Douglas Murray, Corey Stewart, Ryan Sawyers, Raheem Kassam and Jonathan Schanzer joined WMAL on Friday!

Mornings on the Mall

Friday, August 18, 2017

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A         Spain Terror: At Least 100 Hurt, 13 Killed, Five Suspects Dead in Two Attacks. (NBC News) — A major anti-terrorism operation was underway in Spain Friday after a van plowed into crowds on Barcelona’s La Rambla tourist hotspot, killing 13 people and wounding more than 100 in the worst of a wave of attacks. As security forces hunted the van’s driver, who was seen escaping on foot, six people and a police officer were run down by a car in Cambrils, a town south of the city. Police shot dead five attackers, who were wearing fake suicide belts.   Both attacks were related to an explosion Wednesday at a third location in a province about 125 miles south of Barcelona that left one person dead.

5am – B         STATUE NEWS:

• Pelosi urges removal of all Confederate statues from Capitol. Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is calling on Speaker of the House Paul Ryan to join Democrats in supporting legislation to remove all Confederate statues from the U.S. Capitol in the wake of the deadly events in Charlottesville, Virginia. “The halls of Congress are the very heart of our democracy,” the California Democrat said in a Thursday statement. “The statues in the Capitol should embody our highest ideals as Americans, expressing who we are and who we aspire to be as a nation.”
• Cory Booker bill removes Confederate statues from Capitol. (CNN) Sen. Cory Booker plans to introduce a bill to remove statues from the US Capitol honoring Confederate soldiers despite President Donald Trump calling these memorials “beautiful.” “I will be introducing a bill to remove Confederate statues from the US Capitol building. This is just one step. We have much work to do,” the New Jersey Democrat tweeted Wednesday. There are at least 10 Confederate statues in the Capitol, distributed between the Hall of Columns, the Capitol Visitor Center and other locations, most notably Statuary Hall, where each state chooses two statues to be on display. Booker said in a statement to CNN that having to see Confederate statues in a position of honor in a place as public as the Capitol can be “painful.”
• Work crew removes Taney statue from Maryland State House grounds. Workers dismantled a 145-year-old statue of Supreme Court Justice Roger B. Taney outside the Maryland State House shortly after midnight Friday, the latest ripple effect from last weekend’s deadly violence at a rally of white supremacists in Charlottesville. Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said his revulsion at what happened in Charlottesville — at a demonstration purportedly in defense of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee — prompted him to change his mind about the Taney statute and push for its removal, an act long sought by civil rights groups. The State House Trust board voted Wednesday to remove the memorial to Taney, a former chief justice who defended slavery in the court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision. Taney’s ruling said blacks, whether slaves or not, could never be U.S. citizens.
• Confederate Memorial in Arlington: Honoring Rebels on nation’s sacred ground. (Washington Post) – On the western edge of Arlington National Cemetery stands a 32-foot-tall bronze hymn to soldiers of a bygone past. Such monuments are common on the hallowed ground where more than 400,000 are buried and honored for service to the country. But the one in Section 16 commemorates those who fought for another cause. It is the Confederate Memorial. A soaring testament to Southern pride, placed in Arlington nearly 50 years after the Civil War ended, the monument features a frieze depicting Rebels shouldering rifles, a black slave following his master and an enslaved woman — described on the cemetery’s website as a “mammy” — cradling a Confederate officer’s infant. Across the country, monuments to the Confederacy and slavery defenders in the antebellum South have come under fresh scrutiny after white nationalists and white supremacists protested plans to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee from a Charlottesville park. Their protests spiraled into a weekend of chaos in the college town as a counterdemonstrator was killed and two state troopers who had been monitoring the protest died when their helicopter crashed.
• Statue Of Slave Emancipator Abraham Lincoln Burned In Chicago. The statue of the slave emancipator appears to be burned, reported NBC 5 Chicago. “What an absolute disgraceful act of vandalism,” said Raymond Lopez, Chicago’s 15th Ward. “This bust of Abraham Lincoln, erected by Phil Bloomquist on August 31, 1926, was damaged & burned.” “Near 69th & Wolcott, if anyone has any information regarding this act, please contact the police or my office immediately.” The burning appears to lend credence to President Donald Trump’s prediction that not only Confederate generals would come under attack, but also other famous American figures. Lincoln, however, did not own slaves and emancipated black people during the Civil War.

