Karen Kraushaar, Serial Victim

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One of Herman Cain’s accusers, who left the National Restaurant Association with $45,000 in “go away” money, then got a government job, where she filed a complaint demanding money and a promotion:

Karen Kraushaar, 55, filed the complaint while working as a spokeswoman at the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the Justice Department in late 2002 or early 2003, with the assistance of her lawyer, Joel Bennett, who also handled her earlier sexual harassment complaint against Cain in 1999. . . .
To settle the complaint at the immigration service, Kraushaar initially demanded thousands of dollars in payment, a reinstatement of leave she used after the accident earlier in 2002, promotion on the federal pay scale and a one-year fellowship to Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, according to a former supervisor familiar with the complaint. The promotion itself would have increased her annual salary between $12,000 and $16,000, according to salary tables in 2002 from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management. . . .
Kraushaar’s complaint was based on supervisors denying her request to work full time from home after a serious car accident in 2002, three former supervisors said. Two of them said Kraushaar also was denied previous requests to work from home before the car accident.
The complaint also cited as objectionable an email that a manager had circulated comparing computers to women and men, a former supervisor said. The complaint claimed that the email, based on humor widely circulated on the Internet, was sexually explicit, according to the supervisor, who did not have a copy of the email. The joke circulated online lists reasons men and women were like computers, including that men were like computers because “in order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.” Women were like computers because “even your smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.”

Kraushaar is very unlucky: Everywhere she goes, bad things happen to her, necessitating the services of attorney Joel Bennett.

90 comments

  1. Yes, that does raise a red flag. Of course, PRAVDA media won’t report on it.

    after Clarence Thomas. Instead of one, they bring these woman forward one at a time for maximum exposure and, of course, there’s no media questioning about their backgrounds of complaints or that they work in the Obama Admin or that they live in the same building as David Axelrod, etc.

    Who honestly knows what the truth is? Is it some women who thought, “You came up to my wife’s chin” was said with a leer, or “Hey; You look very nice in that dress” was objectionable. Aside from Sharon who glows so much during her accounts on the media that she’s almost radioactive. nobody is saying what he said. Real sexual harrassment is a very bad thing but you don’t get back in car with a supervisior who put his hand up your leg while simultaneously pushing your head towards his crotch if you are really offended. What is he-a contortionist and you don’t give him a hug years later at a meeting. She supposedly told him to stop and he did.

    And why only accusations during his time at the NRA and not before or after. Did he suddenly have a meltdown and never again?

    Even if Cain drops out it may do some damage with the AA community if they think that there could possibly see the “Big Bad Black man with a thing for white women” being pushed.

    Maybe he’s an a$$ who says stupid stuff or maybe he sounds confused because he didn’t do anything wrong and not being a professional Politician he and his campaign don’t now how to make it all sound smooth.

    Finally, Gloria Allred who was looking for Cain victims and is known for hit jobs on Republican politicians and who gave heavily to Obama’s campaign?

  2. Either Hermain Cain is a sociopathic serial lounge lizard…or this is a manufactured orchestrached lynch mob.  That Herman is fighting this fight is HUGE.  Let’s get to the bottom of it.  Herman should have bloggers doing the leg work on verifying ever fact in these stories. 

    Ace keeps bringing up the hotel suite upgrade.  By all means, verify that.  Let’s look into these stories and see who is telling the truth and who is just spinning. 

    If Herman did half of what he is accused of, he should drop out.  He fooled us.  Then he lied.  If, however, we find out this is a bunch of BS, then it shows just how craven and wrong the entire left and media machine really is.  We can call it,  Mr. Cain goes to Washington. 

  3. I can’t take credit for the phrase “glows like she’s radioactive” It may have been some commentator here who said that but probably in a even more clever way; I thank them. The point is Bialek’s “affect” is really off for someone who supposedly had a traumatic experience, IMO. She clearly is relishing the spotlight

  4. You know, this is all very distracting. I’ll be glad when you finally destroy all her diminishing credibility so I can agree with Ace some more about what a bad candidate Herman Cain is. (Sorry. He just is.)

    Actually, let me roll that back a little bit. He’s not really a bad candidate. People LOVE him. He’d be a bad president. Great candidate.

  5. Oh my…well now, this is gonna leave a bruise, ain’t it?  Will this story make it into the spotlight of liberal “journalistic” machinations?  Of course not.  Good thing we have copy/paste/linkage abilities.  🙂

  6. So, it’s not racism or Rick Perry after all. It’s a gaggle of crazy broads trying to score. I don’t doubt a bit several of those charges are totally bogus. The Bialek chick is out to get some ca$h. So, when does Herman quit the Obama routine and apologize profoundly for besmirching Perry? Obama blames Bush- Cain blames Perry.

  7. I’d say it’s part of Perry’s 15 million paying these crazy broads.  Once it’s been proven it’s not a Perry hit job then yes, he should set the record straight and apologize for blaming him.  The problem is that it still points to Perry and his supporters.  Geez, these guys are almost as bad as the Paulies.

