A lesson in truly impeachable presidential abuse of power

Impeachment over a Ukrainian phone call the transcript of which everyone can read?

If you want an example of real presidential abuse of power — and not the fake Democratic version — you need to look at Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson and the questionable Tonkin Gulf Resolution that he used in 1964 to get us into the miserable Vietnam War. He lied; American boys died, 58,120 of them.

No Americans were killed in the Ukraine, although a few got rich. Donald Trump was not one of them. Nobody was even wounded, except for Hunter Biden.

Johnson was not impeached for his lies, obfuscation and abuse of power, however. That is because the Congress was a party to the deadly hoax when it approved the Tonkin Gulf Resolution that got us into that war.

It was a resolution based on a hazy and unverifiable incident that allegedly took place in August 1964 when North Vietnamese patrol boats allegedly attacked two U.S. destroyers patrolling the Vietnamese coast.

There was no proof that the incident happened. Neither destroyer was hit. There were no casualties. There was serious doubt that there was an attack in the first place.

Critics charged that the incident was fake, and that Johnson knew it. The “attack” had been fabricated to get the U.S. involved militarily to save South Vietnam from a Communist takeover by the North Vietnamese.

It worked. We got in the war but did not save the country. We thrashed it instead, and in the process thrashed ourselves.

The U.S. had no army in Vietnam at the time, only a handful of military trainers with the South Vietnamese Army.

The Truth About Tonkin:

Questions about the Gulf of Tonkin incidents have persisted for more than 50 years. But once-classified documents and tapes released in the past several years, combined with previously uncovered facts, make clear that high government officials distorted facts and deceived the American public about events that led to full U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

On 2 August 1964, North Vietnamese patrol torpedo boats attacked the USS Maddox (DD-731) while the destroyer was in international waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. There is no doubting that fact. But what happened in the Gulf during the late hours of 4 August—and the consequential actions taken by U.S. officials in Washington—has been seemingly cloaked in confusion and mystery ever since that night.

https://www.usni.org/magazines/navalhistory/2008-02/truth-about-tonkin

Johnson Lied, 55,000 Died
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 132 ^ | August 2004 | John Prado
Posted on 8/22/2006, 8:34:54 AM by Hillary’sMoralVoid

Forward: During this election season, you will certainly hear the mantra “Bush lied”. To counter that, here is a REAL example of how intelligence was distorted, resulting in TENS of THOUSANDS of American lives lost.

“The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, 40 Years Later — Flawed Intelligence and the Decision for War in Vietnam”

Signals Intercepts, Cited at Time, Prove Only August 2nd Battle, Not August 4; purported Second Attack Prompted Congressional Blank Check for War

Johnson-McNamara Tapes Show READINESS TO ESCALATE, EVEN ON SUSPECT INTEL. TOP AIDES KNEW OF MISTAKEN SIGNALS, but Welcomed Justification for Vote (Emphasis added)

Washington, D.C., 4 August 2004 - Forty years ago today, President Johnson and top U.S. officials chose to believe that North Vietnam had just attacked U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, even though the highly classified signals intercepts they cited to each other actually described a naval clash two days earlier (a battle prompted by covert U.S. attacks on North Vietnam), according to the declassified intercepts, Johnson White House tapes, and related documents posted today by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.

Compiled by Archive senior fellow and Vietnam expert John Prados, today’s 40th anniversary electronic briefing book includes Dr. Prados’s detailed analysis of the intercepts - only declassified in 2003 - together with audio files and transcripts of the key Tonkin Gulf conversations between President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. The latter are excerpted from Dr. Prados’s book, The White House Tapes (New York: The New Press, 2003). The posting also contains photographs and charts from the Tonkin Gulf incident courtesy of the U.S. Naval Historical Center, a detailed documentary chronology compiled by the State Department’s Office of the Historian for the Foreign Relations of the United States series, a CIA Special National Intelligence on Vietnam.

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/

FIFTY YEARS LATER, NSA KEEPS DETAILS OF ISRAEL’S USS LIBERTY ATTACK SECRET
Miriam Pensack, June 6 2017, 8:58 a.m.

ON JUNE 8, 1967, an Israeli torpedo tore through the side of the unarmed American naval vessel USS Liberty, approximately a dozen miles off the Sinai coast. The ship, whose crew was under command of the National Security Agency, was intercepting communications at the height of the Six-Day War when it came under direct Israeli aerial and naval assault.

Reverberations from the torpedo blast sent crewman Ernie Gallo flying across the radio research room where he was stationed. Gallo, a communications technician aboard the Liberty, found himself and his fellow shipmates in the midst of an attack that would leave 34 Americans dead and 171 wounded.

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the assault on the USS Liberty, and though it was among the worst attacks in history against a noncombatant U.S. naval vessel, the tragedy remains shrouded in secrecy. The question of if and when Israeli forces became aware they were killing Americans has proved a point of particular contention in the on-again, off-again public debate that has simmered over the last half a century. The Navy Court of Inquiry’s investigation proceedings following the incident were held in closed sessions, and the survivors who had been on board received gag orders forbidding them to ever talk about what they endured that day.

