Thursday, March 7, 2013

Breaking: The Jesse Benton/GOP Leadership Role in Rand Paul's Filibuster

Over lasagna and red wine, eleven days ago, Benton gave Rand the nod to go ahead with the filibuster.

Further, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell also was consulted and gave the nod. If you think it stopped there, I have a fog making machine in San Francisco to sell you. 

From the National Journal:
Eleven days before he spent nearly 13 hours filibustering on the Senate floor, Sen. Rand Paul floated his idea to block the president’s pick for CIA director to one of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s top political strategists over a Saturday night dinner of lasagna and red wine at his home in Bowling Green, Ky. 

The adviser, Jesse Benton, occupies a unique place in Kentucky politics as bridge between McConnell, the old-school minority leader, and Paul, the insurgent tea-party firebrand. Benton ran Paul’s 2010 Senate campaign and is married to Paul’s niece. And since September, he has been advising McConnell as he seeks reelection in 2014. 

After the dinner, Benton reached out to McConnell’s office, detailing Paul’s plans and his hopes for support. An important line of communications had been opened. 

It helped ensure that well before Paul took to the Senate floor on Wednesday to declare, “I will speak until I can no longer speak,” he had lined up the tacit approval of the GOP leadership. [...]Paul, often accused of being a lone wolf on Capitol Hill, had laid some of the groundwork to win over the GOP establishment. McConnell and Co. knew the filibuster was coming, even if they did not know when precisely or what exactly it would look like. [...]Paul had personally informed some Republican senators that he planned to mount the talking filibuster the day before over lunch, said Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., a member of the GOP leadership.[...]McConnell, meanwhile, put out the word to the conference that he was supportive of Paul’s efforts. 
Do you still like the smell of this? Do you still think the neocon praise was spontaneous?

7 comments:

  1. BREAKING SCANDAL: Rand Paul discussed filibuster with colleagues, and EPJ is all over it!

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    1. It wouldn't be a big deal if he was upfront about it, but he wasn't. He went on record saying it was "unplanned". But now we find out what we suspected that it was a carefully crafted political move with the leadership's foreknowledge. HE CAN"T BE TRUSTED. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323628804578345490351677794.html

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  2. Ron Paul said he was 'proud' of what his son was doing. Does that mean he is also a tool of the establishment? Why do you always exempt the old man? Jesse Benton was his campaign manager, not Rand's. Rand talking to Jesse is a big deal and treason, but Ron's keeping Jesse as the campaign manager while he openly subverts the campaign and actually works for Romney is just fine?

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    1. Honestly and unfortunately, no one probably cares what Ron thinks. As I've been saying, Paul the Elder has been saying these things for decades and all he got was ridicule. Paul the Lesser has a comparatively Plank's Time moment of clarity and he's the talk of Mordor on the Potomac.

      What Wenzel's point is is that no one, NO ONE carrying any kind of GOP credentials does ANYTHING, especially not something this ridiculous without the approval of the leadership. That is EXCEPT Ron and he was sufficiently marginalized by the management of the party years ago, particularly by telling Saint Reagan to go fist.

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    2. How about you write Ron a letter expressing your concerns where he's going wrong.

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  3. Benton will do anything to shift some sort of praise to McConnell. If you've read his crap emails you'd realize that McConnell is desperate for tea party support. He fears being voted out. He thought that hiring Benton would be the cure... I hope he finds it to be a disease.

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