Legal documents can be awfully confusing, so as a courtesy to voters, here’s a brief summary of some of the revelations from Susan Hutchison’s discrimination suit against KIRO TV.
Hutchison’s suit charged KIRO with age and race discrimination after she was replaced as evening news anchor by a younger, Asian-American woman, Kristy Lee.
Shorter Susan: Attractive white women are an oppressed minority.
In a deposition, Hutchison said the late U.S. Rep. Jennifer Dunn, a Republican, had asked her to run against U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat. Hutchison also said the head of the Republican Party in King County had asked her to run for Seattle mayor.
Shorter Susan: Mayor of Seattle is a nonpartisan office, and since I was asked to run for it, that must make me a nonpartisan.
She believed KIRO executives were out to get her when she was suspended for a week without pay in July 2002. The suspension came after Hutchison was denied a vacation request over the Fourth of July holiday, called in sick and went on a vacation to Bend, Ore., with her husband.
“I was deeply humiliated and punished beyond belief for taking two sick days and there was a hatred there among the news director and the general manager,” she said in a deposition.
Shorter Susan: I was deeply humiliated for being treated like, you know, any other employee, when in fact I’m Susan Hutchison.
Hutchison was assigned work she didn’t know how to do, she said, “to make me a spectacle so that they could write me up every day for what I could not accomplish … they wanted me gone, period.”
KIRO officials maintained in the records that they demoted Hutchison because of low ratings.
Shorter Susan: I was spiritually ready for the job, but I guess I wasn’t professionally ready.
Shorter, Shorter Susan: Nobody can fire the KC Executive for not knowing how to do her job.
She took medical leave Sept. 19, 2002 — and never returned to work before she was fired Dec. 20 — because she was “totally stressed out” by her situation at KIRO.
Shorter Susan: I didn’t quit; I was fired for not being a young Asian woman.
Hutchison called the mother of a college student who wanted to intern at KIRO and told her the station would be a bad environment for her daughter. The student’s mother, according to a sworn statement, found the call from Hutchison — whom she had never met — “strange.”
Hutchison alleged that John Woodin, then KIRO’s general manager, was a “sexual predator” and had a “drug problem,” according to the mother. Her daughter went ahead and worked at KIRO in the summer of 2002 and told her parents she “had no problems with John Woodin and had seen nothing to corroborate the accusations made by Susan Hutchison.”
Shorter Susan: I’m strange. I’m also a vindictive, spiteful shrew, who’s not afraid to slander you behind your back if you dare to cross me, so watch out.
Hutchison, like Palin, just doesn’t seem to believe normal rules apply to her. Why do these people get any votes or any credibility at all? Even their supporters, I would think, would wonder if this enormous egotism might turn on them.
I think into Today’s politics, ANYTHING is fair game. Get everything on the table and let the people decide. Frankly, I’m not sure why anyone would want the King Kounty job. Kudo’s to all who are willing to run!
Let the best MAN win, right fringe lunatic left??
In last Saturday’s documents, we learned how Susan’s coworker photographed her while she was rafting down the river in Bend after calling in sick. The coworker showed the photos to the boss back in Seattle and that’s how Susan got busted.
In my experience as an office worker, you’ve got to be pretty unpopular for your coworkers to bust you like this.
LMAO!!! I thought “conservatives” had such high standards they’d never call in sick for a mere joy ride on the river.
This nutjob is going down in flames…
This whiner never would make it as a state employee,* so why would any rational voter put her in charge of King County government?
* If you use sick leave to take a vacation and lie to your bosses about it, you get fired. If you can’t do the job you were hired for, you get fired. If you slander your bosses behind their backs, well, in public service that’s usually not a firing offense, but it’ll probably screw your chances for promotion.
@1 Beauty queens with princess complexes aren’t a good fit in public service. Palin and Hutchison should stick with what they know, which is living off gullible men.
@2 “Get everything on the table and let the people decide.”
They did. Last November.
The right goes on and on about “rights” and “freedoms”, but what they really mean is the “right” and the “freedom” to act like petulant, spoiled assholes.
Oh, and they tend to confuse consumerism with “freedom” as well.
@8 Not really, because that implies a rationality they lack. With them, everything is knee-jerk. I think they’re reacting to microwaves in the atmosphere.
Goldy, you’re a vindictive, spiteful shrew, who’s not afraid to slander someone if they dare to cross you.
Goldy can’t/won’t say it but I can and will…Hutchinson is a stupid right-wing bitch. She and Sara Palin would share the same hat size and IQ…i.e. wayyyy too big and not nearly big enough.
Good thing the flying spaghetti monster will make sure she loses.
Once again proving how well you do that “thinking” thing.
I a bitter divorce like this it is often the children that get hurt the most. Who is going to look out for what is best for Steve Raible?
Two decades at KIRO in the mediaand she can not frame her own story right now.
Yeah, YLB, you should know by now that “conservatives” have no standards at all, other than lie, cheat and steal all they can.
Marvie should know. Marvie is a Welfare Queen down in California. And Marvie brags about it.
Hey Marvie, how much you make anyway? Ripping off Welfare and being a paid Repugnant blog poster and all…
Good for Cynical, telling those stupid people from Seattle how to manage their local elections.
