COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Friday, July 01, 2011

60% of French voters thought it was a political conspiracy against Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

It looks as if they were right:
Guardian


Strauss-Kahn case is 'close to collapse', say reports

The case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn is in doubt following reports of major holes in the credibility of the woman who alleges the former head of the IMF attacked her in May


The prosecution case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund and French presidential hopeful accused of sexually assaulting a hotel maid, is close to collapse, a report in the New York Times has claimed.

The newspaper reports allegations that significant problems have emerged with the case against the former IMF boss that could see the conditions of his house arrest in New York being relaxed with immediate effect.

Based on interviews with two unnamed law enforcement officers, it says that "major holes" in the case will be admitted to a federal criminal court in Manhattan as early as Friday. New York Police Department had no comment last night.

At the centre of the potentially dramatic turn in the case, the New York Times reports, is lack of confidence on the prosecution side in the witness's testimony about herself and what she says happened to her in Strauss-Kahn's room at the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan on May 14. After she alleged that he sexually assaulted her, New York authorities swept into action, arresting Strauss-Kahn as he waited to take off on a flight to Europe.

Separately, the Associated Press reported that prosecutors have raised issues about the woman's credibility, citing an official who is familiar with the case saying the issue was not necessarily about the rape accusation itself, but rather questions surrounding the alleged victim's background that could damage her credibility on the witness stand.

Lawyers in the defence team for Strauss-Kahn have suggested that they had evidence calling into question the veracity of the housekeeper's account, but until now the nature of the doubts have not been revealed.

Lawyers for the maid - who is not being named - were unavailable for comment last night. She has already testified before a grand jury about the charges in New York and convinced them of the merits of her case. When stories first emerged that Strauss Kahn's lawyers intended to argue the woman had consensual sex with Strauss-Kahn, her former lawyer Jeffrey Shapiro said: "There was nothing about any aspect of this encounter between this young woman and the defendant which was remotely consensual or could be construed as consensual, either physical contact or sexual contact."

56 comments:

  1. 60% of French voters are, . . well, French.

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  2. I don't think there's a whole lot of difference between your average Frenchman, and Arab.

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  3. Hardly a fine day for the NYPD and DA Office:

    …but she is just a sweet Muslim girl.

    Diversity is our strength.

    "personally associated" with money launderers and drug dealers

    "She’s a con artist," one law enforcement source said, adding that prosecutors have concluded "she cannot be put on the stand.

    "She’d be a flawed witness."

    The alleged victim, a chambermaid at the Sofitel Hotel, "continuously lied to us," a law-enforcement source told The Post.


    Diversity…think Diversity…she is very diverse


    Within a day of the May 14 incident, the maid called a friend who was in jail for allegedly possessing 400 pound of marijuana to discuss how she could benefit from the tryst, The New York Times reported.

    Equally troubling, investigators learned that several people from around the country made multiple cash deposits in her bank account totaling $100,000 over the past two years, the Times said.

    Questions about her credibility were first revealed by The Post days after Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, including the fact that she lived in subsidized housing for AIDS patients, although she swore to investigators she was not infected.

    She also paid hundreds of dollars in phone charges every month to five different companies, although she insisted she had only one phone herself.


    Diversity…think Diversity…she is very diverse

    She also showed inconsistencies on her asylum application to the United States some 10 years ago — for which there is a "good chance she could get deported," according to a Post source

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  4. vous avez jugé et catalogué les français comme des grands pervers alors qu'en fin de compte vous les americains vous vous etes fourvoyés en nous accusant sans preuve vous etes des gros mythos, hontes a vous.

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  5. .

    It looks as if they were right:

    1. The nature of the man and past actions while merely circumstantial say that he deserves what he gets.

    2. "Lawyers in the defence team for Strauss-Kahn have suggested that they had evidence calling into question the veracity of the housekeeper's account, but until now the nature of the doubts have not been revealed."

    What would one expect?

    We'll see how it plays out. At least, he's lost his job with the IMF.

    The guy is a dick. (Can I say that?)

    .

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  6. I don't think there's a whole lot of difference between your average American, and a fool.

