John Lott, Steve Kastenbaum, KT McFarland and John Bellinger joined WMAL on Wednesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

 

5am – A/B/C  Trump, on defense, blames media for Second Amendment flap. BRISTOL, Va. (AP) — On the defensive once again, Donald Trump is blaming faulty interpretations and media bias for an uproar over his comments about the Second Amendment. He’s insisting he never advocated violence against Hillary Clinton, even as undeterred Democrats pile on. The latest controversy to strike Trump’s campaign arose, as they often do, out of an offhand quip at a boisterous campaign rally. Claiming falsely that Clinton wants to revoke the right to gun ownership, Trump said there would be “nothing you can do,” if she’s elected, to stop her from stacking the Supreme Court with anti-gun justices. Then he added ambiguously: “Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is — I don’t know. But I’ll tell you what: that will be a horrible day.” Was Trump suggesting gun owners take matters into their own hands if Clinton wins the White House? Or was he merely musing about the indisputably powerful influence of the gun lobby? Like so many times before, Trump’s supporters and opponents construed his comments in entirely different ways. “Give me a break,” Trump said hours later, insisting was referring to the power that voters hold. He told Fox News that “there can be no other interpretation.”

5am – D         Olympics News:

• Michael Phelps wins gold in 200 fly, adds to record medal tally. RIO DE JANEIRO — Michael Phelps: Still worth the price of admission. The most decorated Olympian ever continued to decorate himself in gold, winning his 20th career Olympic gold medal in the men’s 200 butterfly Tuesday night. It is his 24th overall Olympic medal. He beat Japan’s Masato Sakai by 0.04 seconds, finishing in 1:53.36. Hungary’s Tamas Kenderesi won bronze. After his win he raised his arms in the air, while waving his fingers and signalling he is No. 1. It was a display of exuberance for the 31-year-old, who had his son and fiance in the crowd.
• Katie Ledecky wins gold in women’s 200 free. RIO DE JANEIRO — It’s time to pencil Katie Ledecky’s name into the record book. The 19-year-old superstar freestyle swimmer turned in perhaps her most impressive race of these Olympics, taking gold in her weakest individual event of the week, the women’s 200-meter freestyle. Ledecky won in 1:53.73, a bruising time in a bruising race. She edged out Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden, who finished in 1:54.08. Australia’s Emma McKeon took the bronze. What was perhaps most impressive was the final 25 meters or so, as Ledecky dug deep to fend off Sjostrom’s final push.
• Top-seeded Serena Williams loses in third round at Rio Olympics
• USA women romp to Rio Olympics gymnastics team gold.  As the American gymnasts awaited the final score at Rio Olympic Arena on Tuesday, they hugged. They laughed together. And they barely looked up. Since 2012, they’ve become undisputedly the best team in the world. Simone Biles’ floor score on their final event of the night was a mere formality in a competition the Americans won by a jaw-dropping margin. The United States scored 184.897 to beat second-place Russia by more than eight points. That was more than double the gap between silver and last place.

5am – E         Clinton Campaign Plays Down Appearance at Rally by Orlando Gunman’s Father. MIAMI — The father of the shooter who terrorized a nightclub in Orlando, Fla., in June attended a campaign rally on Monday for Hillary Clinton, compelling her campaign to move quickly to distance itself from him. The shooter’s father, Seddique Mateen, was spotted by a local television affiliate at the rally in Kissimmee, Fla., about 20 miles south of Orlando. He was positioned behind Mrs. Clinton as she spoke. Asked by the affiliate, WPTV, whether the campaign knew he would attend the rally, Mr. Mateen said, “It’s a Democratic party, so everyone can join.” On Tuesday morning, as news of his attendance set off an uproar on social media, Clinton aides moved to play down Mr. Mateen’s presence. “The rally was a 3,000-person, open-door event for the public,” the campaign said in an emailed statement. “This individual wasn’t invited as a guest and the campaign was unaware of his attendance until after the event.”

6am – A/B     Tim Tebow to pursue a career in professional baseball. Former NFL quarterback and current ESPN broadcaster Tim Tebow is actively pursuing a career in professional baseball and plans to hold a workout for Major League Baseball teams later this month, according to his agents Jimmy Sexton and Nick Khan. For almost the past year, Tebow has been training in Arizona and Los Angeles to hone his hitting and fielding skills in a sport he has not played on a full-time basis since 2005. Tebow was an all-state baseball player in Florida that year and hit .494 as a junior, helping Nease High School reach the final four of the Florida state playoffs.

