Wake Up To Politics - December 1, 2014
To read today's edition of Wake Up To Politics in a PDF format, click here. Continue reading to find the text of the Wake Up in the body of the email!
Monday, December 1, 2014
708 Days Until Election Day 2016It's Monday, December 1, 2014 - Happy December! - I'm Gabe Fleisher for Wake Up To Politics, and reporting from WUTP world HQ in my bedroom - Good morning: THIS IS YOUR WAKE UP CALL!!!
To send me questions, comments, tips, new subscribers, and more: email me at wakeuptopolitics@gmail.com. To learn more about WUTP or subscribe, visit the site: wakeuptopolitics.com, or read my tweets and follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/Wakeup2Politics.
White House Watch
- The President’s Schedule Today, President Barack Obama will host a series of three meetings on police-community relations, one week after a grand jury announced its decision not to charge a white police officer in the shooting of Michael Brown of Ferguson, Missouri, an unarmed black teenager.
- “Recent events in Ferguson, Missouri, and around the country have shined a spotlight on the importance of strong, collaborative relationships between local police and the communities they protect and serve,” the White House said in a statement.
- At 12:00 PM (Noon), President Obama will sit down with members of his Cabinet to discuss Ferguson on a federal level – funding of programs that give military-style equipment to state and local law enforcement agencies.
- At 2 PM in the Oval Office, Obama will hold a roundtable of young civil rights leaders to discuss “their efforts and broader challenges we still face as a nation including the mistrust between law enforcement and communities of color,” according to the White House.
- Finally, at 2:50 PM, the President will meet with elected officials, community, civil rights, and faith leaders, as well as law enforcement officials from across the country to discuss strengthening trust between police and communities. The full guest list for this meeting will be released later Monday, but will include local leaders from Ferguson, Missouri and New York City mayor Bill de Blasio.Capitol Hill News
- Lame Ducks Try to Pack Two Years of Work into Two Weeks After two years of gridlock, the 113th Congress is coming to a close…meaning all the unfinished work leaders had postponed debate over must finally be dealt with. Hot topics such as authorizing military action against ISIS and executive nominees will have to wait until the next Congress, because this one still has some work needed to finish.
- First up on the lame-duck agenda is a familiar one: funding the government. Congress faces a December 11 deadline – ten days away – when the government will shut down if a funding bill is not passed. Many in the House Republican Conference are urging Speaker John Boehner to let the government shut down, in retaliation to President Barack Obama’s immigration executive order, although Boehner has signaled he will not do this.
- Meanwhile, a debate over tax breaks has left Congress and spiraled into the White House. A number of personal and business tax breaks will expire in the next weeks, and the White House has threatened to veto the agreement between Boehner and outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. The White House veto threat leave Boehner and Reid back at Square 1 in their negotiations.Today In...
- 1824 For the second and last time in U.S. history, the presidential election goes to the U.S. House of Representatives, with none of the candidates receiving a majority of the Electoral College. The U.S. House would eventually choose John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and William Crawford.
- 1955 Rosa Parks, a black seamstress with a now-famous name, is arrested for refusing to give up her seat on a bus to a white man and comply with the law, setting into motion a year-long boycott of the Montgomery bus system.
- 1959 The Antarctic Treaty is signed in Washington, D.C. by 12 countries, including the United States, designating Antarctica, the only continent without a native human population, as a scientific preserve free of military activity.
- 2009 President Barack Obama announces the deployment of 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan in a prime-time address to the nation from West Point.Question of the Day
- Today’s Question What was the only other presidential election to be decided in the U.S. House, besides 1824?
