Ray Stagich, Janice Dean, Larry Michael, Mary Katharine Ham & Bret Baier  joined WMAL on Friday!

Mornings on the Mall

Friday, September 8, 2017

Hosts: Mary Walter and Vince Coglianese

Executive Producer: Heather Hunter

5am – A/B/C   ROBOCALLS OUT OF CONTROL

• RoboRage How to get your ‘good number’ off robocall lists. (WTOP) — Federal agencies are working furiously with mobile carriers and on new technology to stop robocalls. But there are steps consumers can take to reduce the number of robocalls they receive, starting with a change in their call behavior.  Robocalls are the No. 1 consumer complaint to the FCC, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said. The commission has been working with carriers like Verizon and AT&T since March to find solutions, including exploring call-authentication technology. But identifying spoofed numbers is tricky, which is why robocalling is difficult to stop, Pai said.
• Robo Rage: Area codes around DC that get the most robocalls
• This woman had to deal with 700 robocalls a day. Many people have noticed a recent uptick in unknown callers as telemarketers get wise to new technologies to spoof numbers and spam phones with unwanted calls. But no one has dealt with it quite so thoroughly as South Carolina real estate agent Kim France, who, for five straight days in June, was the unlucky recipient of hundreds upon hundreds of robocalls. She realized something was up when she woke up to 225 missed calls one morning, but she would have figured it out even without that: Her phone rang every few minutes for five days straight, making it impossible to place calls, compose texts, or even take photos. Even worse, since she’s in a line of business that involves answering calls from unknown numbers all the time, France’s business was effectively taken offline for as long as her phone was
• Robo Rage: Getting your ‘good number’ off robocall lists. WASHINGTON — Federal agencies are working furiously with mobile carriers and on new technology to stop robocalls. But there are steps consumers can take to reduce the number of robocalls they receive, starting with a change in their call behavior. “Just the mere fact you answer will put you on the list,” said Alex Quilici, the CEO of YouMail, a call-blocking app. He understands the temptation to tell a robocaller to lose your number or ask it questions in return. But that approach backfires. “A good number for them is one that answers the phone. So if it ever asks you to press 9 to get off the list. Don’t. Pressing 9 will put you on the list,” he said.

5am – D         Should Maryland grocery stores sell beer? BALTIMORE (AP) — Benjamin Schwalb loves good beer so much he brews his own. He has a leadership post in a local brewing club and, as a connoisseur, seeks craft brews at specialty stores in his Severna Park neighborhood. Maryland’s long-standing prohibition on beer sales in grocery stores baffles him. “Other states sell beer in grocery stores. Why not Maryland?” he asked. It’d be much easier to scoop up his next favorite brew without making a special trip. “Especially now with the explosion of craft breweries, consumers need more venues.” The idea of grocery store sales is popular with consumers, but Maryland’s brewery industry is far less enamored with taking on the political fight. Doing so would require upending Prohibition-era laws that protect liquor stores from chain store competition.

5am – E         INTERVIEW – RAY STAGICH- Meteorologist for The Weather Channel – latest on the hurricanes

• Irma heads for Bahamas, Cuba, leaving devastation in its wake.  (CNN/Updated 5:29 AM ET, Fri September 8, 2017) Hurricane Irma hurtled through the Caribbean on Friday, leaving catastrophic damage in its wake as it closed in on Florida where it could slam into Miami this weekend. The storm barreled between Cuba and the Turks and Caicos Islands early Friday morning, and is expected to move westward toward the Bahamas. Irma was downgraded to an “extremely dangerous” category 4 storm on Friday, with winds reaching a sustained maximum of 155 mph, the US National Hurricane Center said. At its peak, winds reached sustained maximums of 180 mph.

6am – A/B/C MASSIVE HACK: Credit reporting firm Equifax said personal info of 143 million may have been compromised in massive security breach.  (CNN) – Equifax says a giant cybersecurity breach compromised the personal information of as many as 143 million Americans — almost half the country. Cyber criminals have accessed sensitive information — including names, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses, and the numbers of some driver’s licenses. Additionally, Equifax said that credit card numbers for about 209,000 U.S. customers were exposed, as was “personal identifying information” on roughly 182,000 U.S. customers involved in credit report disputes. Residents in the U.K. and Canada were also impacted. The breach occurred between mid-May and July, Equifax said. The company said it discovered the hack on July 29.

