To quote the renowned political commentator Shania Twain.
And we’re not talking about Sharon Bialek’s accusations. The moment she was trotted out in front of the microphones by Gloria Frackin’ Allred, we filed that one under “yeah right, whatever.” Talk about poor choice of spokesweasel. Of course, Karl Rove was incredibly impressed by the credibility All Red’s presence made to Bialek’s claims but, then again, the only thing Rove is really, provably notable for would be his hand in the smashing electoral successes of 2006 and 2008 so… Well… You see what we mean. And don’t miss the interview with one of Bialek’s coworkers at the previous link either. Apparently he’s not sure who was harassing who if they were ever in that car, given her, erm, “history.”
Now, in all fairness: No matter how much Kristof’s comments seem to confirm everything we pretty much already believed about Bialek’s credibility (Gloria Allred? Seriously? Note to future accusers: Choosing a well-known insane, fanatical liberal hack as your representation when bringing charges against a conservative does not help you in the “credibility” department. At least not among sentient life forms. Which obviously excludes Karl Rove), his comments are still just as much hearsay and he-said-she-said as Bialek’s claims.
So forget about her.
Where it becomes pure comedy gold, and where we move away from pure hearsay, is when we turn to the other Witchfinder General, Karen Kraushaar (“Curly hair”. No, really, that’s what it means, and we think we know what particular curly hairs we’re talking about here), also known as the anonymous accuser who started the whole thing but who now, realizing that there’s fame and fortune mixed in the media chum in the water, suddenly decided that her anonymous days are over. Can’t let that bitch Bialek steal all of the book deals, can we?
Karen Kraushaar, who settled a sexual harassment complaint against Republican presidential frontrunner Herman Cain in 1999, filed a different complaint at her next job four years later, accusing a manager of sending out a sexually suggestive email and asking to be allowed to work at home after a car accident.
Kraushaar made the complaint, which did not involve a claim of sexual harassment,
It’s obvious that whoever wrote that claptrap didn’t even know what he was typing one short paragraph above. “Sexually suggestive email”, anybody? OK, so maybe she didn’t make that part of her complaint, but still. We think we see a pattern emerging here.
while working at the Immigration and Naturalization Service in 2003. Her lawyer was Joel Bennett, the same lawyer who had handled her harassment complaint against Herman Cain at the National Restaurant Association.
Does she have Bennett living in a closet at her house? In a sock drawer? Stuffed under her bed?
But that’s when it gets really funny. The “complaint” or, should we say, “I was special treatment and lots of money, waaaaah”:
Kraushaar was injured in a car accident at an intersection in late 2002. After the accident, Kraushaar asked to be allowed to work from home. She filed the complaint when her repeated requests to work at home were denied, according to a former supervisor.
Yeah. That’s the way to do it. If ever your employer denies you anything, any request at all, file a lawsuit. That way, if you’re lucky, you end up getting paid without having to work at all. Which, given that she worked for a government agency, would have already been the case. But being paid to not work at all wasn’t enough for poor Curly Crotch:
The former supervisor told ABC News that Kraushaar wanted a “large payout” of tens of thousands of dollars, a year-long fellowship at Harvard, a raise and the reinstatement of sick leave.
So she has an accident, goes on Short Term Disability we presume, and then decides that she, alone among people who’ve ever been on sick leave, deserves special rights to work from home so she can get paid without having to leave her bed and then, when denied, decides that she deserves tens of thousands of dollars, a fellowship at Harvard, a raise and the sick leave she’d already taken while not doing a damn thing back. As Ace asks, “why didn’t she ask for a pony as well?”
Couldn’t have put it better ourself. That’s the Ace that we know and love.
Kraushaar, now 55, told the Associated Press she considered the complaint “relatively minor” and she later dropped it.
