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Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

Archive | July, 2011

Strauss-Kahn Case Bombshell, So Why Did He Resign from IMF?

By on 01 July 2011

**UPDATED**

“Nothing changes one very important fact, namely, that Dominique Strauss-Kahn violently sexually assaulted the victim inside of that hotel room at the Sofitel,” he said. Prosecutors from the office of the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., who initially were emphatic about the strength of the case and the account of the victim, plan to tell the judge on Friday that they “have problems with the case” based on what their investigators have discovered, and will disclose more of their findings to the defense. The woman still maintains that she was attacked, the officials said. “It is a mess, a mess on both sides,” one official said. – Strauss-Kahn Case Faces Test in Hearing

Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s guilty conscience made him do it, resign his IMF position, that is. Too bad he didn’t know then what the New York Times is now reporting.

Readying to run for the president of France, in fact already the favorite to win over Sarkozy, Strauss-Kahn caving to intense public pressure after doing the perp walk, it’s stunning now that the alleged rape victim’s own credibility and behavior has thrown the international sex crime intrigue into a tail spin.

I can’t see any reason for Strauss-Kahn giving up so much after he was arrested if he didn’t assault the maid. But in a rape case the woman has to be a credible witness or it devolves into a never ending case of he said-she said.

The New York sex crime unit has a very good reputation, but if the New York Times is correct in its reporting, with there no reason to believe they aren’t, it’s obvious that the urgency to arrest Strauss-Kahn before he left the country was the primary objective and came before anyone did any homework at all on the maid, which is truly investigative malpractice.

There’s a lot said in this country by feminists that America doesn’t take rape seriously. Ms. Magazine’s tweets are often focused on this subject. I’ve never agreed with this stance, though I certainly understand the horror for a woman attacked and the cultural history in this country of blaming her.

It could be the case here that Strauss-Kahn’s womanizing caught up with him in New York City, but that the woman he assaulted had her own problems too, which even if he’s a scoundrel and she was raped, has caused the case to implode.

Dramatic development, to say the least.

According to the two officials, the woman had a phone conversation with an incarcerated man within a day of her encounter with Mr. Strauss-Kahn in which she discussed the possible benefits of pursuing the charges against him. The conversation was recorded.

That man, the investigators learned, had been arrested on charges of possessing 400 pounds of marijuana. He is among a number of individuals who made multiple cash deposits, totaling around $100,000, into the woman’s bank account over the last two years. The deposits were made in Arizona, Georgia, New York and Pennsylvania.

The investigators also learned that she was paying hundreds of dollars every month in phone charges to five companies. The woman had insisted she had only one phone and said she knew nothing about the deposits except that they were made by a man she described as her fiancé and his friends.

Let the conspiracy theories fly.

UPDATE 2: Prosecutors release the letter sent to defense lawyers about the accuser of Strauss-Kahn, which obviously led to his release. It’s a horrible embarrassment for the N.Y. D.A. Even as the woman’s allegations of rape by Strauss-Kahn could be true, her prior false statements, including on affidavits, are devastating to the prosecution. In part it reads:

[...] In interviews in connection with the investigation of this case, the complainant admitted that the above factual information, which she provided in connection with her asylum application, was false. She stated that she fabricated the statement with the assistance of a male who provided her with a cassette recording of the facts contained in the statement that she eventually submitted. She memorized these facts by listening to the recording repeatedly. In several interviews with prosecutors, she reiterated these falsehoods when questioned about her history and background, and stated that she did so in order to remain consistent with the statement that she had submitted as part of her application.

Additionally, in two separate interviews with assistant district attorneys assigned to the case, the complainant stated that she had been the victim of a gang rape in the past in her native country and provided details of the attack. During both of these interviews, the victim cried and appeared to be markedly distraught when recounting the incident. In subsequent interviews, she admitted that the gang rape had never occurred. Instead, she stated that she had lied about its occurrence and fabricated the details, and that this false incident was part of the narrative that she had been directed to memorize as part of her asylum application process. .. …

UPDATE: Strauss-Kahn has been freed without bail by judge.

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They Like Obama Soft

By on 01 July 2011

New details on Mark Halperin’s suspension: An MSNBC source tells me that MSNBC preident [sic] Phil Griffin’s initial response to Halperin’s “dick” crack was that he should be suspended for two weeks, in keeping with Ed Schultz’s recent limited suspension. But the volume of emails flooding in demanding Halperin’s firing persuaded him the suspension should be indefinite, the source says. That’s what MSNBC announced this morning. – Greg Sargent

I was not incensed by Mark Halperin’s “dick” moment. I wish Barack Obama would show up and be “kind of a dick,” so it’s telling when he’s forced to make the Democratic case that a darling in the traditional media food chain blows all decorum on MSNBC.

People who didn’t recognize the language Halperin used to characterize Obama have evidently forgotten Game Change. A political Peyton Place that’s hard to put down, with scenes like the one with the late Elizabeth Edwards confronting her louse of a spouse in a cringe worthy scene what helped the book become a blockbuster.

The report above from Sargent is the only coverage that caught my eye as truly newsworthy about the whole event. I thought the indefinite suspension was way over the top. But now we know Pres. Obama’s supporters exploded over Halperin’s insult, with good reason, making the incoming too intense for MSNBC to ignore. What’s a network to do when the Obama brigade and their viewership descend in an avalanche of calls and emails? Obama’s faithful are paying attention and not afraid to take scalps, which is very good news for Democrats looking to 2012.

In the midst of the Halperin drama entered Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, who said that Pres. Obama should “take a Valium and calm down” after his news conference yesterday.

Now, I’m not going to say Sen. Roberts is equating Pres. Obama with a hysterical woman in need of a tranquilizer, which is straight out of Roberts’ generation, but his remark clearly insinuates that Barack Obama was out of control, in over his head and too immature to control himself without pharmaceuticals.

Back last fall when Sen. Mitch McConnell stated, “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” we all knew he wasn’t kidding, but now we see it in action, with Roberts willing to do some of the dirty work.

As for Halperin and his channeling conventional Republican wisdom for a living, the jig is finally up. It pissed him off to see Pres. Obama take a break from playing kumbaya games with Republicans, who’ve benefited from Obama moving the entire political discussion to the Right. But Halperin’s really upset that Obama finally listened to strong Democrats in Congress as well as his base, because it sets up a dynamic he can’t manipulate or control.

Democratic adversaries prefer Pres. Obama soft. Because to Halperin and the Beltway bunch, there’s nothing worse than strong Democrats holding the line against Republican economic insanity. These are the same people who deemed Rep. Paul Ryan courageous for suggesting the only solution to our economic problems is ending Medicare as we know it.

Pres. Obama hasn’t been nearly strong enough making the case for Democratic economic priorities, getting seduced into believing that if he played mediator instead of leader he could stay above the fray and Republicans would meet him half way, an accomplishment for him the result. This naiveté over the last 2.5 years has riled Democratic leaders, but particularly movement progressives, who have to be hoping these latest events have awakened the President to the fact that the only negotiating he’s been doing for the last 2.5 years is with against Democrats and progressives, the people who desperately want him to stand up and fight and win.

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