One of the most productive and effective presidents in American history

Big Dick Energy.

Caro better finish that last book before he dies

One of the biggest mistakes in modern political history, LBJ not running for another term.

He have beaten Nixon, he was just tired of his own party turning against him over Vietnam.

Lol. We got fucking Nixon! Who begat Ford whose pansy choice begat Trump and the Roberts Court Immunity Doctrine! I’d rather LBJ’d stood his ground and fought.

And handed the presidency to Richard Nixon....

Fun fact about Tricky Dick. LBJ was furiously trying to formulate an end to the war with the VC and the Chinese Communists. Nixon, while he was still only a private citizen, contacted both parties and told them to reject LBJ's offers because Nixon would offer them a better deal when he became President.

LBJ was understandably furious with Nixon, but he couldn't do a damn thing because LBJ only found out about Nixon's treasonous treachery because he was illegally tapping Nixon's phone.

That is neither fun nor a fact.

I would love that r1, but I'm losing hope. But honestly, if he dies before that, I think his wife or son or editor would at least pull together whatever partial work was done, and I would appreciate that at least.

LBJ was not, in himself, a persona, but he was able to ride JFK's coattails and get passed a lot of historic legislation.

Much like Biden, who got a lot done, but who needs to realize it's time to move on.

[quote] One of the biggest mistakes in modern political history, LBJ not running for another term.

He was afraid for his health r2, according to Caro. He had significant heart problems, his father had died young of a heart attack IIRC, and he believed if he ran and won, he'd die in office.

Legislation JFK absolutely could not get passed r8. LBJ really was exactly the right man for his moment in history, at least domestically with civil rights.

Vietnam was a mess, of course, but even that was JFK's decision initially.

Considering he was a corrupt swindler who appears to have been complicit in murder and election fraud, as well as the man who made Vietnam a meat grinder for Amerrican boys, it's wonderful you've noted the congressional votes he pushed for as he tried to make up for his belief he was going to hell.

JFK was leaning towards ensuring no wide escalation in Vietnam at the time of his "non-conspiratorial death by a sole gunman."

yeah, sure he was r11. JFK was caught in the same trap as everybody else at the time, a cold war fever dream that meant we just gotta fight them everywhere or they'll all be marching down main street tomorrow. Sorry, don't buy the whole "verge of ending Vietnam" Oliver Stone bullshit fantasy of history.

JFK was a non-entity when you consider LBJ’s legislative achievements.

He was a character, but he got good things done.

"Down where your nuts hang." :BURP: "Where my nuts hang" "Send them to the White House."

LBJ pales in comparison to FDR, OP.

LBJ was FDR part two and he isn’t given credit for that.

[quote]LBJ pales in comparison to FDR

In addition to passage of the Civil Rights Act, there was the Clean Air Act, Medicare, Medicaid and the Voting Rights Act prohibiting racial discrimination.

LBJ did all of that in about five years.

OP, so glad to see some LBJ love on Datalounge. One of my most-admired presidents. As you point out, he got major, society-changing legislation passed by force of hard work, networking, etc. Also chose his wife so well, the bright and lovely Lady Bird.

Since this is DL, we must not neglect to post a photo of the young, HAWT LBJ:

R8

LBJ not a persona? He was considered one of the most effective representatives and senators in US history. He was fascinating and political and maddening and pushed through ann incredible amount of legislation that Kennedy couldn’t in his three years.

R13, so true, and the Ivy League Kennedys treated LBJ like shit. He was smarter and more polotically effective than all of them put together, and the greatness of his legacy seems, finally and deservedly, to be coming to light. I highly recommend Robert Caro's biography of LBJ.

Vietnam destroyed LBJ and he probably wouldn’t have been re-elected. He knew the war was a disaster and was too sick and depressed to run again. American Experience has a great 3 part documentary about him.

R8, LBJ did not ride JFK's coattails. He was a longstanding force in American politics by the time Kennedy was elected, and he was completely his own politician and personality.

As to Vietnam, LBJ was between a rock and a hard place. Even the great brain Robert McNamara was confounded by it.

Someone told me once that LBJ and the cross dresser Hoover had JFK rubbed out.

Also the establishment of Head Start, for which I am eternally grateful.

Someone flooded your zone with shit R24.

Johnson almost certainly was involved in Kennedy’s assassination.

E. Howard scribbled the initials “LBJ,” standing for Kennedy’s ambitious vice president, Lyndon Johnson. Under “LBJ,” connected by a line, he wrote the name Cord Meyer. Meyer was a CIA agent whose wife had an affair with JFK; later she was murdered, a case that’s never been solved. Next his father connected to Meyer’s name the name Bill Harvey, another CIA agent; also connected to Meyer’s name was the name David Morales, yet another CIA man and a well-known, particularly vicious black-op specialist. And then his father connected to Morales’ name, with a line, the framed words “French Gunman Grassy Knoll.” So there it was, according to E. Howard Hunt. LBJ had Kennedy killed. It had long been speculated upon. But now E. Howard was saying that’s the way it was. And that Lee Harvey Oswald wasn’t the only shooter in Dallas. There was also, on the grassy knoll, a French gunman, presumably the Corsican Mafia assassin Lucien Sarti, who has figured prominently in other assassination theories.