So she wanted her sick leave back, tens of thousands of dollars, a year-long fellowship at Haaaa-vahd and a humongous raise over a “minor issue?” Thanks for pointing that out. It doesn’t help your present allegations one little bit, but that’s why we’re thanking you for it. You ought to fire your lawyer for allowing you to shoot yourself in the foot like that. Actually, you ought to fire him for his perfect 0.000 batting average so far, but hey. Maybe he has other uses.
“The concern was that there may have been discrimination on the job and that I was being treated unfairly,” said Kraushaar,
Unfairly?
So tell us, Curly Crotch, how many other employees at your place of work were allowed to work from home? It would seem relevant to the “discrimination” bit.
who also said she did not remember the specifics of her demands in the complaint.
But remembers, in great and specific detail, gestures and remarks of a “not overtly sexual nature” made more than a decade ago and, more importantly, four years prior to the accusations against the INS that she remembers no specifics at all about?
You really need to fire that clownsack Bennett for letting you open your mouth in public.
Bennett told the AP he could not comment on the complaint because it was confidential.
Oh we assure you, “counselor”, that we have no further questions at this point.
When reporters asked Bennett Wednesday if there was a “pattern” of complaints from Kraushaar, he said, “My client is 55 years old and she has been employed for approximately 30 years. During the course of employment sometimes people have complaints or grievances, and our position is that any other complaints or grievances that she’s had in her lengthy employment career are irrelevant to whether or not this specific complaint in 1999 was baseless.”
“Irrelevant” in lawyer-speak means “harmful to my client”, in case you don’t know. We, on the other hand, would consider it immensely relevant in establishing a clear pattern of serial whining, complaining and litigation without merit.
Kraushaar’s former supervisor at the INS, who was named in Kraushaar’s complaint, characterized the 2003 complaint to ABC News as “frivolous,” and said Kraushaar may have been offered a few extra sick days as compensation.
The supervisor alleged that Kraushaar had a “poor work ethic.”
That’s putting it mildly, if you ask us. In addition, being accused of having a poor work ethic by a public employee is much like having Yoko Ono accusing you of having a poor singing voice.
The supervisor, a self-described Democrat, decided to speak out about Kraushaar’s complaint because of “doubts about her credibility.”
And G-d bless you for speaking out even when doing so, especially when doing so would help nobody but “the other side.”
Maria Cardona, who also supervised Kraushaar at INS, told CNN that Kraushaar was an “ideal employee,” and said her credibility was “beyond reproach.”
“She was the utmost professional, one of the hardest working individuals I have ever known,” said Cardona, “the consummate team player.”
Just how fucking many supervisors does each public employee have? No, don’t answer that. We’re pretty sure that we already have a pretty good idea. Which would go a long way towards explaining why everything public employees touch cost ten times as much and delivers a fifth of the results. A shitload of chiefs and barely a brave in sight.
And a professional, incredibly hard working team player? We didn’t have actual evidence that “teamwork” and “hard work” in the public sector involved insisting on full pay without having to get out of bed — OK, we actually do have evidence of that, coming from a nation that is light years ahead of this nation in public sector expansion (with predictably catastrophic results) — and ludicrous lawsuits when that wasn’t granted.
Great. Really. We mean it. Not only is yet another accuser shot down as a professional leech and serial filer of frivolous lawsuits, we also gain much needed insight in the terminal rot of the public sector.
Now tell us again that we can’t make any “meaningful” cuts to public spending without abolishing the military.
It seems to us that we could start by making sure that no public employee had more than one supervisor.
As a matter of fact, borrowing a bit from Cain here, we have our own 9-9-9 plan ready to go:
For every 9 employees, you get 1 supervisor. For every 9 supervisors, you get 1 manager. For every 9 managers, you get 1 director.
Under that plan, every manager would have 81 productive employees (as much as public employees can be productive in the first place, that is), and every director would have 729 productive employees under him.
And hey presto, you can fire about half of the public workforce and never know they are gone.
We can dream, can’t we?
Still, there it is:
The Imperial 9-9-9 plan.
Thatisall.