LBJ redux

Hey, hey Donald J.
How many lies did you tell today?

For those who are too young to remember (or too old, as the case may be), half a century ago at the height of the U. S. war in Vietnam under President Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ), marchers in the huge demonstrations against the war often chanted "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"

What's LBJ got to do with anything that's happening today, or could happen? Plenty, because Johnson was no stranger to alternative facts, including one awful departure from truth that led to the deaths of tens of thousands of American soldiers in Vietnam, along with hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilian casualties.

This was the lie that led to the Gulf of Tonkin resolution of August 1964 approved by a compliant Congress in which Johnson's Democrats held majorities in both houses, based on false information about a North Vietnamese attack on U. S. Naval vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin,  developed by Johnson and his Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara, who years later acknowledged, "It never happened."

As McNamara described it in an attempt to apologize for the harm he had done to America, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution ""Gave complete authority to the President to take the nation to war."

The consequences were devastating. Within months, Johnson ordered massive bombing raids against the North and a massive escalation of U. S. troops in Vietnam: from 23,300 in 1964 to 184,300 in 1965, and a peak of 536,100 by 1968.

More than 58,000 Americans died in the Vietnam conflict.

Donald J. is no LBJ. In the realm of political experience and skill, LBJ was a giant; Donald J. is a shrimp. When necessary, LBJ was a skilled manipulator of facts and non-facts. Donald J. is not a skilled liar; he is just a liar, day-in and day-out, so it seems appropriate to call him out:

"Hey, hey, Donald J. How many lies did you tell today?

Queston is: How long will it be before a Trump lie has fatal consequences, if that has not already happened? And who will protect us from that?

Given the pusillanimous toady leading the U. S. Senate today and the blindly ambitious enabler leading the House of Representatives, protection by that branch of government seems undependable at least.

If America is to survive the fatal consequences of the excesses of Donald J. and his praetorian popinjays it probably will take the judiciary and the free press, both of which Donald J. has made it clear he fears and wants to invalidate or destroy.

This must not stand. Resist! Persist!

Who you callin' so-called?

So-called President Donald Trump, predictably, has called U. S. District Court Judge James Robart of Washington State a "so-called" Judge after Judge Robart issued a temporary nationwide ban on key parts of the Trump regime's order restricting immigration to the United States.

Since "so-called" suggests illegitimacy, it seems reasonable to ask who is the illegitimate one here?

Trump, America's insulter-in-chief, who assumed the Presidency after losing the popular vote by almost three million, is possibly the most illegitimate and certainly the most unpopular president ever to occupy the Oval Office.

Or, Judge James Robart, legitimately nominated by a Republican, President George W. Bush,  and legitimately and unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a 99 to 0 vote in 2004.

Thank God for Judge Robart. Going forward our country may need to depend on such judges to protect against continuing assaults on citizens' rights to liberty and justice.