<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div>Tick . . . tock . . . tick . . . tock . . . tick . . . tock . . .</div><div><br></div><div>Courtesy of today's (December 2, 2014) Spokesman-Review.</div><div><br></div><div>--------------------------------------</div><div><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="font-weight: bold; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; line-height: 33px; font-size: 28px; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(17, 17, 17);">Lame-duck Congress lacks time, consensus</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">WASHINGTON – Congress returned for a final two-week sprint Monday with much to do – including a Dec. 11 deadline to continue funding the government – and little consensus over how to do it.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Republicans have not yet ascended to majority control of Congress after their election sweep; that happens in January. But in many ways it doesn’t matter.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The lame-duck days ahead will provide an early test of whether House Speaker John Boehner and Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell can control their often rebellious Republican ranks – particularly over the immigration issue.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Many Republicans want to use all means available to stop President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration, viewing their own electoral victories as a mandate against the White House approach.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But a prolonged debate over an issue in which Republicans lack their own alternative could drag on indefinitely – and that is not the way party leaders hoped to start the new year.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Here are a few items to watch in the final stretch of the 113th Congress, which could set the tone for the 114th.</span></p><h3 style="margin: 21px 0px 7px; overflow: visible !important;"><font size="3"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Government shutdown</span></font></h3><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">After last year’s politically damaging government shutdown, it’s tough to imagine lawmakers entertaining a repeat.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But a core group of conservatives are so opposed to Obama’s decision to halt deportations for nearly 5 million immigrants that they are threatening Boehner’s and McConnell’s hold on the party.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“The Republican establishment won’t fight the president’s amnesty unless conservatives force them to,” wrote Senate Conservatives Fund, a group that helps elect conservative lawmakers.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Led by McConnell, GOP leaders have floated a proposal that would allow Congress to fund most of the government through the end of the fiscal year in September 2015, but would fund immigration agencies only until January.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">That would avert a shutdown this month and allow the new Congress to revisit the issue once the GOP majority convenes.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But conservatives aren’t buying the offer. They view it as “the old Lucy and the football trick,” as the Senate Conservatives Fund wrote, an endless promise for a fight on immigration that will never come.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Leaders are scrambling for a Plan B. Funding for the government expires at midnight on Dec. 11.</span></p><h3 style="margin: 21px 0px 7px; overflow: visible !important;"><font size="3"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Islamic State</span></font></h3><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Congress also needs to approve must-pass Defense Department legislation, a sweeping annual bill that sets pay for the troops and other Pentagon policy.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But the legislation has become the prime venue for a broader foreign policy debate over the administration’s military campaign against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Many lawmakers want Congress to decide whether the president has authority under the War Powers Act to conduct the military operation. </span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">A year-end fight over war powers is not what leaders of either party had in mind for this lame-duck session. If the conversation begins, there is scant hope the issue could be resolved quickly.</span></p><h3 style="margin: 21px 0px 7px; overflow: visible !important;"><font size="3"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Legislative leftovers</span></font></h3><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Congress always seems to work best when facing a deadline, and this year is no different as lawmakers tackle a list of must-pass items.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Legislation to temporarily extend niche industry tax breaks, which are routinely approved in lame-duck sessions, and to allow tax-free shopping on the Internet remain in the balance.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 21px; overflow: visible !important;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Expect another round of stopgap measures that punt the tougher resolutions to the new year.</span></p></div><div>--------------------------------------<br><br><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares"</span></div><div><a href="http://www.moscowcares.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.MoscowCares.com</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div> </div></div></div></body></html>