,” Ronnie said. “It was pretty mad.”
• Panda cub dies at National Zoo. (USA Today) — The smaller of twin giant panda cubs born Saturday died Wednesday afternoon at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo in Washington, D.C., officials said. The larger cub, born first, appears to be “strong, robust, behaving normally” and is with its 17-year-old mother, Mei Xiang. “We have one healthy panda and we remain optimistic about that panda’s future,” the zoo’s chief veterinarian, Donald Neiffer, said at a news briefing. After spending the night with its mother, the smaller cub, which weighed just 3 ounces at birth, appeared weaker Wednesday morning and was having trouble breathing, he said. Veterinarians pumped oxygen into the incubator and gave the cub aerosolized antibiotics and medication to break up mucus in its lungs, to no avail. “Despite extreme efforts on the part of our dedicated staff, we weren’t able to change things,” Neiffer said.

7am – C        MSNBC ending Al Sharpton’s daily show. NEW YORK (AP) — Al Sharpton is losing his daily show on MSNBC, with the network saying he’ll be downshifted to the weekend. Sharpton’s “Politics Nation” has aired at 6 p.m. EDT on weeknights for the past four years at the ratings-challenged news network. MSNBC is in the midst of wholesale changes under NBC News boss Andrew Lack, deemphasizing its left-leaning programming during the daytime hours in favor of more straight news shows. Sharpton’s show occasionally put MSNBC in awkward positions, since he continued his political activism while doing some stories where there was racial controversy while remaining host of a news program. MSNBC said Wednesday that starting Oct. 4, Sharpton’s “Politics Nation” will air at 8 a.m. Sundays. His daily show ends Sept. 4.

7am – D         INTERVIEW – STUART VARNEY – Host of Varney and Company, Fox Business Network

• Dow zooms up 619 points, 3rd biggest gain ever. The Dow raced 619 points higher on Wednesday, its most emphatic point gain since the 2008 financial crisis.
• TV SHOOTING: Stuart is apalled by the social media video by the TV killer

7am – E         INTERVIEW — DC COUNCIL CHAIRMAN PHIL MENDELSON

• Phil Mendelson, the Council Chairman was first elected to the D.C. Council in November of 1998.       As Chairman, he leads the DC Council on all legislative matters.
• D.C. mayor to ask for expanded police powers amid homicide spike

8am – A         INTERVIEW — AMB. JOHN BOLTON — senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

• Amb. Bolton wrote in the Boston Herald yesterday: ” N. Korea may seek new nuke deal with weak Obama”
• White House pushes for Iran filibuster. The administration seeks to tamp down expectations, but the numbers of supportive Senate Democrats are adding up.
• ‘Israel should be annihilated,’ senior Iran aide says. (Times of Israel) — Adviser to parliamentary speaker rejects British foreign secretary’s suggestion that Rouhani indicating ‘more nuanced approach’ to Jewish state
• Pentagon Investigating ‘Misleading’ ISIS Intelligence Reports. Inquiry Weighs Whether ISIS Analysis Was Distorted. (NY Times) — Citing anonymous U.S. officials, the New York Times reports that a civilian defense analyst blew the whistle on officials in a key division of the U.S. armed forces that had revised intelligence reports to make campaigns sound more successful. The intelligence reports have landed on the desk of key policy makers, including President Barack Obama.

8am – B/C     ‘Red Light Robin Hood’ Caught Rigging Cameras So They Can’t Give Tickets. A man completely fed up with red light cameras and their un-American tickets finally did something about it. Now some are calling him the “Red Light Robin Hood.” Stephen Ruth of New York videoed himself using a long pole to push the red light camera up so it’s pointed toward the sky and not the intersection. Now he faces misdemeanor charges of criminal tampering and obstruction of governmental administration, Fox5NY reports. “Did you ever think that the only ones that have to pay these tickets are hardworking Americans?” Ruth says in the video. “I did. I’m one of them.” Ruth got into trouble when he did this to several cameras and posted a how-to video on Facebook.

8am – D/E     Clinton And Virginia Governor Call For Gun Restrictions.