President Bush: Is He a Liar?

one hundred and ninety six pages and still no ...... conclusion?

Steve, do you mean that you haven't yet concluded that Bush is a liar?

If so, you are a total idealogue whose mind is calcified.

It appears you feel strongly that I'm under some compulsion to agree with you and Tucker Carlson that Karen Hughes is a liar ... apparently because Clarlson claims she's a liar in an interview he did for Salon.com, which appears to be based an experience he recalls from 1999, when he admits he doesn't like Hughes, and was reacting -- apparently -- to Hughes accusing him of being a liar. I don't understand why you feel I need to believe Tucker Carlson's account of which, of the two of them, is a liar .... is Carlson the gatekeeper of truth? If Carlson had said John Kerry is a liar, is that the end of the discussion? Or is there, perhaps, the notion of listening to the other side's account, and maintaining an open mind on the subject?

I just want righties to know 1) I did not write this article, and 2) I do not support its content. I just found this by typing "is karen hughes a liar?"








GOP Hypocrite of the Week: Karen Hughes

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

Listen to the GOPHOTW HERE.

Welcome back to the BuzzFlash.com GOP Hypocrite of the Week.

She's back. Bush's Dominatrix and world class liar has returned to the pro-Republican mainstream media circuit -- after a self-imposed exile in Texas -- to lay slimeball siege to any Democrat who threatens the Village Idiot of the World.

Forget for the moment that George W. Bush has the courage of a weasel. Also, overlook, if you can, that the dimwitted dauphin prince has such meager ability that you could fit all of his skills in a thimble and still have room left over for two raisins and Dick Cheney's heart.

Karen Hughes comes from a military family and she respects hierarchy and authority. You salute the chief -- and if he is Jim Jones and he offers you a glass of Kool-Aid, you drink it.

And the Kool-Aid of the Bush cartel is gutter politics, so sleazy that it would disgust a snake.

That's why Karen Hughes was back on the pro-Bush mainstream media circuit last week.

Ostensibly, she was pedaling some ridiculously self-indulgent memoir, but she had time to imply that the million women and men who marched for reproductive rights were morally equivalent to terrorists and to deride John Kerry's decorated career in combat and anti-Vietnam war protests.

Excuse us, isn't this the woman who intimidated reporters for years into not covering the truth about Bush's time as a grounded National Guard Pilot who avoided service in Vietnam -- and his mysterious "lost in a haze of drugs and booze" AWOL days?

You would think that the imposing hatchet lady for an administration chock full of cowardly chickenhawks would hold her fire when it comes to Kerry's war record -- and that equating being pro-choice to Osama bin Laden might not be the best way to win over the soccer mom vote -- but Karen Hughes proves that being a hypocritical thug isn't limited to the male Bush loyalists.

Hughes's self-laudatory book is called "Ten Minutes from Normal." Well, in this administration, she's ten million miles from honesty and candor. That probably should have been the title of her tome.

As one reviewer of her book on Amazon.com noted, "Why anyone would believe a word from this amoral sow's pen is beyond me. To equate pro-choice with [a] 9/11 terrorist is beyond the pale. Let's hope she goes from 'Ten Minutes From Normal' to ... deep into oblivion -- and we don't have to ever hear another word of drivel from this shill's mouth ever again."

Ouch!

Karen Hughes, drill sergeant of the Bush Cartel spin squad, we salute you as the 29th BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week. When you are finished running down a war hero like John Kerry, maybe you can write a book about the honorable Vietnam service of Bush and Cheney. It wouldn't take very long to write, it would be blank.

So, until next week, just remember our motto at BuzzFlash.com: So many Republican hypocrites, so little time.

Catch up with you soon.

A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL

Maybe its tha fact that the middle class has NOT been affected negatively.

You seem to think that they middle class has been,but you dont know.
I am middle class,and since Bush became President my portfolio has more then doubled in value,my income has risen substantially,my taxes have gone down,my property value has gone up,and I am doing substantially better now then I was when Clinton was President.