6am – C         Humidity unlike anything D.C. has sweated through this year is on the way. (Washington Post) — Increasingly over the next several days, a deep plume of tropical moisture will stream toward the D.C. area. This will lead to the summer’s most extreme and long-lasting period of humidity so far. The humid air is beginning to trickle into the region today, but will become more noticeable on Wednesday. By Thursday, Friday and the weekend, it will be directed at us full blast. One indicator of atmospheric moisture, known as precipitable water (which is the integrated amount of water in the air from near the jet stream down to the surface), is forecast to be near record levels.

6am – D         INTERVIEW — JOHN LOTT – author of new book “The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies”

• Trump, on defense, blames media for Second Amendment flap. What was Lott’s interpretation of what he said?
• How powerful is the NRA vote this election? What would Clinton do to gun rights?

6am – E         6 million Americans have unsafe levels of toxic chemicals in their drinking water. No, your Brita filter won’t help. Researchers have analysed levels of industrial chemicals in over 36,000 water samples from all over the US, and have found that 6 million people are being exposed to unsafe levels in their drinking water. For most people in the affected areas, the researchers say it’s probably too soon to swear off tap water altogether, but they do advise that people in the worst-affected town, Hoosick Falls, NY, switch to bottled water for the time being.

Drinking tapwater in the US could give you cancer, scientists warn. Public water supplies serving six million people found to contain up to 25 times the safe limit of toxic chemicals. More than six million people in the US are drinking water that contains poisonous industrial chemicals linked with cancer and other health  ooblems at levels higher than official safety limits, according to a major new study. Researchers from Harvard University and other institutions used information about 36,000 water samples collected nationwide by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from 2013-2015. They found that chemicals known as PFASs were present in 194 out of 4,864 public water supplies. And 66 water supplies had at least one sample that was above the EPA safety limit. The highest concentration was found in Newark, Delaware, where the level of one kind of PFAS was 25 times higher than the safe limit. The worst problems were found in watersheds near industrial sites, military bases and wastewater treatment plants, the researchers reported in the journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

7am – A         Signatures for term-limits amendment are delivered to Montgomery. (Washington Post) — Republican activist Robin Ficker on Monday presented Montgomery County with what he said are 18,000 signatures in support of placing a term-limits measure on the November ballot. The signatures, spread over 3,600 pages of petitions packed in a box that once held bananas, favor limiting county council members and the county executive to three consecutive terms. Their delivery to County Executive Isiah Leggett’s office starts the official clock for determining whether the question goes on the ballot. The county Board of Elections has 20 days to verify that those who signed are registered voters. If at least 10,000 signatures are valid, opponents will have 10 days to request a review in circuit court. If passed by voters, five of the all-Democratic council’s nine seats would change hands after the 2018 elections. Roger Berliner (D-Potomac-Bethesda) and Marc Elrich (D-At Large), are each serving a third term; Nancy Floreen (D-At Large) and George L. Leventhal (D-At Large), are in their fourth. Because Ficker’s proposed amendment defines “term” as either a full or partial term, a fifth council member, Nancy Navarro (D-Mid-County) would also be affected. She was first elected in May 2009 to fill the unexpired term of the late Don Praisner and then elected to two full terms in 2010 and 2014. Ficker was one of Navarro’s 2009 opponents.  

Navarro Says Advocates for Term Limits Petition Show ‘Trump Factor Is in Full Effect in Montgomery County’ (Bethesda Magazine) — Montgomery County Council member Nancy Navarro wrote in a Facebook post Monday that Ficker’s proposed ballot question is targeting her. If the proposed question is added to the November ballot it would be up to voters to decide if council members and the county executive should be limited to three consecutive terms. “As the first immigrant woman ever to serve on the Montgomery County Council, I think it’s appalling that Robin Ficker, perennial Republican candidate, and Brad Botwin the leader of ‘Help Save Maryland,’ an organization designated as a hate group by both the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center have made sure that their ‘Term Limit’ ballot measure specifically targets me,” Navarro wrote in a Facebook post Monday. “On top of that, they blatantly lie to the press about it. Well, I guess the Trump factor is in full-effect in Montgomery County.”

