RECENT FACTS THAT CONCERN - Just A Minute Radio for Monday 101115

            Here we are at the start of a brand new “unspoilt” week. – But in Washington, looking at this week the theme song is “It’s going to be a hot time in the old town tonight!  Otherwise known as the Great Chicago Fire!

 

            Maybe it won’t be that bad… but there are two big clouds on the horizon… one is the Senate and one is the House. Probably the darkest and most foreboding is the House. Madam Speaker has built up the Thunderhead considerably by deciding to take a step down in leadership is most unrewarding for her campaign as a notable leader. Some of the grey heads are shaking them wondering what in the world she is doing taking on such an unwelcoming job.  But perhaps the lady has a secret plan and we shall observe its unfolding.

 

            First off for the Congress as a whole: Not a single appropriations bill has been passed. If they don’t get passed, the government shuts down… and on that score the debt ceiling will be reached sometime in the first two months.  Republicans learned in 1994 how disastrous shutting down the government can become – and say they are not going there. OTOH (which is computerese for ‘on the other hand’) there are members on both sides of the aisle who say there will *have* to be compromise.  As I’ve written before, former footballer Heath Schuler (D-NC), who handles the Congressional district roughly west of Asheville in NC was on TV Sunday saying that if she does not step down and no one else challenges her, he will… Which is quite an ambitious step for a two-term Congressman to make… challenging the (to be) former Speaker. It’s a dangerous game… walking through a swamp filled with quicksand holes and not so baby alligators.

 

            In addition to the debt ceiling – there are the appropriations bills, the STAR treaty and key problems arising to be handled somehow on trade agreements with Korea, Columbia, and Afghanistan.

 

            But just to look on the other side of the aisle, how is Mr. Boehner (R-OH) going to handle new congressmen who ran backed by the Tea Party folk and pledging “no compromise” going to keep that pledge and keep the fiscal roof from falling in?  He can expect little help from is minority counterpart – who has crossed the river in her pledges it seems – and also unable to wiggle around in the dilemma in which both parties find themselves so far as “getting things done” which all the pollsters say is what the electorate says they want no matter which party label it wears.

 

            Looks to me like the beginning of a showdown season.  These fiscal votes about tax rate extensions etc. won’t wait. If nobody wants to compromise and the bus is headed for the cliff with all aboard…. It won’t be a White Christmas – but a Red one…

 

            Cordially, IN HIM

 

            Jack

 

 

“JUST A MINUTE”

RECENT FACTS THAT CONCERN

Just a Minute: -- American news media have virtually ignored Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – who extended his planned three day stay in the US to five days trying to convince government officials economic sanctions against Iran are NOT working, and the situation will call for a credible military threat to be put on the table. 

Netanyahu is trying to correct current U.S. opinion Iran’s nuclear threat is not immediate or serious by saying: “Jerusalem is not [just] a settlement; Jerusalem is the capital of the State of Israel.”  But American media for the most part ignores it. And the President characterized his final stop on his ten day tour telling a dispirited, twice disappointed Indonesian crowd -- “I’m finally home.”

What hasn’t registered with the media and the Administration is, Iran is into an end-of-time theology. They believe the Twelfth Imam -- Islam’s messiah -- may be here any moment and with nuclear weapons at the ready, they can end Judeo-Christian civilization.

Joel C. Rosenberg says it’s a perilous situation that demands our prayers and attention.

<> I’m Jack Buttram.

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