[quote]He was afraid for his health [R2], according to Caro. He had significant heart problems, his father had died young of a heart attack IIRC, and he believed if he ran and won, he'd die in office.

Yes, Ladybird said she demanded he not run again because of that.

I always say look what LBJ got passed when people say Biden couldn't do anything because of the Senate Parliamentarian or Joe Manchin.

I always say look at the facts when people say Biden hasn't accomplished anything.

Amen R31.

E. Howard Hunt who organized the Watergate break-in for Nixon R28? Next you’ll be quoting Roger Stone. Just ‘cause your own zone is flooded with shit doesn’t mean you need to flood DL with it.

Poor poor elderlez. She’ll never accept what everybody can see with their own eyes.

I am pretty sure the Zapruder film doesn’t implicate LBJ in any way. Have you ever considered that maybe E. Howard Hunt was behind the killing of JFK?

r5, and Trump, like Nixon, is colluding with Putin to delay the release of kidnapped Americans to miraculously be released if Trump reelected.

Sorry Evan, we are out of Russian terrorists to trade.

I'll take LBJ and all his obvious flaws any day over any one of the ever fraudulent Kennedy brothers.

[quote] I am pretty sure the Zapruder film doesn’t implicate LBJ in any way.

No. The Warren Commission does. Why was such an easily disproven assassination theory chosen? Oswald could never have fired the bullet that struck Kennedy from the book despository. It came from the front. From behind the picket fence and the grassy knoll.

R36 of course you do. You would consider Kennedy’s refusal to invade Cuba a betrayal just like you consider the ending of US arms support to Ukraine to be a betrayal.

I have wondered for years if LBJ didn't decide not to run again because he'd been told if he did his "secret' would be told.

R31 You think he's accomplished things on the scale of Medicare, Medicaid, the Civil Rights Act, the Clear Air Act, etc.? Do you really think if LBJ were president we'd still have a federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour? What happened to student loan forgiveness?

The CHIPs act is transformational as is the Infrastructure bill and the inflation reduction act.

E. Howard Hunt was livid with JFK over the Bay of Pigs fiasco. He had him killed and then worked with Nixon to smear LBJ using his inside knowledge of the assassination.

R41 i kind of think Head Start was a massive failure for you.

Another link for anyone who is interested.

I have no idea what r 38 is talking about but this was my point.

LBJ could be a nasty piece of work but he was very effective in passing legislation that continues to benefit society today.

Doris Kearns Goodwins' book is excellent and she was there as it all happened.

The JFK/RFK show was all smoke and mirrors. And Ted was just a womanizing drunk who let cocaine derail his already slim chance of being elected president.

Frank Saunders' Torn Lace Curtain is sorid but accurate. He was there for everything too.

I have no love for LBJ, but the groundswell of support for RFK was so great that I'm sure when he withdrew he thought it would still be a Dem victory. I was old enough to remember the atmosphere of the time.

If the JFK/RFK show was all smoke and mirrors, R44, we'd all have been killed in the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was only them standing out against their own military advisers that prevented MAD: and JFK was moved to do that because he had learnt his lesson from the Bay of Pigs. I also believe the RFK who ran in 1968 was a very different person from the 1960-63 Attorney General. His brother's death was quite transformative for him; also he felt the Zeitgeist of the 1960s like no other [white] politician.

None of that is to detract from LBJ's excellent legislation record--but there was the Unpleasantness in Vietnam to counter that.

[quote] He was afraid for his health [R2], according to Caro.

He died two days after an additional term would have ended (January 22, 1973). Two days after Nixon's second inauguration.

Always thought that this was interesting.

There is no groundswell for RFK.

RFK is a Citizens United Dark Money phenomenon.

He was advised by America's "Wise Men" , the best and brightest of the foreign policy establishment, and those fools ruined his presidency by urging him to stay the course in Vietnam back in 1965 before backtracking two years later. Then we get Nixon and more years of pointless war and goodbye Great Society

[quote]Do you really think if LBJ were president we'd still have a federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour?

R49 You think LBJ would have thrown in the towel because of that chick? Oh-ho-ho!

LBJ used a lot of strong arm tactics, it was not always negotiations that got his congress to comply.

R51, my fave are the stories that talk about him taking out his big dick, pounding the table with it and saying "let them come after this!"

Good times.