Three Equifax Executives Sold Stock Before Cyber Hack Revealed. (Bloomberg) —

Three Equifax Inc. senior executives sold shares worth almost $1.8 million in the days after the company discovered a security breach that may have compromised information on about 143 million U.S. consumers. The trio had not yet been informed of the incident, the company said. The credit-reporting service said late Thursday in a statement that it discovered the intrusion on July 29. Regulatory filings show that three days later, Chief Financial Officer John Gamble sold shares worth $946,374 and Joseph Loughran, president of U.S. information solutions, exercised options to dispose of stock worth $584,099. Rodolfo Ploder, president of workforce solutions, sold $250,458 of stock on Aug. 2. None of the filings lists the transactions as being part of 10b5-1 scheduled trading plans. The three “sold a small percentage of their Equifax shares,” Ines Gutzmer, a spokeswoman for the Atlanta-based company, said in an emailed statement. They “had no knowledge that an intrusion had occurred at the time.” Equifax said in its statement that intruders accessed names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and driver’s-license numbers, as well as credit-card numbers for about 209,000 consumers. The incident ranks among the largest cybersecurity breaches in history. Equifax shares tumbled 13 percent to $124 in extended trading at 7:49 p.m. in New York.

6am – D         Betsy DeVos May Change Title IX Rules To Better Protect People Accused Of Sexual Misconduct…

Via Washington Examiner:

On Thursday, Education Secretary Betsy DeVos announced in a speech at George Mason University that her department is on a mission to improve upon the counter-productive Obama-era approach to sexual assault investigations on college campuses. The department’s efforts to craft better guidelines, DeVos said, will rely in part on a “notice-and-comment” process seeking feedback from the public. (I’ve taken the opportunity to pass along my own brief suggestions.)

In her remarks, DeVos shared stories both from survivors and falsely-accused students who were not well-served by the department’s previous approach, one that encouraged schools to adopt a “preponderance of evidence” standard for determining guilt but without any due process protections for the accused. The secretary, who has met with victims of sexual assault and victims of false accusations in recent months, spoke with clear compassion for both groups throughout her prepared remarks, likely aware that progressive feminists would accuse her of exhibiting insufficient empathy for survivors.

6am – E         Stop taking recess away, experts say it’s harmful for learning. A friend was livid when her son’s teacher took recess away from the entire class after a few misbehaved. What do teachers think about taking recess away as a punishment? Some justify it, some condemn it. As a mother of three young boys, I wanted to find out what experts think. Recess, they say, is the fourth “R.” This is how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines recess:     “Regularly scheduled periods within the elementary school day for unstructured physical activity and play.” Child-development experts agree recess is just as important as reading, writing and arithmetic. And without it, the other three “Rs” do suffer. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics said recess is necessary and crucial to children’s cognitive, physical, emotional and social development.

6am – F         DON JR. NEWS:

• Trump Jr. tells Senate committee: `I did not collude with any foreign government and do not know of anyone who did’
• Trump Jr. says he was open to info about Clinton’s “fitness, character or qualifications” in meeting with Russian lawyer.
• Sources: Trump Jr. said he did not recall WH involvement in response to meeting. Washington (CNN) Donald Trump Jr. told Senate judiciary committee staffers Thursday that he did not recall the details of White House involvement in the public response to his 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer and did not know much about the Air Force One meeting that allegedly led to the production of the statement, sources told CNN. Trump Jr. was explicitly asked whether he either took any of the Russian participants in the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting to see his father — now President Donald Trump — or whether he told his father about the meeting after, sources said. He insisted he did neither. Asked why his father promised the next day that dirt was coming on Hillary Clinton, Trump Jr. told Senate staffers that’s just the way his father talks. The President’s eldest son met with congressional investigators for more than five hours Thursday, but at least one member of the Senate judiciary committee is saying Trump Jr.’s interview is doing little to ease their concerns.

7am – A         DEM NEWS:

MENENDEZ

• Menendez had Melgen pay for Park Hyatt suite with his Am Ex pts. Prosecutors suggested he chose it for the “Limestone bath with soaking tub”
• Democrats Duck Questions About Sen. Bob Menendez’s Corruption Trial
• Democrats eager to avoid the subject of Menendez’s bribery trial
• MENENDEZ TRIAL IS AN “ATTACK ON HISPANICS”: An attorney for Sen. Robert Menendez’s co-defendant cast the federal corruption case against the two of them as an attack on the Hispanic-American community Thursday.
• Democrats Duck Questions About Sen. Bob Menendez’s Corruption Trial. “We should let the legal process play out.” WASHINGTON ― An incumbent Democratic senator is on trial this week on charges of federal bribery, and his colleagues in the Senate would rather not talk about it. Federal prosecutors alleged Wednesday that Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) entered into a “corrupt pact” with wealthy donor and longtime friend Dr. Salomon Melgen. They said the senator received luxurious vacations abroad, flights on the Florida eye doctor’s private jet and hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign cash, and that none of the gifts were disclosed on Menendez’s annual financial disclosure forms as required by law.

