Alberto Gonzales, Robert Thomson aka Dr. Gridlock, Hans Von Spakovsky and Larry Kudlow joined WMAL on Tuesday!

Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

 

5am – A/B/C Hillary’s Softball Press Conference

5am – D         DRIVE AT FIVE INTERVIEW — JUDGE ALBERTO GONZALES — former White House counsel and U.S. attorney general in the George W. Bush administration. He is the dean and Doyle Rogers Distinguished Professor of law at Belmont University College of Law in Nashville, Tenn.

>> Alberto R. Gonzales: Trump has a right to ask if Judge Gonzalo Curiel is fair

5am – E         Metro GM: System Was At Capacity On First Weekday Of SafeTrack. On the first weekday of SafeTrack, Metro was “pretty much at the maximum of what we could move” in the affected area, General Manager Paul Wiedefeld said a news conference this afternoon.

Metro’s SafeTrack program on its first workday: A rough morning for Orange Line riders.  On the first workday of Metro’s SafeTrack project to rebuild its rail system, there were mixed reports of how the morning ride was going for thousands of users. There were certainly more crowds on platforms and in rail cars as trains shared tracks on part of the Silver and Orange lines. Problems were compounded by a switch problem outside East Falls Church, which added to the delays. During the morning commute, ridership at stations west of Ballston was down 26 percent, according to figures provided by Metro. Compared with a normal Monday, almost 22 percent fewer people commuted from Wiehle-Reston. But the dips in ridership probably weren’t noticeable to riders on board the trains because there were 70 percent fewer trains serving passengers. At West Falls Church, there were 45 percent fewer riders than normal. And at Dunn Loring, the figure was 30 percent. In total, 16,176 trips were taken west of Ballston, compared to 21,893 on a comparable Monday morning, May 16.

6am – A/B/C Making The Case For More Children:

• President Erdogan urges Turkish women to have at least three children and tells them their lives are ‘incomplete’ without babies. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has described childless women as ‘deficient’, saying a woman’s life is ‘incomplete’ if she fails to have offspring. The Turkish leader said that he would ‘recommend women to have at least three children’, adding that he ‘absolutely doesn’t accept’ a woman choosing to have a career over raising a family. President Erdogan made the controversial statements during a speech at Turkey’s national women’s association in Istanbul on Sunday.
• Denmark sees baby boom… nine months after running a campaign urging people to have more sex. Denmark is on the verge of a baby boom – nine months after running a campaign urging people to have more sex. A television advert called ‘Do it for Mom!’ was released last year to encourage Danes to go on holiday in a desperate bid to help boost the country’s falling birth rate.  Reports have since emerged that Denmark is expecting an extra 1,200 births this summer compared to last year. According to the Politiken newspaper, a total of about 16,200 babies will be born this summer following the advert which includes footage of a man trying to undo his girlfriend’s bra and a woman clambering out of a swimming pool in a small bikini.

6am – D         INTERVIEW – ROBERT THOMSON aka DR GRIDLOCK

6am – E         ‘Chewbacca Mom’ Receives Gifts Valued At $420K, University Scholarships. LAKELAND, Fla. (CBSLA.com) — The Texas woman — who has become known as the “Chewbacca Mom” — is now laughing all the way to the bank. After making the world laugh with her viral video via Facebook that shows her trying on a Chewbacca mask, Candace Payne is cashing in on her newfound fame. So far, she’s received gifts valued at $420,000. They include money for travel to appear on talk shows, a vacation at Walt Disney World, and items from Kohl’s.