7am – B/C   INTERVIEW – STEVE KASTENBAUM — Correspondent in RIO covering the Olympics

• Michael Phelps wins gold in 200 fly, adds to record medal tally.
• Katie Ledecky wins gold in women’s 200 free.
• Top-seeded Serena Williams loses in third round at Rio Olympics
• USA women romp to Rio Olympics gymnastics team gold.

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

• Clinton Campaign Plays Down Appearance at Rally by Orlando Gunman’s Father. The father of the Orlando gunman was spotted behind Hillary Clinton at a rally in Florida
• 50 GOP national security officials: “None of us will vote for Donald Trump.”

7am – E         Trump says he may seek conditions for debates. (USA Today) – Donald Trump says he wants to debate Hillary Clinton, but may seek to change the rules set by a bipartisan commission. “I will absolutely do three debates,” Trump told TIME magazine. “I want to debate very badly. But I have to see the conditions.” That includes the identity of the moderators, he said, who have yet to be named. “I’ll have to see who the moderators are,” Trump told the magazine Tuesday. “Yeah, I would say that certain moderators would be unacceptable, absolutely.” Trump also pointed out that he changed rules for Republican primary debates. “I renegotiated the debates in the primaries, remember?” Trump said. “They were making a fortune on them and they had us in for three-and-a-half hours, and I said that’s ridiculous.” “I’m sure they’ll be open to any suggestions I have, because I think they’ll be very fair suggestions,” the GOP presidential nominee added. The debate schedule — which was first announced by the Commission on Presidential Debates last September — sets the first presidential debate for Sept. 26 at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. (the original site was Dayton, Ohio, but Wright State University announced in July it was withdrawing). Subsequent presidential debates will be held on Oct. 9 in St Louis and Oct. 19 in Las Vegas, with a vice presidential debate set for Oct. 4 in Farmville, Va.

8am – A         Murdered DNC staffer was Wikileaks’ source, Assange admits in interview. In July, a Democratic National Committee staffer named Seth Rich was gunned down in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of northwest D.C.  The police said his murder may have been the result of a robbery. Now, however, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is saying there is more to the story. In an interview with a Dutch media outlet known as Nieuwsuur on Tuesday, Assange admitted that Rich, a staffer in the voter data department of the DNC, was Wikileak’s source within the organization.

WikiLeaks offers $20G reward for info in DNC staffer slaying as founder Julian Assange implies victim was informant. (NY Daily News) -WikiLeaks is offering a $20,000 reward for information in the killing of DNC staffer Seth Rich. The same day the anti-secrecy organization posted its announcement on Twitter, founder Julian Assange went on Dutch TV to make the questionable implication that the 27-year-old was working with WikiLeaks. Rich, a DNC employee who did voter outreach, was shot repeatedly a block from his Washington, D.C. residence in the early hours of July 10. After his death, rabid Reddit users concocted conspiracy theories casting Rich as being in cahoots with the FBI and suggesting that he was the source of the massive email leak leading up to the convention.

8am – B/C     INTERVIEW — JOHN BELLINGER — Former  Legal Adviser for the U.S. Department of State and the National Security Council during the George W. Bush administration

• 50 G.O.P. Officials Warn Donald Trump Would Put Nation’s Security ‘at Risk.’ Fifty of the nation’s most senior Republican national security officials, many of them former top aides or cabinet members for President George W. Bush, have signed a letter declaring that Donald J. Trump “lacks the character, values and experience” to be president and “would put at risk our country’s national security and well-being.” Mr. Trump, the officials warn, “would be the most reckless president in American history.” The letter says Mr. Trump would weaken the United States’ moral authority and questions his knowledge of and belief in the Constitution. It says he has “demonstrated repeatedly that he has little understanding” of the nation’s “vital national interests, its complex diplomatic challenges, its indispensable alliances and  the democratic values” on which American policy should be based. And it laments that “Mr. Trump has shown no interest in educating himself.”

8am – D         Tape-Delayed Olympics and Spoilers: Do You Want To Know?