Hans Von Spakovsky, Joe diGenova, Steve Kastenbaum and Morgan Wright joined WMAL on Monday!

Mornings on the Mall

Monday, August 15, 2016

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

 

5am – A/B/C             Donald Trump: I’m running against ‘crooked media’, not just Hillary Clinton. In search of answers about plummeting polls and reports of despair within his presidential campaign, Republican nominee Donald Trump questioned the role of a free press on Sunday, as his allies struggled to argue that their candidate remained focused on winning the general election. In search of answers about plummeting polls and reports of despair within his presidential campaign, Republican nominee Donald Trump questioned the role of a free press on Sunday, as his allies struggled to argue that their  candidate remained focused on winning the general election. At a Saturday night rally in Fairfield, Connecticut, Trump went so far as to say that his race is not against the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, but against journalists. “I’m not running against Crooked Hillary,” he told a crowd. “I’m running against the crooked media.”

Donald Trump Threatens to Pull Press Credentials for The New York Times.  Trump denounced the paper’s recent coverage of him during a Saturday-night rally in Connecticut. Donald Trump is threatening to take away the campaign press credentials of The New York Times. Trump is frequently critical of the Times and upped his attacks on the newspaper during a Saturday-night rally in Fairfield, Conn. Trump denounced the paper’s recent coverage of him and said, “Maybe we’ll start taking the press credentials away.” Sharp criticism of the media is a staple of Trump rallies. He incited the crowd in Connecticut to jeer the reporters more than a half dozen times in the first minutes of his rally. Trump has banned several media outlets from covering his events, including The Washington Post, Buzzfeed and The Huffington Post.

5am – D         Milwaukee Riots:

• Scott Walker Mobilizes National Guard To Stop “Black Lives Matter” Riots
• After deadly Milwaukee police shooting, calls for peace

5am – E         Christopher Barry, son of former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, dies at 36 of apparent overdose. WASHINGTON (ABC7) — Marion Christopher Barry, 36, son of the late DC mayor Marion Barry, was pronounced dead early Sunday morning at George Washington University Hospital. According to information gathered by Dave Wilmot, a long time Barry family friend, Christopher Barry and friends were at an apartment in the Wellington Park complex of Southeast drinking alcohol and using the drug K2 when Barry collapsed and they could not revive him. They called 911 and Barry was rushed to the hospital. According to a D.C. police incident report, around 12:10 a.m. Christopher had stepped outside when he reportedly did the drug. Once he returned back inside, a complainant reports the 36-year-old was “acting crazy/different” when he suddenly “dropped.”

 

6am – A/B/C Chinese diver He Zi wins silver medal, engagement ring at Rio Olympics ceremony.  Chinese diver He Zi will be coming home from the Rio Olympics with a silver medal, and a diamond engagement ring. The 25-year-old had just received her medal at the presentation for the women’s three-metre springboard event when she was the recipient of another impressive, and entirely unexpected, piece of bling on Sunday night, local time. As He paraded around the pool deck, her long-time boyfriend and fellow Chinese diver, Qin Kai, suddenly appeared and, clutching a small red jewellery box in a glass case, sank down on one knee in front of her. The crowd at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre went wild as they realised what was happening, and He wiped away tears in an adorable moment that was broadcast live around the world. Qin, 30, had won bronze in the men’s synchronised three-metre springboard event earlier in the week. This time, he won his girlfriend’s heart.

6am – D         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 and senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation

• Donald Trump Warns of Electoral ‘Cheating’ During Pennsylvania Rally
• Trump fires up recruitment of poll watchers as he warns of election ‘cheating.’ DENVER — Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is asking supporters to become election monitors, warning voters Friday night that “cheating” might rob him of a win.
• Hillary drafts illegal ‘Dreamers’ to get immigrants to vote. Hillary Clinton’s campaign on Sunday announced a program to recruit undocumented “Dreamers” into a voter registration army even though they are not allowed to vote. Celebrating the four-year anniversary of President Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, Clinton launched “Mi Sueno, Tu Voto” (My Dream, Your Vote), to rally and “secure commitments” from immigrants who can vote. The DACA program created so-called “Dreamers,” the children of illegal immigrants who the president has offered renewable two-year work visas and deportation deferral. The goal for many in the program is amnesty.

