Susan Ferrechio, KT MCFarland and DC Councilmember Phil Mendelson joined WMAL on Wednesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B/C U.S. is increasing its special operations forces fighting ISIS in Iraq. WASHINGTON — The Pentagon will expand its Special Operations force in Iraq as part of a ramped-up war effort against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter told a House hearing on Tuesday. Mr. Carter said that a specialized expeditionary American military force will be able to target Islamic State militants in both Iraq and make targeted raids into Syria. “These special operators will over time be able to conduct raids, free hostages, gather intelligence and capture ISIL leaders,” Mr. Carter said, using an acronym for the Islamic State. Mr. Carter did not say precisely how many new forces would be added but said they would be more than 50. He also did not say where exactly they would be based in Iraq. A Defense Department official said on Tuesday that these would be new troops and not troops reassigned from other parts of Iraq.

5am – D         DRIVE AT FIVE INTERVIEW – MICHAEL STEELE – former RNC Chair

5am – E         Gun News:

• O’Malley does freestyle rap: ‘Guns, guns, guns, I don’t like them guns.’ Former Gov. Martin O’Malley spit fire at the National Rifle Association during a freestyle rap released late Tuesday. “The NRA hates me because I don’t like guns,” he rapped during an interview with “Off The Record.” “Guns, guns, guns, I don’t like them guns,” O’Malley told hosts Xavier Rotnofsky and Rohit Mandalapu. “If you look at the polls you might get the impression, that president of the United States may not be next profession,” the Democratic White House hopeful said. “Just FYI bro, you’re so dang wrong, soon my polls will be higher than Cheech and Chong.”
• FBI: Background checks for gun sales peak on Black Friday. WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI processed a record number of firearms background checks on Black Friday, the agency said Tuesday. The agency processed a record 185,345 background checks — roughly two per second — the same day that three people were killed and nine others wounded in an attack at a Planned Parenthood office in Colorado. The agency received about 5 percent fewer background check requests on Black Friday in 2014, the FBI said.

6am – A/B/C Nearly half of all US homes only use cell phones. Federal statistics show only about 8 percent of households having just landlines. NEW YORK (AP) — A government official says Americans are approaching a tipping point in their telephone use — the day when cellphone-only users will outpace landline users. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports more than 47 percent of American homes now use only cellphones. About 42 percent have both cellphones and landlines. The new federal statistics show only about 8 percent of households having just landlines. A dozen years ago, a mere 3 percent of U.S. households used only cellphones. Given the trend, officials believe more than half of U.S. homes will be wireless within the next year.

6am – D/E     Hogan asks Marylanders’ advice on hair vs. bald look. (Baltimore Sun) — Gov. Larry Hogan, who recently announced he is in remission from cancer, is seeking advice from Marylanders on whether to let his hair grow back or to stick with the bald look he and much of the state embraced during his treatment. In a posting on Facebook, Hogan asked for votes on the question now that he says his hair is starting to come back after months of chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. “Since hearing the doctors tell me I am 100% cancer-free, one of the things I’ve really looked forward to is my hair growing back. But lately, I’ve heard from a lot of people that they really like the bald look, and they think I should keep it!,” Hogan wrote. “So, I’ve decided to get your input. What do you think – bald head or flowing locks?” So far, the winner seems to be: Do whatever makes you happy.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – SUSAN FERRECHIO – Chief Congressional Correspondent for the Washington Examiner – previewed what is on the agenda for Congress before break.

7am – B         Montgomery Council puts new limits on large gas stations. (Washington Post) — The Montgomery County Council changed its zoning law Tuesday to require that any large new gas stations be at least 500 feet from homes, schools, parks or day-care centers. It’s the second time in three years that the council put more distance between gas retailers and surrounding neighborhoods because of concerns about fumes from pumps and exhaust from long lines of idling cars. In 2012, it established a 300-foot buffer. The zoning amendment does not affect the 189 existing Montgomery filling stations identified by county staff but will govern the placement of any future retail gas operations. Council member Marc Elrich (D-At Large), lead sponsor of the measure, said he hoped it will help to limit the size of stations as the country turns away from environmentally damaging petroleum-based fuels.

7am – C         Jeb on VP pick: I think she will be a great partner. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush hinted on Tuesday that he is considering a female running mate in 2016. “Should I be elected president, I would have my vice president — I think she will be a great partner,” the Republican White House hopeful said in Waterloo, Iowa. Bush quickly walked back the remark. “I mean, did I say that out loud?” Bush asked. “We always talk about this with one gender in mind. I think we’ve reached the point in our country where maybe we should be a little less gender-specific about this. “Frankly, the one important element of selecting a vice presidential candidate is whether he or she is qualified to be president. Everything else is secondary,” he added.

7am – D         INTERVIEW — KT MCFARLAND – FOX NEWS NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST

• U.S. to deploy new special operations force to Iraq to step up fight against Islamic State
• Obama Should Stop Claiming That Mass Shootings ‘Don’t Happen’ in Other Countries’
• Top military officer contradicts Obama, says ISIS not ‘contained’

7am – E         INTERVIEW — DC COUNCIL CHAIRMAN 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.