7am – A         INTERVIEW – HANS VON SPAKOVSKY –  A former counsel to the assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Justice Department, former commissioner for the Federal Election Commission from 2006 to 2007, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation

>> The Zombie Voter Apocalypse: California Refuses to Admit Its Voter Fraud Problem

7am – B         CRITTER NEWS:

• Va. man attacked by rabid cat. WASHINGTON — A man was attacked by a rabid cat in the Springfield, Virginia area, Fairfax County police say. It happened Sunday morning on the Long Branch Trail, north of the Franconia-Springfield Metro Station. Police say the man was repeatedly scratched by the cat. He is undergoing preventive treatment. Authorities say the cat was “extremely aggressive” and died during the attack.
• Md. shelter finds dozens of abandoned kittens and cats on doorstep GREENBELT, Md. — Almost every day, pets are surrendered to local animal shelters, but animal control officers in Greenbelt, Maryland say that what happened Friday night is a first. “Never in my lifetime have I seen so many cats abandoned at once,” said Greenbelt animal control officer Howard Stanback. “About 5 o’clock we had 19 kittens abandoned outside of our shelter.” Stanback says the cats and kittens were left in boxes that were taped shut with holes cut out so the animals could breathe. It was also raining that night. “We got another five boxes of cats and kittens [on Saturday] … we have had a total of 28 cats abandoned at our shelter,” he said.
• Prosecutor: No charges against boy’s mother in gorilla case. CINCINNATI (AP) — A prosecutor Monday announced no charges will be brought against the mother of the little boy who got into the gorilla exhibit at the Cincinnati Zoo, saying the 3-year-old “just scampered off” as children sometimes do. The shooting of a 400-pound gorilla that was dragging the child through a moat May 28 set off a torrent of criticism online, with some attacking the zoo for the animal’s death and others blaming the mother for not watching her child more closely. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said the case didn’t come close to warranting a charge of child endangerment, and he defended the mother as an attentive parent undeserving of the sharp criticism and threats. He said the mother had three other children with her at the zoo and had turned away “for a few seconds” to attend to one when the boy took off.

7am – C  Street fighter and MMA pioneer Kimbo Slice dead at 42. Kimbo Slice, the bearded street fighter who parlayed his internet popularity into a mixed martial arts career and worldwide fame, has died. He was 42. Slice, whose real name was Kevin Ferguson, was taken to a hospital in Margate, Florida, near his home Monday, Coral Springs Police Sgt. Carla Kmiotek said. Slice’s death was confirmed by Mike Imber, his longtime manager. “We lost our brother today,” Imber said in a text message to The Associated Press. The cause of death was still unclear. Kmiotek said there is no active police investigation, and no foul play is suspected.

7am – D         Hillary Clinching:

• Clinton has delegates to win Dem nomination, AP reports; Sanders questions tally. Hillary Clinton has earned enough delegates to clinch the Democratic presidential nomination, according to an Associated Press count released Monday night – an assessment swiftly challenged by primary rival Bernie Sanders and his campaign. The AP released its updated tally, showing the former secretary of state winning enough delegates to become the first woman to top a major party’s presidential ticket, on the eve of the last major day of primary voting. The AP said Clinton reached the 2,383 delegates needed to become the presumptive Democratic nominee with a weekend victory in Puerto Rico and late burst of support from superdelegates. Those are party officials and officeholders, many of them eager to wrap up the primary, free to support whichever candidate they want.
• State Department Blocks Release Of Hillary Clinton-Era TPP Emails Until After The Election. By David Sirota @davidsirota / Update, 4:35pm ET, June 6: Following IBT’s story, Donald Trump’s campaign demanded that the State Department release Clinton’s TPP-related emails. The Trump campaign referred to Clinton as “the outsourcing candidate” and said she was intent on “ramming TPP down the throats of the American people.” Read IBT’s story about Trump’s statement here. Original story: Trade is a hot issue in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. But correspondence from Hillary Clinton and her top State Department aides about a controversial 12-nation trade deal will not be available for public review — at least not until after the election. The Obama administration abruptly blocked the release of Clinton’s State Department correspondence about the so-called Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), after first saying it expected to produce the emails this spring. The decision came in response to International Business Times’ open records request for correspondence between Clinton’s State Department office and the United States Trade Representative. The request, which was submitted in July 2015, specifically asked for all such correspondence that made reference to the TPP.