5am – C         Wasserman Schultz’ ex-IT aide indicted on 4 counts. Imran Awan, a former IT aide for Democratic Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, was indicted Thursday on four counts including bank fraud and making false statements. The indictment also includes his wife Hina Alvi. The grand jury decision in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia comes roughly a month after Awan was arrested at Dulles airport in Virginia trying to board a plane to Pakistan, where his family is from. Awan and other IT aides for House Democrats have been on investigators’ radar for months over concerns of possible double-billing, alleged equipment theft, and access to sensitive computer systems. Most lawmakers fired Awan in February, but Schultz had kept him on until his arrest in July. The indictment itself, which merely represents formal charges and is not a finding of guilt, addresses separate allegations that Awan and his wife engaged in a conspiracy to obtain home equity lines of credit from the Congressional Federal Credit Union by giving false information about two properties – and then sending the proceeds to individuals in Pakistan.

5am – D         Bonkers CNN Debate Between Kate Bolduan and GOP Senate Candidate: ‘Stop Talking! Stop Talking!’ (Mediaite) — CNN anchor Kate Bolduan and Corey Stewart, former Virginia chairman for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, had a heated debate about who’s to blame for the violence in Charlottesville, with Stewart trying to relentlessly condemn the left. Bolduan originally started things off by asking about Steve Bannon‘s interview, where he called the right a collection of “clowns, fringe and losers.” Stewart, a Republican running for a Virginia Senate seat, turned it to immediately talk about how the conversation surrounding Charlottesville has been wrong. “What the left is trying to do is conflate the two things, they’re trying to say that conservatives, those who oppose the removal of historical monuments are somehow are tied to the right wing, far, far right wing groups, Neo-Nazis, KKK, etc,” he said. ‘Which the Republican Party has nothing to do with. That was the point he was trying to make.”

5am – E         Probiotic cure for peanut allergies shows long-term success. Sometimes the slow, measured pace of medical research is frustrating. On average it takes about 12 years for a new drug to move from discovery to general practice, but each step towards approval is important as it validates whether or not these new medicines actually work and are safe. A new four-year follow-up study on the efficacy of a probiotic-based peanut allergy cure has revealed the majority of the original participants are still displaying tolerance to peanuts, paving the way for the final phase of trials to bring the treatment to the public. In 2013, a team at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, completed a study involving over 60 children suffering from peanut allergies. Over 18 months the children either received a placebo or a combination of the probiotic Lactobacillus rhamnosus with a peanut protein. At the end of the study 82 percent of the children receiving the probiotic treatment could safely eat peanuts.

6am – A         INTERVIEW – DOUGLAS MURRAY – Author of ‘The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam’

• Spain Terror: At Least 100 Hurt, 13 Killed, Five Suspects Dead in Two Attacks. A major anti-terrorism operation was underway in Spain Friday after a van plowed into crowds on Barcelona’s La Rambla tourist hotspot, killing 13 people and wounding more than 100 in the worst of a wave of attacks.

6am – B         Stonewall News:

• Stonewall Jackson kin: Take down Confederate monuments. Descendants of Confederate heroes want monuments pulled down. (AP) — A handful of descendants of Confederate Civil War heroes Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson and Jefferson Davis are siding with those who believe monuments to their famous ancestors should be pulled down and moved to other settings, such as museums. And a relative of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee says he would be fine with removing statues to his storied ancestor if it helps the country heal. Criticism of Confederate monuments has been intensifying since Saturday, when a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia turned violent after white nationalists opposed to the city’s plan to remove a statue of Lee clashed with counter-protesters. President Donald Trump agrees with some in the South who say the monuments speak to America’s history and heritage; but opponents of such symbols believe they glorify a shameful era of slavery. On Thursday, a great-great-grandson of Stonewall Jackson told The Associated Press that he believes the monument to his legendary Confederate ancestor, as well as others in Virginia’s capital of Richmond, were constructed as symbols of white supremacy and should be taken down. “They were constructed to be markers of white supremacy. They were constructed to make black people fearful,” Jack Christian said. “I can only imagine what persons of color who have to walk and drive by those every morning think and feel.”
• Sawyers proposes name change for Stonewall Jackson High, Stonewall Middle. (InsideNOVA) – As communities across the country examine how they memorialize Confederate leaders in the wake of a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Prince William County School Board Chairman Ryan Sawyers is launching a push to rename a pair of schools named for Confederate General Stonewall Jackson. Sawyers announced the proposal Aug. 16, just a few days after a woman was killed when a man drove into a group of counter protesters at the Charlottesville rally. The school board chairman — who is also running for Congress as a Democrat — said the past weekend’s events inspired him to launch a new effort to change the names of Stonewall Jackson High School and Stonewall Middle School, both located in Manassas. “Stonewall Jackson will certainly be honored in history, but he shouldn’t be celebrated with school names,” Sawyers said in an interview. “These aren’t people that should be looked up to with public money…This man actively fought to enslave people and prevent them from having an education and to sell off their children and their offspring. We shouldn’t have schools named after him. We just shouldn’t. It’s time to make those changes.” Thomas Jonathan Jackson, one of the most famous generals to fight for the Confederacy, earned his nickname while fighting in Manassas, a detail that is not lost on Sawyers.

