Casey-pops Predictions for 2015

Dear readers, what will the new year bring? Here are Casey-pops' musings and predictions for 2015. **(1). The November elections produced a GOP majority in the US Senate and increased the GOP lead in the House. President Obama, defiant in defeat, quickly acted to protect 5 million illegal immigrants from deportation and open the door to work permits, and re-establish relations with Cuba. Obama now promises to veto any GOP congressional action he disagrees with. Since the Congress is not veto proof - that requires 2/3 majorities in both houses - we can expect more standoffs between Congress and the President. But I predict that the GOP Congress will take a piece-by-piece approach to immigration reform that Obama will sign off on, because they both need to have immigration resolved - Obama to get his Homeland Security budget related to illegal immigrants and the GOP to continue its courting of the Hispanic vote for 2016. **(2). Hillary Clinton will announce by late Spring that she is a candidate for the Democrat presidential nomination -- but late in 2015, she will withdraw after realizing that her health will not support the strain and stress of being a fulltime daily presidential candidate, instead of carefully choosing her appearence schedule, as she does now. **(3). The new Benghazi investigation in the House led by Representative Trey Gowdy will finally prove that a stand-down order was given by Defense, State and/or the CIA, and that President Obama was not involved in that decision except by absenting himself when needed on the night of 11 September 2012 as the Benghazi attack unfolded, but Gowdy will prove that Obama was involved in the cover-up of the stand-down order. However, there will be no impeachment of the President. **(4). Iraq will effectively cease to exist as we know it now. The shiite Baghdad government will hold onto the southeast. The Kurds will reach farther south to include non-Moslem minority areas, and the western third of Iraq stretching along the Syria border will become a lawless region where ISIS/al-Qaida-led sectarian war rages. Obama will continue to defend his "no US boots on the ground" policy in public, while bolstering the US presence in the Baghdad-controlled area. **(5). Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt, with Israel as a silent partner, will take on the major role of protecting the southern Middle East from the ISIS/al-Qaida insurgencies by means of oil politics aimed at Iran, arming and training Syrian moderates, and using its Arab leadership and considerable financial resources, quietly behind the scene, to force Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, as well as Qatar, to break with Hamas and help in suppressing them in Gaza. The UN will resist because its largest long-term donor program is in Gaza and it aids Hamas. The US will step up to forcing the UN to reconsider, or risk losing its "America the honest broker" role in the Palestinian question. **(6). The renewed Taliban takeover unfolding in Afghanistan will become the key issue in the Pakistan-Afghanistan 1,400 mile border region. Pakistan will be forced to act to clear out the border Taliban enclaves in order to stop the Taliban from becoming a larger force in Pakistan village life -- after which they would be almost invincible. **(7). President Obama will act unilaterally to end the Guantanamo Treaty with Cuba, giving the area back to Cuban control, along with the Guantanamo detainees who are still incarcerated at the Guantanamo facility. The Senate will be outraged because of Obama's ignoring its constitutional treaty-ratification power and will look for ways to prevent the Guantanamo turnback. **(8). The Pope will find demonstrators waiting for him when he visits Philadelphia. They will show their disapproval of his role in the US-Cuba reopening of relations. Francis, the Peacemaker Pope, will find his largest Catholic flock - America has more Catholics than all other countries except Mexico, Brazil and the Philippines - is not happy with Francis, the Political Pope. **(9). The European Central Bank will begin quantitative easing to try to keep the EU from crashing into deep recession and deflation. This will add to the increasing strength of the US Dollar against the Euro and the Swiss Franc that has tied itself to the Euro's value. This will make gasoline and other imported goods cheaper for US consumers and bring investors back to the US, but it also may push European stock markets higher as Europeans and others look for better returns in a near-zero interest rate European bond market -- just as happened in the US with the Federal Reserve QE program. **(10). To end on a lighter note -- Tiger Woods and Roger Federer will each win a major in their sports, golf and tennis, in 2015, proving that the twilight of the careers of sports greats can yield happy surprises. ~~~~~ THERE YOU HAVE IT. My predictions for 2015. I wish you and everyone in our fragile world a HAPPY, PROSPEROUS, SAFE and PEACEFUL NEW YEAR.