Legal analyst Joe diGenova, former Fairfax School Board Member Mychele Brickner & Washington Post’s Robert Costa joined WMAL on Monday!

Mornings on the Mall

Monday, November 2, 2015

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

Executive Producer: Heather Smith Hunter

5am – A/B/C GOP presidential campaigns agree to some debate changes. Republican presidential candidates have agreed on a series of demands giving them greater control of debates, as the GOP’s frustrated 2016 class works to inject changes into the nominating process. Representatives from more than a dozen campaigns met behind closed doors for nearly two hours Sunday night in suburban Washington, a meeting that was not expected to yield many results given the competing interests of several candidates. Yet they emerged having agreed to several changes to be outlined in a letter to debate hosts in the coming days.Campaigns want to largely bypass the RNC in coordinating with network hosts, mandatory opening and closing statements, an equal number of questions for the candidates, and pre-approval of on-screen graphics.

5am – D         2 Maryland communities among nation’s ‘top 50 small towns’ (Baltimore Sun) — Berlin was already “America’s Coolest Small Town.” The Eastern Shore town, along with Havre de Grace, now can add another accolade to its growing list. Both Maryland towns were listed among Travel World’s “Top 50 Small Towns in America.” The list boasts “some of the most unique, quaint, and inviting places in America.” Berlin’s selling points include its plethora of historic places, tree-lined streets, friendly residents and restaurants and shops. A Baltimore Sun story last year noted Berlin’s recent influx of residents; the writer’s first impression of the town “was of a pristine setting with a storybook quality.” Havre de Grace recognized as 11th best “small-town downtown” in U.S.

5am – E         Fred Thompson, with larger-than-life persona, dies at 73.    Fred Thompson died on Sunday in Nashville. He was 73.    He served as counsel to the Senate committee investigating the Watergate scandal.    Mr. Thompson served in the U.S. Senate from 1994 to 2003.    As an actor, he had roles on NBC’s “Law & Order” and in films such as “The Hunt for Red October.” Fred Thompson, a former U.S. senator from Tennessee, GOP presidential candidate, Watergate attorney and actor who starred on the television drama “Law and Order,” died on Sunday in Nashville. He was 73. Mr. Thompson died after a recurrence of lymphoma, according to a prepared statement issued by the Thompson family. Mr Thompson, who had recently purchased a house in Nashville to return to Tennessee, was first diagnosed with cancer in 2004. “It is with a heavy heart and a deep sense of grief that we share the passing of our brother, husband, father, and grandfather who died peacefully in Nashville surrounded by his family,” the Thompson family’s statement reads.

6am – A/B/C Should you let your kids gorge on Halloween candy? Jill Castle, dietitian: Candy is not great, but OK for kids to eat it at Halloween if there’s a plan for portions. She says the trick is to deal with the candy left over after the holiday, and there are several good strategies for that. (CNN) I have been through many Halloweens. As a pediatric nutritionist, and a mom to four kids, I have faced the annual candy conundrum: We want our kids to eat healthy things all year round, but on this one day, we allow a mountain of candy into our homes and say: OK, you can eat that. Most of us, at least. Is this a disastrous idea? It would seem that way at first: Candy is scary for many parents, and for good reason. According to the World Health Organization, kids are only supposed to be eating about 10% of their daily caloric intake from sugar.

6am – D         Paul Ryan Isn’t Sure How To Get The Cigarette Smell Out Of The Speaker’s Office. “You know when you ever go to a hotel room or get a rental car that has been smoked? That’s what this smells like.” (Huffington Post) — Former House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) may have given his successor a clean slate to start with, but he also left him a slightly more unpleasant gift: the smell of cigarette smoke. Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), a fan of the P90X workout, told Chuck Todd on “Meet The Press” on Sunday that the smell of cigarettes still lingered in the speaker’s office from Boehner, who was known to smoke a lot. Ryan, who said that he thought he would be able to continue sleeping in his office as speaker, told Todd that he wasn’t sure how he would get the smell of smoke out.

