Wake Up To Politics - December 9, 2014
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Tuesday, December 9, 2014
700 (!) Days Until Election Day 2016It's Tuesday, December 9, 2014, 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!!!
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Capitol Hill News
- No “Cromnibus” Yet Congressional negotiators are still hashing out the spending bill (this one has been nicknamed the “Cromnibus,” because of its inclusion of both short-term and long-term funding – both a “CR” and an “omnibus”), which they had hoped to unveil Monday night ahead of a Thursday deadline.
- This pushes back votes on the bill until later in the week, possibly setting up House and Senate votes on the legislation for Thursday – meaning a shutdown will only be averted by hours. Or if a single senator decides to filibuster…a shutdown won’t be averted at all.
- CIA Report to be Released Senate Intelligence Committee chair Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) will release the controversial report of the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation” methods used on terror suspects, also known as “torture”.
- While the report is 6,000 pages, just the declassified 480-page executive summary will be released today. The release comes after months of debate, as Intelligence Committee members fought for the report’s release, while both the Obama Administration and congressional Republicans opposed it.
- House: Committee Hearings MIT professor Jonathan Gruber and Marilynn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare Services – the agency that oversaw the rollout of Obamacare – will be testifying before the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee today.
- It may seem odd to place an MIT professor next to the administrator of Medicare and Medicaid, but it was a very intentional move by outgoing chairman Darrell Issa. Video recently surfaced of Gruber discussing Obamacare’s passage, in which he says, “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter, or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”
- Now, Tavenner’s office doesn’t want her to be seated with Gruber – but she will be, and she will be testifying right after he does, handing his statements credibility.
- Senate: Committee Hearings At 10 AM today, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on “Campus Sexual Assault: the Roles and Responsibilities of Law Enforcement,” with witnesses including Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), authors of conflicting bills on sexual assault.
- At 10 PM today, Secretary of State John Kerry will be grilled by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on “Authorization For The Use of Military Force Against ISIL”.
- At 2:30 PM today, the Constitution, Civil Rights and Human Rights Subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on “The State of Civil and Human Rights in the United States,” with witnesses including Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Reps. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) and Keith Ellison (D-MN), National Organization Of Black Law Enforcement Executives president Dr. Cedric Alexander, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights president/CEO Wade Henderson, and Laura Murphy, Washington Legislative Office director at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).White House Watch
- The President’s Schedule In the morning, President Obama will speak to the Senior Executive Service, the senior leadership of the federal workforce, at the Washington Hilton.
- In the afternoon, the President will travel to Nashville and speak at Casa Azafran, a community center hosting many immigrant-related nonprofits, highlighting his executive order on immigration, while urging Congress to pass a comprehensive immigration bill.