    What did your mayor Bloomberg say? If he didn't want to be escorted through a throng of reporters in handcuffs- tired, dishevelled, unshaven and hungry- he shouldn't have done the crime? Looks like maybe he didn't do the crime. Looks like Bloomberg is not a fan of due process or any of the other little hallmarks laid down in our common law since 1215. Will he be apologising? I would be most surprised as my impression of American politicians is that they will say anything, go on TV to do anything, and disseminate obscene photos of themselves to all and sundry electronically and never apologise for their "mistakes" until enough people have been damaged by their irresponsibility.

    All this information about this woman's sordid past came out because DST had the financial resources to hire his own investigators. If the NYPD had conducted a proper investigation before they made the decision to lay charges they could have saved themselves from looking so foolish. American justice indeed. You can keep it!

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  7. I don't believe that I did a post on this when it happened. The incident seemed incredible to me because if you need female company in NYC, you don't need to rape anyone, especially with his high profile.

    My concern is how easy it is to make the rape charge in our PC era and God help you if you do not have the money to fight it. You get ten years in jail.

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  8. Quirk's right. The guy Is a dick. If he's not quite as guilty as it first looked, ahh, too bad.

    The fucking French should have extradited the despicable child molester when we asked.

    Fuck the French.

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  9. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/commentary/neil-reynolds/with-its-oil-treasure-israel-gets-a-shield-from-tyranny/article2078985/


    fuck the arabs.

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  10. he London-based World Energy Council says Israel’s Shfela Basin, a half-hour drive south of Jerusalem, holds 250 billion barrels of recoverable shale oil, possibly making the energy-vulnerable country (as expressed by The Wall Street Journal) “the world’s newest energy giant.” With reserves of 260 billion barrels, Saudi Arabia would remain the world’s No. 1 oil country – though not, perhaps, for long. Howard Jonas, CEO of U.S.-based IDT Corp., the company that owns the Shfela Basin concession, says there is much more oil under Israel than under Saudi Arabia: Perhaps, he says, twice as much.

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  11. Speaking of "dicks in action:" Republican ex-Governor of Va (Gilmour?) on CNBC saying "we shouldn't raise the debt ceiling, we shouldn't cut defense spending, we shouldn't raise taxes, and we SHOULD balance the budget."

    Figure that one out.

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  12. the gop should hold strong on one idea...

    no raising the debt limit with out dollar for dollar specific spending cuts.

    I suggest the following:

    Symbolic cuts from the executive brand for spending on vacations

    a haircut for all foreign aid to all allies (and I do mean allies) of 6 %

    a bigger cut of 12% of all foreign aid to all of those other nations that have a 80% or less voting record in the UN

    an even bigger cut 30% to any and all nations that have a 55% or less voting record with the US in the UN

    and finally a 70% in any and all aid (including food, medicine) to any nation or peoples that vote less than 40% with the USA in the UN

    Return to 2008 spending leveling on any US governmental program that has increased since 2008.

    Return to the treasury any and all moneys from the stimulus NOT SPEND at this time.


    start with that...

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  13. Chavez, who on many occasion called Bush "The Great Satan," which seems much worse than calling someone a Dick, has Cancer.

    I hate it.

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  14. The typical rape defense is to attack the victim.

    So, there you have it.

    The accused was running.
    The victim, not.

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  15. I really resent having my tax dollars go to stationing 100,000 Troops in Europe. To continue bankrupting ourselves to keep the peace among those execrable people just chaps my ass.

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  16. The accused was indicted, there should be a trail.

    Then a jury can decide on the credibility of the victim.

    The one that already heard the evidence, returned the indictment.

    The a good DA can get a ham sandwich indicted, or so that story goes.

    Which is why there are trials, to find the "truth".

    Blago knows that jury verdicts can be "stunning".

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  17. Rufus II said...
    I really resent having my tax dollars go to stationing 100,000 Troops in Europe. To continue bankrupting ourselves to keep the peace among those execrable people just chaps my ass


    let not exclude the cost of protecting oil's free flow from the middle east to china.....

    just how much does that cost us?

    we need to help those nations around the world that share values AND are willing to help themselves.

    Let's look at the % of gdp spent on national defense.

    If a nation spends LESS (%) than the USA on it's own defense why should we support them?

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  18. desert rat said...
    The accused was indicted, there should be a trail.






    I like trails...

    I backpack alot you know...