Like the guy from LA, the musician, Stamn? Good for him too. But then I DID hear that he pissed one of them fellas off and he shoved a grand piano up stamn’s ass! Dint do no damage though; it just fell out and Maestro Stamn never felt a thing anyway. Practices a lot. With spinets, I guess.
Cynical practices too, in case anybody tries to jam any livestock up HIS ass.
Hey Marvie, how come you don’t complain about welfare cheats? I mean, really, you have so much first hand experience about welfare cheating. Isn’t this one of those hot button Repugnant issues?
She just flamed out…If the state G.O.P. had any brains at all…nevermind…
Are ewe still here, MSF? And spinning about spinets? Don’t you have anything (goats, hogs, porkey-pines, timber rattlers, septic tanks) better to do?
When Cynical says ‘sheep dip,’ we immediately think of you.
Her non-partisan status is starting to work against her as Republicans are getting disgusted by the revelations, not realizing that she is a Republican.
BS Thug & Co
I’d think that when anyone said “dip” you’d think of BOTH Cyn and Stanmnerer!
Hutchison is David Irons in drag.
One would think the GOP might come up with one non-wack job candidate at some point…
Conservatives used to complain about those who play the victim card. Now, Palin and Hutchison seem to re-define the whole concept of what it means to be driven by that classic “victim’s complex.”
No need to be humble and gracious, MSF. You’re the original sheep dip, by acclamation.
===========
Before Goldy’s Global War on Suzie there was the Global War on Terror. Here’s the Good Book about GWOT 1.0.
The Day Wall Street Exploded is at least as good as Joan Crawford Greenburg’s Supreme Conflict. Niether book is about sheep, but some of the Wall Street book is about Butte and Montana’s Senator Wheeler.
BBBS&T
Sheep Buttes are a common recreational resource in western MT, but Cyn had raised it to an art form (cf Spinets, Practice Thereon)and I am but an humble shadow of the truly great one ( who has, I am told, been practicing on bulls as a form of reverse matadorism).
Ordered it. You a rep for Amazon, BBBST&&C?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=76aMvhs3c6M
Now, for a real laugh, watch good ol Larry..
Especially like the comments around :10…
“On time, and under budget” LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How the F can he say that with a straight face?
Little Marvie the welfare cheat also thinks it IS OK to kill people, providing you don’t know the POTUS.
The same way conservatives can claim to be “Real Americans”….willing suspension of disbelief.
Birds of a feather:
http://washingtonbus.wordpress.....executive/
That’s me, the welfare cheat.
Now go pay your taxes like a good little serf so I don’t have to work.
I support the president, but I’m against all his policies.
“I support the president, but I’m against all his policies.”
Like upholding the rule of law?
With a (small) modicum of deference to Hutchison, the released documents don’t exactly paint a rosy picture of KIRO either. It would seem they were making a desperate attempt at propping up the sagging ratings of “Nitwitness News” by putting an Asian babe behind the anchor desk, because…well, because that’s what the competition had. Apparently it didn’t occur to them that the content might be lacking, rather than the person reading it.
A few years earlier (and nobody seems to talk about it much) Hutchison stormed out of KIRO after a profane shouting match with management over their attempt to turn the evening news program into a sort of all-singing, all-dancing three-ring circus. I don’t blame her for bailing at that time, because what they came up with sucked worse than perhaps anything on Seattle TV before or since.
On the other hand, she ended up back there, apparently having discovered that life out there in the rest of the world wasn’t all beer and skittles.
You’re not talking about those black panthers having the voter intimidation charges dropped are you.
Oops, I shouldn’t have mentioned the black panthers. We all know how you feel about being around blacks.
A River Runs Through It
@12 YLB’s simple observation didn’t require much thinking, but apparently is too deep for your (limited to nonexistent) intellectual capabilities.
@35 “You’re not talking about those black panthers having the voter intimidation charges dropped are you.”
No he’s not, clueless idiot.
Re 33:
I support the office and the respect it ought to command, no matter who sits behind the desk.
This is of course, provided they are supportive of our constitution and act within the law. Unlike Bill Clinton for instance. What was that about ‘rule of law’ brainless lucy? Oh, that only applies to people with whom you disagree. I see. That’s handy.
I don’t support the socialist sitting there now or much of any of his policies. I didn’t support President Bush attacking civil rights in the name of national security. Adults can and do distinguish. Quick clue: you don’t have to support everything your messiah says and does.
I think these people are basically pissed off because America’s voters kicked them to the curb. Now it’s our job to stomp them into the gutter and shovel them down the storm drains! The best time to kick a wingnut is when he’s down. It’s easier to reach their crotches when they’re prone.
Re 39
Check the polls silly rabbit. Obama down 19 points from January. Approval ratings down, and most Americans against health care reform. Ouch. That’s gotta hurt.
Maybe, just maybe, we’re mad because if we wanted to live in Canada or Europe we’d have moved there. Maybe it’s because we don’t want socialist morons like you ruining the last decent country left.
Just saying.
Isn’t america great??
You would be rounded up and stoned for fantasies like that in iran.
You Go, Rightys!
Marc Ambinder, writing in The Atlantic, says conservatives have lost control of their message and are blowing their chance to stop health care reform. And the unruly mob scenes at town hall meetings, he says, are playing right into President Obama’s hands.
http://politics.theatlantic.co....._turns.php
(Marc Ambinder is The Atlantic‘s politics editor and a political consultant to CBS News.)