6am – E         DC Monument and Memorial News:

• Washington Monument closed; elevator failed twice in 12 hours. WASHINGTON —   The Washington Monument closed Sunday after its elevator failed twice in 12 hours. “The elevator stopped working about 9:20 [Saturday] night, and we had to bring 73 visitors down the steps,” said Mike Litterst, spokesman for the National Park Service. A technician later cleared the elevator for Sunday operations, but the monument didn’t remain open long. “Shortly after opening, the doors got stuck closed again, and we had to evacuate visitors,” Litterst said. There were 62 visitors at the top of the Monument when the elevator failed Sunday morning, Litterst said.  The elevator was temporarily re-powered so that the 62 could ride down to ground level before the Washington Monument was closed for the day. The Park Service said Sunday morning’s problem was caused by a “tripped breaker,” and that technicians were tracing the cause.
• NPS ready to battle grimy biofilm coating on Jefferson Memorial. WASHINGTON — Visitors who walk up to the iconic Thomas Jefferson Memorial in D.C. might see the monument and think it is dirty, but what they are actually looking at is a collection of microorganisms known as a biofilm. The 73-year-old landmark is covered with the biological growth, making it appear black, filthy and grimy in spots. “This is a really important, but very challenging topic,” said Gay Vietzke, superintendent of the National Mall and Memorial Parks. “The challenge we have is not just figuring out a solution to address it, but also helping the public understand what’s going on.” The biofilm was first visible on the monument in 2006 and has become much more pronounced in the last decade. Since 2014, the National Park Service has been studying options to safely remove it. And just this past week, testing began to see what chemicals would work best.

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

• FBI Enlists Prosecutor In Clinton Foundation Probe | The Daily Caller – A joint FBI-U.S. Attorney probe of the Clinton Foundation has begun, and the federal prosecutor leading the charge has a history of taking down politicians. Preet Bharara, dubbed “The Showman” in The New Yorker for his penchant for theatrics and wisecracks, runs the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Southern District of New York and has racked up an impressive number of corruption convictions — from Wall Street bankers, hedge funds, and New York organized crime to prominent politicians. The FBI has enlisted Bharara’s office (along with others) in part for his prosecutorial aggressiveness that career DOJ attorneys may lack.

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

• Bolt wins 100m as GB claim historic five golds. Usain Bolt is the first three-time 100m gold medalist in Olympic history.
• US swimmer Ryan Lochte robbed in Rio. Muggings, violence during Olympics highlight Brazil’s tourism woes.
• Great Britain is second only to the United States in both gold and silver medals. The Americans lead with 69 total medals through Sunday — 26 gold, 21 silver and 22 bronze
• Chinese diver He Zi wins silver medal, engagement ring at Rio Olympics ceremony. As He paraded around the pool deck, her long-time boyfriend and fellow Chinese diver, Qin Kai, suddenly appeared and, clutching a small red jewellery box in a glass case, sank down on one knee in front of her.

7am – D         Meghan McCain slams ‘garbage election’, announcing she refuses to vote for either Trump or Clinton. (Daily Mail) — Meghan McCain has voiced her disdain for the presidential election, calling it a ‘garbage election with two garbage candidates’. Capturing the sentiments of many Americans who feel stuck between a rock and a hard place, she tweeted on Thursday: ‘I won’t be bullied into voting for Trump or Hillary. This is a garbage election. I truly fear for the future of this country I love so much.’ The 31-year-old daughter of John McCain, who has described herself as a ‘socially liberal Republican’ fired shots at both candidates. When Donald Trump accepted the GOP nomination in Cleveland last month, McCain tweeted: ‘The party I was part of is dead’.

