Wake Up To Politics - April 16, 2015
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Thursday, April 16, 2015
572 Days Until Election Day 2016It's Thursday, April 16, 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!!!
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Capitol Hill News
Shaheen Introduces Women on 20’s Bill New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D) introduced a bill Wednesday to create a panel of citizens convened by the Treasury Department to discuss putting a woman on the $20 bill.
That idea has been floated in the past, and this year vigorously campaign for by a group called “Women on 20’s”. The group’s goal is to get a woman on paper currency, and choosing the $20 as the battleground for currency equality is both symbolic and logical.
It represents the fact that 2020 will be the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment, which granted women voting rights, but it is also due to Andrew Jackson’s controversial removal of Native Americans that has caused many to question his place on money. Of the Americans gracing currency, he is the most unpopular, and most likely to be replaced.
Supporters of Women on 20’s are currently in the midst of voting for the woman they want on the bill; their choice, narrowed from 15 selected by the group, will be presented as a petition to the White House. Over 480,000 participants have voted already, according to the Washington Post; currently, the group is in the final round, which consists of First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt (1884-1962), Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman (1822-1913), civil rights leader Rosa Parks (1913-2005), and Cherokee Chief Wilma Mankiller (1945-2010).
White House Watch
The President’s Schedule At 11:30 AM, President Obama will receive participants in the Wounded Warrior Project’s Solider Ride on the South Lawn.
At 2:10 PM, the President will deliver an address on working families from the South Court Auditorium of the White House.
At 5:10 PM, Obama hosts a reception for Greek Independence Day.
Race to 45
Travel Tracker Bush à Mississippi, New Hampshire Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a likely presidential candidate, will start his day out in Mississippi to attend a bill signing at the state Capitol.
Gov. Phil Bryant (R) will be signing the Equal Opportunity for Students with Special Needs Act, a bill supported by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, which Bush founded. According to the Washington Post, the bill “provides vouchers to parents of children with special needs to spend up to $6,500 annually in taxpayer funds to pay for private schools or other services to help the child. In its first year, the program will benefit up to 500 students and another 500 each year up to the fifth year, when the legislature would have to reauthorize the program.”
After the bill signing, Bush will head to the key early primary state of New Hampshire, where he will speak at an event in the “Politics and Pies” series hosted by the Concord City Republican Committee.
Perry à New Hampshire Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R), a 2012 presidential candidate considering a do-over, will be in New Hampshire today. There are three events on his schedule: a roundtable on small business in Nashua, a town hall meeting with youth at Milford High School, and addressing the New Hampshire Association of the U.S. Army at their awards dinner in Nashua.
Question of the Day
Today’s Question Who is the only woman on a piece of U.S. currency currently circulating?
Yesterday’s Answer Wednesday – the 150th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s death – the trivia question was: Who did the Lincolns invite to Ford’s Theatre with them the night he was shot and killed (April 14).
The answer…Ulysses S. Grant, then Commanding General of the U.S. Army and a future President of the United States. Grant declined the Lincolns’ invitation at 9:00 AM on the morning of April 14 (very rude thing to do to your Commander-in-Chief), giving the Lincolns only a few hours to tender a new invitation. They ended up going with Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris. When John Wilkes Booth went into the Presidential Box at Ford’s Theatre, after shooting Lincoln in the back of his head, Rathbone tried to capture Booth, who slashed Rathbone’s arm with a dagger.
GREAT JOB…Marlee Millman, Rick Isserman, Steve Gitnik, Joe Bookman, and Brad Chotiner!
Other guesses I received: Lincoln’s Secretary of State William Seward, who was not invited to Ford’s Theatre but was attacked at him Washington home by one of Booth’s conspirators, and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, who did go to Ford’s Theatre – and did not decline her husband’s invitation.