@41 My my, you do have fantasies don’t you??! Listen asswipe, I survived the last Green Lake Park rabbit roundup, and I’ll still be here after the next one too! Guaranteed!! There isn’t a Seattle Parks Dep’t fascist alive who can catch Roger Rabbit!
So, demented bunny, any answer to the magical shrinking polls your fearless leader is experiencing?
True, at rabbit income there isn’t much to tax.
Win the lottery and see how fast those seattle fascists catch you.
If you weren’t so old and stringy, cafe juanita would be on your tail. They serve a real tasty rabbit braised in arneis with ligurian chickpea crepe, pancetta and porcini
To be fair, KIRO didn’t know she was that Susan Hutchison.
You know, the one who is soooo nonpartisan that the Republican party has tried to recruit her to run for office several times.
40 liasob
You post your polling data, and I’ll post mine. I think you lose.
@44 Yes. If President Obama passes health care reform at the cost of being a one-term president, that’s a price he should be willing to pay because that’s how important health care reform is.
However, it strains credulity that the Screeching Republican Mob has any chance of defeating the man who saved America from a second Great Depression. They’re hell-bent on destroying what little credibility they might still have as quickly as possible, and it’s certain the Screeching Republican Mob will demand — and get — a whacko for their candidate. Therefore, 2012 is shaping up to be the biggest blowout re-election landslide for a Democratic president since LBJ in ’64, and maybe even bigger than that.
@45 Send those cafe folks to my hole next to the big tree in the northeast corner of the park at 9 o’clock tonight and tell ’em to bring a gun, so I can claim self-defense.
@40 Maybe, just maybe, you’re mad because you’re fucking idiots who don’t know your assholes from a black hole. I mean, who besides you fools would believe that Obama is setting up committees to euthanize old folks? You nutmegs need a new roll of tinfoil, your hats are crinkled.
Dear Montana Rocky Mountain Oyster Fucker: Here’s all we’ve got for Montana Sheep Buttes. Appears to be about the Civil War, Lakota v. Crow, and the sheep butte isn’t a Sheep Butte, but hope it helps.
About those oysters: Where did you find good seafood in an arid state that hasn’t had a sea or coastline since maybe the Jurassic? Is there an invisible shellfish industry at Glacial Lake Missoula?
@38 Let’s see….it appears that you’re not going to support a POTUS unless he or she matches up perfectly in behavior and policies with your own personal vision of some “perfect America”.
Putting aside the idea that there are several degrees of evil separating Obama’s supposed “socialism” and the misdeeds of the last administration, it might be inferred that it’s unlikely that there’s ever going to be someone sitting in the Big Chair who you can support. Is this correct, or am I missing something?
@44 After he stole–er, I mean won the 2004 election, George W. Bush stated that he “had some political capital, and intended to spend it”. Well, he sure did. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Obama was man enough to look at such a prospect and decide it might be preferable to be a one-term president who accomplished something worthwhile than one who merely kept the seat warm for eight years.
PS: Thanks for your order from Amazon. Just bypass that Bezos person (a meddling middle man) and send your $ directly to me. Beverly Gage’s book is so good you’ll want to pay extra.
If anybody needs a remedial course in the thug left, Gage is where you need to go. She shows that 1920’s war on Wall Street and Morgan goes back at least to Haymarket in 1886 and extends to the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti. Enjoy.
Big Chair asks if he’s missing something …
Let’s not humiliate him further by counting the ways, but let’s rejoice that Obama got forked. He’s done.
Like dreams of the father/
Like schemes of the son/
Insert fork and deflate/
One term and he’s done.
Boze links to Obama’s really bad analogy at Portsmouth. Obama’s PO is almost as bad as Stephanie Miller’s from last week. Miller or her noises guy said that BO’s public option will be just like a federal system for mail delivery that comes in to take up the slack from UPS and Fed Ex.
Say WA? The federal mail system was an entrenched monopoly that, after about 1973, couldn’t even support itself with the full weight of monopoly coercion. As BO said today, in an expanded arena where the federal monopoly ceded a little of its turf to an efficient private alternative, the federal post office is the player that just keeps fucking up.
You left-tards really need to build a stronger case for your vaunted federal health option. And you need to find an analogy that favors the boondoggle you’re trying to build. Broom the PO comparison. Maybe an Amtrack analogy can be twosted into service on your behalf.
So good to know that the left just keeps on thuggin’. A middle-aged blogger (Goldy? Lee? Darryl? Ekim?) is throwing out the threats at supporters of 71. Sort of warms your cold hearts, doesn’t it, just like the thugs and goons who threatened supporters of last year’s Prop 8.
Why is every game a dirty game to you guys, and why is every sport a below-the-belt contact sport? Why can’t you just kick back and relax like moi? Don’t worry. Be happy. Put on your pink leotards (borrowed from Pres Reagan’s son, the ballerina) and have fun.
==========
twosted = twisted
… which explains why BO and BM, Big Media, are so frantically and frenetically choreographing townhall mayhem (see other thread about SEIU assault) to keep the story at the top of the news and above the fold.
