The Ugly Truth of LBJ

Some view LBJ as a hero for the people, but his public life was shrouded in conspiracy before he ever entered the White House.

A Cheater From The Beginning

A former Texas voting official was on the record detailing how nearly three decades earlier, votes were falsified to give then-congressman Lyndon B. Johnson a win that propelled the future president into the U.S. Senate.

Luis Salas, the former South Texas election judge, told Mangan for the story: “Johnson did not win that election; It was stolen for him. And I know exactly how it was done.”

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War on Poverty from Glenn Beck

In 1965, Lyndon Johnson announced his War on Poverty initiative, a sweeping vision of government intervention to provide all manner of welfare to those in need. Today, America has over 70 welfare programs to aid the poor and has spent $22 trillion on the so-called War On Poverty. One would think such massive resources and efforts would have eradicated — or greatly lessened — poverty in America. Instead, the poverty rate, which was 14 percent in 1965, has increased to 14.3 percent. In this four-part series, we explore the failed War on Poverty and how more government is never the answer.

War on Poverty Part III: The Great Society

MAY 31, 2016 – In 1965, Lyndon B. Johnson declared “unconditional war on poverty in America,” launching The Great Society that altered social programs of The New Deal. According to Johnson, The Great Society asked “not how much, but how good.”

Perhaps “how much” was the greater question because the answer was $22 trillion — and counting. The Cato Institute estimates an additional $48 trillion in unfunded liabilities from Medicare alone.

Today, Medicare, Medicaid and FDR’s Social Security program account for 47 percent of all federal spending. That’s almost $1.8 trillion annually. And the total amount of America’s unfunded liabilities are said to be in excess of $125 trillion — more than twice the amount of all money in the world today.

Was it worth it? LBJ said “not how much, but how good.” So how good was it? Sadly, the poverty rate is higher today than in 1965.

LBJ proposed many initiatives to launch his War on Poverty:

• An educational program to ensure every American child had the fullest development
• A massive attack on crippling and killing diseases
• A national effort to make the American city a better and a more stimulating place to live
• Increase the beauty of America and end the poisoning of rivers and air
• A new program to develop regions of the country suffering from distress and depression
• New efforts to control and prevent crime and delinquency
• Elimination of every remaining obstacle to the right and the opportunity to vote
• Honor and support the achievements of thought and the creations of art
• An all-out campaign against waste and inefficiency

6:00 – 10:55

According to one source, his vision was to help the disadvantaged help themselves, hoping that an education equaled opportunity, and the chance to come into the mainstream of American middle class economic life.

However, even in his own party, some were not convinced that his efforts were effective, including Senator Robert F. Kennedy who said, “If we learned anything in the last summer and over — in the last 30 years, what we’ve been doing hasn’t been the answer. It’s been helpful. But what we’ve been doing has not been the answer. And we can’t just be doing the same thing that we’ve been doing for the last three decades and hope that eventually all these problems are going to disappear.”

Regardless, LBJ kept pumping out the programs, preparing bill after bill, funds for education — elementary, secondary, college and Head Start for preschool children — funds for conservation, clean air, clean rivers, highway beautification, national parks, consumer protection, truth in labeling and packaging, automobile safety, urban renewal and housing, public television, creation of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Arts — the list goes on and on.

Part of the LBJ War on Poverty initiative included bringing about social and racial justice — equal rights for blacks. His efforts helped create the impression that Democrats were the ones fighting for minorities and Republicans were the racist corporation cronies. This, despite the fact that Republicans had freed slaves and fought along with black Americans for civil rights. LBJ, on the other hand, had fought against civil rights the first 20 years of his political career, including opposing President Harry S. Truman’s proposals against lynching and segregation and interstate transportation. Johnson called the proposed civil rights program a farce and a sham.

No one knows what was in Lyndon Johnson’s heart at the time, but being as he was incredibly opportunistic and ambitious as the nation began to demand civil rights for blacks, his position changed. Democrats have reaped the benefit of that change ever since.