6am – E         Sports News:

• Royals take World Series crown with epic 12-inning Game 5 win. NEW YORK — The Kansas City Royals, their bodies drenched in champagne, and joyful tears in their eyes, had a simple question Sunday for everyone not wearing a uniform, and crashing their celebration. Ok, now do you believe? The Royals, who a year ago refused to take a gamble and were left 90 feet away from a World Series championship, this time doubled down, took the riskiest of risks, and seized that 90 feet. Eric Hosmer’s daring dash for home in the ninth inning will be the defining moment of their World Series championship, stunning the New York Mets, 7-2, in 12 innings, and capturing their first championship in 30 years. The Royals, the team that refused to go away, defying the greatest odds night after night this postseason, will go down as one of the most relentless teams of this generation.
• Dez Bryant erupts on reporters after Cowboys’ loss to Seahawks. (USA Today) — ARLINGTON, Texas – Dez Bryant made his highly anticipated return for the Dallas Cowboys, and controversial Greg Hardy made a potential game-changing interception. But the result Sunday was a familiar one: a fifth straight loss for the Cowboys, who see their once promising season quickly slipping away. At 2-5, they are in last place in the middling NFC East. The Seattle Seahawks, as the two-time defending NFC champs often do, rode their tenacious defense and an efficient late-game drive engineered by Russell Wilson to beat the Cowboys 13-12 at AT&T Stadium. The Seahawks took 17 plays to drive 79 yards in 5 minutes, 35 seconds before kicking the game-winning 24-yard field goal with 1:06 remaining.
• Caddie opens up on Tiger Woods’ affairs in tell-all book. WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Tiger Woods’ former caddie Steve Williams has described his anger and frustration at being “hung out to dry” by Woods’ management when the golfer’s infidelities were revealed in 2009, and says he was sometimes treated as a “slave” on the course. A New Zealand newspaper on Sunday published a chapter of Williams’ tell-all book “Out of the Rough” in which the New Zealand-born caddie describes his reaction on learning of Woods’ extramarital affairs. Williams writes that he didn’t hear from his close friend Woods for four months as the golfer’s marriage, career and reputation fell apart. While Williams says he was angry to learn Woods had cheated on his wife Elin Nordegren, “he was still a friend in trouble and I was going to stick by him. I did that even though people were accusing me of being an enabler, an accomplice, saying I was lying when I stated clearly that I knew nothing about this.”

7am – A         INTERVIEW — JOE DIGENOVA – legal analyst and former U.S. Attorney to the District of Columbia

• Joe’s reflected on the passing of his friend Sen. Fred Thompson.
• Va. school board blocks release of gender identity documents ahead of Election Day. By Kellan Howell – The Washington Times – Sunday, November 1, 2015 — A Virginia school board has filed a lawsuit that blocks until after Election Day Tuesday the public release of documents on a controversial transgender policy, prompting several candidates for the board to say Monday that voters now must toss the incumbents. Several documents released last week under Freedom of Information Act requests filed by Judicial Watch have revealed that Fairfax County Public School district board members already began implementing policy changes to accommodate transgender students before hastily voting on the gender identity policy amendment in May. The documents also revealed that the school board had moved to hire a transgender identity consultant on the night of the vote and had been paying him without a written contract. But the documents released last week are just a few of the many that have been requested by Judicial Watch, and the others are now being withheld until after Election Day.
• White House Aims to Stop Release of Obama-Clinton Emails. (NY Times) — WASHINGTON — The White House will try to block the release of a handful of emails between President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, citing longstanding precedent invoked by presidents of both parties to keep presidential communications confidential, officials said Friday. Stories from Our Advertisers. The State Department discovered the emails between Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton as part of its effort to release the former secretary’s emails, several thousand more of which were made public on Friday.