7am – E         DC Restaurant News:

• Loosen your belts: DC’s Summer Restaurant Week returns. Restaurant Week, a biannual event organized by the Restaurant Association Metropolitan Washington (RAMW), started 15 years ago shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. RAMW President and CEO Kathy Hollinger says originally it was a way to get people out and back into the city’s restaurants. Over the years, the program has grown tremendously. This summer, more than 250 restaurants in neighborhoods throughout the region are participating in the event, which offers diners multicourse meals for a fraction of the cost. Three-course prix fixe lunches are $22 a person; dinners ring in at $35. And the deals work.
• French chef Michel Richard, who revitalised DC cuisine, dies at 68. Michel Richard, an innovative and enormously influential French chef who helped turn the faltering Washington, DC, culinary scene into America’s best dining city, died Saturday at 68, his assistant told US media. After arriving in Washington, DC, in 1993, Richard’s flagship Citronelle restaurant had an impact on the city’s culinary culture that “cannot be overestimated” and which lured other chefs to Washington, the paper reported. One of its signature dishes was what Richard called faux “begula” caviar – couscous coloured with squid ink and served with lobster. The restaurant closed in 2012. He later opened a second high-end restaurant in Georgetown, Michel Richard Central, which offered a French twist on American classics. “This is my American bistro, with a French accent,” Richard proclaims on its website. “I love American food, and I’m French,” Richard once said. “So I make great French fries!” He also designed menus for airlines and Amtrak trains.
• DC named Bon Appétit’s restaurant city of the year. WASHINGTON — This year, Washington, D.C., is Bon Appétit magazine’s restaurant city of the year. The designation comes just after the national food magazine named three D.C. restaurants — Bad Saint, The Dabney and Tail Up Goat — on its list of the 50 finalists for America’s best new restaurants.

8am – A         INTERVIEW – MORGAN WRIGHT – cybersecurity expert, former executive at Cisco & Alcatel-Lucent and former senior advisor for the US Department of State Antiterrorism Assistance Program / www.morganwright.us

• DNC HACK
• The DNC Hacker publishes House Dems’ cell phone numbers. (The Hill) — The hacker known as Guccifer 2.0 dumped the personal contact info of House Democrats on his website Friday, part of the latest batch of documents from a widespread breach of Democratic groups. The document was obtained from the cyberattack on the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC). The hacker also published DCCC shared passwords to several online databases and news networks.  The dump also included memos on the House race for Florida’s 18th district, including opposition research on the Republican contenders, which is being vacated by Democrat Patrick Murphy as he vies for the Senate. The hacker also claimed to have breached House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s computer and published a memo sent to her about a 2015 fundraiser for Morgan Carroll, who is running for a Colorado House seat against Republican Mike Coffman.
• Report: Top Lawmakers Were Briefed On Russians Hacking The DNC A Year Ago. (TPM) — U.S. intelligence officials told leaders in Congress a year ago that Russian hackers were targeting the Democratic National Committee and other party entities, but the lawmakers could not inform those targets because of the sensitive nature of the information, Reuters reported Friday. The revelation was based on three anonymous sources who were familiar with the matter, Reuters said. According to the report, intelligence officials briefed a group of lawmakers known as the Gang of Eight last summer. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY); Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV); then-House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH); House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA); Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC); the committee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA); House Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA); and his Democratic counterpart, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) received the briefing. The disclosure of the attack came with restrictions. Lawmakers were not allowed to share any information with the targets of the hack because it could have revealed that the U.S. was monitoring the hack and what tools the intelligence agencies were using to track it, Reuters reported. The intelligence officials believed that the hack was backed up by two Russian intelligence agencies, a conclusion the FBI did not share with the DNC when it first reached out to the group about its cybersecurity infrastructure in the fall. It is believed that penetrating the DNC allowed the hackers to then infiltrate the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Hillary Clinton campaign and other Democratic organizations.
• Nancy Pelosi, House Democrats leader, says she’s been flooded with ‘obscene’ calls since DCCC hack. (Washington Post) — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Saturday that she’s been slammed with “obscene and sick calls” after a hacker posted Democratic congressional lawmakers’ personal contact information online.  The information was apparently stolen in a hack of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which has personal contact and other information for all of the Democrats in the House, as well as their top aides. “On a personal note, I was in the air flying from Florida to California when the news broke. Upon landing, I have received scores of mostly obscene and sick calls, voicemails and text messages,” Mrs. Pelosi said in a letter to colleagues, telling them to prevent their family and children from getting to the messages, presumably because they were so upsetting.