By the early ’90s, studies were showing that rather than eradicating poverty, The Great Society was eradicating families — and that trend has worsened ever since.

Progressive Liars

Progressive Liars Part IX: LBJ Part I

AUGUST 10, 2016 – Like the state he loved, Lyndon Baines Johnson was a large and imposing man. His head, ears and hands, even his voice, seemed to overwhelm those around him, traits that helped him make deals with timid, cowering colleagues. In the aftermath of President Kennedy’s assassination in 1963, Johnson, who had never cared much for JFK’s policies, decided to remodel the Kennedy presidency after his two idols: Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. After Kennedy’s assassination, LBJ finally had the chance to live up to the legacy of his “second daddy” and make the spirit of Roosevelt proud.

LBJ had “a specific objective” in mind that guided his presidency from the start: Outdo Franklin Roosevelt as the champion of everyday Americans to become the next generation’s FDR. He would be what he called “their daddy,” whether they liked it or not. Wilson had successfully organized progressivism as a political force and FDR built new progressive economic institutions during The Great Depression. LBJ would build on that legacy by spreading progressivism into mainstream America at a time of similar tumult and disorder. He would set in motion the destructive forces of nihilism, hedonism and blasphemy that marked the 1960s, a decade that would change America fundamentally, forever.

Progressive Liars Part X: LBJ Part II

AUGUST 10, 2016 – Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society was the New Deal on steroids. It was the most destructive anti-Democratic and anti-entrepreneurial program of the 20th century. Johnson’s vision was utopian, statist and reckless, but the grief of a nation reeling from an assassinated president, and the general sense that America was spiraling out of control, spurred LBJ to act.

The Great Society started with Johnson’s disastrous War On Poverty. In reality, it wasn’t a War On Poverty at all. It was a war against prosperity and success. Like all progressives, Johnson believed in economic leveling. Instead of lifting everyone up through commerce or capitalism, he forced people into an economic purgatory where mediocrity was the norm and striving for greatness was discouraged.

Under LBJ, the nation witnessed the true creation of the welfare state, based on massive entitlement programs and predicated on the government’s ability to drive the populace to an ambition-destroying focus on inner meaning and quality of life, instead of character, ambition and success. This created a crisis of conscience and confidence in people, making them both susceptible to undermining traditional norms and predisposed to reliance on the state to handle things that were too hard for them.

LBJ laid the groundwork to create an environment of self-actualization — through the government, conservation programs, federal patronage of the arts, public broadcasting and more. These were not meant to foster national elevation or celebrate America’s greatness. They were created as a corporate secular replacement of religion, as sources of spiritual fulfillment for the masses. Replace God with government, and you control not just people’s minds, but their hearts and souls. Using these fears, he persuaded millions of Americans to abandon their traditional values of hard work and self-reliance in exchange for the soullessness of self-actualization.

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‘We’re Fed Up With It’: Survivors of the USS Liberty Look for Answers 55 Years Later

In the early hours of June 8, 1967, an Israeli aircraft took off on a routine reconnaissance patrol over the Mediterranean, according to a review of the incident conducted by the Israeli Defense Forces. The plane identified a ship 70 miles west of Gaza, but could not determine its country of origin. Somewhere ashore, an Israeli intelligence officer marked the ship’s location with a red flag on a map board, indicating it could not be identified clearly.

By the evening of June 8, the Liberty — which was armed with only a handful of .50-caliber machine guns — was nearly sunk. A barrage of torpedoes slammed into the ship’s hull as Israeli aircraft dropped napalm and strafed her deck repeatedly. The attack lasted two hours, according to Bowen.

Stew Peters report on the USS Liberty

Here are a couple more reports from Stew Peters:

The Sacrifice of Liberty

Personal Testimony of the USS Liberty massacre

And more if you care to dig deeper . . .