    I am scare of bike trails as I am not a good mountain biker...

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  19. Grand Juries don't Always indict. They did in this case; there should be a trial.

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  20. Sure you are not scare"d", "o"

    Dig deep and buck up, amigo.

    There is nothing to fear, but fear itself.

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  21. .

    Provenge, a new therapy for incurable stage prostate cancer
    with a $93,000 price tag, will be covered by Medicare,
    officials confirmed yesterday. The medication has been shown to give men whose cancer has not responded to radiation or hormone therapy and has spread through the body an extra four months of life.

    A Medicare spokesman described Provenge as a "reasonable and necessary"

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  22. After chemo and hormone therapy fails, the people of the US will pay an additional $22,500 a month, to keep a terminal patient out of the ground, for an additional four months.

    The Federals deciding that it is both "reasonable and necessary" for the government to provide payment for that.

    Fred Thompson was correct.

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  23. What part of "incurable" do the Medicare Federals not understand?

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  24. Glenn Beck is leaving the NE and moving to Texas. He is renting a house a few miles from me for 20k a month. Jorge Piedra's shack.

    20,000 a month.

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  25. Jorge's been out of work for a while.

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  26. He doesnt need to work. His wife is a Swarovski heiress.

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  27. Sarah Palin, and the whole "death panels" thing probably has the Federales spooked.

    Some huge percentage of all the money that Medicare spends is spent in the last year (or 4 months, or somesuch) of a recipient's life.

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  28. I want to go on a long vacation with my wife.


    dwrnl

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  29. Proves Fred Thompson's point, rufus.

    The Federals spend lavishly on terminal patients, while letting the youngsters go without any Federal medical benefits, at all, but for mandated but unfunded Emergency Room visits.

    The Federals certainly fail the "Goose and Gander Standard".

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  30. Youngsters don't have anyone lobbying for them, Oldsters do.

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  31. In so many words and in some very bad French, Eva is telling us that we (USA) are categorizing the French as perverts, and we should be ashamed of ourselves. (I think).

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  32. That, gag, was Mr Thompson's point.

    The looters are organized, the average citizens, not so much.

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  33. I've know two Evas in my life. One was a Gypsy lunatic, and the other divorced me.

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  34. Rufus, thanks for that, I needed to laugh.

    Now if Sam can come up with one his jokes, or even better, if Hu Dat can make an appearance...well, who knows.

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  35. Net Oil, and Products Imports from Mexico are Down 75% from 2006.

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  36. Down to 400,000 bbl/day from 1,600,000 bbl/day.

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  37. :)

    A little early for Sam, I think, but Hu Dat is always appreciated.

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  38. 2,000 miles on a gallon of gas.

    Amazin'. I could go to California for $3.50.

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  39. Medicare will pay, even if the medication does not work. The GOP in lock step with the Pharmaceuticals.

    The dust hasn't settled from the FDA advisory panel vote on Avastin, and it doesn't look likely to settle soon. Even as Medicare officials announced they'd continue to cover Avastin for breast cancer--regardless of whether the FDA ends up pulling the indication--Republican lawmakers were criticizing agency's very attempt.

    Indeed, House Republicans are promising to make Avastin an issue during next week's hearings on the reauthorization of FDA's user-fee funding provisions. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton says he has "grave" concerns about FDA's review of the data on Avastin, the Wall Street Journal reports, ...
    ...
    Avastin won its breast cancer approval under the agency's fast-track program, which required Genentech to conduct follow-up studies to confirm preliminary data that supported that approval.

    The follow-ups didn't deliver enough evidence of Avastin's benefit to breast cancer patients, at least not enough for the FDA, so the agency has moved to pull that indication. The advisory panel hearings and vote earlier this week were part of Genentech's appeal of that FDA move. Genentech is now wholly owned by Roche.





    Read more: Medicare won't drop Avastin for breast cancer - FiercePharma http://www.fiercepharma.com/story/medicare-wont-drop-avastin-breast-cancer/2011-07-01#ixzz1Qrt44fWd

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  40. Bob

    I don't. That is, go on a long vacation with your wife.

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  41. Not only that, but Medicare pays "Top Dollar" for the drugs that do work.

    We could probably come close to making Medicare "Solvent" just by insisting that they pay no more than, say, an individual citizen in Canada, or France.