CLINTON

• Graham calls on Comey to testify on Clinton emails: “I smell a rat” (The Hill) — Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called Thursday for former FBI Director James Comey to to testify again on the FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified emails.
• “This doesn’t add up, and I smell a rat here,” Graham told Fox News. The comments come after Graham and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said late last month that newly revealed transcripts showed that Comey exonerated Clinton of criminal charges before the investigation was complete.
• Hillary Clinton blame game chafes fundraiser: ‘I wish she’d just shut the f- up and go away’ (Washington Times) — Former allies of Hillary Clinton are not happy with early previews of her memoir “What Happened,” along with the friendly fire she rhetorically lobs at allies. Attacks on former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joseph Biden, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders that are making headlines before the Sept. 12 release of “What Happened” are not sitting well with those who supported Mrs. Clinton’s failed presidential campaign. “The best thing she could do is disappear,” a former fundraiser and surrogate told the newspaper. “She’s doing harm to all of us because of her own selfishness. Honestly, I wish she’d just shut the f– up and go away.”
• Clinton: My campaign brought the thought of woman president into the “mainstream” (The Hill) — Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton says in a new interview that her White House bid brought the thought of a female president into the “mainstream.”  “I also want my presidential campaign to have helped pave the way for young women who come behind me. Because even though we didn’t win, we made the sight of a woman nominee more familiar, and we brought the possibility of a woman president closer. We brought into the mainstream the thought of a woman leader for our country—and that’s a big deal,” Clinton told Time magazine.
• Kimmel knocks Hillary’s book: ‘Like reading about the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean’ Jimmy Kimmel cracked some jokes on the topic in his opening monologue, noting that Clinton blames Bernie Sanders and his supporters for hurting her cause.  He feigned excitement at reading the election memoir, entitled “What Happened,” as a way to “relive that magical election.”
• Just in: Hillar yClinton to appear on Colbert’s show: Hillary Clinton has picked Stephen Colbert’s Late Show for her first late-night appearance since snatching defeat from the jaws of victory in the presidential election. She will be his guest on Tuesday, September 19.
• Clinton: Prayer, yoga and ‘fair share of chardonnay’ got me through the loss. (WMAL) – NEW YORK — Hillary Clinton said Thursday that she was devastated and drained after her loss to Donald Trump in 2016, but regained her strength by relying on a mix of prayer, yoga and “my fair share of Chardonnay.” Clinton, speaking at an event focused on her faith at New York’s Riverside Church, said she did not think she was going to lose heading into Election Day and was entirely thrown by the defeat. To get through it, Clinton said, she turned inward, relying on her “internal resources” and the support of her family and friends. “I relied on several tools, one of which was prayer, and I was lifted up and blessed by a lot of people who sent me prayers, sent me spiritual readings,” she said. “I also had the support of my family. … My friends rallied around and were so supportive. I did some yoga. Tried alternative nostril breathing.” And, in a light moment, Clinton added, “Yes, I had my fair share of Chardonnay.”
• Hillary Clinton: I Should Have Gone Nuclear on James Comey
• When FBI Director James Comey said on July 5, 2016, that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring a criminal case against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server but that her behavior was “extremely careless,” the candidate was particularly bothered by the second part of his statement. “My first instinct was that my campaign should hit back hard and explain to the public that Comey had badly overstepped his bounds—the same argument [Deputy Attorney General] Rod Rosenstein would make months after the election,” Clinton writes in her forthcoming book, What Happened, a copy of which was obtained and read by The Daily Beast. “That might have blunted the political damage and made Comey think twice before breaking protocol again a few months later. My team raised concerns with that kind of confrontational approach. In the end, we decided it would be better to just let it go and try to move on. Looking back, that was a mistake.”

7am – B/C     INTERVIEW – JANICE DEAN – Senior Meteorologist Fox News Channel – latest on the hurricanes

• Fox News Channel’s lead meteorologist Janice Dean “The Weather Machine” is donating ALL the money made from her newest children’s book Freddy the Frogcaster and the Flash Flood to Hurricane Harvey relief.
• HURRICANE IRMA: Irma heads for Bahamas, Cuba, leaving devastation in its wake.  (CNN/Updated 5:29 AM ET, Fri September 8, 2017) Hurricane Irma hurtled through the Caribbean on Friday, leaving catastrophic damage in its wake  as it closed in on Florida where it could slam into Miami this weekend.  The storm barreled between Cuba and the Turks and Caicos Islands early Friday morning, and is expected to move westward toward the Bahamas. Irma was downgraded to an “extremely dangerous” category 4 storm on Friday, with winds reaching a sustained maximum of 155 mph, the US National Hurricane Center said. At its peak, winds reached sustained maximums of 180 mph.

