Mychele Brickner, Tucker Carlson, Jason Russell & Larry Kudlow joined WMAL on Tuesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, October 20, 2015

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

Executive Producer: Heather Smith Hunter

5am – A/B/C Jay Gruden says he’s ‘not making excuses’ or attempting to ‘baby’ Kirk Cousins. (Washington Post) — On Sunday evening, Jay Gruden ticked off a long list of factors that contributed to Kirk Cousins’s two-interception performance during Washington’s 34-20 loss to the New York Jets. Windy conditions, pressure from the Jets defense and having to identify coverages and protections ranked among the items on Gruden’s list. However on Monday, the coach said he probably went overboard in his explanation, and insisted that he wasn’t trying to “baby” his quarterback. “I talk too much. But I’m not trying to make excuses for anybody,” said Gruden, who is usually known for his transparency and blunt assessments. “It wasn’t good enough for anybody – not Kirk, not myself, not the offensive line, not the coaching staff. There was nobody in this locker room that played good enough to win a football game on Sunday afternoon. I’m not making excuses for anybody, I’m not trying to baby anybody. I’m trying to get our team ready to play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers moving forward and get this thing back on the right track.”

5am – D         New drone rules to include hobbyists. (USA Today) — The federal government will seek to register all drones, including the lighter, remote-controlled crafts favored by hobbyists, so it can track down any drone pilots who collide with other aircraft or violate rules for safe flights. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said Monday the new rules will apply to hobbyists as well as commercial drone operators, who already register. Government regulators and industry leaders are eager to get rules in place as interest in remote-controlled aircraft surges. Quadcopters equipped with a high-definition cameras cost little more than $40 and can be purchased easily online, while models that fly longer and higher can run thousands of dollars. Retailers expect drones to fly off the shelves as gifts this holiday season. Hobbyists argue their lighter aircraft pose less danger than the heavier commercial models and should not be as strictly regulated. Such regulations and higher costs associated with registration could drive away recreational fliers with smaller models, said Dave Mathewson, executive director of the Academy of Model Aeronautics (AMA), which represents 180,000 hobbyists. AMA pilots put their membership number, name, address on their aircraft so the owners can be found if the drones are involved in a collision, Mathewson said.

5am – E         Critter News:

• Coffee buzz: Honey bees are caffeine fiends. (RT) — Like people, honey bees can get hooked on caffeine. Plants trick the flying pollinators into changing their natural behaviors so they can get more of the drug, a new study has found. Bees even become more hyperactive after sipping caffeine-laced nectar. Caffeine is a natural secondary compound found in the roots and leaves of some plants ‒ like coffee and citrus, for instance. It’s normally a protective measure, as the bitter taste is a turnoff for herbivores. But it’s also found in the sweet and appetizing nectar of those plants’ flowers, as a way to trick honey bees into repeatedly visiting them, researchers found in a study published Thursday in the Cell Press journal Current Biology. Dr. Margaret Couvillon of the University of Sussex led a team of researchers that tested bees’ responses to a sucrose solution with field-realistic doses of caffeine or without. They found that bees would rather drink caffeinated nectar than food of an equal quality that didn’t contain the drug. As a result, plants may add caffeine to their nectar to attract bees while providing substandard forage, the group said in a statement.
• Pet store owner hopes thief will return stolen chameleon. ST. LOUIS COUNTY (KTVI) – A local pet shop that specializes in reptiles and amphibians is on the lookout for a stolen chameleon. Exotic Arc in the 300 block of Lemay Ferry Road told St. Louis County police someone removed a female Panther Chameleon from a cage in the shop on the evening of October 9. Owner Jim Brumley released surveillance tape showing a teen or young man opening a cage door and appearing to remove the lizard. It is orange and beige in color with orange markings and only about four inches long not measuring its tail.
• Oops: Hunters kill 2 moose, realize they are inside zoo. (NY Post) — Hunters in Norway stalked and killed two moose — before realizing that the animals were actually inside a zoo, officials said. The hunters told authorities they fired through a fence at the Polar Park Zoo near the country’s northern town of Narvik, only to learn that they had just killed captive animals, according to Norwegian website, The Local. The men called the zoo to explain their mistake, telling workers there that their hunting dogs had somehow gotten inside the enclosure and began chasing the moose, prompting them to take aim.
• Australia’s Feral Cat Problem: (NY Times) — Australia’s environment minister, Greg Hunt, announced the plan to eradicate a tenth of the estimated 20 million wild cats by 2020, calling them “a tsunami of violence and death.” That’s one way of saying they are an ecological threat that Australia must confront. Introduced species like the Australian cats, or the Burmese pythons in the Everglades or the lionfish in the Atlantic, are major threats to native plants and animals, and since they were usually brought in by humans, humans have a responsibility to deal with the problems.

