Oct 10, 2014 8 min read

Wake Up To Politics - October 10, 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!

Friday, October 10, 2014
25 Days Until Election Day 2014
760 Days Until Election Day 2016
WUTP 2013 Person of the Year Malala Yousafzai awarded joint Nobel Peace Prize; Obama designates San Gabriel Mountains National Monument; Biden honors the late James Brady at Newseum memorial service; 2014 Senate polling roundup, continued; and I answer a question on the possible Yiddish root of "Oyez": It's Thursday, October 9, 2014, I'm Gabe Fleisher for this no-school, brunch edition of 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, visit the site: wakeuptopolitics.com, or read my tweets: twitter.com/Wakeup2Politics.
Nobel News

Malala Yousafzai, 17, and Kailash Satyarthi Awarded Nobel Peace Prize for Youth Rights Activism 17-year-old Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani schoolgirl who was shot in the head by the Taliban for her work on behalf of giving women in her country education, and children’s rights activist Kailash Satyarthi of India, have been awarded the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize.
The announcement, which came from the Nobel Committee in Oslo Friday morning, read that Yousafzai and Satyarthi were receiving the award “for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.” Malala is the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in the award’s history.
In just 17 years, Yousafzai has already achieved great work and received a number of honors, including being the first Wake Up To Politics Person of the Year in 2013. Longtime subscribers will remember December 2013, when I put a list of notable political figures before them, and asked them to vote for a Person of the Year.
Out of all the lawmakers, governors, rising stars, activists, and others, the Wake Up To Politics community made me very proud in choosing Malala Yousafzai as our Person of the Year. After the results flooded in, that night, I got to work, and by morning, the first annual Wake Up To Politics Person of the Year Magazine was published. You can see the magazine here to read more on “The Malala Story”.
Here at Wake Up To Politics, we (I) congratulate Malala on her well-deserved honor. Malala, you are an inspiration to so many people across the world. Your work has already made that many more children receive an education, encouraging them (and other young people across the globe) to step up and become activists as well.
And what does the young laureate have to say on being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize? “Malala will make her first statement [on receiving the Prize]…” @MalalaFund, Yousafzai’s organization tweeted. “…After school.”

White House Watch

The President’s Schedule President Obama wakes up in Los Angeles (which means all times PDT) this morning on Day 2 of his California fundraising trip:
At 10:40 AM, Obama will attend a DNC event at a private residence in LA.
At12:40 PM, the President will speak at Frank G. Bonelli Regional Park in San Dimas, California, announcing his designation of the nearby San Gabriel Mountains as a National Monument.
President Obama can make this designation with his authority under the Antiquities Act, a presidential power first utilized by Theodore Roosevelt to designate Devils Tower National Monument in 1906. Since then, 16 presidents have used the power to protect “unique natural and historic features in America”. National Monuments are protected like national parks, and many such monuments have joined the National Park system by Acts of Congress, including the Grand Canyon, and the Statue of Liberty. According to the White House, President Obama has “previously used his authority under the Antiquities Act to create or expand 12 other National Monuments across the country,” for a total of over 260 million acres of now-protected land or water, “nearly three times more than any other President since the Antiquities Act became law in 1906.”
But make no mistake: this is a political trip, and environmental protection has political bonuses for Obama in his base. In addition, the White House says, the 346,177 acres of forest at San Gabriel Mountains in south California becoming a national monument will “permanently protecting the popular outdoor recreation destination to increase access and outdoor opportunities for the area's residents,” many of them making up the important Latino voting bloc.
This is a designation top Latino groups have been working on for decades, representative of the large Hispanic population living near the (terrifically named) San Gabriels.
The newly-designated San Gabriel Mountains National Monument will be managed by the U.S. Forest Service, the eighth national monument under the Forest Service. Over 100 national monuments in total are managed by the Forest Service, National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Land Management and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
After the San Gabriel announcement, President Obama will leave Los Angeles at 2:20 PM, arriving in San Francisco at 3:30 PM.
To close the night, Obama will speak at a DNC event at the W Hotel in San Francisco, where he will spend the night.
Biden’s Day Vice President Joe Biden will attend a memorial service at the Newseum today for James Brady, the White House press secretary under Ronald Reagan who died in August.
The Vice President will speak at the service celebrating Brady’s life and legacy, along with a number of former White House press secretaries, members of the Press Corps, and former Reagan staffers, including Joe Lockhart, press secretary to Bill Clinton; Mark Weinberg, assistant press secretary to Ronald Reagan; Sheila Tate, press secretary to Nancy Reagan; Mike McCurry, press secretary to Bill Clinton; Andrea Mitchell, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent and MSNBC anchor; senior CBS News White House correspondent Bill Plante; Jody Woodruff, co-anchor of PBS NewsHour; and Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.
James Brady was nearly killed and permanently disabled by the attempted assignation of President Ronald Reagan in 1981, and dedicated the rest of his life to preventing gun violence. Brady was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1996, and is also the namesake of the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, where press secretaries continue to brief the press from every morning.

