Bush Advisor : President Has Legal Power to Torture Children

Love your new sig line, Joe . . . gotta match?

Now you reminded me of the Budwiser commercials of the 80s. "Gimme a light .... nooo -- a Bud light!" Thanks for that memory.

The Swift Boater style attack on Butler is pretty funny. Also the term alleged coup is funny. But most funny is pretending the USA is not a Corporate Fascist State.

Blueflame -- I suggest that you read up on fascism, then change your mind or come back with evidence of how America fits into the overall picture of fascist countries. So far you have given me no reason to believe that you know what you're talking about in this comparison.

Thomas, I.ve posted a lot of writings on corporate fascism on this site. Maybe you're the one needs to study up a bit. The Rockefellers, Henry Ford, and yes the Bush/Walkers among others were fascists and master race proponents long before Mussilini and Hitler came along.

I did not at any time suggest that Butler had not gone in harm's way to serve as a Marine officer. The Swifties tried to claim that Kerry had not actually seen active service in harm's way. Therefore, that characterization on your part constitutes a lie.



Not only do you have very low standards of evidence, it appears that you are also easily amused.



See both my response just above, and Thomas' response.

One dark night, while we were all in bed
Old Lady O'Leary took a lantern to the shed
The cow wouldn't give, so she burned the barn instead
We'll have a hot time in the old town tonight ! ! !

This sounds like Bushie World to me. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4113.htm

You're being watched ...Efforts to collect data on Americans go far beyond the NSA's domestic spying program
By Laura K. Donohue
CONGRESS WILL soon hold hearings on the National Security Agency's domestic spying program, secretly authorized by President Bush in 2002. But that program is just the tip of the iceberg.

Since 9/11, the expansion of efforts to gather and analyze information on U.S. citizens is nothing short of staggering. The government collects vast troves of data, including consumer credit histories and medical and travel records. Databases track Americans' networks of friends, family and associates, not just to identify who is a terrorist but to try to predict who might become one.

ADVERTISEMENT Remember Total Information Awareness, retired Adm. John Poindexter's effort to harness all government and commercial databases to preempt national security threats? The idea was that disparate, seemingly mundane behaviors can reveal criminal intent when viewed together. More disturbing, it assumed that deviance from social norms can be an early indicator of terrorism. Congress killed that program in 2003, but according to the Associated Press, many related projects continued.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency runs a data-mining program called Evidence Extraction and Link Discovery, which connects pieces of information from vast amounts of data sources. The Defense Intelligence Agency trawls intelligence records and the Internet to identify Americans connected to foreign terrorists. The CIA reportedly runs Quantum Leap, which gathers personal information on individuals from private and public sources. In 2002, Congress authorized $500 million for the Homeland Security Department to develop "data mining and other advanced analytical tools." In 2004, the General Accounting Office surveyed 128 federal departments and agencies to determine the extent of data mining. It found 199 operations, 14 of which related to counterterrorism.

What type of information could these mine? Your tax, education, vehicle, criminal and welfare records for starters. But also other digital data, such as your travel, medical and insurance records - and DNA tests. Section 505 of the Patriot Act (innocuously titled "Miscellaneous National Security Authorities") extends the type of information the government can obtain without a warrant to include credit card records, bank account numbers and information on Internet use.
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=9900

Setanta, yes you sounded like a Swift Boater about Smedly's Medals. Ridicule like Kerry and Cleland and now Murtha put up with. But it was the coup where he defended his country big time. The same corporate fascists who tried to hire Smedly had bankrolled Hitler and invested big time in his military industry. Strange enough they also largely bankrolled the Bolshevik Revolution. The whole contention that American Corporate fascism is a theory is what I find either lacking in education or lying or to afraid to face up to the truth.

It would be possible to respond to a coherent post--unfortunately, your last offering, BF, does not apply. The Swifties impugned Kerry's courage and claimed he did not deserve his citation. I simply pointed out that Butler's decorations came in operations to support American business interests, something noted in the first paragraph of the page you linked. Perhaps you have a deficient sense of irony, or an inability to see how contradictory all of that is to your thesis.

I have contended that "American Corporate fascism" is a theory--were i to comment, i'd probably use a term such as delusion, or fairy tale. I rather doubt that you have much of an idea of what fascism means, other than something really, really bad and right-wing which you have learned to despise, without really knowing anything about it.

Setanta, right. Our politicians are not in the back pockets of corporations. Bushie does not work for Big Oil or any other corporations.

Believe what you like--absent credible sources for your allegations, no one else is likely to take you seriously. Hysterical conspiracy theory web pages are not considered credible sources.

You have long ago lost any credibility with me.

Setanta, sure, sure. " no one else is likely to take you seriously". Now you're pretending that no one agrees with with me when in reality millions of Americans do agree with me. I'm certainly not alone in calling America a corporate fascist state. And under Bushie more so than ever. A pre-emptive war of acquisition built on lies. Illegal wiretaps on political enemies. A corporate mainstream media hell bent on dumbing down. You're either with Bushie or with the terrorists. Ultra-nationalism wrapped in the flag. Religious fanaticism. God told Bushie to invade Iraq. Huge tax cuts for the super wealthy and a shrinking middle class. DIEBOLD. It goes on and on and America's corporate fascist state is far from hidden.