6am – A/B/C Joe Biden to Enter Presidential Race. Vice President Joe Biden will enter the presidential race, according to media reports filed on Monday. “Three sources close to @VP telling me he’s expected to announce he is running but the sources are all urging caution on 48-hr timeline,” chief White House correspondent Ed Henry tweeted. Henry added that observers should look to Saturday’s Jefferson Jackson dinner in Iowa as a potential announcement event.

6am – D         INTERVIEW – MYCHELE BRICKNER – FORMER FAIRFAX COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER

• School Board Hasn’t Responded to FOIAs on Transgender Policy. (CNSNews.com) – Concerned parents in a Washington, D.C. suburb say the local school board acted hastily in making “gender identity” part of its non-discrimination policy, but those same public officials are in no rush to release behind-the-scenes information leading up to their controversial decision. The Fairfax County (Va.) School Board is taking months, not the legally required five days, to respond to multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests for all communications between school board members and state and federal officials regarding the board’s decision to include gender identity in its non-discrimination policies. The FOIA requests, filed through Judicial Watch five months ago, are an attempt by Fairfax parents and residents to understand the discussions leading up to the policy change last May.

6am – E         Obama meets with Texas teen clockmaker at ‘Astronomy Night.’ (USA Today) – WASHINGTON — President Obama hosted 300 students, 11 astronauts, and Bill Nye (the Science Guy) on the south lawn of the White House on a clear Monday night for the second “Astronomy Night.” And in the third row, among the students, was Ahmed Mohamed, the 14-year-old Texas boy who became an international celebrity after police investigated the clock he invented for a school project as a possible explosive device. Mohamed did not bring his clock, despite an invitation from Obama to do so. But he did have an opportunity to meet the president briefly at the end of the event, despite earlier suggestions from the White House that such a meeting was unlikely. “After all, there are several hundred people who are planning to participate in tonight’s festivities on the South Lawn,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said earlier Monday. Mohamed told the Dallas Morning News he didn’t bring his clock because he was returning from travel to Sudan — where he met that country’s president — and didn’t have time to stop home. “I felt really happy that I got support from (Obama),” he told the newspaper. “It’s really amazing that he helped me.” Obama encouraged the students to keep inventing, creating and discovering.

7am – A         INTERVIEW — TUCKER CARLSON – Editor of The Daily Caller and co-host of Fox and Friends Weekend

• Joe Biden to Enter Presidential Race
• Did Biden Take a Veiled Swipe at Hillary?
• Thoughts on Trump’s spat with Jeb Bush about 9/11

7am – B         Tech News:

• Apple bans hundreds of iPhone apps that secretly gathered personal info. (CNN) – Apple has removed hundreds of apps from the iTunes App Store that secretly collected personal information from anyone who downloaded them. Most of the 256 affected apps were made in China, but they were available worldwide on the app store and were downloaded 1 million times, according to app analytics service SourceDNA, which first discovered the problem. The apps’ creators used a software development kit from a Chinese advertising company called Youmi, which allowed the developers to put ads in their apps. That’s kosher. But Youmi’s software gathered information about the people who downloaded the apps, including their email addresses and iPhone serial numbers — sending all that data to Youmi’s servers. That skirted Apple’s strict privacy guidelines for app developers. And the way Youmi designed the software hid that fact from the developers and Apple’s iTunes App Store gatekeepers. SourceDNA did not say which apps were affected. The company told Apple about the problem on Sunday, and Apple removed the apps on Monday.
• Teen says he hacked CIA director’s AOL account. (NY Post) — Hillary Rodham Clinton’s email scandal didn’t stop the head of the CIA from using his own personal AOL account to stash work-related documents, according to a high school student who claims to have hacked into them. CIA Director John Brennan’s private account held sensitive files — including his 47-page application for top-secret security clearance — until he recently learned that it had been infiltrated, the hacker told The Post. Other emails stored in Brennan’s non-government account contained the Social Security numbers and personal information of more than a dozen top American intelligence officials, as well as a government letter about the use of “harsh interrogation techniques” on terrorism suspects, according to the hacker. The FBI and other federal agencies are now investigating the hacker, with one source saying criminal charges are possible, law enforcement sources said. “I think they’ll want to make an example out of him to deter people from doing this in the future,” said a source who described the situation as “just wild” and “crazy.”

