Wake Up To Politics - November 24, 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, November 24, 2014
715 Days Until Election Day 2016It's Monday, November 24, 2014, I'm Gabe Fleisher for, 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 At 10 AM, President Obama receives the Presidential daily Briefing.
- At 10:45 AM, the President will meet with the 2014 Nobel Prize laureates from the United States (Chemistry laureates William E. Moerner and Eric Betzig, as well as Physiology or Medicine laureate John O’Keefe).
- At 12:30 PM, Obama will sit down with Vice President Joe Biden for lunch.
- At 1:00, he will meet with Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.
- At 2:15, Obama will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to 19 individuals from the East Room of the White House, in a ceremony with the recipients and their families present. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is “the Nation’s highest civilian honor, presented to individuals who have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors,” according to the White House. I like it so much because there is a very wide range of people from many backgrounds that spring up from those qualifications – as you will see from the list including Tom Brokaw, Meryl Streep, Stevie Wonder, and more. Here are those who will be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom this afternoon:
- Alvin Ailey (posthomus), choreographer and dancer
- Isabel Allende, author
- Tom Brokaw, former anchor of NBC Nightly News and “one of America’s most trusted and respected journalists,” according to the White House.
- James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner (posthumous), civil rights activists murdered for their participation in the 1964 Freedom Summer, attempting to register Mississippi blacks to vote.
- Mildred Desselhaus, physicist, material scientist, and electrical engineer
- Jon Dingell, the longest-serving Member of Congress in American history, who will retire in January after representing Michigan in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1955.
- Ethel Kennedy, activist for social justice, human rights, environmental protection, and poverty reduction
- Susan Harjo, writer, curator, and Native activist
- Abner Mikva, a former U.S. Congressman from Illinois, former Chief Judge of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and former White House Counsel under Bill Clinton
- Patsy Takemoto Mink (posthumous), the first woman of color to serve in Congress as a U.S. Congresswoman from Hawaii
- Edward Roybal (posthumous), a U.S. Congressman from California and founder of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus
- Charles Sifford, a professional golfer who “helped to desegregate the Professional Golfers’ Association, despite harassment and death threats,” according to the White House.
- Robert Solow, economist
- Stephen Sondheim, theater composer and lyricist
- Meryl Streep, actress
- Marl Thomas, actress, producer, author, and social activist
- Stevie Wonder, singer-songwriter
- I just love that the President of the United States can award the nation’s highest honor to a group so diverse as to include Native Americans, Hispanics, African-Americans, activists, actors, public servants, singers, athletes, journalists, economists, authors, scientists, and dancers.Happy Birthday To...
- Zachary Taylor 12th President of the United States and national hero due to his service in the Army, rising to the rank of Major General and fighting in the War of 1812, Black Hawk War, Second Seminole War, and most notably, the Mexican-American War.
- Bill McCulloch The late Republican U.S. Congressman from New York credited for saving the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
- Gabe’s Bookshelf If you want to read more about McCulloch, he is a key player in Todd Purdum’s great book, An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Two Presidents, Two Parties, and the Battle for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I highly recommend Purdum’s history of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in which McCulloch (who I had never heard about before) quite literally saves the bill from almost-certain defeat.