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  42. I think I read, somewhere, or heard it, that the No. 1 rated healthcare system in America, Dollar for Dollar, is the VA.

    I don't know if that's true, but I wouldn't doubt it. They give good service, but they strike me as being pretty "cheap" (meant in a good way, of course.)

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  43. :)

    Thanks, Gag.

    I appreciate that.

    She is the most wonderful woman in the world.

    dwrnl

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  44. "Patients routinely rank the veterans system above the alternatives, according to the American Customer Satisfaction Index." In 2008, the VHA got a satisfaction rating of 85 for inpatient treatment, compared with 77 for private hospitals. In the same report the VHA outpatient care scored 3 points higher than for private hospitals.[3]

    "As compared with the Medicare fee-for-service program, the VA performed significantly better on all 11 similar quality indicators for the period from 1997 through 1999. In 2000, the VA outperformed Medicare on 12 of 13 indicators." [4]

    A study that compared VHA with commercial managed care systems in their treatment of diabetes patients found that in all seven measures of quality, the VHA provided better care.[5]

    A RAND Corporation study in 2004 concluded that the VHA outperforms all other sectors of American health care in 294 measures of quality; Patients from the VHA scored significantly higher for adjusted overall quality, chronic disease care, and preventive care, but not for acute care.[6]

    A 2009 Congressional Budget Office report on the VHA found that "the care provided to VHA patients compares favorably with that provided to non-VHA patients in terms of compliance with widely recognized clinical guidelines — particularly those that VHA has emphasized in its internal performance measurement system. Such research is complicated by the fact that most users of VHA’s services receive at least part of their care from outside providers."

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  45. .

    My concern is how easy it is to make the rape charge in our PC era and God help you if you do not have the money to fight it. You get ten years in jail.

    Let's not confuse things here. The DNA shows DSK had sex with the maid. It becomes he said she said so it can be hard to prove what really happened.

    However, the problems she has is with statements she made to get into this country and because she's been known to hang with a drug dealer (neither of which I suspect is all that uncommon in NY).

    DSK on the other hand is a known womanizer and the IMF has taken heat for allowing him to stay on after they found out he had an affair with one of the staffers.

    The woman's background may have little to do with the rape charge but the defense will use it for all it's worth.

    As for Eva, she sounds a bit paronoid. It was DSK that was accused of rape not the French people. What I will say is that the French seem to be enamoured by powerful men with money who can't seem to keep their dicks in their pants. The name Sarkozy comes to mind.

    Both of these guys are diminuitive. Perhaps, they are compensating.

    As for Anonymous, his attack on Americans and our judicial system I chalk up to his ignorance of the law.

    Did the police overreact in making DSK do the perp walk. You bet. However, they had to arrest him when they did because of the flight risk he posed.

    I repeat, DSK is a dick, albeit a small one.

    .

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  46. I don't think the police overreacted in making him do a "perp walk." If you, or I, get accused of rape WE are going to do the ol' perp walk. If they go down into th hood to pick up Jerome on a rape beef, they damned well better slap the cuffs on him. or, Bubba, either, for that matter.

    This isn't France. We don't have (supposedly) one set of rules for the peeps, and another for the hoity-toity.

    I think the cops did just fine.

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  47. I don't think the police overreacted in making him do a "perp walk." If you, or I, get accused of rape WE are going to do the ol' perp walk. If they go down into th hood to pick up Jerome on a rape beef, they damned well better slap the cuffs on him. or, Bubba, either, for that matter.

    This isn't France. We don't have (supposedly) one set of rules for the peeps, and another for the hoity-toity.

    I think the cops did just fine.

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  48. Am I starting to repeat myself, again?





    Am I starting to repeat myself, again.





    Am I st . . . . .

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  49. So, wait. Whit retired from the bar.

    Who's gonna listen to my music? Or watch my dance videos?

    I know you're reading so If it makes you happy


    It makes me happy.

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  50. Well, mos likely won't be Whit but rest of us lifers.

    :)

    dwrnl

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  51. You ever wonder how nat gas "fracking" actually works? Here's a great little Animation

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  52. what does it mean when you start seeing doubler?

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  53. Means you bin in pryson two looong and need a trip south

    dwrnl

    ReplyDelete