6am – C         ‘Unlimited’ movie tickets for the cost of Netflix? We talked to the company doing it. (Circa) – Binge watching at home has become a standard for any movie and TV fan, but binge watching at the theater for the same price as Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime? That could be the future. MoviePass, an app and service that provides its customers “unlimited” movie tickets for a monthly fee, just dropped its price from $40 a month to $10. The new subscription plan from the six-year-old company works for any non-IMAX or 3D movie at 91 percent of the theaters in the country.

6am – D/E/F  Poll: Most Americans Don’t Want Confederate Statues Torn Down. A new poll shows most Americans, including a plurality of African-Americans, oppose efforts to tear down statues honoring Confederate soldiers. (The Federalist) — In the wake of the violence in Charlottesville last weekend, many politicians and activists have called for statues honoring Confederate soldiers to be torn down. A new poll, however, shows that most Americans, including a plurality of African-Americans, don’t agree with efforts to tear down Confederate statues. According to a new poll conducted by Marist for NPR/PBS News Hour, 62 percent of Americans want the statues to stay where they are. According to the poll, 86 percent of Republicans think the statues should remain as historical symbols, whereas 6 percent said the monuments should be removed because they’re offensive to some people. Democrats were nearly split on the issue: 44 percent want the statues to stay put, while 47 percent believe they should be torn down because they’re offensive. A plurality of African-American respondents — 44 percent — said the statues should stay, while 40 percent said they should be removed.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – COREY STEWART – At-Large Chairman of the Board of Supervisors of Prince William County, Virginia and is running for U.S. Senate in Virginia. Stewart has been a proponent of keeping confederate statues

• Discuss his thoughts on the violence in Charlottesville
• Prince William County School Board Chairman Ryan Sawyers is launching a push to rename a pair of schools named for Confederate General Stonewall Jackson.

7am – B/C     INTERVIEW —  RYAN SAWYERS – Chairman of the Prince William County School Board and running for Representative of Virginia’s 1st Congressional District (Rep. Rob Wittman’s district)

• Sawyers proposes name change for Stonewall Jackson High, Stonewall Middle. As communities across the country examine how they memorialize Confederate leaders in the wake of a violent white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Prince William County School Board Chairman Ryan Sawyers is launching a push to rename a pair of schools named for Confederate General Stonewall Jackson.

7am – D         INTERVIEW — RAHEEM KASSAM – Editor in Chief of Breitbart London and author of “NO GO ZONES: How Sharia Law Is Coming to a Neighborhood Near You “

• ABOUT BOOK: Now Raheem Kassam, a courageous reporter and editor at Breitbart.com, takes us where few journalists have dared to tread—inside the No Go Zones, revealing areas that Western governments, including the United States, don’t want to admit exist within their own borders.
• Spain Terror: At Least 100 Hurt, 13 Killed, Five Suspects Dead in Two Attacks. A major anti-terrorism operation was underway in Spain Friday after a van plowed into crowds on Barcelona’s La Rambla tourist hotspot, killing 13 people and wounding more than 100 in the worst of a wave of attacks.
• ISIS claims credit for Barcelona van attack

7am – E         INTERVIEW – LARRY MICHAEL- the “Voice of the Washington Redskins”

• PREVIEW: Green Bay Packers at Washington Redskins: Things to watch
• Redskins ramping up for bounce back against Packers. ASHBURN, Va. (WRIC) — The Washington Redskins have dealt with the heat of the weather across the Commonwealth during the entirety of the preseason, they haven’t taken much heat in their performance to open the schedule despite a poor showing in Baltimore a week ago. Back home after two weeks in Richmond, the Redskins can get back to business as usual for a rebound against the Green Bay Packers at FedEx Field this Saturday, 7:00 p.m. In Washington’s 23-3 loss to the Ravens on the road last Thursday, the Redskins manufactured just 47 yards of offense on 27 plays including a Colt McCoy interception in the second quarter, as well as the defense giving up 239 yards to Baltimore’s attack that featured Ryan Mallett in place of the injured Joe Flacco.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – JONATHAN SCHANZER – vice president of research for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies

• Spain Terror: At Least 100 Hurt, 13 Killed, Five Suspects Dead in Two Attacks. A major anti-terrorism operation was underway in Spain Friday after a van plowed into crowds on Barcelona’s La Rambla tourist hotspot, killing 13 people and wounding more than 100 in the worst of a wave of attacks.