  9. Unfortunately, Ace has gone completely off the deep end with these Cain accusations, and has lost all credibility. 

  10. “Kraushaar initially demanded thousands of dollars in payment, a
    reinstatement of leave she used after the accident earlier in 2002,
    promotion on the federal pay scale and a one-year fellowship to
    Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government”

    I used to work in the fed. gov’t.  These demands sound very familiar to me.  It’s like the professional complaint filers all read the same script.

  13. Kraushaar is very unlucky: Everywhere she goes, bad things happen to her, necessitating the services of attorney Joel Bennett.

    So, twice is now everywhere she goes…  Lack of objectivity and overblown rhetoric, anyone?

  15. The problem is, Doc, EVERYBODY’s fingerprints are all over this: Romney consultants, Administration employees, Perry staffers trading knowing comments about their killer oppo, even documented perv Newt and Romney himself butting in.  It’s plainly being orchestrated by DC establishment insiders trying to keep an outsider down, but the waters are too muddy to let us see which.

    So I vote ALL of them.

  16. Ace and Dan Riehl are channelling Andrew Sullivan.  Scary! 

    Okay, to be fair, maybe Cain is lying to us.  Let’s get to the bottom of this.  What we might find (what I suspect we will find) is a manufactured claim from the left.  If that is the case, certain conservatives should hang their heads in shame.  And if Cain is lying, well then he fooled us.  I will gladly admit Dan and Ace were right on this. 

  17. Keep carrying that water for the left Steve.  You should check out Andrew Sullivan’s site, he and you are sort of sympatico. 

  19. lynch mob…
    it is like they are trying to construct frankenstein’s bride of sexual harrassment.
     
    assume 20% truth for all five, and they believe they can construct 100% certainty.

    begging for a presser with the other ‘five’ is not the sign of a strong hand.

  21. Here’s the joke:

    A language teacher was explaining to her class that in French, nouns unlike their English counterparts, are grammatically designated as masculine or feminine.
    “House” in French, is feminine -“la maison,” “Pencil” in French, is masculine “le crayon.”
    One puzzled student asked, “What gender is computer?” The teacher did not know, and the word was not in her French dictionary.
    So for fun she split the class into two groups appropriately enough, by gender and asked them to decide whether “computer” should be a masculine or a feminine noun.
    Both groups were required to give four reasons for their recommendation.
    The men’s group decided that computer should definitely be of the feminine gender (“la computer”), because
    No one but their creator understands their internal logic The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later review As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheque on accessories for it.
    The women’s group, however, concluded that computers should be masculine “le computer”) because:
    In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on. They have a lot of data but still can’t think for themselves They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem As soon as you commit to one, you realise that if you had waited a little longer you could have gotten a better model.

    Sexually explicit? Where? Me think the fine lady doth protest too much.

  26. while the perry theory make sense-most to gain/timing it with nh speech, the manner in which the ‘needle was threaded’ by politico in regards to making the distinction between harrassment and sexual harrassment leads me to believe that politico got the sealed records.

    could perry have tipped them off, and then politico got someone in va(?) court to make some copies?

    possibly.  would perry’s campaign produce the actual material and commit a crime?

    probably not.

  27. how much you want to bet that there are photos of her riding during the period in which she claimed a ‘physical need’ to work at home?

    “Lack of objectivity and overblown rhetoric, anyone?”
    after seeing allred’s rollout, i would feel awkward in describing anything else in this manner.

  28. Look, I’m not hating on Ace. I love Ace. I just think he’s as objective about Herman Cain as I am, which is to say, not at all.

    So here we have two admittedly subjective reactions: Me, who was pumping the Cain campaign before there was even a campaign, and Ace who never really took to Cain, even when Cain was looking like a winner. Readers are free to make their own judgments, but there is no reason to demonize Ace just because you love Cain and, by the same token, there’s no need for anyone who hates Cain to demonize me.

    Our subjectivity — so long as we ‘fess up to it — should not detract from your enjoyment of our blogging as sheer spectacle. People need to lighten up and get over the victory-or-death fanatical view of the primary campaign, which is probably going to seem pretty damned silly in retrospect if, when all is said and done, we find ourselves in August trying to convince America that Mitt Romney is The Only Hope to Save America.

    Long ago, in one of my first dust-ups with Conor Friedersdorf, I explained that his basic problem was a deficiency of cynicism. What makes Conor such a pain in the ass is that he is so damnably earnest about politics. You cannot write coherently about politics if you’re going to be a 100% True Believer. You’ve got to dial down your passion and try to appreciate politics as a game, a sort of bread-and-circuses pageant ginned up to fool the people into believing that our government is genuinely democratic. Understanding the extent to which the process is controlled by insiders and influenced by the media, who think of regular voters as a bunch of dumb rubes whose choices can be manipulated almost infinitely, you realize that the best you can reasonably hope for is a chance to fuck up the plans of the Elite — e.g., by ensuring that Elite-anointed candidates like Dede Scozzafava, Charlie Crist and Mike Castle don’t get elected.