Just keep spinning about rent-a-mobs on astroturf without mentioning that the thuggin’s coming from the left. It’s called lying, and it’s how you people play the game and get your way.
ArtFart and that crazy wabbit:
Look up Rasmussen some time. In all areas Obama is slipping. And National Health, or whatever todays euphanism is, is not wanted by the real America.
Ronald Reagan worked through the near Depression brought on by the Democrats, and he was someone I supported in 85% of his policies. Is there someone I support in the near religious sense you nutjobs do. Hell no. I’m not as guilable as you lunatics.
We accept that the grasping manipulative bastard who wins the election is the best of a bad lot. The kinds of things a person has to do to win nationally make them by definition unsuited for the role. But in the choice between someone like President Bush who loved his country and was misguided and President Obama who maybe likes his country on a good day and is totally wrong I’ll pick Bush every time.
By the way, if we get out of this mess without hyperinflation and an attendant massive deflation of the dollar it will be in spite of your talking head, not because of him. It will be in spite of irresponsible spending suctioning money from the private sector. It will be in spite of massive deficit spending that should be judged treasonous.
If only there were some way for the vast majority of America’s voters to make their opinion known about whose health-insurance reform vision they preferred.
Oh, that’s right, WE JUST DID. And John McCain lost, and the Republican Party lost BIG.
So Americans for Prosperity/FreedomWorks/Insurance-Industry-Funded-and-Guided shills notwithstanding, America already spoke out, and it’s going down our way, even if we have to work the the Senate parliamentarian to pass it under budget reconciliation rules to let the Blue Dogs have their votes without getting in the way of progress.
So, you know, bluster, lie, rant, rave, and even shoot, and you all are still the losers that you were in November 2008. Impotence is a glorious sight, even if it makes for some pretty stupid listening.
Hey, what WAS St. John McCain’s health insurance reform plan?
Oh, stuff the Republicans suported vociferously at the time (so much that he lost) such as taxing employer based health benefits, suggesting a “federally supported Guaranteed Access Plan” for people denied due to preexisting conditions, proposing cost containment measures including coordinated care and moving away from fee-for-service, and cutting Medicare Part D subsidies for Big Pharma.
What a fucking socialist that guy was! ANd I guess that his 46% of the electorate was too, right?
Heh. The HNMT can’t handle that Raygun’s progeny lives in the thriving liberal metropolis of Seattle and is an Air America host.
Always gay baiting, always hating, always swallowing the latest right wing swill – that’s our pet name-morphing, name-calling troll.
I thought it was Ronald Reagan who was partial to wearing pink tights and tutus. And teabagging.
@55 Eh? Seems the US Constitution mandates a few things other than just the right of everyone to have a nice warm gun to sleep with. One item, in fact, being a mandate to assure the delivery of mail.
@58 “Look up Rasmussen some time.”
Why the fuck should we bother? You clowns keep telling us all about it.
By the way…in the depression Reagan was an ardent new dealer. Like so many others, he changed his tune when he became old and rich.
Oh, yeah…the Depression was caused by the Democrats. You sound like Borat saying the Jews did 9/11.
Hyperinflation is largely what got us into this mess…caused by the government printing tons of money, and giving it away to corporations.
The love-daddy left @ 59 just keeps spewing its crap and canards, as if repitition will somehow bend the world to their will. Whatever a middling plurality of voters thought they were voting for last November, it apparently wasn’t ‘Bamacare.
Daddy and Goldy and Darryl and Rabbit and ‘Bama and Artfarter try to drown out reality by pumping up the volume, but it’s the same old Bongo Congo bleat. (Did you hear her today? Smiting Africans for having the temerity to, you know, sort of subordinate her to big bent Bill, bent and to the left? Sort of like SEIU smiting an African American in St. Louis at a townhall, and then getting the pimp press to imply that it was all the African American’s fault.)
Some of my best friends are way gay, YLB. That’s why I love you madly.
@58 totally Lost
Rasmussen is biased and a republican pollster…so what?
the only poll that really counts: November 2008
Republicans lost:
the Presidency
the Senate
the House
After we (the American people) pass health care reform despite all the lies, the money from your corporate health care buddies and the fake outrage from the dittoheads, deathers and birthers that will backfire….it won’t matter either.
And who would vote for someone like Hutchison who claims to be Christian and is a proven and repeated liar?
If the right-wing loudmouths would stop yelling for a few minutes, they might hear the sound of the thin ice they’re standing on cracking.
Art. Art. Are you really that dense?
@ 58 is clearly referring to the Carter Depression that President Reagan worked through and pulled us out of.
58 didn’t stutter. His meaning is clear to clear-headed people. Maybe you need a brainwash and a light rinse.
I hear the sound of one hand clapping and one very big mouth, yours, flapping. Thin ice? It’s what you use to pollute and dilute your drink. Belly up to the bar like a man, kick back a straight shot or two, and quit spinning lies, as you just did about The President, the Real President, Ronald Wilson Raygun.
There is maybe one Hutchison lie. That puts her so far behind Chairman EnRon Sims that we should just ask him to come back and screw us again.
You don’t know nothing about history, as your Depression confusion proves. But you’re right-on right about the Constitution and mail, a licensed monopoly that sort of worked for about 180 years until it didn’t work.