8am – B         STATUE NEWS:

• Pelosi urges removal of all Confederate statues from Capitol
• Statue Of Slave Emancipator Abraham Lincoln Burned In Chicago
• Work crew removes Taney statue from Maryland State House grounds
• Leftist Activists Demand New York Museum Take Down Statue of ‘Racist’ Theodore Roosevelt
• Poll: Most Americans Don’t Want Confederate Statues Torn Down. A new poll shows most Americans, including a plurality of African-Americans, oppose efforts to tear down statues honoring Confederate soldiers.

8am – C         Bald men appear more dominant, study says. (USA Today) – Dear gentlemen, sharpen up your razors and lather up that dome, it may be time to shed your locks for a more dominant look — bald. A University of Pennsylvania study found men with shaved heads were rated as more dominant, a revelation, the study said, that could cause guys with male-pattern baldness to stop spending money on Rogaine and other treatments and embrace the Bic. The study conducted three experiments in which participants rated photos and descriptions of bald men and those with hair on characteristics such as dominance, confidence, masculinity and attractiveness. The studies found bald men were seen as more dominant over their coiffed peers and were viewed as taller and stronger. But, sorry fellas, dominance doesn’t necessarily translate to good looks. The study also explained shaved heads “are often found on men in traditionally masculine professions, so dominance may emerge through stereotypical associations with these figures.”

8am – D         Entertainment News:

• Nugent v. Kid Rock? Senate Candidate Looks To Rocker To Win Seat. (Daily Caller) — Rocker Ted Nugent is being recruited to help Lena Epstein, former Michigan chairwoman for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, win a Senate seat, according to a fundraising email sent Wednesday. “I am proud supporter and defender of our President, and now I am running for United States Senate to defeat [Democrat Sen.] Debbie Stabenow and replace her with an ‘America First’ conservative,” the email read. “Ted Nugent helped us win Michigan for the President, and hopefully he will campaign across Michigan once again to defeat Debbie Stabenow,” she added, before explaining that she doesn’t think Robert James Ritchie, aka Kid Rock, will actually run.
• It’s finally happening! A standalone Obi-Wan Kenobi movie is in the works. The inevitable Obi-Wan Kenobi spinoff movie is officially in the works. Per THR, Lucasfilm is in early talks with  Billy Elliot and The Hours director Stephen Daldry to direct a standalone movie about the Jedi Master. The report makes it clear that “talks are at the earliest stages” and there is no script for the project yet. If the deal closes, Daldry would oversee the development and screenwriting process alongside the Lucasfilm team. To address the question on everybody’s minds, it’s not yet known if Ewan McGregor will reprise his role. McGregor took over the iconic role, originated by Alec Guinness, in George Lucas‘ prequel trilogy, making his first appearance in The Phantom Menace. His voice was also used in The Force Awakens. For his part, McGregor has expressed enthusiasm for returning to the role. Last year he told us, “I’d very much like to do one too. I think the story between Episode III and Episode IV, I think there’s a story there.”
• SPOTIFY REMOVING WHITE SUPREMACIST MUSIC. The music streaming service Spotify announced Wednesday that it will remove white supremacist “hate music” from its service. The music streaming service Spotify announced Wednesday that it will remove white supremacist “hate music” from its service. The move comes after the music blog Digital Music News published a story identifying 37 white supremacists bands on Spotify. The bands were first flagged as “hate bands” in 2014 by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), an organization “dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry.

8am – E         Barcelona and Cambrils attacks: 17 in critical condition as fourth arrest made – live updates. (Guardian) — Hours after van killed 13 people and injured 100 in Las Ramblas, seaside town of Cambrils hit by second vehicle attack, leaving one dead and six wounded. 17 people in a critical condition: The number of people injured in the attacks in Barcelona Cambrils has risen to 130, Reuters reports citing an emergency services spokesman. Seventeen were in a critical condition and another 30 were in a serious condition, the spokesman said. Emergency services said in a statement that the dead and injured in the two attacks were of 34 different nationalities.