Now, half a century later, The Intercept is publishing two classified documents provided in the cache of files leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden related to the attack and its aftermath. They reveal previously unknown involvement by Government Communications Headquarters, the U.K. signals intelligence agency; internal NSA communications that seem to bolster a signals intelligence analyst’s account of the incident, which framed it as an accident; as well as a Hebrew transliteration system unique to the NSA that was in use at least as recently as 2006.

USS Pueblo (AGER-2) is a Banner-class environmental research ship, attached to Navy intelligence as a spy ship, which was attacked and captured by North Korean forces on 23 January 1968, in what is known today as the “Pueblo incident” or alternatively, as the “Pueblo crisis”.

The seizure of the U.S. Navy ship and her 83 crew members, one of whom was killed in the attack, came less than a week after President Lyndon B. Johnson’s State of the Union address to the United States Congress, a week before the start of the Tet Offensive in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, and three days after 31 men of North Korea’s KPA Unit 124 had crossed the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) and killed 26 South Koreans in an attempt to attack the South Korean Blue House (executive mansion) in the capital Seoul. The taking of Pueblo and the abuse and torture of her crew during the subsequent 11-month prisoner drama became a major Cold War incident, raising tensions between the western powers, and the Soviet Union and China.

North Korea stated that Pueblo deliberately entered their territorial waters 7.6 nautical miles (14 km) away from Ryo Island, and that the logbook shows that they intruded several times.[1] However, the United States maintains that the vessel was in international waters at the time of the incident and that any purported evidence supplied by North Korea to support its statements was fabricated.[2]

Pueblo, still held by North Korea today, officially remains a commissioned vessel of the United States Navy.[3] Since early 2013, the ship has been moored along the Potong River in Pyongyang, and used there as a museum ship at the Pyongyang Victorious War Museum.[4] Pueblo is the only ship of the U.S. Navy still on the commissioned roster currently being held captive.[5]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pueblo_%28AGER-2%29

Did someone say JOKE?

Which impeachment is Nancy doing now?

Schrödinger's Cat Impeachment: As Nancy refuses to hand over impeachment to the Senate, Trump might be both Impeached and Not Impeached at the same time.

Seinfeld Impeachment: An impeachment about NOTHING.

The ObamaCare Impeachment: The House passes the Articles of Impeachment first then they figure out what they did doesn't work and hands them off to Chief Justice Roberts to fix, at trial, in the Senate.

The Rorschach Test Impeachment: Throw ink against the hearing room wall and interpret it in any way you want. It can be treason to some, bribe to others, and a perfectly legal exercise of the Separation of Powers to others.

The 6th Sense Impeachment: Where the audience (the American people) finds out at the end, the Articles of Impeachment were dead the whole time.

The Wizard of Oz Impeachment: Nancy threatens impeachment of Trump (.....and his little dog, too!) for killing Witch Hillary in the 2016 election. Nancy sends out her flying monkeys, led by Schiff and Nadler, to do her dirty work. In the end, Nancy get doused with water in the next election and melts down.

The Einstein Insanity Impeachment: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The Susan Rice Impeachment: Impeached because of an obscure YouTube video. Based on repetitive themes, it may become a remake of "Ground Hog Day".

The Caveman Impeachment: Representative Al Green "I'm concerned that if we don't impeach this president, he will get reelected...." Impeachment so easy, a caveman can do it.

The Flaming Bags of Dog Poop Impeachment: Nancy sets fire to a flaming bag of dog poop at the front door of the Senate, but delays ringing the doorbell. This buys time for Schiff and Nadler to put together a second bag of flaming dog poop. Nancy sets up the second bag of dog poop at the back door of the Senate. Sooner or later, Nancy rings the front doorbell. Mitch stamps out the fire at the front door. Then Nancy rings the doorbell at the Senate's back door, forcing Mitch to track dog poop throughout the Senate. Mitch stamps out the second flaming bag of dog poop, getting his shoes even dirtier. (This seems to be the most accurate predicted plan for Impeachment.)

Great post. Thanks. HOORAY Peter Lucas!

BEWARE the military, industrial, medial/propaganda, education/indoctrination, political/criminal complex.

But of what plunder was he speaking? For there are two kinds of plunder: legal and illegal.

I do not think that illegal plunder, such as theft or swindling — which the penal code defines, anticipates, and punishes — can be called socialism. It is not this kind of plunder that systematically threatens the foundations of society. Anyway, the war against this kind of plunder has not waited for the command of these gentlemen. The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. Long before the Revolution of February 1848 — long before the appearance even of socialism itself — France had provided police, judges, gendarmes, prisons, dungeons, and scaffolds for the purpose of fighting illegal plunder. The law itself conducts this war, and it is my wish and opinion that the law should always maintain this attitude toward plunder.

The Law Defends Plunder
But it does not always do this. Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame, danger, and scruple which their acts would otherwise involve. Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim — when he defends himself — as a criminal. In short, there is a legal plunder, and it is of this, no doubt, that Mr. de Montalembert speaks.

This legal plunder may be only an isolated stain among the legislative measures of the people. If so, it is best to wipe it out with a minimum of speeches and denunciations — and in spite of the uproar of the vested interests.

“The Law” - Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850)

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