7am – B         Halloween News:

• Golden retriever wins best Bond-themed Halloween costume. This James Bond-loving dog wins best topical Halloween costume. (Mirror) — Halloween’s a scary festival – but this golden retriever is neither shaken nor stirred. Reddit user Sathyiaold must have enjoyed new Bond flick Spectre, as he was showing off this adorable pic of his pet online with the title ‘Martini dog is not amused’. It takes a measure of genius to come up with a costume that turns a dog cone into a classy beverage. And soon enough, people were getting into the spirits of things.
• Bill Maher Rips PC-Left As ‘Humorless Jackoffs’ Over Halloween Costume Outrage. (Daily Caller) — In his “New Rules” segment on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher,” host Bill Maher went on an epic rant against the faux outrage whipped up across the country against politically incorrect Halloween costumes. “The fake outrage people get 364 days a year to hypersensitive about everything, there has to be one day where ‘going too far’ isn’t just OK, it’s celebrated,” Maher said. “Halloween is supposed to be politically incorrect. That’s why we say ‘trick or treat’ instead of ‘placate and coddle.’”
• The Exorcist steps made an official Washington D.C. tourist attraction. Tourists regularly visit Washington, D.C. to pose for photos with the spooky stone steps from The Exorcist. This spot served as the location for — spoiler alert! — the death of Father Karras (Jason Miller) in the film. Now the city officially recognized The Exorcist Steps as a tourist attraction. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser unveiled a special plaque with this designation. “It is important that all the tourists know exactly what these steps mean to D.C. history and they are indeed an icon in our town,” she said. “It is also a marker for us to put in the ground to say that we are going to double and redouble our efforts to make D.C. a film town.” The ceremony was followed by a screening of the 1972 horror film with director William Friedken.

7am – C         Critter News:

• Cats ARE neurotic – and they’re probably also trying to work out how to kill you, say researchers.  Researchers examined personality traits of domestic cats and wild cats. Cats compared to African lions, leopards and the Scottish wildcat. Study found cats are neurotic, dominant and impulsive like African lions. (MailOnline) — They are well loved for their immaculate fluffy coats and unique personalities but new research suggests cats do have a much darker side. A study carried out between the University of Edinburgh and Bronx Zoo compared our beloved domestic cat with its wilder relatives. Compared with the snow leopard, the Scottish wildcat and the African lion, researchers found these larger predators shared similar characteristics of aggression and neurotic behaviour to domestic cats.
• Woman sneaks into Henry Doorly Zoo, is bitten by tiger. OMAHA, Neb. —A tiger bit a woman at the Henry Doorly Zoo Sunday morning. Police said the woman was intoxicated and went into an unauthorized area around 7:20 a.m. to pet the animal, somehow getting past the fence and security before the zoo had opened. Jacqueline Eide, 33, is in the hospital Sunday with a severe injury to her left hand. She was transported to Creighton University Medical Center by a friend. The wounds are so bad that she might lose parts of her fingers. Eide, according to a release from the Omaha Police Department, was aggressive toward staff and showed signs of intoxication of alcohol or drugs.

7am – D         Sad news: Former US Senator and 2008 GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson has died at 73.

7am – E         Open Enrollment Begins:

• Prices for popular Obamacare health plans rising sharply. (Politico) — Premiums for some of the most popular insurance plans in the Obamacare exchanges will have double-digit rate hikes in 2016, at a time when both advocates and critics of the law have been voicing concern about health care affordability for American families. Rates released by the Obama administration Friday and analyzed by consulting firm Avalere Health found that the lowest cost “silver” plan – the most popular option in the law’s insurance marketplaces – will rise 13 percent, about four times the increase for plans this past year. More than 80 percent of exchange customers qualify for subsidies, so they don’t bear the full cost of the premium increases. Still, surveys have found that some people don’t know about the subsidies – a gap that HHS plans to address in its next wave of enrollment outreach – and some families find health insurance unaffordable even with the federal financial assistance.
• Open Enrollment Underway For Health Insurance. (WBAL) – The new month marks the new start in the open enrollment period for health insurance, meaning those who don’t have insurance, must get it under the Affordable Care Act, and those who have it can change their policy. The open enrollment period began Sunday and will last until January 31. Maryland is in year three of the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, which as you will recall was plagued by technical problems when it debuted in October, 2013. Ultimately the state fired its contractor, and had had the state of Connecticut take over the technical operations of its website.
• Obamacare Co-Ops Are Failing at a Rate of 50 Percent. (Daily Signal) — Cooperative health insurers (or co-ops) created under a federal grant and loan program in the Affordable Care Act seem to be falling like dominoes. It started in February, when CoOportunity Health, which operated in Iowa and Nebraska, was ordered into liquidation. In July, Louisiana’s insurance department announced it was shuttering that state’s co-op. The following month brought news that Nevada’s co-op would also close. On September 25, New York ordered the shutdown of Health Republic Insurance of New York, which had the largest enrollment of all of the co-ops. Then, within the space of a week in mid-October, the number of failures doubled from four to eight, as state insurance regulators announced that they were closing the co-ops in Kentucky, Tennessee, Colorado, and one of the two in Oregon. Last week came news that South Carolina’s co-op will be closed, followed this week by the announcement that Utah’s co-op is also being shut down. In sum, of the 24 Obamacare co-ops funded with federal tax dollars, one (Vermont’s) never got approval to sell coverage, a second (CoOportunity) has already been wound down, and nine more will terminate at the end of this year.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – MYCHELE BRICKNER – FORMER FAIRFAX COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER – discussed the various issues parents should keep in mind for Election Day about the Fairfax County School Board.