So tell us again: Where is the Constitutional mandate for nationalized Obamacare? And where’s the proof that it will work better than today’s Post Office?
What Obamacare will do, as 58 was patiently explaining to you, is to pull the cork out of the Weimar bottle. We’re blasting beyond too much Greenspan money into Barack Bizarro World where one month’s deficit, July’s, exceeds most annual Republican deficits that you used to whine about.
Warm gun, hell. I’m sleeping with a nice warm RPG. How about you?
Re 64
I know that you’re not particularly bright, but do try to keep up.
So Reagan was an admirer of FDR. No-one is perfect. And he did learn better with age and wisdom. Now if only lefties could do that…
The recession, which was worse than the current one, of the late 70’s and early 80’s was the Depression that was avoided by Reagan policies. It’s called reading comprehension.
Read & profiteth thereby, Seattle, unless the word profit puts you off your feed.
Good post by the newbie @ 34. Hope old Art reads your excellent comments so he can learn how they’re done.
@74 Hmmm…That wasn’t much of a “depression”. Very few of us have actually live through one of those, although some of us are old enough to have had our parents and grandparents tell us about it.
You don’t possibly mean the “reagonomics” of the early 80’s that put thousands of people out of work, do you? The one that we sorta-kinda got pulled out of by “Star Wars” and all that military pork? Yeah, that worked out really well. Then you ate one of your own when he had to raise taxes to pay off the tab.
Hope YLB doesn’t out you for gay baiting and hating.
As for Armbinder, we shall see. Obama’s adept at pulling a (ahem) Rabbit out of a hat, so I’m placing no bets. Nor am I placing that hat on the head of anyone I respect. Any hat that Rabbit’s been in is a hat for shitheads.
(Armbinder reminds me of how much we lost when we lost Atlantic editor Mike Kelly. The new improved post-Kelly Atlantic seems to be in a duel of dementia with “News”week for the title of worst rag-mag ever.)
Talking about Carter’s double-digit interest rates, double-digit unemployment, double-digit inflation, and double-digit misery. Hence the Misery Index.
That Carter Depression. See last week’s tutorial for the fine print.
Carter did about one thing right: Volcker. Reagan had the supreme wisdom to keep Volcker and to endure the early downside of reversing the Carter slide. It was an act of political courage for Reagan to keep Carter’s sloppy seconds at the Fed, and then to support Volcker thru the 1982 off-year election.
Makes me proud of Mad Max from Montana. Baucus is showing neobama who’s in charge and how it’s done.
NYT Mag two months ago quoted Baucus about the ACORN neophyte who wandered thru the Senate for a day or two while on his way to other things. The youngster, it seems, thought he had nothing to learn and nothing to gain by, you know, doing the job he was elected to by the state of Blagonois. Rather than have the honesty to flat-out quit, the Palin Way, Obama played the Chicago Way and kept pulling down a Senate paycheck while goofing off in front of cameras and teleprompters.
(Baucus, back in 2002, was a Donkey I could have voted for if MSF hadn’t made me abandon the state in a state of panic.)
May have a dinked link @ 65. Try again …
Knee-jerk right wingonomics. Inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. What are the goods that the money is chasing?
The goods are made in other places by people making a few dollars a day.
The money from the printing presses is flowing mostly to banks to keep them from floundering from the horrible decisions they’ve made and it appears that they are still making.
Whatever money that’s filtering down to regular folks is just to keep their heads above water to buy some time. There’s no chance of the consumer right now, with fist fulls of non-existent fresh money, driving up the prices of anything besides maybe oil whose price changes with with the whims of currency traders and its own inexorable production decline.
The horrible awful stimulus from Obama was 40 percent tax cuts. Since when have knee-jerk wingnuts been against that?
Keep pounding at that Weimar stuff, maybe you’ll make butter one day. NO ONE is calling inflation at this point.
65 LLC
You guys are funny. You lost. Get used to it.
We already are. But you aren’t, are you?
Hey, if you think you have better ideas, RUN FUCKING CANDIDATES ESPOUSING THEM.
Oh, I forgot, you already did. And they lost. Damn, that must have been humiliating.
What are you guys gong to do now, send out industry funded shills to mouth faux-white-anger talking points? Oh, I forgto, you jsut ddi. And public support for health insurance reform has moved NOT AT ALL.
Damn, that must be humiliating. No wonder you’re all so desperate.
I must say that I am enjoying myself. Losers.
80 M
I don’t know who you are, but you seem to be posting under a lot of aliases. Whatever. You’re just another talking-points-spouting troll.
Baucus’ Finance Committee bill, which I don’t even know how you can comment on seeing how it hasn’t even been voted on by committee, will almost surely be transformed in the House -Senate Reconciliation. Then they’ll pass the bill under reconciliation rules, and the Blue Dogs can vote against it and it will pass with a public option. Suck. On. That.
Sucks to be you.
Did I say losers? Losers.
80 M
Um, did McCain quit in that good ol’ Palin way?
‘Cause it seems to me that he’s still a sitting Senator. Damn him and his “Chicago Way” wherein he “kept pulling down a Senate paycheck while goofing off in front of cameras and teleprompters.”
My question is how did McCain get to Chicago? I mean, he doesn’t recognize any form of transportation after 1750.
@73;
You’re sleeping with World of Warcraft?