Not RFK Jr, R47. We're discussing the year 1968. Do try to keep up.

Oh, and the criminal Republican Party is going at Joe Hammer and Tong over BULLSHIT,

The Criminal Capitalists who bought the Supreme Court are having the corrupt Supreme Court issue UN-AMERICAN DECISION AFTER UN-AMERICAN DECISION to enslave AMERICAN LABOR. UK Voters got it after having Conservatives wipe their ass with working people through rich getting richer and workers going through AUSTERITY, Austerity is another name for TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS.

Go back and play Nikki Hayley's answer to what caused the Civil War. SHE SAID BUSINESS PRACTICES. GO WATCH IT AGAIN. The Plantation, the Military Industrial Complex (the guys whose planes are falling apart midair) White Supremacist Criminal Capitalists AGREE. It was always about making cheap labor SECOND CLASS CITIZENS.

Joe is running on building up the middle class. Republicans want Project 2025 to replace the Constitution and permanently enslave us. It all begins and ends with fucking up the vote for Republicans.

Look how stupid R47 is. It’s jaw dropping he didn’t know Bobby Kennedy existed.

Or, basef on his posts

Not so jaw dropping at all

🥶🥶🥶🥶

🤭🤭🤭🤭

Oh, look, AI clowns out of the car r55 r56.

Dudes, give your AI some clarity. Don't overload it. Use one programmed in American English.

R57 you didn’t know Bobby Kennedy ran for the 1968 Presidential nomination. Anyone could have understood that was the reference the poster was making, except for someone who did not know that RFK ran in 1968.

Therefore

🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶

🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶🥶

😝😝😝😝😝😝

😝😝😝😝😝😝

Ah, so not using Jr, got your AI in a bunch.

So funny. Now do Gorbachev.

And because Trolls like to bury posts they cannot defeat...

The criminal Republican Party is going at Joe Hammer and Tong over BULLSHIT,

The Criminal Capitalists who bought the Supreme Court are having the corrupt Supreme Court issue UN-AMERICAN DECISION AFTER UN-AMERICAN DECISION to enslave AMERICAN LABOR. UK Voters got it after having Conservatives wipe their ass with working people through rich getting richer and workers going through AUSTERITY, Austerity is another name for TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS.

Go back and play Nikki Hayley's answer to what caused the Civil War. SHE SAID BUSINESS PRACTICES. GO WATCH IT AGAIN. The Plantation, the Military Industrial Complex (the guys whose planes are falling apart midair) White Supremacist Criminal Capitalists AGREE. It was always about making cheap labor SECOND CLASS CITIZENS.

Joe is running on building up the middle class. Republicans want Project 2025 to replace the Constitution and permanently enslave us. It all begins and ends with fucking up the vote for Republicans.

I mean Ukraine has belonged to Russia for as long as America has existed. Very little reason for it to be independent. It would be like Maryland insisting they have sovereignty.

By your very specious line of reasoning, R61, slavery has existed for thousands of years, so there's no use trying to eliminate it.

Also, disease has existed as long as mankind itself, so why bother to formulate new vaccines.

Also, R61, by your logic, the US was once a colony of the UK, so it should have remained that way.

Some of the UK was once a colony of the Roman Empire, so it should remain that way.

Catherine conquered the Ukraine in 1783. And they were part of the Russian Empire and then the Soviet Union. Very little rationale for them to continue to be sovereign. It would be like the Louisiana Purchase suddenly deciding it should be sovereign.

R64 - go back even further when the American colonies were under British rule and decided to be sovereign.

Catherine the Great was an immigrant from Prussia. Hey if Angela Merkel moves to Russia, deposes Putin and completely changes Russian culture maybe Ukraine won’t mind the invasion so much.

Fine, I've changed my mind. I'm hereby running ... against Catherine the Great.

R61, Ukraine existed before Rus.

[Quote] He realized when it was time.

Time to get a Republican crook in the White House?

[Quote] the Zapruder film

Oh my god that terrifies me! Especially when the Bigfoot looks at the camera!!!

Ukraine existed before Rus? Well then the Ukrainians sure have done a shitty job preventing their neighbors from becoming more powerful.

Ukraine belongs to Russia just like the Midwest belongs to the United States.

Ukraine belongs to Russia just like Russia belongs to Scandinavia.

FIFY

Ukraine belongs to Rus like The Kingdom of Hawaii was annexed.

Ukraine belongs to Russia like Tina belonged to Ike.

And like Palestine belongs to Zionists, right “elderlez?”

The land of Israel/Palestine belongs to the people of Israel/Palestine, of which there are several native ethnic groups and of course immigrants from non-indigenous ethnic groups. I’m pretty consistent about that across countries you’ll find.

No Boris, no Ukraine for you. Now go and clean up that mess you call a country.

Leave it to DL to turn a thread on LBJ into this.