• TRANSGENDER POLICY: Va. school board blocks release of gender identity documents ahead of Election Day. By Kellan Howell – The Washington Times – Sunday, November 1, 2015 — A Virginia school board has filed a lawsuit that blocks until after Election Day Tuesday the public release of documents on a controversial transgender policy, prompting several candidates for the board to say Monday that voters now must toss the incumbents. Several documents released last week under Freedom of Information Act requests filed by Judicial Watch have revealed that Fairfax County Public School district board members already began implementing policy changes to accommodate transgender students before hastily voting on the gender identity policy amendment in May. The documents also revealed that the school board had moved to hire a transgender identity consultant on the night of the vote and had been paying him without a written contract. But the documents released last week are just a few of the many that have been requested by Judicial Watch, and the others are now being withheld until after Election Day.
• SPORTS BUDGET: Could one of the nation’s largest school districts go without sports, activities? (Washington Post/August 4) — A task force looking to cut as much as $100 million from the budget of one of the nation’s largest school systems has suggested that major savings could come from getting rid of all school sports, limiting extracurricular activities and increasing class sizes. School administrators in Virginia’s Fairfax County, which educates about 187,000 students, say they are again facing tough choices about what to keep and what to sacrifice as funding fails to keep pace with surging enrollment. Officials are projecting a shortfall of $50 million to $100 million next year, meaning significant programming changes would need to be implemented, schools officials said.
• FCPS Budget Task Force Needs Additional Time for Final Report. (Reston Now/October 28, 2015) — The Fairfax County Public Schools’ Budget Task Force should have final recommendations by Nov. 9 on how to close a potential $72 million shortfall for Fiscal Year 2017. The task force has met seven times and was slated to deliver its final report to FCPS Superintendent Karen Garza on Oct. 15. The task force has requested additional time to prepare the report, which is now expected to be presented to the school board at its Nov 9 work session, a school spokesman said. FCPS says it arrived at the latest budget gap figure (down from $100 million) by plugging in updated revenue and required expenditures and including a 3-percent transfer increase as included in the County’s budget guidance.
• START TIMES: Fairfax officials delay school start times. (Capital Gazette/October 19, 2015) — Representatives from school districts in Virginia and Maryland will share insights into delaying high school start times with the Anne Arundel County school board Tuesday. Fairfax County is spending $5 million to push back school start times by nearly an hour this school year, from 7:20 a.m. to 8:10 a.m. Middle school students, however, start school at 7:30 a.m., which is about 10 to 20 minutes earlier than last year. And elementary school schedules remain the same. Fairfax County’s new schedule, which has been estimated to cost about $3.6 million annually, comes at time when the school system is facing a potential $72 million budget shortfall, according to school officials.

