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In reply to the discussion: My brother in Ohio has had it with the Democrats [View all]Mc Mike
(9,107 posts)Last edited Tue May 29, 2012, 11:19 AM - Edit history (1)
Briody reported that:
Johnson's deal with Herman Brown freed the Texas delegation to oppose the virulently anti-union John N. Garner, and back FDR in '40 instead, which gave freshman New Dealer Rep. Johnson leverage to win navy contracts for the Browns from Prez Roosevelt (p. 77).
The break between Brown and Johnson came when Johnson campaigned against Brown's antilabor national right-to-work legislation and also accepted the vp slot, in '60, (pp. 149 -50) after being outmaneuvered by the MA machine.
Halliburton ate Brown and Root (147) and Brown croaked (151) in '62.
Subsidiary B & R joined 3 other construction conglomerates to form a group that called themselves RMK-BRJ, in '65, which did $2 billion worth of work in Vietnam, in cost-plus contracts that B&R got 20% of. 40% of the money was stolen, $5 million was wasted in the first year of work in the country. They did 97% of the construction work in Vietnam during their 7 years of contracts. They built roads, cities, pipelines, hospitals, warehouses, bases, jetways in Da Nang, Chulai, Phangrang. (164-5.) (Seems to me that a stellar way to smuggle drugs is to do a ton of construction work on operating air-fields and their warehouses, but Briody didn't say that.)
George Brown was targeted by anti-Viet war protestors in '71, who handed him a 'special award' at a U of TX alumni honors ceremony held on his behalf -- they 'awarded' him a picture of the infamous tiger cages that were used for prison cells. Foreshadows KBR' s contract 30 years later to build GITMO prison in Cuba (pp. 166-7).
L'il bush era Halliburton KBR caused the deaths of at least 18 US soldiers and marines, electrocuted in war-zone base showers, by faulty wiring of water heaters in a cost plus contract. (Death toll as of '09, not final.) Like Blackwater-Xe-Academi, Halliburton is involved in a child sex slave trafficking scandal (source Chicago Trib 12-27-05, not blowhard Bircher A. Jones), a real one unlike O'Keefe's ACORN fake.
Tip O'Neill said Johnson was Sam Rayburn's protege, like O'Neill was John McCormack's (Boston-Austin axis), at 'The Board of Education' meetings. Which were held in the first floor of the Capitol, behind the members' dining room. Meetings were a tradition from Speaker Nick Longworth and John Nance Garner. (from O'Neill's 'Man of the House', p. 127.) That's where Johnson got his legislative savvy and connections. Johnson broke against Garner and Brown, for FDR, JFK, and labor. His insider knowledge of the Legislative branch helped him get things done as prez, as much as the Dem leg. majorities did.
MI complex contractors took America to the cleaners on Vietnam, a war which Johnson was forced to prosecute after late Nov. of '63. He used the situation to tell the big money people 'We have to give the American people something, or they'll slit your throats.' This resulted in Civil Rights, Great Society, Medicare, etc. They weren't a bribe and distraction, like Nixon's EPA and Cultural Preservation Act, but done with the same motivating factor.