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Questions and Some Answers as Fancy Farm Nears

Questions and Some Answers as Fancy Farm Nears
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By Chris Skates
Jul. 31, 2015 | PADUCAH, KY
By Chris Skates Jul. 31, 2015 | 04:55 PM | PADUCAH, KY
With Fancy Farm just a day away, it seems an appropriate time to reflect on some monumental events from the past week related to Kentucky and US politics. As reported at this website, last week, the junior senator from Texas, Ted Cruz, took to the floor of the senate and stated that our senior senator, Mitch McConnell, lied to him. The incident in question involved the continuation of the import/export bank. I’ll not attempt to litigate the validity of such an institution in this space other than to say that the entire concept of said bank is an antiquated New Deal leftover and is inherently “unconservative” (I think I just invented a word) in concept.

I prefer to discuss the larger issue at hand, namely, what the heck is going on in Congress these days? The Executive Branch is no mystery. I have written many times in many outlets that Obama is not a liberal Democrat, he is instead a leftist. Therefore I am not surprised by his actions. Yet we the people gave the Republicans a strong majority in both houses of Congress in 2014 and I am utterly flummoxed by them.

I have never and will never be overtly critical of Senator McConnell. Yes, I supported and publicly endorsed Matt Bevin in the senate primary for a host of reasons. But I got behind McConnell in the general and I still believe he has served admirably for most of his career. Yet, one cannot attempt to analyze the inexplicable lack of real resistance to the President by this Congress, without taking a hard look at the leadership. 

I looked through the significant number of comments on the AP story posted here on West Kentucky Star and many commenters conjectured as to Senator McConnell’s motives (he is too much influenced by “K” street lobbyists etc.). I won’t join them. I don’t know the Senator and have never spoken to him. Here’s what I do know:

• I know that two years ago, I was talking by phone to a friend and source of mine.  I will only say that this source is on the staff of a Senator not named McConnell, Paul or Cruz. My source was just outside the door one day at a Senate lunch. He told me, “Chris, the leadership had Ted Cruz off to one side and they were absolutely screaming at him. They were furious with him because he wouldn’t support raising the debt ceiling.”This week I purchased Ted Cruz’s new book, the prologue describes in vivid detail the exact meeting my source told me about. 

• I know what I heard Senator McConnell say last time he was at Fancy Farm. I stood there and heard him promise he would help repeal Obamacare “root and branch”. Not only has that not happened, when Ted Cruz tried a bold move to defund Obamacare, he was left standing out on a limb alone…then the limb was sawed off. Had Cruz had help from leadership he only needed Republican votes plus about six purple state Democrat’s to defund. He didn’t get it and instead got blamed for supposedly single handedly “shutting down the government”.

• I know the radical Loretta Lynch was far too easily confirmed.

• I know that Obama’s nakedly unconstitutional amnesty was only slowed down because of one brave federal judge, congress did nothing. 

• I know that the bill to defund Planned Parenthood was fast tracked so it will require 60 votes which it most certainly will not get.

• I know that on the Greg Dunker show, Senator McConnell lauded some measures he had proposed to tap the brakes on USEPA. But the measures had only made it out of committee. In light of the current draconian EPA are we the voters supposed to be excited about that? Will the measures be voted on? Will the administration ignore them if they pass? Defunding would be more effective.

There is no doubt that Congress has much more power at its disposal that has been utilized by this Republican leadership. Not the least of which would have been leaving the Senate rules as Harry Reid had rewritten them so that Republicans could have more easily undone what Reid/Pelosi and company had done and more easily blocked nominees as leverage. Since I refuse to conjecture about motives I would like to posit a theory. 

Is it possible, that rather than something nefarious, the real problem with current Republican leadership is a fundamental underestimation of their opposition? It would seem to me that this majority behaves as if it is opposing John Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey but this ain’t your fathers Democratic party. Senators Cruz, Paul, Lee and a small handful of others in the senate seem to get that. I’m afraid the Majority Leader and other long term senators don’t.

Chris Skates is a Paducah resident, columnist and novelist who won the best historical fiction award from the Christian Writers Association for his first novel entitled The Rain. His second novel Going Green was compared by one critic to Grisham and Clancy. Chris has worked and traveled in an Al Quieda dominated region and was greatly enlightened during a private meeting with the son of the founder of Hamas Mossab Hassan Yousef. Chris is available to speak and can be reached at chris@chrisskates.com. 

*Views expressed in the preceding column are the author's, and do not necessarily reflect the views of West Kentucky Star Staff.

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