8am – B         Jamie Foxx backed Quentin Tarantino Sunday, saying, “Keep telling the truth.” (USA Today) — Actor Jamie Foxx gave vocal support to director Quentin Tarantino Sunday night from the podium of The Hollywood Film Awards, following the director’s controversial police comments. “Keep telling the truth and don’t worry about none of the haters,” Foxx said. The Beverly Hilton ballroom crowd of filmmakers and stars applauded following Foxx’s comments, made before introducing the cast of Tarantino’s new film The Hateful Eight. Tarantino was not present at the awards show. His movie cast did not make further comments from the stage about the controversy, which has raged since last week. Tarantino is under nationwide pressure because of inflammatory remarks he made at a protest against police brutality in New York last weekend. He suggested some cops who shoot civilians are “murderers” and he stands “with the murdered.”

8am – C         ​Chick-fil-A sets opening for first franchise in D.C., eyes more District locations. If you’re a big Chick-fil-A fan, here’s what you need to know:    Participants are allowed to line up at the restaurant, located at 3100 14th St. NW at the DC USA Shopping Center no earlier than 6 a.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 3, to register and stay on the property until Wednesday Nov. 4. No tents are allowed, just chairs. Chick-fil-A will open its first franchise in D.C. Nov. 4, bringing the first non-college-campus location of the Southern fried chicken to the District.

8am – D         INTERVIEW – ROBERT COSTA — national political reporter at The Washington Post.

• GOP contenders demand greater control over crucial debates. By David Weigel and Robert Costa November 1 at 8:13 PM — Several Republican presidential campaigns began mapping out new demands Sunday for greater control over the format and content of primary debates, which have attracted big audiences and become strategically critical for the 2016 cycle’s expansive field of contenders. The effort was a response to long-simmering frustrations over the debates, the questions and in some cases the moderators, which boiled over this weekend when advisers from at least 11 campaigns met in the Washington suburbs to deliberate about how to regain sway over the process. The private gathering became the latest twist in what has been a turbulent season of debates for the GOP, with less-popular candidates — including a sitting senator and governor — furious about being relegated to a little-watched “undercard” debate and the front-runners dismayed by a system they have described as a disastrous brew of bias and arbitrary rules.

8am – E         Entertainment News:

• ‘Burnt,’ ‘Crisis,’ add to a pileup of flops at box office. NEW YORK (AP) — Sandra Bullock’s political satire “Our Brand Is Crisis” and Bradley Cooper’s chef drama “Burnt” added to a pileup of flops at the box office, where new wide releases have gone a startling 0-for-9 in the last two weeks. The box office numbers in North America were still especially low, especially for two of Hollywood’s top stars. The Weinstein Co.’s “Burnt,” starring Cooper as a former top chef in Paris, took in $5 million despite playing on more than 3,000 screens. “Our Brand Is Crisis,” David Gordon Green’s true tale of political strategists in Bolivia, managed a scant $3.4 million on 2,202 screens for Warner Bros. Though made for a modest $28 million, the film’s opening marks the worst wide-release debut of a movie headlined by Bullock, even falling below the $4.7 million of “Two if by Sea” in 1996. Sony Pictures Classics “Truth,” which recounts CBS’ reporting on President George W. Bush’s military service, expanded to 1,120 theaters, but couldn’t even crack $1 million. It earned just $901,000.
• I’m converted, Rupert! Jerry Hall goes public with new love at World Cup final.    Rupert Murdoch, 84, and Jerry Hall, 59, seen in the crowd at the rugby final.    Murdoch and Hall’s relationship had remained closely guarded secret.    Romance started when the couple were introduced by his sister and niece. (Daily Mail) —  The 84-year-old Australian-born media mogul patiently explained the intricacies of the sport to the 6ft Texan model, 59, who sportingly wore a green-and-gold Wallabies scarf. Mr Murdoch tweeted: ‘Beautiful day in London. World’s best two teams playing. Praying for Wallabies.’ However, his prayers were not answered as Australia lost to their arch-rivals 34-17. Also in the crowd were the Duke of Edinburgh, Princes Harry and William, London Mayor Boris Johnson and Kylie Minogue with her boyfriend, the actor Joshua Sasse. The Princes arrived within minutes of the 4pm kick-off, having left Kensington Palace at 3.15pm.

TOMORROW: Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer and Larry Kudlow