7am – E         Social Media Down. Gun Sales Up.

• People are spending much less time on social media apps: Report. People are spending less time on social media apps, in some cases substantially less, a new study from marketing intelligence firm SimilarWeb found. The company compared Android users’ daily time spent on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat from January to March 2016 with the same period in 2015. The firm looked at data from the U.S, UK, Germany, Spain, Australia, India, South Africa, Brazil and Spain. Facebook’s Instagram saw the biggest year-over-year drop — usage was down 23.7 percent this year, closely followed by Twitter (down 23.4 percent), Snapchat (down 15.7 percent) and Facebook (down 8 percent), the study found. Twitter’s stock is trading down around 34 percent, and Facebook’s stock is up almost 14 percent so far this year.
• Record Gun Sales Continue Through May. Thirteen straight months of gun sales records. (Washington Free Beacon) – The month of May saw yet another gun-related background check record making it the 13th month to see an all time high. The FBI completed a record 1,870,000 checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, this May, according to an agency report. That’s almost 300,000 more checks than May of 2015, which set a record at the time. It is also nearly a million more checks than May 2008. May was also the first month in 2016 that did not break two million checks as the gun industry enters a seasonal lull in sales. The numbers remain on pace to set another yearly record, however. The current yearly background check record, all-time monthly record, and all-time daily record were all set in 2015.

 

8am – A/B/C             Transgender Student Beats Female Competitors To Final In Alaskan Track And Field Race. Nattaphon “Ice” Wangyot, a male-t0-female transgender athlete became the first trans student to compete for a high school state championship last week. Wangyot, a senior at Haines High School in Alaska, beat a number of biologically female competitors to the finals at the state Track & Field meet in Anchorage. But her presence at the race was met with some criticism from her fellow runners. “I don’t know what’s politically correct to say, but in my opinion your gender is what you’re born with” said Peyton Young, another competitor at the meet, in a comment to Alaska Dispatch News. “It’s the DNA. Genetically a guy has more muscle mass than a girl, and if he’s racing against a girl, he may have an advantage.” The event was also protested by the conservative group Alaska Family Action, who according to USA Today, arrived at the meet with a dozen supporters. The group’s president, Jim Minnery, told the Alaska Dispatch News that allowing Wangyot to compete was unfair. “Allowing students to play on teams of the opposite sex disproportionately impacts female students, who will lose spots on track, soccer and volleyball teams to male students who identify as female.”

8am – D         INTERVIEW —  LARRY KUDLOW- CNBC Senior Contributor and host of The Larry KudlowShow on WMAL Saturdays at 7 pm

8am – E         Metro News:

• Metro GM: System Was At Capacity On First Weekday Of SafeTrack. On the first weekday of SafeTrack, Metro was “pretty much at the maximum of what we could move” in the affected area, General Manager Paul Wiedefeld said a news conference this afternoon.
• Metro’s SafeTrack program on its first workday: A rough morning for Orange Line riders.  On the first workday of Metro’s SafeTrack project to rebuild its rail system, there were mixed reports of how the morning ride was going for thousands of users. There were certainly more crowds on platforms and in rail cars as trains shared tracks on part of the Silver and Orange lines. Problems were compounded by a switch problem outside East Falls Church, which added to the delays. During the morning commute, ridership at stations west of Ballston was down 26 percent, according to figures provided by Metro. Compared with a normal Monday, almost 22 percent fewer people commuted from Wiehle-Reston. But the dips in ridership probably weren’t noticeable to riders on board the trains because there were 70 percent fewer trains serving passengers. At West Falls Church, there were 45 percent fewer riders than normal. And at Dunn Loring, the figure was 30 percent. In total, 16,176 trips were taken west of Ballston, compared to 21,893 on a comparable Monday morning, May 16.