8am – B          Olympics News:

• Bolt wins 100m as GB claim historic five golds. Usain Bolt is the first three-time 100m gold medalist in Olympic history.
• US swimmer Ryan Lochte robbed in Rio. Muggings, violence during Olympics highlight Brazil’s tourism woes.
• Great Britain is second only to the United States in both gold and silver medals. The Americans lead with 69 total medals through Sunday — 26 gold, 21 silver and 22 bronze
• Chinese diver He Zi wins silver medal, engagement ring at Rio Olympics ceremony. As He paraded around the pool deck, her long-time boyfriend and fellow Chinese diver, Qin Kai, suddenly appeared and, clutching a small red jewellery box in a glass case, sank down on one knee in front of her.

8am – C         Local Pokemon News:

• No Pokemon, says Pentagon. Pentagon clamps down on Pokemon Go. Washington (AFP) – The Pentagon doesn’t like Pikachu. In the latest bizarre news surrounding the global phenomenon that is Pokemon Go, US Defense Department officials on Friday said employees should not download the game onto their government-issued smartphones. “You can imagine a number of reasons [why] that wouldn’t necessarily be a prudent thing to do,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Gordon Trowbridge told reporters. “Aside from any security concerns, I think taxpayers would appreciate government phones being used for government business.”
• Pokémon Go’s augmented reality is augmenting the reality of this small town. They stream into the picturesque colonial town by the hundreds, day and night. Groups of teenagers. Mother-and-son duos. Couples on dates. A middle-aged  government worker just stopping by on her commute home along Interstate 95. They huddle in front of the town hall, gather in circles on the boardwalk, cram onto the brick sidewalks and overflow into the street. They stare at their phones and flick their fingers across the screens in a zombielike rhythm that easily could be mistaken for a scene from a dystopian, ­tech-addled future.   Pokémon Go’s augmented reality has brought them here to the tiny town of Occoquan, and Pokémon Go is augmenting Occoquan’s reality. This nearly three-century-old riverfront town in Virginia’s Prince William County has unwittingly become a hotbed for the new game, which is drawing droves of players to the town as they use their phones to capture make-believe creatures that are living in abundance among Occoquan’s real-life residents (all 1,016 of them). A place that touts itself as “an oasis and a little-known gem” offering “that personal touch of Main Street USA” has transformed into a virtual-reality superhighway. “It’s quite unbelievable,” Occoquan Mayor Elizabeth Quist said. “I get in traffic jams coming home from council meetings on Tuesday nights now. I can’t think of another time on a weeknight I’ve been six deep at a stop sign waiting for other people to go. That’s a traffic jam for Occoquan.”

8am – D/E     Farewell: Michael Phelps retires after 23rd gold and he’s not coming back. Goodbye, Michael. This time it’s for real. Late Saturday night at the Rio Olympics, Michael Phelps dove into the pool with Team USA in second place in the 4×100 medley relay. Fifty seconds later, Phelps had pulled his team into the lead – of course – and given freestyler Nathan Adrian plenty of room for a victory. It was Phelps’ fifth gold medal of these Games and 23rd overall (to go along with three career silvers and two bronzes) and it’ll be his final one. “I am done, boys,” he said with a smile in a group huddle after. Four years ago, Michael Phelps stood on a pool deck in London and said he was done. Saturday night, he stood on a pool deck in Rio and said the same. The man speaking those words couldn’t have been more different.