Every person I know is experiencing the same thing.
You seem to want to find the worst case scenario's and show them to be everybody.

mm must live in la-la land. Most of the articles concerning our economy has been dismal. Here's one by the democratic party just published:


Middle-Class Life Under Bush Republicans: Less Affordable and Less Secure


July 10, 2006
For millions of hard-working middle-class families, life under Republican rule has grown less affordable and less secure. President Bush's record of fiscal incompetence and mismanagement, and Republicans' close ties with special interests, have helped lead to both lower wages and skyrocketing costs for basic necessities like gas, health care, and college tuition. Unfortunately, instead of producing solutions to the problems facing the middle class, Republicans are ignoring them and pushing for policies that will make matters even worse. It's no wonder Americans trust Democrats more than Republicans by a 52 percent to 39 percent margin, to handle the economy. (Washington Post/ABC News poll, 6/25/06)



In addition to tightening the squeeze on families, Republican policies have made our entire nation less secure economically. Republicans have pushed to increase our debt to nearly $9 trillion and have insisted on spending billions of dollars every year on budget-busting tax breaks for special interests and multi-millionaires.



The Bush Administration also continues to compromise our economic security by increasing our reliance on foreign investors in China, Japan, and Dubai. Democrats have fought to reduce America's dependence on foreign borrowing and foreign sources of oil, but the Republican majority, often at the behest of powerful special interests, repeatedly has blocked those efforts.



Middle class families, and our nation, deserve better. Democrats will continue to offer the solutions that will bring back the fiscal responsibility and broad economic opportunity for middle-class families achieved during the 1990's.






RISING COSTS FOR MIDDLE-CLASS FAMILIES


Gas prices have increased over 100 percent to almost $3 a gallon. Prices at the gas pump have jumped 102 percent from $1.47 per gallon in January 2001 to $2.97 today, with prices rising by 40 cents in four weeks this spring. The price for a barrel of oil has more than doubled from $30.63 in January 2001 to $75.20 today. The average household with children will spend about $3,815 on transportation fuel costs this year, an increase of 100 percent or $1,912 over 2001 costs. (Energy Information Administration, Household Vehicle Energy Use: Latest Data and Trends; Weekly Retail Gasoline and Diesel Prices; Short Term Energy Outlook, 6/06)

Health care premiums have increased by over 70 percent. The cost of family health insurance has skyrocketed 71 percent since the beginning of the Bush Administration. The typical family health insurance premium is now $10,880 a year compared with $6,348 in 2000. (Kaiser Family Foundation)

College tuition has skyrocketed by as much as 57 percent. Tuition and fees at four-year private universities have increased by almost $1,200 or 5.9 percent in 2005 and 32 percent since the 2000-2001 school year. At four-year public universities, tuition and fees increased by 7.1 percent this past year and 57 percent since President Bush took office. (College Board, 10/05)

Housing affordability has reached a 14-year low. Median monthly home ownership costs, including mortgage payments, have risen nearly five percent since President Bush has taken office. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Soaring house prices and higher mortgage rates have put homeownership out of reach for more people than at any time in more than a decade…Affordability has long been a problem for low-income home buyers. But as home prices have marched steadily higher in recent years, many buyers with healthier incomes also are being squeezed." (U.S. Census Bureau; Wall Street Journal, 12/22/05)



LOWER WAGES AND POOR JOB CREATION


While working families work harder, their wages continue to decline. Middle-class families are working harder and earning less today than they were at the start of the Bush Administration. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Since the end of the recession of 2001, a lot of the growth in GDP per person -- that is, productivity -- has gone to profits, not wages." (Wall Street Journal, 3/27/06) Average household income has declined each year during the Bush presidency and median weekly earnings have fallen 0.9 percent since 2001 compared with 7.3 percent growth in the last five years of the Clinton Administration. At the same time that families have seen their real earnings decline, the productivity of the American worker is up 18.4 percent. Therefore, Americans have worked harder - and more productively - over the past five years and received none of the benefits of their hard work. (U.S. Census Bureau; Bureau of Labor Statistics; Joint Economic Committee Democrats, 6/06)

Worst job creation record since Hoover Administration. A growing economy should be good news for those seeking jobs. But over the course of President Bush's five years in office, his Administration has the worst overall job creation record since Herbert Hoover more than 70 years ago. Overall non-farm payroll employment has increased by 2.8 million during the Bush presidency compared with 22.7 million during the Clinton presidency. (Joint Economic Committee Democrats, 7/7/06) Overall employment growth has averaged just 42,000 per month under President Bush?-much lower than the 135,000 to 150,000 jobs needed each month to keep up with population growth. It was not uncommon to see monthly job gains of 300,000 and even 400,000 during economic expansions under previous Administrations. (Economic Policy Institute, The Boom That Wasn't, 12/19/05)

