It won’t be the first time we have laughed about the old Chinese curse: “May you live in interesting times.”

Hard on the heels of the Holy Father’s visit to Your Nation’s Capital, we have the visit of Chinese President Xi. There are a couple of interesting announcements associated with the visit. One will be implemented by Executive Order, of course, since that is the way business is done here in Washington these days.

As you have gathered, not everyone is wild about that.

Tangentially related to the Papal visit, at least in timing, and coincident with the Chinese Leader’s visit, Speaker of the House John Boehner, he of the orange tan, has announced his resignation and departure from Congress at the end of next month.

The right wing of the GOP has been hounding him for months, accusing the Speaker of being too accommodating to the Administration. A Government shut-down over the Planned Parenthood issue is looming as soon as Wednesday.

The Senate will vote for a clean funding bill- one that does not include the PP issue. Unless…

Anyway, today is the one I will mark as a tipping point- 25 September, 2015. You might want to make a note of it, too. Regardless of what happens with the Government shut down, there is going to be open conflict between the Executive and the body that holds the purse-strings.

Forgive me if I do not have a good feeling About this. The budget is not the only cliff we are looking at.

Copyright 2015 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
Twitter: @jayare303