Wake Up To Politics - September 28, 2015
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, September 28, 2015
407 Days until Election Day 2016
126 Days until the Iowa Caucuses
30 Days until the Next Republican Debate
15 Days Until the 1st Democratic DebateIt's Monday, September 28, 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.
Capitol Hill News
Senate: Today Fiscal Year 2015 expires at the end of the day Wednesday, meaning if Congress does not pass a new spending bill, the government will shut down.
Or, more realistically, a stopgap funding plan to punt the spending fight down the road. The Senate will hold procedural vote today on such a stopgap funding bill, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), which funds the government through December 11, 2015.
Will the Government Shut Down, Post-Boehner? House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) announced Friday his plans to resign from Congress at the end of October.
Boehner may now be a lame-duck speaker, but his announcement has enormous power over a potential shutdown, and makes it much less likely to occur.
Before the announcement, Boehner was hesitant to put a clean CR on the House floor, as conservatives had threatened to end his Speakership if the spending bill did not prohibit tax money from going to Planned Parenthood.
But, Boehner wrote his own ending: in announcing he will resign in just a month, he has no fear to put the clean CR to a vote, making it likely that both houses of Congress will pass it and send it to the President’s desk for his signature before time runs out.
But conservatives won’t get nothing: Boehner told moderator John Dickerson on “Face the Nation” yesterday, “We’ll also take up a select committee to investigate these horrific videos that we've seen from abortion clinics that we've seen in several states.”
The Planned Parenthood panel, which may be voted on by the House as early as this week, would be a subcommittee under the Energy and Commerce Committee, to be chaired by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN).
2016 Central
The President’s Schedule President Obama is in New York City for the first half of this week to attend the United Nations General Assembly. Obama arrives in New York just in time for what is known as high-level week at the United Nations. This session of the UN General Assembly - which marks 70 years since the UN's founding - opened earlier this month, but all the action kicked off this weekend with the 2015 Sustainable Development Summit, which is charged with proposing 17 goals to "end extreme poverty, fight inequality & injustice, [and] fix climate change" over the next 15 years to update the Millennium Development Goals set in 2000 for a 15-year period, which ended this year. General Debate is also this week, when each UN member state is given the chance to talk about their country's current situation and look forward to the year ahead.
How will did the Millennium Development Goals work? Vlogbrother John Green answers that question in this video. Spoiler alert: we actually did pretty well in meeting them. Will the new goals have similar success? Mark your calendars for 2030
In the morning, the President will speak before representatives of the 193 nations gathered for the General Assembly. The President’s remarks will “review the progress that’s been made over the course of the last year while addressing a range of global challenges…[and will make] the case about the type of leadership that is needed to build on the progress that's been made, but also to confront the very real challenges we face,” Ben Rhodes, Obama's deputy National Security Advisor, told reporters last week.
These challenges include issues that will dominate most of Obama's visit to the General Assembly, such as poverty, international peacekeeping, climate change, ISIS, and Ukraine. As Rhodes said, the President will also touch on the progress made on a number of issues, including combating the Ebola virus and negotiating the Iran nuclear deal.
Obama will then meet with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India on climate change and other issues, before attending the traditional luncheon hosted by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon at, and then holding his yearly meetings with the Secretary-General and the President of the UNGA, a rotating position currently held by Mogens Lykketoft of Denmark.
In the afternoon, the President will co-host a summit on UN peacekeeping along with the Secretary-General and eight other nations. Over 120,000 troops and police are currently stationed around the world to serve in the UN's 16 peacekeeping missions. At the summit, India and Japan, as well as 20 European nations and six African nations, will announce commitments to offer more than 10,000 additional troops. The United States has just 78 troops serving in UN missions, but still contributes more money to the peacekeeping effort than any other nation: 28% of the $8.3 billion budget, and announced last week that the U.S. and India would jointly train the new African troops.
Later in the afternoon, President Obama sits down for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, their first in 15 months, at the latter's request, to discuss, among other things, Ukraine and Syria.
Finally, in the evening, President and First Lady Obama will host a reception for foreign leaders visiting the United States to attend the General Assembly.
2016 Central
2016 Trends I’ve followed every presidential candidates on Twitter and Instagram, liked them all on Facebook, and subscribed to all of their mailing lists and YouTube pages. Here’s the best of what they’re posting:
#celebrity Candidates rub shoulders with the famous and powerful, and then tweet about it:
Hillary Clinton’s headquarters gets a visit from actress Lena Dunham and comedian Amy Schumer: https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/648210745704976385
Mike Huckabee the Chuck Norris endorsement: https://twitter.com/GovMikeHuckabee/status/648298698665955328
Pope Francis with Rick Santorum’s daughter: https://twitter.com/RickSantorum/status/648288707498217472
#cute Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush both take questions from some younger supporters: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CF_h2I08D6U (Clinton) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9-5Yq-0ri4 (Bush)
Today's Tidbit
The column examining the Intersection of Politics and Entertainment
Trevor Noah Debuts as “Daily Show” Host South African comedian Trevor Noah, 31, debuts tonight as the host of “The Daily Show,” taking the anchor’s chair at Jon Stewart’s former desk for the first time.
Noah’s first show, airing on Comedy Central at 11pm Eastern Time, will provide a snapshot into what his “Daily Show” will look like. Over his 17-year tenure, Jon Stewart focused the show on politics and the media, but the original host Craig Kilborn focused more on pop culture.
Now, the show’s newest host, who is largely unknown on the national stage, has his own chance to frame the famed “fake news show”.
The first guest of “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah”? Kevin Hart, an actor/comedian, possibly suggesting a heavier slant towards pop culture, although New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is currently running for the GOP presidential nomination, will be Noah’s guest Wednesday.
Question of the Day
Thursday’s Answer The United States has seven federal uniformed services. On Thursday, I named six of them (the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, and then the five branches of the U.S. Armed Forces: the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard), and asked for the seventh.
The answer…the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Commissioned Officer Corps. The NOAA Corps, created in 1917, operates under the Commerce Department, and is tasked with “provid[ing] officers technically competent to assume positions of leadership and command in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and Department of Commerce (DOC) programs and in the Armed Forces during times of war or national emergency,” according to the Mission statement on its website.
GREAT JOB…Steve Gitnik, Jordan Burger, Jakob Gibson, and Joe Bookman – who all answered correctly.
ALSO: Honorable mention to…Jonah Chalem, who answered Homeland Security, which is not a uniformed service but does administer the Coast Guard (which is one), and Kent Williams, who answered the Forest Service, which does not employ commissioned officers: most of the agency’s employees are firefighters, scientists, or law enforcement officials.
Email WUTP Subscribe to WUTP WUTP Archives
Forward *|FACEBOOK:LIKE|* To change the email address Wake Up To Politics is sent to you: *|UPDATE_PROFILE|*
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