Private sector job creation has been especially poor during the Bush presidency, with an average annual job growth rate of just 0.3 percent per year since 2001. Just 1.6 million private sector jobs have been created during the Bush presidency, compared with over 20 million private sector jobs during the Clinton presidency. The manufacturing sector, often the source of jobs with good pay and benefits, has lost nearly 3 million jobs since the start of the Bush Administration. This slow pace of private sector job creation is particularly troubling given that we are so far into the economic recovery. (Joint Economic Committee Democrats, 7/7/06)

Unemployment has increased and long-term joblessness has increased by 57 percent. In part because of this failure to create a sufficient number of jobs, the national unemployment rate stands at 4.6 percent which is 10 percent higher than the 4.2 percent rate when President Bush took office. Unfortunately, once unemployed, America's workers also are staying unemployed longer. In June 2006, nearly one in six of the unemployed had been out of work for more than 26 weeks. The number of long-term unemployed has increased 57 percent since President Bush took office. (U.S. Census Bureau; Bureau of Labor Statistics)

Bush's deficit-financed tax cuts have widened the income gap between millionaires and middle-class workers. "In addition, it appears that the highest-salaried workers -- executives, managers and professionals -- are widening their lead on the typical worker…The Bush tax cuts appear to have widened the income gap, according to many analyses." (Wall Street Journal, 3/27/06) President Bush's capital gains and dividends tax cuts will cost $197 billion over ten years, with most of the benefits going to multimillionaires. In an analysis by the New York Times, "Among taxpayers with incomes greater than $10 million, the amount by which their investment tax bill was reduced averaged about $500,000 in 2003, and total tax savings, which included the two Bush tax cuts on compensation, nearly doubled, to slightly more than $1 million…Those making less than $50,000 saved an average of $10 more because of the investment tax cuts…few taxpayers with modest incomes benefited because most of them who own stocks held them in retirement accounts, which are not eligible for the investment income tax cuts." (New York Times, 4/5/06)

The recent Republican tax reconciliation conference report included more expensive tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, but excluded provisions that would have helped middle class families deal with the rising costs of tuition, gas prices, and healthcare. "Republican lawmakers, facing the prospect that their power to cut taxes may soon be curbed, plan to extend breaks that mostly benefit the wealthy and Wall Street at the expense of reductions for middle-income households." (Bloomberg, Republicans Set Aside Middle-Income Tax Cuts to Focus on Rich, 5/8/06)

More American families and children face severe financial problems. The number of Americans who are living in poverty has increased each year of the Bush Administration and is now nearly 17 percent higher today than in 2000. Thirty-seven million Americans were living in poverty at the end of 2004, an increase of 5.4 million over the 2000 level. Poverty has hit America's children particularly hard. According to a UNICEF report on child poverty rates in 2005, more than one in five children in the United States live in "relative" poverty. (U.S. Census Bureau)



REPUBLICAN FISCAL IRRESPONSIBILITY


President Bush turned record budget surpluses into record deficits. President Bush inherited a unified budget surplus of $236 billion from President Clinton, the largest surplus in American history. Budget surpluses were expected to continue for another ten years when President Bush took office in January 2001. By 2002, however, the unified federal budget had returned to a deficit of $158 billion and has since reached historic highs. This year, the budget deficit is expected to reach $296 billion?-larger than any deficit before President Bush took office. (President Bush's Budget for Fiscal Year 2002, A Blueprint for New Beginnings, 2/28/01; Office of Management and Budget, 7/11/06)

President Bush is the most fiscally irresponsible president in history. President Bush has presided over the largest explosion of debt in our nation's history. When President Bush took office, the total national debt was $5.6 trillion. The federal debt has increased 54 percent since President Bush took office, from approximately $5.6 trillion at the end of 2000 to an estimated $8.6 trillion at the end of 2006. By 2011, the President's budget would increase the public debt to $11.8 trillion. (U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of Public Debt; Congressional Budget Office)

Enormous trade deficit is undermining U.S. competitiveness. Each year since 2001, the U.S. trade deficit has increased at double digit rates and in 2005 set an alarming record high of $725.8 billion?-twice the size of the trade deficit in 2001. Even more troubling, our trade in Advanced Technology Products, a strong indicator of U.S. competitiveness, which was in surplus as recently as 2001, experienced a deficit of more than $44 billion in 2005. (U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Economic Analysis)

