Arrrrghhh
I am mad enough to chew nails and spit barbed wire.
Come to find out, 40 damn years after it happened, former Texas Lt. Governor Benny Frank Barnes, who bought a slick suit and started calling himself Ben Barnes, has sat silent carrying the earth-shattering story of deceit and cahooting that changed history.
Ben Barnes
I have never liked Ben Barnes and I always will. That boy was slicker than snot on a doorknob.
Ben Barnes was a bag man for Texas Governor John B. Connally. You remember Connally – he was in the front seat in Dealey Plaza when John Kennedy was killed. Connally was winged and wore a sling for his arm for about two years. Seriously, people told him it was unbecoming a grown man to pump sympathy like that. It ain’t like he was at the Alamo.
Anyway, I could tell you creepy John Connally stories all day but here’s what is important – Kennedy came to Texas to patch up things between Connally and Texas Senator Ralph Yarborough, who achieved genuine Texas hero status by punching out Strom Thurmond on the senate floor.
Both were Democrats because Texas was a solid blue state but Yarborough was a liberal and Connally was a conservative and racist sumbitch.
Connally ran for president but got slaughtered in the primaries. He was Texas oilman cocky and that just didn’t go over big in foreign states. Then Connally got behind Ronald Reagan and figured he could be Secretary of State if Reagan owed him for something. You couldn’t slide a greased knife between Reagan and Connally for the whole campaign.
And now —
WASHINGTON — It has been more than four decades, but Ben Barnes said he remembers it vividly. His longtime political mentor invited him on a mission to the Middle East. What Mr. Barnes said he did not realize until later was the real purpose of the mission: to sabotage the re-election campaign of the president of the United States.
Yep, Connally was the middle man for guns-for-hostages.
Barnes says he’s telling the secret now because Jimmy Carter is fixing to die and “History needs to know that this happened.” No way, Jose. Ben Barnes is 85 and knows that God knows what he did and that there’s no way he did it “unwittingly.” Barnes ain’t that dumb and he and Connally were tighter than skin on a sausage. There’s not a soul in Texas who lived during those times who thinks that Ben Barnes ever did anything unwittingly.
And it’s also interesting to note that John Connally did not get to be Secretary of State. You remember who did? Alexander Haig.
In 1986, Connally filed for bankruptcy and ended up auctioning off his personal possessions – including furniture, his wife’s jewelry and china place settings – to cover his debts. Two years later, Ben Barnes filed for bankruptcy.
So here we are. Ben Barnes trying to get right with Jesus at 85 years old. By the way, Barnes was the one who got George Dubya in the National Guard so he didn’t have to go to ‘Nam. So Barnes gave us both Reagan and Baby Bush, so it’s gonna take more than a confession to get right with God.
All I can say now is that Son of a bitch. We all knew it, just didn’t know who. The Texas primary that year was a caucus. Jimmie Carter carried Harris County. Thanks to some great volunteers, especially the teachers. Between Connally, Barnes and the crooked Republicans selling arms to Iran, and Teddy Kennedy, Carter had a hard roe to hoe.
1Two morally and financially bankrupt sumbitches.
2You mean Bedroom Ben is still around after all these years? I’m grateful he’s been quiet in recent times. And I’m not one bit surprised he played an integral role in trashing Jimmy Carter’s campaign, among many other things. The sumbitch.
3Does God hand out pardons without sincere regrets and apologies? Like Republican Presidents handing out candy on Halloween?
4Is hell worse than prison?
Barnes sounds like he’s not looking forward to the day he finds out.
The report leaves open whether Reagan knew what was happening. Of course he knew.
Can we decanonize him now?
5My mother loathed Connally. When Kennedy was assasinated, she said “they killed the wrong damn man, and should have put both bullets into Connally”. She wanted to go to the auction – not to bid on anything, but to hiss and boo at him. My father convinced her that he was unlikely to be there and had probably hired an auctioneer.
Harry Eagar: it may be because I’m mostly around educated and liberal college types, but it seems that the youngsters are well aware that Reagan was the source of almost all the financial evils the US is suffering from. Demonizing welfare and food stamps, gutting the power of unions, letting the “financial services” goblins run wild, and giving money to the wealthy, all are attributable to his maladministration. So maybe we’ll finally get his name removed from Washington National Airport?
6I had just read your first paragraphs and wondered if you enjoyed that auction of his personal stuff. Even I remember that and I was living in DC by then. I also seem to remember that Connally spent $10 million on his campaign and got a whole ONE delegate to the convention.
So, so much to unpack. I’m just glad Jimmy Carter has lived long enough for all those chickens to come home to roost. Not that any of the current GQPpers will give a rat’s ass about any of it. They are too enamored of crooks now anyway.
7I just don’t see how Connally and Barnes had the brains between them to pull of Reagan’s guns-for-hostages deal. But add in James A. Baker III and suddenly the Iran hostages are released after Reagan defeats Jimmy Carter. Take a look at Baker’s Wikipedia and notice a convenient gap covering the run up to the 1980 election.
8I can actually see the Connally Ranch fenceline from my patio if I squint a little [I’m up high].
My kids went to the same schools that the Connallys did [at different times], John had brothers who were also politicians around here.