@79 Peanut for brains
Umm, your hero Reagan ran up the largest deficit in history. As a number of people much smarter than you) have said, even a fool and idiot (like Reagan) could get the economy to rebound spending like that.
and what tangible results did we get?
Star wars…a total bust, boondogle and waste of money.
We needed Clinton to fix the budget mess…until Bush came along and screwed it up and ruined the economy ….an amazing feat of incompetence.
@79 “Reagan had the supreme wisdom to keep Volcker and to endure the early downside of reversing the Carter slide. It was an act of political courage for Reagan to keep Carter’s sloppy seconds at the Fed, and then to support Volcker thru the 1982 off-year election.”
Then, in 1987 he appointed Greenspan to replace him. Shows he had to be losing it by then.
Incidentally, I don’t think I’ve ever heard jacking off in front of a mirror called a “tutorial” before.
Reagan and his cadre deliberately put the economy into a tailspin, partly to put the brakes on inflation and defuse the interest-rate spiral, but mostly (and that’s a really big “mostly”) to bust labor. If the race to run the Russians into the ground in an orgiastic military-spending race hadn’t provided an excuse to flood the market with freshly-printed dollars, we might have gone into the 1988 election in even worse shape than we were in at the end of last year.
Getting back to Hutchinson;
I don’t blame her for being a Republican. Heck, everybody has a few faults. I dont’ have to vote for or against her anyway, I don’t live in King County.
I am a bit intrigued by her asking for vacation over a holiday, it being denied, and her calling in sick when she really wasn’t. What that meant is that someone else, who already was scheduled to be off at that time and undoubtedly had plans for the holiday, had to be called in at the last minute to cover for her. Regardless of her feelings over whether management owed her the holiday, that’s treating your fellow co-workers like crap. And in my company, it’s a firable offense.
It’s because of people acting that way that lots of companies require employees to jump through stupid hoops like getting a written doctor’s excuse before it’s considered and excused absence. It makes life more difficult for everyone. But she seems to think it’s all about management treating her unfairly.
Not exactly the type of mind-set I would want in command of a major government entitity the size of King County.
Full disclosure: I rarely take off more than a day or so a year for sick leave, except last year when I took a week off for surgery. I’ve NEVER called in sick just because I didn’t want to work, that would be unfair to my co-workers, who would have to do my work as well as their own.
Eh?
That Carter Depression.
You might want to inform the National Bureau of Economic Research. Apparently someone forgot to look up your ass to find that missing data.
Who is the NEW professional sockpuppet? Another lunatic with an overwrought literary style?
How droll.
More scrolling
After praising Ronald Reagan for the length of the economic recovery that started under Reagan’s watch, Lost @ 58 avers:
Aside from the misuse of the word “deflation” (“devaluation” would have been the more appropriate word), there’s a fascinating lack of logic in the juxtaposition between the above paragraph and the aforementioned praise for the so-called “Reagan recovery.”
Let’s see. Reagan introduced us to the phenomenon of chronic government deficits, and ran up what were, at the time, the largest peace-time deficits in our history. The result, however, was neither hyperinflation nor a massive devaluation of the dollar.
Nevertheless, we’re supposed to believe that today’s deficits will have the complete opposite effect as did the Reagan deficits. Which gives rise to the obvious question: other than the color of the President’s skin, what’s different between the Reagan deficits and today’s deficits such that they should have diametrically opposed effects?
Frankly, I think the answer to that question is, “nothing,” and that our Lost friend has merely succeeded in showing himself to be a pretty run-of-the-mill econoramus.
Pudge @ 10
Wow. Just wow.
Stated, with a straight face, as though you hadn’t written this:
Jason Osgood, Dem for Secretary of State
Re 94:
The implied charge of rascism is typical of the left. When losing an argument about your holy one, who happens to be black, automatically bring out that card to shut down debate. Kudos.
Terms aside, when you print money without the underlying economy to support it the dollar will devalue. Once the economy comes back, with that devalued dollar, we will have inflation. We may get very lucky, if you can call it that, that the rest of the world is in dire straits too. That just might keep the dollar from outright free-fall.
If it does it will not be in response to any policy your president has put in place. It will be pure dumb luck.
Contrast that to Reagan, who actually believed in American business and did what he could to support it. Here you have the contrast between an American patriot and a European one.
Nothing to do with his race or ethnicity, but for some odd reason I like a president to, well you know, like his country.
In 2004 you voted for a ticket, one of whose candidates said “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter.”
To my knowledge, Cheney has never denied saying that.
Why is this so difficult for you guys?
I don’t agree with everything any Republican does or says. Of the two parties with any actual chance of winning, I just agree with Republican political philosophy to a greater degree than I do Democrats. Bush made some truly astounding blunders. I voted for him because they seemed the best horn of a dilemna to grasp, not because of some fanatic love of Republicans.
Honestly, the chances that I or you are going to agree with everyone who ever claimed party affiliation to our respective sides are pretty remote, wouldn’t you say?
I am puzzled by, but respect, your admiration of the president. But just so you know, any politician is by definition a very flawed person. Raising Obama, Reagan or anyone other politician to a near Godlike status is a bad idea.
