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Wake Up To Politics - October 26, 2015

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Monday, October 26, 2015
379 Days until Election Day 2016
98 Days until the Iowa Caucuses
8 Days until Election Day 2015It's Monday, October 26, 2015, 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 and subscribe, visit the site: wakeuptopolitics.com, or like me on Twitter and Facebook. More ways to engage with WUTP at the bottom.

TODAY:

White House Watch

  • The President’s Schedule At 11:10am, President Barack Obama will meet with teachers and educators from across the country to discuss “efforts to reduce the amount of time students spend on redundant or law-quality tests, while still ensuring that teachers and parents have the information they need on students’ progress,” according to the White House.
  • The meeting, which will also include Education Secretary Arne Duncan and acting Deputy Education Secretary John King (who is taking over the Department of Education when Duncan leaves in December), follows the Saturday release of a Council of the Great City Schools report finding the average student spend between 20-25 hours taking tests each year, and completes about 112 mandatory standardized tests between pre-K and 12th grader. According to the study, the average 8th grader in public school spends about 2.3% of classroom time taking such exams, a count that only includes the time actually taking the test, not even including the hours of preparation leading up to it.
  • According to the Associated Press, “In connection with the study’s release Saturday, President Barack Obama called for capping standardized testing at 2 percent of classroom time…the Obama Administration still supports annual standardized tests as a necessary assessment tool, and both House and Senate versions of an update to No Child Left Behind law would continue annual testing. But, the rewrite legislation would let states decide how to use test results to determine what to do with struggling schools.”
  • At 12:20pm, the President will attend a luncheon at the Metropolitan Club in Washington, D.C. hosted by former Senate Majority Leaders Tom Daschle (D-SD) and George Mitchell (R-ME).
  • At 2:40pm, President Obama will meet with Indonesia President Joko Widodo, to discuss “plans to expand existing areas of bilateral cooperation, including in defense, trade and investment, climate and energy, as well as ways to pursue new growth areas for the partnership, such as maritime cooperation,” according to the White House.
  • Widodo is just over a year into his term as Indonesian President; this is his first visit to the United States as President.
  • Finally, at 4:20pm, President Obama meets with Secretary of State John Kerry.

Capitol Hill News

  • Today in the Senate The upper chamber holds a signal roll call vote today, at 5:30pm, on Lawrence J. Vilardo’s nomination to be U.S. District Judge for the Western District of New York. Vilardo, currently in private practice as a New York-area attorney, was nominated for the judgeship by President Obama in February 2015, eight months ago.
  • Today in the House The lower chamber will consider the Research Excellence and Advancements for Dyslexia Act (which cleverly makes the acronym, the READ Act). The measure requires the President’s annual budget request to Congress each year to fund National Science Foundation research on dyslexia.
  • The House is also expected to vote on reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, which ran out of funding on June 30. The measure to reauthorize the bank only reached the House floor after 42 Republicans joined with Democrats to sign a “discharge petition,” a rare procedural mechanism used to get around a committee chairman (in this case, Financial Services Committee chairman Jeb Hensarling) with the support of 218 House members.
  • The bank “offers loans, loan guarantees and trade insurance to U.S. exporters and buyer of U.S. goods such as Caterpillar Inc heavy equipment and Boeing Co airplanes,” according to Reuters.

2016 Central

  • Today on the Trail Donald Trump will participate in a TODAY Show "Pancakes and Politics" town hall in New Hampshire moderated by Matt Lauer, host of NBC's "Today". Also today, Trump will speak and then answer questions at a town hall in Atkinson, New Hampshire. The announcement for the event noted that “no posters, banners, or signs...no professional cameras with a detachable lens…[and] no tripods, monopods, selfie sticks, or GoPros” may be brought to the town hall.
  • Rand Paul will attend the opening of his campaign's Las Vegas, Nevada office.
  • Jeb Bush will attend a Houston gathering of donors to his campaign, where his father and brother (both former Presidents) will also be on hand. The donor summit opened Sunday, and continues today; following recent reports of the Bush campaign troubles, the summit will serve as a reset for the Bushes, and a chance to plan the next phase of Jeb’s campaign.
  • 2016 Trends I’ve followed all the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates on Twitter and Instagram, liked them all on Facebook, and subscribed to all of their YouTube pages and mailing lists: so you don’t have to. Here’s what’s trending in 2016 social media from the past 24 hours:
  • #Football Jeb Bush posted a Facebook video Sunday about his fantasy football team and the Bush family league. Here’s what he revealed:
  • Team Name “Gampy, Sr.” (what his grandchildren call him)
  • No. 1 Pick Patriots tight end Rob Grownkowski (“As long as he doesn’t get hurt, he will continue to allow me to beat up on all my family members.”), who he addresses later in the video: “Gronk: we’d love to have you at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire. You’re welcome any time.”
  • League Reigning Champion Sandra Bush (Jeb’s daughter-in-law, the wife of John Ellis Bush, Jr.) won the Bush family league last year (but “this year, the table has been turned”)
  • GOP League? Would Jeb be open to a league of Republican presidential candidates? “I’d love it, because my team would win.”
  • #Trumped Not for the first time, Donald Trump took to Twitter to bash his GOP rivals Sunday. First up: Ben Carson, Jeb Bush, and Marco Rubio on immigration: “Remember that Carson, Bush and Rubio are VERY weak on illegal immigration. They will do NOTHING to stop it. Our country will be overrun!”
  • Later Trump took on Carson once again, this time on entitlements: “Ben Carson wants to abolish Medicare - I want to save it and Social Security”.
  • #HappyBirthday Hillary Clinton tweeted, posted, and emailed about her birthday (which is today) many times Sunday. The campaign cluttered my inbox with three emails in one day, all requests from Sen. Barbara Boxer, Chelsea Clinton, and Sen. Barbara Mikulski for me to sign a birthday card for Clinton (I have not added my name).
  • Clinton turns 68 years old today; meaning if she is elected, she will be the second-oldest President at the time of Inauguration. However, as Clinton frequently notes on the campaign trail: she will still be the youngest woman President (in fairness, also the oldest). Beyond countless tweets and emails, the campaign will mark her big 6-8 with over 150 birthday parties hosted by supporters across Iowa.

Question of the Day

  • Today’s Question Who are the two presidential candidates who will be older on Inauguration Day 2017 than Ronald Reagan (currently the oldest President in history) was when he was inaugurated?
  • Note: I am looking for established candidates consistently included in polling of the presidential race. The two I am looking for could be Democratic or Republican, or not of the same party.
  • Answer with one for half credit, both for full credit. You can answer by emailing me (wakeuptopolitics@gmail.com); correct respondents will get their name in a future edition of Wake Up To Politics!
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For more on Wake Up To Politics, listen to Gabe on NPR's "Talk of the Nation, the Political Junkie podcast, and St. Louis Public Radio; watch Gabe on MSNBC's "Up with Steve Kornacki, and read about Gabe in Politico, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Globe, and the St. Louis Jewish Light