These people like Connally, Barnes, Nixon, GHWB, the whole lot of them, are devious traitorous muthafucking sonsabitches. At least 40% of the US population worship scum like them, WASF…
The innocent US hostages
–endured all the extended risks of captivity, and eight, iirc, American servicemen died in an attempt to rescue the hostages–
during that utterly corrupt ‘extension’ of the duration.
All done to help ensure the election of Reagan and the defeat of one of our best Presidents ever, Jimmy Carter.
The narrative given here isn’t quite correct, the secret ‘arms for hostages’ deal was separate, involved other perps [Kissinger et al.], and subsequent from the initial ‘negotiations’ that Connally and Barnes engaged in during an extended Middle East tour in the summer of that election year, 1980.
Connally and Barnes were in almost daily contact with Reagan and his campaign during that trip.
They made it plain to the ME leaders that they met, and to ‘pass it on’, that the Iranians would get a sweetheart deal with Reagan if the Iranians would continue to hold the US hostages until after St. Ronnei won the November election; thereby greatly helping to defeat Carter [the hostage situation was the #1 news lede for months].
These bastards are beyond contempt, and the definition of being a traitor needs to be revised. Because we now have many more of them around, basically any Republican today.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Connally
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Surprise_conspiracy_theory
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/18/2158994/-Republican-insider-reveals-conspiracy-that-sabotaged-Jimmy-Carter-s-1980-reelection-campaign
.
9[new bumpersticker logo]:
Republics,
No Ethics,
No Ethnics,
Just Traitorifics!
[or can somebody suggest a better last word, I’m stuck]
texas has so much to answer for
10I wouldn’t give odds on God forgiving anyone who did that to Jimmy Carter.
11BTW, y’all can ferret out the Connally Ranch info with a defined search [previous years, etc.] at the following website.
The ranch was originally ~750+ acres, but most of the acreage was sold off by one of the heirs in ~2010.
https://propaccess.trueautomation.com/clientdb/?cid=27
12What Steve from Beaverton @#2 said, and also AKLynne, #11.
Further: Ralph Yarborough punched out Strom Thurmond on the Senate floor? I had no idea. Every now and then I learn something new that’s absolutely delicious.
13How despicable of Barnes to try and soothe his conscience before Carter passes. They will each go on to their just rewards, but not the same location – Ben, here’s a hint, pack clothes for warm weather!
14Surely we shouldn’t be in any way surprised. St. Ronnie turned arms into cash to support the failed anti-Sandinista effort, and acted his way to a “I sure didn’t think it was bad” mea culpa. Nixon in Vietnam, Raygun in Iran, and W in Iraq trying their best to subvert the good of the nation for partisan gain. And then came Ailes and Cheatolini. A sadly natural course…
15I have no doubt these two sumbitches did this with Reagan’s consent, even though Reagan was telling the public he wouldn’t negotiate with Iran. But the truth is, it was Jimmy Carter who got the hostages released.
The Algiers Accords of January 19, 1981 were negotiated and initialed by Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher, signed by President Carter and called for the immediate release of the hostages on January 19, the day before Reagan’s inauguration. There were some banking snafus regarding funds transfers and Iran used that to stall until after the inauguration. They hated Carter but didn’t trust Reagan so they went with Carter’s deal. Beginning with his tenure as governor of California, Ronald Reagan had an open invitation to kiss my entire ass.
16I suppose what is most interesting from an academic/historical perspective is how much things really haven’t changed. Dirty tricks and subterfuge have always been a part of the game. We just didn’t hear about it before. Now, people are either more stupid or brazen about it.
17AND if we had followed Jimmy Carter’s lead, we’d have been heading off Climate Disaster 40 years ago, instead of watching the world burn and/or drown in quick succession (or should I say, “by degrees”?) now.
A pox on all their houses!
But thanks for the tidbit about Yarborough and Ol’ Strom…where are the fisticuffs on the Senate floor now when we need them?
18I had to refresh my memory but Barnes lobbied for GTECHs contract to run the Texas Lottery. For this he made $25K per month and a few cents off every ticket sold, $3.2 Million one year. https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/you-lose-again/
19Dubya’s mouthpiece Ari Fleisher was back last week trashing Joe Biden on Hannity, but he couldn’t let it go there. He had to trash Jimmy Carter, too. The right just can’t let this good man die in peace.
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/george-w-bushs-press-secretary-asks-what-has-joe-biden-touched-that-he-hasnt-bungled-and-takes-a-swipe-at-jimmy-carter-while-hes-in-hospice/
I don’t know much about Ralph Yarborough but I admire him a lot more now. Somebody needed to clean Thurmond’s clock.
20For whatever reason, Ben Barnes is still a Democrat. For all the good that does the rest of us…
In other news, today’s Houston Chronicle has a little article about the NSGOP up in Montgomery County can’t quite decide to do if Combover Crime Lord gets indicted. Some want to support DeathSantis, some want to wait and see, and some want to riot a la January 6th. I understand they’ve placed a large order for brown shirts.
21sort of echoing #19 Charly Hoarse, but this on adds the Bush family
22https://www.gregpalast.com/reagans-treason-october-surprise/