• DC PAID LEAVE BILL: The bill would offer hundreds of thousands of workers in the city — both D.C. residents and not — 16 weeks of paid leave to care for a newborn or ailing family member. Wednesday’s invite-only hearing will include representatives from business groups, think tanks, social justice organizations and labor unions. Almost every industry in the city will be on hand: bars and restaurants, hotels, hospitals, universities, and builders and contractors.
• D.C. residents love the idea of paid family leave — just not paying for it. An overwhelming majority of District residents support a proposal before the D.C. Council to give each worker in the city 16 weeks of paid time off to care for a newborn or for a dying family member, according to a Washington Post poll. There’s just one hitch: More than half of those polled also say they don’t want workers to have to pay for it themselves.
• DC Council tentatively approves body camera bill – WASHINGTON (WUSA9) — The DC Council unanimously voted Tuesday to give tentative approval to a body camera bill. This means, pending final approval, nearly every Metropolitan police officer on the street will be required to wear video cameras. The debate over police body cameras in the District has been going on for eight months. The D.C. Council’s vote was the first of two votes. The proposed legislation requires all 2,800 patrol officers to be equipped with body cameras.

8am – A         Christie to Media: “You Should Be Ashamed Of Yourselves” For Always Asking About Trump. Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie spoke today at a drug recovery roundtable in Concord, New Hampshire. When the topic changed to “The Donald,” the New Jersey governor said “whatever Donald Trump has said for the day today, is quite frankly nothing that I have any interest in responding to, I’m running for president.” “We’re sitting here talking about some really important issues of recovery and addiction that is ravaging families across the country and you all, quite frankly, should be ashamed of yourselves,” Christie scolded the media. “All you do is ask about Donald Trump every place I go,” he said. “Then I have the press complain to me, ‘Why do you think Donald Trump is doing so well?’ Well, hell, man, if you’re talking about him 24 hours a day anybody can do well.”

8am – B         Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to give away 99% of shares. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan say they will give away 99% of their shares in the company to good causes as they announce the birth of their daughter Max. Mr Zuckerberg made the announcement in a letter to Max on his Facebook page. He said they are donating their fortune to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative because they want to make the world a better place for Max to grow up in. The donation amounts to $45bn (£30bn) at Facebook’s current value. However the shares will not be donated to charity immediately, but over the course of the couple’s lives. Were Mr Zuckerberg to give away 99% of his shares immediately, he would still possess hundreds of millions of dollars. Ms Chan’s worth has not been documented.

8am – C         Jerry Seinfeld Gets a Regular Gig at the Beacon Theater. At this point in his career, Jerry Seinfeld is a comedian who can work as often or as little as he wants to. And now this popular stand-up performer, sitcom star and digital host is offering New York audiences the opportunity to see as much of him as they can take. The Madison Square Garden Company announced on Tuesday that it was giving Mr. Seinfeld a residency at its Beacon Theater on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, where he will perform stand-up roughly once a month, starting on Jan. 7, for at least six shows.

8am – D         Critter News:

• Canadian smuggler with 51 turtles in his pants pleads guilty in U.S. Canadian smuggler with turtles in pants pleads guilty in US. ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — A Canadian man caught at a border crossing with 51 turtles taped to his body pleaded guilty Tuesday to smuggling or attempting to smuggle more than 1,000 of the reptiles out of southeastern Michigan. Kai Xu, 27, would order turtles online and travel to the U.S. to pick them up and then ship them to China or return with them to Ontario, Canada. He pleaded guilty to six crimes in federal court in Ann Arbor and faces a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. It’s illegal to export wildlife from the U.S. without a permit from the government. Xu “regularly deals in turtle shipments worth $30,000, $80,000 or $125,000,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Sara Woodward said in a court filing. “In China, the turtles he smuggles are worth two to three times the amount he pays here.”
• American Airlines passenger’s pet corgi takes unplanned Hawaiian vacation after being placed on the wrong flight. Corgi ends up in Honolulu instead of Mississippi. HONOLULU (AP) — A dog bound for its new owner in Mississippi ended up in Honolulu instead. The Pembroke Welsh corgi was headed from Seattle to her new owner in Mississippi on Saturday when she made a wrong connection in Dallas, American Airlines spokeswoman Andrea Huguely said. American Airlines says the company is looking at its procedures to figure out how the corgi ended up on the wrong plane. When breeder Paul Chen was notified that Bethany was misplaced, he reported the dog missing and offered a $1,000 reward.
• Cop takes donkey for a ride-along. (CNN) You’ll find a lot of jackasses in the back of a squad car, but you don’t expect to see a real donkey. But that’s exactly what a Norman, Oklahoma, police officer was hauling Tuesday morning. A woman on her way to work first saw the donkey, nicknamed Squishy, meandering along a busy roadway. “If I hadn’t gotten him off the road, yeah, he could have definitely been killed,” Robin Strader told CNN affiliate KFOR. The police were called, and Officer Kyle Canaan showed up. Strader told Canaan that Squishy could stay on her property, but she couldn’t take him in her car because he was too big. So Canaan put the donkey in the back of his ride, a space usually reserved for drunks, thieves and other riffraffs.

8am – E         ISIS News:

• U.S. to deploy new special operations force to Iraq to step up fight against Islamic State
• Obama Should Stop Claiming That Mass Shootings ‘Don’t Happen’ in Other Countries’

• Top military officer contradicts Obama, says ISIS not ‘contained’