    To quote my personal hero, Eric Stratton, “Don’t think of it as work. The whole point is just to enjoy yourself.”

  29. I just saw something on Fox that was so damned outrageous I just had to say something about it here, and I want to make sure as many people as possible see it. 

    This jackass was on Fox, being interviewed by the chick that’s married to the soldier in Afghanistan, and his name is either Robert, or Joe, Cirricione, or something like that. He seems to be a state department official, and he was talking about Iran, and how nobody trusts them because of their history.

    All right, so then just all of a sudden, out of the blue, he says something to the effect that “Iran has a Herman Cain problem. Things that they have done in their past always come back to haunt them.”

    I was in the kitchen eating breakfast at the time, so when I hear him say the part about Iran having a Herman Cain problem I ran into the living room. He’s some white haired guy. After a minute they flashed his name along with whatever two-bit position he has at the DOS.

    So how in the hell is Herman Cain’s story and current problems remotely applicable to this? This proves the Democrats are behind this shit, though to be fair probably some Republicans are as well. But you’re going to be hearing more and more of this shit. These bastards just can’t help themselves, can they?

    Note the implication of this statement. Anybody hearing this would be lead to believe the truth of the allegations against Cain are as factual and indisputable as the known facts of Iran’s odious history.

    And the chick didn’t call him on it, but really, that wasn’t the focus of her interview. She probably didn’t know how to react. Somebody on Fox really needs to put a stop to this shit from these Democrats they have on there. Damn, they even have somebody from Code Pink as a regular contributor. Somebody needs to do something about this kind of shit.

  33. I generally like Ace and Dan.  I mostly agree with them, except when I do not.  This is one of those times.  But it only bothers me because I care.  So much. 

  38. Wow, isn’t it rich how so many were so upset about the anonymous sources in the Politico article against Cain, but now open cheering the anonymous sources in the AP article against this woman?

    I suppose if I felt some insane duty to defend the lying horn-dog I would have to turn into a complete hypocrite, too.  There but for the grace of God go I.

    But I suppose there are advantages:  with two faces, one could look both ways to cross the street without turning one’s head, could one not?

  39. the 800 lb gorilla in the room:

    rush limbaugh.
    weigh his connection with the gop primary voters versus the msm, and the establishment gop.

    so long as cain continues to get air-time advocacy from limbaugh, and the narrative of the accusers continues to fall apart, his position is strengthening.

    for better, or worse, limbaugh is the glue that is holding cain together.

    i know that the gop contenders want to sweep cain’s legs, but so long as he has the ‘representation’ of limbaugh, there is no traction to be gained.

  42. Ease off the throttle, Casey Jones, you’ve been heading off the rails the last few days. 

    Stripped of specifics, what is the underlying logic of your complaint – i.e., what’s the deeper problem, cognitively and ethically speaking, with judging a man or woman based on evidence (especially hearsay) provided by a few anonymous sources? That making a quick judgment in such cases is reckless and prejudicial.

    But isn’t that what you’re doing by judging Cain to be a “lying horn-dog”? 

  49. The 9-9-9 plan is horrible, and will never pass. Never. Are you not understanding this? If Herman actually got the nomination, the seniors would vote against him 10-1. Our support from seniors would be right in line with what we get from the Black vote every 4 years. So, do you happen to have an extra 30 million voters you think Herman can flip? You think America can afford a 9% tax on every good and service? What about the 14 million unemployed? Now, we’re up to losing 44 million votes off the bat. What about people on disability…how do you think they’re going to vote for on the additional tax? Hmmm, what about people on set salaries who are watching their grocery bills go through the roof…I’m SURE they are going to line up to rush to vote for Herman so he can raise all their bills immediately. So, other than that, I’m sure Herman will really appeal to a wide array of people. And you equate me with a Paulista. Listen Tinkerbell, you better step back from Never-Never land, or you’re going to have 4 years of Mitt. If that doesn’t make you throw up a little in your throat, then there’s something wrong.

  50. “…there is no traction to be gained.”

    let me be clear, as in realclearpolitics:
    herman cain’s peak on the rcp average graph was 26%, mid october.

    he is currently at 25.2%.  the press is waiting, eagerly, for the floor to drop out, but it now looks like cain is standing on bedrock.

    romney was at 25.2% at the time of cain’s peak.  he is now down to 23.3%.  the establishment believed that romney’s one positive feature, that he had been vetted, would distinguish him from the field.

    the cain-harrassment story was the incident that was supposed to prove the theory of romney’s ‘infallability’, by scared gop primary voters flocking to a ‘safe’ candidate.

    this was the time where romney was supposed to create space…
    it isn’t happening.

    given the events of the past week and a half, the establishment had better scurry to find ‘another’ reason for romney. 

    the altenative of trying to keep the story running for the next four weeks, just to bring cain even with romney, assuming he doesn’t lose more voters to newt isn’t an strategy-

    it is a prayer.

     

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