I'm a little reluctant to smack down Seattle Times editorial columnist Sharon Pian Chan once again, because given how brazenly deceptive she's proven, at this point I'm not even confident that's her real name.

Following my meticulous line-by-line fisking of the unsupported assertions in her ridiculous "a $15 minimum wage would devastate immigrant businesses" screed, you'd think she might slink away and hang her head in shame. But no. For that would require the ability to either A) understand my critique, or B) feel shame. Instead Pian Chan chooses to double-down on her bullshit by following up her bogus economic claims with a single anecdotal example:

A war is being waged in SeaTac over the minimum wage. ... I argued in a Wednesday blog post that it would devastate immigrant-owned businesses. (Our editorial board has also recommended a no vote in an editorial.)

James Shin is one of those immigrants. Shin, 64, owns the Quality Inn SeaTac. In 2011, he used his life savings to buy the 104-room hotel, and he would be required to pay his workers $15 an hour if Proposition 1 passes. It would, in fact, be a crippling financial blow to Shin.

[...] Shin’s largest expense is labor. He’s done the math. If Proposition 1 passes, he says, “I have to file bankruptcy. It doesn’t make any sense.

No, it doesn't make any sense. Because due to its relatively small size, Shin's Quality Inn SeaTac would be exempt from Proposition 1.

SeaTac's Proposition 1 only applies to hotels and motels with 100 or more rooms and 30 or more non-managerial employees. Pian Chan's latest post claims that the Quality Inn has 104 rooms, but when a representative from the Yes campaign inquired about booking the entire hotel, they say they were told that there are only 82 rooms in service. But more definitively, Shin's own filing with the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries (doing business as JP & J, INC.) states that the Quality Inn only employs "11 to 20 Workers."*

So I don't know what kind of math Shin allegedly did, but Pian Chan obviously didn't bother to do any. I mean, who needs to double check your facts when you've got the Seattle Times banner lending you instant credibility? Because journalism!

"Shin spent two decades working seven days a week from dawn until night," Pian Chan bleats sympathetically. "He saved up his money and put it into businesses he hoped would sustain him and his family. And SeaTac voters are about to light a bomb over his head." Except they're not. Because the initiative was written to specifically exempt small business owners like Shin, regardless of how many times the lying liars at the Seattle Times falsely insist otherwise.

How fucking embarrassing.

* (While I was writing my post, Pian Chan finally added an update to her's acknowledging that the Quality Inn has fewer than 30 employees, but incredibly insisting that it would still be subject to Prop. 1 "because Shin was planning to increase his staff to 30 in 2014." Because struggling businesses routinely double their workforce. Clearly, Pian Chan thinks her readers are stupid. Either way, she obviously never bothered to verify Shin's easily verifiable claims before appending her byline to them.)