7am – C         Light Drinking While Pregnant Is Probably Safe. So why are women being told otherwise? (Slate) — Women received a familiar directive from the American Academy of Pediatrics on Monday: Don’t drink while pregnant. Not even a little bit. Ever. At all. That’s the message of a new survey to be published in the journal Pediatrics. The message from the paper’s lead author, University of Texas Health Science Center professor of pediatrics Janet Williams, as paraphrased by the Guardian: “[T]here is no known ‘safe’ level of alcohol consumption.” Those words seem definitive, but they also suggest a more complex truth. The interdiction on light drinking while pregnant is about known unknowns: whether there’s a totally safe level of consumption and what that level might be. It’s not a statement about something that we do know: that alcohol, even the occasional glass of wine, is definitively harmful to a developing fetus. Roughly 1 in 10 American women drink while pregnant, with college-educated, professional women more likely to do so than other groups.

7am – D         ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ Full Trailer Debuts Online. (Variety) — The full trailer for “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” has debuted online, following the promo’s premiere during ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” game between the New York Giants and the Philadelphia Eagles. The trailer’s release coincides with the launch of ticket sales for the seventh installment in the beloved franchise, which will bow in theaters on Dec. 18. On Sunday, Lucasfilm unveiled the theatrical poster for “The Force Awakens” as part of the countdown to the trailer and ticket release. Despite initial plans for the tickets to go on sale following the trailer’s debut, online ticketers put them on sale almost two hours before halftime, straining many sites, including Fandango and MovieTickets.com, with many users reporting site crashes and error messages as fans rushed to secure their seats.

7am – E         Left Praises Trump’s Bush-Bashing 9/11 Comments:

• Trevor Noah Struggles to Admit That Trump Is Actually Right About Something
• Matthews Praises Trump for Going After Bush on 9/11: Dems ‘Never Had the Stones’
• Peter King Hammers Trump for Sounding Like ‘Left-Wing Michael Moore Wacko’ on 9/11
• Fox’s Perino Rips Trump for Pushing ‘Liberal Conspiracy Theories’ on 9/11: ‘Lunatic’ Stuff Graham Bashes Trump Over 9/11 Remarks: He Has ‘No Clue’ What He’s Talking About

8am – A         INTERVIEW — JASON RUSSELL – a Commentary Writer for the Washington Examiner.

• Jason was on a mission from 7 AM yesterday morning to last night to visit every metro stop in the DC metro area. He tweeted at each metro stop his observations. He also stopped by a WMATA Riders Union meeting.
• TWEETS:
  • Jason Russell ‏@JRussellMI 12h12 hours ago: Finally home. Last video is a rant on why #WMATA should spell this station as “Courthouse.”
  • Jason Russell ‏@JRussellMI 12h12 hours ago: 91 #WMATA stations. All in one day.
  • Jason Russell ‏@JRussellMI 13h13 hours ago: Alright, ready to finish this. Only five stops to go, but you never know with #WMATA.
  • Jason Russell ‏@JRussellMI 13h13 hours ago: At @WMATARU’s first public meeting before I finish my #wmata adventure. So far they are, like Metro, late (I kid!)

8am – B         2016 News:

• Bernie Sanders says he has an “ample supply of underwear,” despite his portrayal on SNL. (USA Today) – IOWA CITY, Iowa — Sen. Bernie Sanders says he has an “ample supply of underwear,” despite how he was portrayed on Saturday Night Live this week. Comedian Larry David imitated Sanders during Saturday’s SNL cold open, which re-created Tuesday’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas. David, the co- creator of Seinfeld, won praise for nailing Sanders’ thick Brooklyn accent. “I own one pair of underwear,” David said. “That’s it. Some of these billionaires they have three, four pairs.” After a house party in Iowa City on Sunday, Sanders assured reporters he is well-supplied. “Last week, I bought my second pair of underwear. That’s a joke. Please don’t write it down,” Sanders said. “I have an ample supply of underwear.” Sanders said he only owned one suit while he was mayor of Burlington, Vt., but said he has increased his wardrobe during his tenure in the Senate.
• Jim Webb schedules presser to discuss campaign future. Washington (CNN) Jim Webb is holding a news conference Tuesday to announce he is considering running for president as an independent — rather than a Democrat.
• Bill Clinton to campaign for Hillary in Iowa. (Washington Examiner) — Bill Clinton will campaign for his wife, the Democratic front-runner, in Iowa this Saturday, prior to the Jefferson-Jackson dinner, along with pop star Katy Perry. This is the first time since Clinton announced her candidacy in New York City on June 13 that the 42nd president will join her on the campaign trail. Early on in the 2016 campaign, Hillary’s staff said that Bill would refrain from taking on an overly public role. But as the controversy surrounding former secretary of state’s private email server heated up earlier this month, the former president took to cable news to speak on his wife’s behalf. Bill Clinton has also appeared at several fundraisers for his wife in the past month. Most recently, he accompanied Hillary to the first Democratic debate in Las Vegas, but did not make any public appearances.
• Poll: Trump Hits Highest Mark Yet, But Carson Is Close Behind. (NBC News) — Real estate mogul Donald Trump remains the front-runner in the Republican presidential field, while former neurosurgeon Ben Carson holds a close second place, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows. With the backing of 25 percent of Republican primary voters, Trump is at his highest level of support in the poll since entering the 2016 race. Carson now gets the support of 22 percent of Republican voters, remaining within the margin of error of his first-place rival. Last month, 21 percent of GOP primary voters said Trump was their first choice for the party’s nomination, while 20 percent picked Carson.
• George W. Bush on Ted Cruz: ‘I Just Don’t Like that Guy.’ When even George W. Bush, a man who once used the phrase “internets,” doesn’t like you, you know it’s bad. At an event for his brother Jeb! Bush’s presidential campaign on Sunday night, the younger George Dubbya reportedly dropped a serious truth bomb among a scattering of Jeb! donors, according to Politico. “I just don’t like the guy,” he said. Other donors in the room said that Bush was generally “pretty pleasant” when speaking of the other Republican presidential characters during the evening.

8am – C         Ben’s Chili Bowl’s Bill Cosby mural defaced. (WTOP) — WASHINGTON — If North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ever visited Ben’s Chili Bowl, he’d have to pay cash like nearly everyone else. Comedian Bill Cosby, who loves the restaurant and has a long-standing relationship with the owner’s family, is one of the few whose half smoke tab is covered when he drops by. But on Monday, Cosby’s now-controversial image on a mural at the restaurant was covered up by none other than the Dear Leader. A cutout of the North Korean dictator obscured Cosby’s face in the painting at the U Street Northwest location. A street artist, who posts under the name “Smear Leader,” took credit for the work. “Instead of looking at a sexual predator, people can celebrate in jubilation that the great leader is now on their Wall,” a post reads. He referred to the restaurant at “Kim’s Chili Bowl.”

8am – D         INTERVIEW – LARRY KUDLOW – CNBC Senior Contributor and host of The Larry Kudlow Show on WMAL Saturdays at 7 pm – discussed Biden, Benghazi and Trump.

8am – E         Entertainment News:

• Ronda Rousey DEMOLISHES Feminist Reporter’s Question About Gender Pay Gap. (Daily Caller) — Even if you’ve been living under a rock for the past year, you’ve probably caught whispers of how freakin’ awesome Ronda Rousey is. Thanks to her no-nonsense attitude — and wicked arm bar — the UFC women’s bantamweight champion become a cultural icon in 2015. Naturally, she’s been asked to weigh in on some of society’s most controversial issues, and her answers are as equally awesome as her Carl’s Jr. commercial. Take for example, the press conference Rousey — the UFC’s highest-paid fighter — took part in over the weekend where a feminist reporter asked her to comment on gender income inequality in sports. “I think that how much you get paid should have something to do with how much money you bring in,” Rousey said. “I’m the highest paid fighter not because Dana and Lorenzo wanted to do something nice for the ladies — they do it because I bring in the highest numbers.” “They do it because I make them the most money, and I think that they make should be proportionate to the money they bring in,” she said.
• ‘Downton Abbey’ final season to begin in January. NEW YORK (AP) – The final season of the popular British drama “Downton Abbey” will begin on Jan. 3, leading up to a finale on the first weekend of March, PBS announced Monday. The show has been both a creative and ratings triumph for the network. On the Sunday before its final episode, PBS will air a marathon of the season up to that point and a behind-the-scenes program on how the show was made. The network will also try to use “Downton Abbey” as a launching pad for “Mercy Street,” a Civil War drama premiering Jan. 17 directly after an episode of the outgoing hit.

TOMORROW: KT McFarland