Election Central

Polling Roundup I continue my roundup of polls from competitive Senate races, as we near Election Day 2014 (less than four weeks away), which began in Tuesday’s Wake Up:
Iowa: Tossup In this swing state, Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin is retiring, leaving Rep. Bruce Braley to inherit the Democratic torch, and defend against state Sen. Joni Ernst. Even with Braley’s stature as a congressman (and belief to be a good recruit), Ernst has had some overwhelming fundraising numbers, and capitalized off of Braley’s support of Obamacare, and the possibility of her becoming Iowa’s first woman Senator.
Polls here have been trending in Ernst’s favor by the slightest of margins, and is being placed in the tossup column.
Kansas: Lean Independent Greg Orman’s rise as an Independent candidate in the race has delivered a game-changer for a state that has elected only Republicans to the U.S. Senate since 1932. Orman has not signaled which political party he would caucus with if elected.
Orman’s gaining support has left Republican Sen. Pat Roberts fighting for his political life, although recent polls have shown the incumbent gaining on Orman a bit since the Independent captured national headlines. Still, Orman remains in the lead of most polls in this fascinating race.
Kentucky: Lean Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell faces Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergran Grimes in November in his bid for a sixth term. Grimes is young and female, where McConnell is aging and male, a stark contrast working in her favor. However, this is Kentucky, where Barack Obama is deeply unpopular, and so McConnell has taken the successful route of painting Grimes as a liberal in the mold of Obama.
Despite Grimes’ gains, McConnell has stayed on top of most recent polls, with a CBS News/New York Times survey released last week showing him at 47%, six points up from Grimes’ 41%. Grimes may be giving the Republican leader a run for his money, but the McConnell machine will certainly not be defeated easily…and it looks like it won’t be defeated at all.
Louisiana: Likely Republican One of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats up for re-election in November, Mary Landreiu’s race for a fourth term will likely end in victory for Republicans. Louisiana has an “open primary” system, where all candidates vying for the seat (regardless of party) run in November, and a winner is only declared if someone wins 50%. If no one reaches the 50% mark, the top two candidates will face off in a December runoff. Landrieu’s top opponent is Rep. Bill Cassidy, who leads most polls by margins of 3-6%. Landrieu has a moderate record, but she has never won with more than 52%, and a GOP win here will be key for the party’s hopes to take over the Senate.

Today's Tidbit
A news article I enjoyed today…which shouldn’t be considered “news”

--- LINK: Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been made an honorary night by Queen Elizabeth II. Bloomberg, 72, was knighted for his “prodigious entrepreneurial and philanthropic endeavors.” However, the “Mayor of the World,” as he was dubbed by TIME Magazine, cannot be referred to as “Sir Michael,” because he is not a British citizen, The Telegraph reports. He can, however, opt to add the post-nominal KBE to his name to signify his status as A Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

Letters to the Editor

Nancy Weigley writes, “Is ‘Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!’ Yiddish?” Great question! Nancy is referring to the traditional chant intoned by the marshal of the Court at the beginning of a Supreme Court session, which I wrote about in Monday’s Wake Up.
“Oyez” is actually derived from the French “ouïr,” meaning “to hear”. Oyez itself means “hear ye,” a call for attention that was common in medieval England. The term (repeated three times) is still used by the London town crier when he reads a proclamation announcing the dissolution of Parliament, which occurs 17 days before a new election for Parliament seats.
Oyez does sound like the common Yiddish phrase “Oy vey,” meaning “woe is me,” but I could not find a relation between the “Oyez” and the Yiddish language. Interestingly, however, in Spanish, “oye” means hear, which could be a connection between the French-derived “Oyez,” meaning “hear” and the Spanish “oye,” which means the same thing as “Oyez” and also sounds like Yiddish’s “Oy”.
---LINKS: My research for this answer also yielded an article on the use of Yiddish by American judges in legal opinion. Here is the New York Times piece, based on research by Judge Alex Kozinski and Eugene Volokh, for any interested Yiddish fans.