HISTORY NEEDS TO KNOW that former Lieutenant-Governor of Texas Ben Barnes has acknowledged being involved in an effort to get Iran to hold the American hostages so that Ronald Reagan could win the presidency in 1980. This is known as the October Surprise and there is a trail from this through the Bushes to Barnes.
My previous post (“Why The Hell Wasn’t This October Surprise Story Followed For Years?”) addressed the blockbuster article “A Four-Decade Secret: One Man’s Story of Sabotaging Carter’s Re-election” that appeared in the March 18, 2023, issue of The New York Times. It concerned Barne’s recent revelatory admission/confession.
Why did mainstream media fail to follow the October Surprise story despite having known about it for years?
In my article, I asked a simple question: Why did a prominent mover and shaker in the US mainstream media fail to follow this story despite having known about it from a reliable source for years?
I am following my article with a look at two other articles that were published after mine. The first is Greg Palast’s “Reagan’s Treason, Two Bushes and the $23 Million Payoff” from Palast’s website (the text below).
That is followed by Jon Schwarz’s “A Short History of Everyone Who Confirmed Reagan’s October Surprise Before the New York Times” from The Intercept (which follows in a separate article).
Before proceeding, you might want to read my earlier article. To do that, click here.
Following the money
Here are Palast’s statements that are in a similar spirit to the questions in my article (and I have edited Palast’s text a wee bit for this article):
“In 1980, Carter’s failure to bring home the hostages destroyed his chance of reelection. Reagan ultimately would repay the favor from Iran’s murder-crats [sic] with weapons.
Why did Barnes suddenly blow the whistle on this crime four decades late? His cute excuse, reported without question by The New York Times, is that ‘History needs to know that this happened.’
Wrong. ‘History’ doesn’t need to know—American voters needed to know about Reagan’s treason before the 1980 election [emphasis added].
So, then, why did Barnes squirrel away the truth for decades? Follow the money.
It’s a money trail that leads to two Bushes who would not have become president if not for Barnes’ silence about Iran—and Barnes’ omertà about another creepy Bush scheme.”
From Bushes to Barnes
Palast backs up this statement by following the money to Barnes’ relationship with the Bushes. Palast notes that it was Barnes who infamously used his connections and clout to get then-Congressman George Bush Sr.’s son into the Texas Air Guard over thousands of more-qualified applicants.
Palast then followed the money to GTech, a company that ran the Texas lottery:
“Texas had disqualified GTech from operating the state lottery based on strong evidence of corruption. But oddly, the new Governor of Texas, George W. Bush, fired the lottery director who banned GTEch. Then Bush’s new lottery commissioner gave GTech back its multi-billion-dollar contract, no bidding.
Notably, Bush’s firing of the state’s lottery director came two days after a meeting with GTech’s lobbyist—Ben Barnes.
Barnes’ fees from GTech? $23 million.”
To read the complete Palast article, click here.
Why did mainstream media fail to follow the ‘October Surprise’ of 1980 story despite having known about it for years? Click To Tweet
FEATURED IMAGE: The image at the top of this page was cropped from this image. It is a photo-collage made of what appears to be three photographs. Unfortunately, there are no credits for the image on Palast’s website.
SUBSCRIBE TO THIS BLOG
Be the first kid on your block to know what’s happening!
Mystically liberal Virgo enjoys long walks alone in the city at night in the rain with an umbrella and a flask of 10-year-old Laphroaig who strives to live by the maxim, “It ain’t what you know that gets you into trouble; it’s what you know that just ain’t so.
I’ve been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn, and a college dropout (twice!). Occupationally, I have been a bartender, jewelry engraver, bouncer, landscape artist, and FEMA crew chief following the Great Flood of ’72 (and that was a job that I should never, ever have left).
I am also the final author of the original O’Sullivan Woodside price guides for record collectors and the original author of the Goldmine price guides for record collectors. As such, I was often referred to as the Price Guide Guru, and—as everyone should know—it behooves one to heed the words of a guru. (Unless, of course, you’re the Beatles.)
It’s just sickening, isn’t it?
Damn librull media (grumble, grumble).