7am – D         CONGRESS / PAUL RYAN:

• Ryan: ‘I wasn’t furious’ at #Trump’s debt ceiling deal w/ Pelosi, Schumer.
• Speaker Ryan Thinks Dems Will Back Border Security In Exchange For Amnesty

• Ryan won’t back scrapping debt ceiling amid reported Trump-Schumer pact/ (Fox News) – House Speaker Paul Ryan told Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum” in an exclusive interview Thursday that he would oppose any deal to eliminate the U.S. debt ceiling despite a reported agreement between President Trump and Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to pursue that goal. “As imperfect as this tool is, I always see this as a good tool for fiscal discipline,” Ryan told host Martha MacCallum. “I like the fact that Congress controls the power of the purse and that gives us opportunities for fiscal discipline.” The Washington Post reported Thursday that Trump and Schumer, along with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., discussed the idea of scrapping the debt ceiling at a White House meeting Wednesday and agreed to pursue the matter over the next several months. Ryan added that he “wasn’t furious” with Trump for cutting a deal with Pelosi and Schumer raise the nation’s debt ceiling and keep the government operating for another three months.

7am – E         INTERVIEW – LARRY MICHAEL – Voice of The Redskins (in studio)

NFL regular season

Sunday, September 10, 1:00 PM on FOX

FedExField, Maryland

Philadelphia Eagles vs Washington Redskins

8am – A         INTERVIEW – MARY KATHARINE HAM – senior writer at The Federalist,  CNN contributor and co- author of the book “End of Discussion”. She is on the board of the Travis Manion Foundation, a non-profit that does work with returning Veterans and families of the fallen.

– 9/11 Heoes Runs : One run is this weekend: 9/11 Run Alexandria, VA on Saturday September 9, 2017 at 9:00am ET

8am – B/C     Bannon: Catholic churches ‘need illegal aliens’. Former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon in a new interview slammed the Catholic Church for its stance on immigration, saying leaders “need illegal aliens to to fill the churches.” Bannon told “60 Minutes” that the Catholic Church has been “terrible about” immigration when Charlie Rose noted that Cardinal Timothy Dolan in New York opposed President Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. “You know why? Because [they have been] unable to really, to come to grips with the problems in the church. They need illegal aliens. They need illegal aliens to fill the churches. It’s obvious on the face of it,” Bannon said.

8am – D         INTERVIEW – BRET BAIER- Anchor of SPECIAL REPORT for Fox News Channel, weekdays at 6 pm — political news of the day

• Trump Dinner with Paul Ryan: Taxes, Budget, Hurricanes, Goal of Bipartisan Fall Agenda (Breitbart) – WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump sat down for dinner with House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday night to discuss a packed list of fall legislative goals. A White House official said of the meeting: President Trump and Speaker Ryan had a productive working dinner to review the fall legislative agenda. The priorities discussed were tax reform, the FY-18 budget, funding for Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, raising the debt ceiling and the continuing resolution to keep the government funded. The President looks forward to working together with Congress on bipartisan solutions to improve the lives of all Americans.
• Ryan hopes to combine DACA, border security in immigration bill: NYT interview
• Ryan: ‘I wasn’t furious’ at #Trump’s debt ceiling deal w/ Pelosi, Schumer.
• HURRICANES: Bret is a frequent visitor to Florida… what does he think about Hurricane Irma?

8am – E         Did Beyoncé trigger the rise of the vegans? Research suggests trendy movement exploded following pop diva’s brief stint on the plant-based diet. (Daily Mail) – Beyonce made headlines when she briefly adopted a plant-based diet along with her husband rapper Jay Z. The Lemonade singer, one of the most powerful women in the music business, switched to veganism – but only for 22 days. Now, new research suggests this short stint was enough to trigger a rise in the trendy movement, potentially encouraging millions to follow suit.  Interest in a plant-based diet, also championed by Jared Leto, Gwyneth Paltrow and Mike Tyson, has grown in recent years as studies show it is beneficial for heart health and even lowers the risk of some. Experts say that vegan diets can be perfectly healthy – but they can cause serious health problems if followed incorrectly. A lack of nutrients such as vitamin B12, calcium, zinc and high-quality protein are concerns.