@98
I, for one, am not raising anyone to anything like “godlike” status. In Obama’s case, only seven months into his term, I’d say the jury’s still out as to whether he’s going to turn out to be a great leader, a waste of time, or something in between. I’m very firm in my belief, though, that something needs to be done. The health care mess is just one of the most glaring examples of how society is being destroyed from within by the effects of decades of slavish devotion to letting business do whatever it thinks it wants.
Frankly, I don’t give a shit about corporations, or about the government, or even our supposedly sacred Constitution. What I care about is the pursuit of an ever more just society in which institutions exist for the benefit and betterment of all individuals.
We don’t have that right now. Not by any means.
@94 & @96 Racism? All that was stated there is that one guy looks different from another. If not skin color, one could propose that Reagan had longer hair or better teeth. Is that OK?
So, what exactly is it that makes deficits under our current President so dreadful, while those that were incurred on Reagan’s watch (or under Bush/Cheney) so wonderful? Was it just that the latter were “your guys”? Was it that the Republican deficits were accumulated in the process of killing lots of people in foreign lands or in preparation to do so? If those aren’t the reasons, can one of our resident hecklers, without devolving into profanity, character assassination or incoherent sloganeering, please explain what is?
“I’m very firm in my belief, though, that something needs to be done.” There’s an old logical fallacy in government. Something needs to be done. I’m doing something. Therefore what I’m doing is right.
“@94 & @96 Racism? All that was stated there is that one guy looks different from another. If not skin color, one could propose that Reagan had longer hair or better teeth. Is that OK?” No. I’m tired of being called a rascist because I hold different political views. I don’t like most Obama policies on policy grounds, so I’d appreciate the discussion left on those grounds.
Reagan supported business which, despite your contempt, is the engine of job creation in economies. Not government or stimulus packages, but business. In answer to the question, in general deficit spending is undesirable. Should China or OPEC shift from US dollars what do you folks think will happen to this country? That’s why the Obama plan is dangerous. If the dollar slips far enough that’s exactly what will happen.
Ask gbs, the dumbass will probably tell you he’s got proof it’s me.
95. GBS spews:
Marvn Stamn is really just Puddybud everybody.
No need to think otherwise any more. Must admit I had my suspcisons all along, but needed the proof.
Now I have it.
08/12/2009 AT 2:34 PM
http://horsesass.org/?p=18861&.....ent-936884
Wouldn’t that be a kick in the ass if I was the sockpuppet of Puddy.
Since gbs refuses to show his proof, I guess you will never know the truth.
Lost @ 101
No one called you a racist. I did hint that you’re a bigot (which isn’t the same thing–racism is about superiority/inferiority not just race-based bigotry), and that’s not based on your political views.
My utter disdain for you has nothing to do with the conclusions you reach. Rather, it has everything to do with the lack of any substance behind those conclusions and your readiness to resort to ad-hominem arguments whenever your conclusions are challenged.
For example:
What on earth does that mean? Exactly what policies did President Reagan institute that “supported business,” and what are the economic mechanisms by which those policies brought about the desired effects?
Deregulation? That’s a hard argument to sell, for two reasons. First, Carter began much of the deregulation well before Reagan took office. Second, the primary deregulation that Reagan pursued led to the savings and loan crisis. How was that “good” for business?
The Reagan tax cuts? Another hard argument to sell. The supply-side argument relies on the savings/investment equality in equilibrium. If the Reagan tax cuts were so good for business, then why did the national savings rate fall to new lows in the mid 1980’s? (Oh, and the capital gains tax cut that Carter signed into law in 1978 also cannot be attributed to Reagan. Just thought I’d point that out.)
As further example of your inability to conjure up a cogent argument on economic matters, consider this:
We’re talking about deficits, not monetary policy. If you want to start talking about monetary policy, that’s fine, but that does take the discussion outside the realm of Presidential politics.
Deficits do not involve printing money. Deficits involve borrowing money, and that’s true whether the deficit is the result of a tax cut or the deficit is the result of an increase in spending.
Also, your use of the phrase “underlying economy” belies another level of ignorance. The correct term is “excess productive capacity”.
I have to say, it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen such a sustained amount of economic gibberish as that exhibited in just those three sentences. You seem to be positing a causal chain between exchange rates and inflation, and the notion that the economic state if the rest of the world is merely a matter of “luck” is about as ludicrous as it gets.
First, inflation is fundamentally a money supply issue. Inflation occurs when the money supply grows faster than the underlying economy is capable of growing by making use of excess capacity. This is exactly what happened during the 70’s. We had a series of oil shocks and increases in energy costs. Not only did this put a limit on productive capacity, it led to reduced capacity across all sectors of the economy. At the same time, the Fed tried to keep employment going through standard monetary policy, but the reduced productive capacity across the economy meant that the end result was inflation rather than growth. In essence, the Fed tried to push on a rope.
Second, the causal chain between inflation and foreign exchange rates is in the opposite direction from the one you propose. Inflation leads to a devaluation of the currency vis-a-vis other currencies. An increase in domestic prices leads to a reduction in foreign demand for US goods and services, which, in turn, leads to a reduction in demand for the US dollar.
Third, given the size of the US economy, any recession here rapidly extends its way around the globe. America sneezes, and everyone else catches cold. Luck has nothing to do with it.