Debt owed to foreigners climbs to record levels. In order to finance record budget deficits, the United States has had to borrow at unprecedented rates from foreigners. In the five years of President Bush's tenure, the United States has accumulated more debt to foreigners, approximately $1.2 trillion, than this country had accumulated in its first 224 years. By contrast, during the last three years of the Clinton Administration, the United States paid off more than $200 billion in debt to foreigners. (U.S. Treasury Department, Major Foreign Holders of Treasury Securities; Federal Reserve Board)

Record government and personal debt levels threaten economic future. Record federal deficits and debt create record interest costs. In 2006, interest costs on the federal debt will total nearly $400 billion and this figure will grow to nearly $597 billion by 2013. Record levels of personal indebtedness also limit choices and keep many Americans on the financial brink. In the last two quarters of 2005, Americans had the worst ratio of household debt and mortgage debt to disposable income in over 25 years. These record levels of personal debt cast an ominous shadow over the economic outlook for 2006, a cloud made darker as millions of adjustable-rate mortgages will reset over the coming year, forcing consumers to pay significantly higher interest rates. (Congressional Budget Office; Federal Reserve Board)

Erosion of employer-provided pensions threatens Americans' retirement security. Workers should be able to count on the retirement promises made by their employers. Increasingly, that is not the case. An analysis by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), the federal entity created by Congress to protect employee pensions, found that nearly 10 percent of pension plans halted benefit accruals in 2003 alone, the latest year for which complete data is available. According to PBGC Executive Director Bradley Belt, anecdotal evidence suggests that this number has been even higher since then. Unfortunately, Bush Administration proposals to expand tax-favored savings accounts that primarily benefit the wealthy risk further pension plan erosion. (PBGC, <http>; Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 5/05)

CI,
You just proved my point.
You ignore data and information that shows you are wrong,but you post an obviously partisan piece that was designed to do nothing but attack.

Or,are you saying that I am the exception that is doing well?

I thought you might be compelled, as a point of character or principle, to demonstrate personal integrity over political partisanship, for goodness sakes.

Carlson wrote in his book of events on a plane trip he took with Bush and Hughes including Bush using swear words. She later accused him of lying about this, including in a phone call to him where she denied it had happened even though they were both present. Carlson recounted all of this in an interview I saw on CNN (I think). The Salon interview recounts the same information.

Carlson has no motive to lie, Hughes does.

One can understand Hughes being dishonest here, even if seems to me a completely silly deceit. Who doesn't swear?

But your behavior on this point demonstrates something you consistently do - you try to weasel out of any honest admission or concession if you think there might be some negative shadow cast on your political heroes, and truth be damned.

From the NYT:

June 7, 2005
The Bush Economy

With all of the debate about taxes, the economy and domestic spending, it is hard to imagine anyone supporting the notion of taking money from programs like Medicaid and college-tuition assistance, increasing the tax burden of the vast majority of working Americans, sending the country into crushing debt - and giving the proceeds to people who are so fantastically rich that they don't know what to do with the money they already have. Yet that is just what is happening under the Bush administration. Forget the middle class and the upper-middle class. Even the merely wealthy are being left behind in the dust by the small slice of super-rich Americans.

In last Sunday's Times, David Cay Johnston reported that from 1980 to 2002, the latest year of available data, the share of total income earned by the top 0.1 percent of earners more than doubled, while the share earned by everyone else in the top 10 percent rose far less. The share of the bottom 90 percent declined.

President Bush did not create the income gap. But the unheralded effect of his tax policy is its unequal impact on the modestly well to do. By 2015, those making between $80,000 and $400,000 will pay as much as 13.9 percentage points more of their income in federal taxes than those making more than $400,000, assuming the tax cuts are made permanent. Below $80,000, most taxpayers will see their share of taxes rise slightly or stay the same.

Mr. Johnston's article quotes a prominent economist who argues that people care more about the chance to move from one income class to another (upward, of course) than about income distribution. But during the Bush years, the two main sources of class mobility - a good job and money for higher education - have increasingly failed to materialize for those who most need them. Last week's jobs report from the Labor Department confirmed that a strong labor market recovery has not taken hold. Wages for most working people failed even to outpace inflation in the past year.

That might be more bearable if things were rough all over. But the share of economic growth that is going toward corporate profits, which flow to stockholders and bondholders who are concentrated at the top of the income scale, is at historic highs.