Lastly, I’ll point out two subjects you’ve not discussed: tax cuts vs. spending increases and interest rates. The fact that you’ve not mentioned either one of those, let alone spent any time talking about how they relate to one another, speaks volumes.
When I was in college I had professors like you, Don Joe. They knew all the theory and had pet notions for how things worked in their academic vacuum. You seem an intelligent person, I’ll give you that, but so did they.
Problem is in the real world those theories didn’t work. “Those who can do. Those who can’t teach.” Economists with erudite terms have been telling us bullshit for as long as I can remember. They are the weathermen of the scholarly world, wrong more often than right, but able to keep their jobs. I’ll take life experience and common sense any day over a scholarly navel gazer.
In the real world presidents do affect monetary policy. If The Obama runs up massive deficit to give lolipops and smiles to everyone, someone has to make the books balance. The president doesn’t technically have the power to go to war, to take another instance. But if he moves troops in a way that will provoke war, we have no choice in the end. Similarly, if this socialist president decides to run up deficit, monetary policy will have to accomadate him some way.
Interest rates? How do you imagine the Fed will cut interest rates currently? They have used that tool to the point where no room except up is possible. And raising interest rates worked beautifully in the late 70’s to curtail too rapid a growth. Right? Oh yeah, pushing on a rope.
Talk about tax cuts vs spending increases and how they realte to interest rates. Sure. If the US has any hope in the next 20 years it will be by eliminating tax cuts and spending increases both. It will be by cutting all the waste and stupid programs out of the federal budget. By kicking able bodied people off the welfare rolls, tightening military budgets, cutting about 60% of the useless beuracrats and generally halving the size of the federal government we might actually have a shot. Don’t see how otherwise, though. In our personal economies we can live on debt and promises for a while, but sooner or later the piper willl be paid. Government is no different.
If your insane fool of a president continues his policies why would China or anyone else continue to use dollars as a reserve? They aren’t stupid, and they know what stupid policies do to a currency, fancy terms or not. I’ve asked before, what do you think will happen if oil starts being traded in Euros and China divests itself of dollars. Even you might have to take note of the effect of stupidity then, Joe.
And by the way, you don’t know me from Adam and thank God you never will. Don’t presume to call me a bigot, or a rasist or however you care to parse the commment. I dislike your presidents’ politics and his disdain of what this country stands for, not anything else. He is the wrong man at the wrong time with the wrong ideas, irrespective of his skin color.
I can respect someone who sincerely believes something at odds with me. Ted Kennedy for example, with all his faults, appears to espouse causes against his own interests. He has done for his entire career. I can disagree with his beliefs
but respect the man. Too bad you don’t have that ability. I wouldn’t presume to call you intolerant, but if the shoe fits..
Lost,
You’re right about one thing. I know nothing of who you are outside these comment threads. In these comment threads, however, you have inaccurately presumed my policy motives, responded to my arguments by calling me a leftist, Chavez-loving Obama worshiper, and, now, when challenged to explain exactly how Ronald Reagan’s policies were pro-business, have responded to my criticism of your conclusion with a blatantly anti-intellectual screed. If that’s not bigotry, then kindly explain what is.
Now, you said:
How do you imagine that I was even thinking of having the Fed try to lower interest rates any further? I pointed out that the current interest rate is an important factor in discussing the right fiscal policy for the circumstances, but I never even hinted that the Fed should, or even could, try to change them.
Once again, you are guilty of presumption, and presumption is the bedrock of bigotry. Please try to presume less often.
Well, you’ve managed to talk about tax cuts and spending increases without mentioning interest rates. I’m at a loss as to figure out how you can discuss the relationship between interest rates and particular fiscal policy tools without mentioning the interest rate.
But that’s precisely where your policy proscription goes wrong. The primary effect of a tax cut would be an increase in savings (even a middle-class tax cut would go toward reducing private debt which is another form of an increase in net savings).
Under normal circumstances, this would result in an increase in investment, but that’s not a magical equality. Something else has to happen in the economy before that increase in savings translates into an increase in investment. That “something else” is interest rates have to go down. If interest rates don’t, or can’t, go down, then the mechanism that would translate savings into investment is blocked. In terms of the rope analogy, we’ve run out of rope. We can’t let it out any more than we already have.
When interest rates are near the zero bound, then we have a savings glut, which means that tax cuts would have almost no stimulus effect. The only alternative is for the government to increase spending, and, by the way, this represents a precisely opportune time for the government to spend on some of the infrastructure that’s been neglected for so many years.
Also, the fact that interest rates are near the zero bound means that spending increases will have little, if any, inflationary effect. Your prediction of hyperinflation and a massively devalued dollar is utterly without merit.
I should point out that no one, not me, not President Obama, not anyone from the left, is arguing that the government spending should remain at these levels. Once we pull ourselves out of this recession, then we can turn our attention to getting rid of some of the structural deficits that are so very problematic.
To that end, one of the most effective ways we can deal with these structural deficits is through health-care reform. Also, since we’re facing a savings glut (and likely will for much of the foreseeable future), increasing taxes on the wealthy (a policy that would be to my personal detriment) is not a bad idea in terms of economic effects. The wealthy have a relatively high marginal propensity to save.
The term you want to put into your favorite internet search engine to learn about this stuff is “liquidity trap”.