Which brings us back to the super wealthy and the merely rich. The divide between rich and poor is unfortunately an old story, but income-class warfare among the top 20 percent of the scale is a newer phenomenon. One cause is that the further up the scale one goes, the more of one's income comes from investments, which under the Bush tax cuts enjoy about the lowest rates in the tax code. But many families making between $100,000 and $200,000 are not exactly on easy street. They don't face choices anywhere near as stark as those encountered further down the income ladder, but they face serious tradeoffs not experienced by the uppermost crust, particularly when hit with the triple whammy of college for the children, care for aging parents and preparing for their own retirement.

There is something deeply wrong about a system that calls into question a comfortable retirement or a top-notch education for people who have broken into the top 20 percent of income earners. It starts to seem politically explosive when you consider that in a decade, those making between $100,000 and $200,000 will pay about five to nine percentage points more of their income in federal taxes than those making more than $1 million, assuming the Bush tax cuts are made permanent.

This is not about giving wealthy people more money to invest back into the economy. At this level, it's really about giving more money to those who have nothing to do with it except amass enormous estates for their heirs. Fixing the problem will require members of Congress to summon the courage to say no to a president who wants more for the richest of the rich at the expense of everyone else. We're not holding our breath.

Here on the Bush ecoomy.

mm and all his friends are just doing dandy with Bush's economy. They just don't realize that the big spending Bush government and consumers are going to bite us in the butt when people realize the US dollar is monopoly money.

I am not a big spender,I have no debts except my house payment,and I dont use credit cardds.

The economy could go south today,and I will be just fine.

You seem to think everyone either is or should be miserable about the economy.

Well,I refuse to share the misery.
If you want to wallow in self pity about how bad you are doing,thats fine.
But,dont try and drag others down with you.

mm is more stupid than I could ever imagine, but he proves himself with almost every post.

mm wrote:
Well,I refuse to share the misery.
If you want to wallow in self pity about how bad you are doing,thats fine.
But,dont try and drag others down with you.


mm, FYI, I am retired (since 1998). I had a short professional career compared to the average worker, and worked in management during most of it. I travel any place on this planet I desire about eight times a year now. We have no mortgage payment nor any other fixed payment. "Wallow in self pity?" What do you smoke? You are about as dumb as they come on a2k, but I think you're at the top of the list.

You've managed to convince yourself that Hughes is a liar .... congratulations. (And, BTW, I'm not sure if I could care any less about this than I do at the moment -- which I'm sure you will find as another flaw in my character.) But you should not give yourself points in "personal integrity" as a consequence. I do not share your predilection towards assuming someone is a liar based solely on the leveling of a charge, and the presence of a motivation to lie. I did not do it to Clinton, I have not done it to Bush, and I see no reason to do it to Hughes. But the fact that you've cast aspersions on my character for not doing so says more about yours than mine, IMO.

mm and his friends are doing just dandy, but it seems that is a contradiction of most Americans that thinks Bush is a failure.

Just in case mm and his buddies can read the graph, it says this country is headed in the wrong direction by a majority of over 60 percent.

mm and his buddies must be in the 30 percent; it seems some are doing okay, and fxxx the rest.

tico said

Of course, it isn't merely the "leveling of a charge". Tucker Carlson's witnessing of the matter puts it in quite another category. And rather obviously, one of them is lying so motive is important.

Considering rules of evidence, the principles and rationale behind the need for them and the civil or justice consequences for ignoring them, it seems rather unbalanced that you'd need a trial by jury in this case to give yourself licence to say she lied (with what real consequence for anyone?) but at the same time you are quite happy to see most of those principles and rationales eviscerated in another sphere where the consequences have reached as far as torture and death.

Yes, that is an integrity, justice, truth and character issue. I like you. To see you go so far off the rails baffles me entirely.

c.i. -- You mentioned the mystery of those who are negatively impacted by bush's policies continuing to support bush. Well, perhaps, I need to refer to my former husband on his late mother, "My mother would have voted for Hitler if he ran as a Republican."

Someone on Greater Boston's Friday edition known as, "Beat the Press," pointed out that Tucker Carlson will do anything to keep his face before the public.

plainoldme, That would make sense, but Bush is anything but a republican. Bush doesn't understand nor supports anything of republican values. Go figure why so many still supports this moron.