Is the Head of the IMF a Sex Criminal?

The sex encounter, even if only alleged, sure does have some magical power. The dignity of the feminine has precedence over the dignity of US sporting prowess.

Strauss-Kahn severance revisits CEO pay dilemma
Fri, May 20 2011
By Tom Hals and Dena Aubin

WILMINGTON, Del./NEW YORK (Reuters) - The IMF now faces a challenge that keeps members of corporate compensation committees up at night: explaining why they may have to pay a handsome severance package to an indicted executive.

Companies have worked hard in recent years to avoid such a situation by rewriting employment agreements to deny a "golden parachute" to disgraced executives.

Former International Monetary Fund managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, facing charges of attempted rape in New York, resigned his post from the global lender on Wednesday.

Strauss-Kahn's contract entitles him to a one-time severance payment of $250,000, the IMF said on Friday.

Strauss-Kahn has denied the charges and vowed to prove his innocence.

"Assuming he's guilty, this would be every company's nightmare -- to pay severance to someone who's a felon," said Alan Johnson, managing director of compensation consulting firm Johnson Associates.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/20/us-strausskahn-ceopay-idUSTRE74J70A20110520

That's how we treat people, all people, arrested for crimes in the U.S., even international big shots. That this horrifies the French, is their problem. They like to shield their political figures, we don't.

Trial by media……the disgraceful treatment of Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Sunday, May 22, 2011

Life can be a real bitch sometimes. One moment you’re sitting in the first class cabin of an Air France aircraft, sipping a glass of champagne and waiting for your flight to leave New York for Paris; the next you’re being escorted off the plane and find yourself facing rape charges which carry a possible maximum prison sentence of 25 years. Who said the world of international finance was dull?

Whatever views you may hold concerning Dominique Strauss-Kahn (DSK), the now former head of the International Monetary Fund, it would be difficult to deny that he has been treated appallingly by the American legal system. Whatever the eventual outcome of his case, his life has been ruined and his reputation destroyed. The good work he may have done for the IMF will be eclipsed for ever by the image of him sitting unshaven in a New York courtroom listening to his first bail application being turned down. Are there always TV cameras in that courtroom or was this all arranged for the benefit of DSK?

The assumption of innocence until proven guilty is rendered nonsensical when the media are allowed to influence public opinion. Obviously it was newsworthy for the head of the IMF to be escorted off an aircraft ten minutes before take off and I imagine the newspaper editors were drooling with delight when they heard the reason. After all, DSK has a bit of form when it comes to extra marital hanky panky. But, in mitigation, he’s French and that’s what French politicians are known for. In fact, the French voter would be highly suspicious of any politician who hadn’t had at least two mistresses and a clutch of love children. But there’s a big difference between screwing an attractive young IMF staffer and jumping on a chamber maid in your New York hotel room and raping her. Either DSK has completely lost his marbles or this is a well orchestrated frame up.

My first reaction on hearing of the allegations was to dismiss them as a complete fabrication. Why would DSK, a man of huge political influence and profile, suddenly feel overwhelmed with lust at around midday when the hotel’s housekeeping service visited his room? We know little of the allegedly raped housekeeper other than she is a 32 year old single mother from Guinea in Africa. Maybe she is so stunningly beautiful that it was hard for DSK to resist the temptation. Speaking from personal experience, I have yet to be overwhelmed with lust for any hotel housekeeping staff but I probably don’t stay at the sort of hotels frequented by DSK. And, anyway, I’m not French and can control my desires. The fact is that DSK could have afforded the best looking hooker in NYC if he had wanted to and avoided all this hassle. He must have known that which is why I find it very difficult to believe that this is anything other than a set up. After all, DSK would have made many enemies as head of the IMF and who is to say that the Greeks or the Portuguese or some other bankrupt nation forced into austerity measures aren’t behind this?

And which is the most indebted nation in the world and one in denial at that?…..you got it, the Americans. They would have every reason to frame DSK and replace him with someone more inclined to turn a blind eye to the crippling American debt situation. How’s that for a conspiracy theory?

All of which would explain why DSK was held in the high security Rikers Island prison with all sorts of low lifes. And why he was denied the opportunity to shave and smarten himself up for his first court appearance last Monday. And why the media have helped this whole charade along by gleefully showing footage of a man who has been publicly disgraced and humiliated without a single charge being proved?

When DSK was escorted from the aircraft he asked the Port Authority police officers “what is this about?” He had also phoned the hotel where he had been staying to ask if they had found his mislaid cell phone. It turns out they had and so he asked them to please deliver it to JFK airport. These are hardly the actions of a man looking to make a quick getaway from the scene of a rape crime.

Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s political ambitions now lie in tatters and the cost of defending himself against these charges may not bankrupt him but they will certainly hit him hard. In addition, the stress of defending the charge and the fact that all the accusations, whether true or not, appear in the world’s press will almost certainly have a detrimental effect on his health. If he is found guilty of these charges in the future then all of this is deserved and we should feel no sympathy. But, if we hold the view that a man is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law then we should abhor what is going on. This is nothing but trial by media and even if DSK does manage to clear his name the damage has already been done. This would be bad enough if it was happening in Russia (where show trials against Putin’s enemies are popular) but the fact that it is happening in the US should disgust us all.

Firefly, that is simply a monstrous lie. You know it is!

No place for class divide in justice
Miranda Devine
Sunday Herald
Sun May 22, 2011

THERE was something so refreshingly egalitarian about the arrest of International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn at New York's JFK Airport last week.
The famous French socialist was luxuriating in a first-class seat in Air France's L'Espace Premier cabin, glass of Billecart-Salmon Brut Vintage in hand, soft lights, piped music, flight attendants fluttering around and Michelin-starred menus.

Then in stomped New York's finest and hauled him off the plane.

France was outraged and sophisticated intellectuals the world over condemned the barbaric US justice system that considers the welfare of a poor immigrant hotel maid more important than the dignity of an entitled French banker.

It seems immaterial to Strauss-Khan's instant defenders that the haughty, jetsetting bureaucrat has been accused of a despicable crime - attempting to rape the 32-year-old maid who came to clean his $3000-a-night penthouse suite at New York's swanky Sofitel.

He sexually assaulted her and tried to rape her, prosecutors allege.

Unable to remove her pantyhose, he forced her to perform oral sex.

Strauss-Khan's lawyers claimed the maid consented to these indignities, as the 62-year-old financier was released on bail into home detention in a rented Manhattan apartment.

But like the Roman Polanski under-age rape case, Strauss-Khan's arrest has been just another opportunity to sneer at the US's puritanism.

Again we see the world split - between narcissistic Left-wing elites who believe justice is flexible and people like them should be able to do whatever they like, and the rest of us, who believe in equality under the law and that vulnerable people should be protected.

There is Strauss-Khan, the wealthy, thrice-married womaniser expected to run as the Socialist candidate for the French presidency next year. And there is the alleged victim, a devout Muslim who lives in an insalubrious flat in the Bronx and works to support a teenage daughter with whom she escaped Guinea and the kind of violence she allegedly met in the room she was trying to clean.

According to her lawyer, she is a "very proper, dignified young woman". Her neighbours described her as modest and quiet.

Strauss-Khan, aka DSK, is one of those silver-tongued Billecart-Salmon socialists who talks theoretically about the gap between rich and poor while living off our tax dollars - yes, our dollars.

The IMF is funded to the tune of $750 billion from developed countries such as Australia, which pours in tens of billions of dollars each year.

FRENCH intellectuals such as Bernard-Henri Levy are screaming blue murder about the "disgraceful" treatment of the (former) IMF president.

Levy is angry with the US judge "who ... pretended to take (DSK) for a subject of justice like any other".

Even on our ABC, discussion of the Strauss-Kahn case trivialised the plight of the victim.

ABC 702 radio host Deb Cameron equated Strauss-Kahn to Arnold Schwarzenegger -- men whose careers have been "undone by infidelity", as if the IMF chief was just accused of having nookie on the side.

DSK is innocent until proven guilty but in France, where it appears his behaviour has long been tolerated, other victims came forward last week to describe the powerful banker as sex-crazed.

Journalist Tristane Banon has reportedly hired a lawyer over an alleged sexual assault by DSK when she was 22.

"We fought on the floor, it was not just a couple of slaps. I kicked him. He tried to undo my bra, he also tried to open my jeans. When we were fighting, I said the word rape to him to frighten him, but it didn't seem to frighten him at all. Later, he wouldn't stop texting me, saying, 'Are you scared of me?'," she said.

She said all that four years ago on a French talk show and no one batted an eyelid.

The New York Times reports that a culture of predatory behaviour against women existed at the IMF under Strauss-Khan.

Women were apparently so intimidated by his aggressive sexual advances that they did not wear skirts and made sure never to be caught alone with him.

One woman left the IMF with a generous payout after complaining of being pressured to sleep with him.

But to American financial commentator Ben Stein, it is inconceivable that a banker as eminent as DSK could be guilty of a crime.

On the other hand, many hotel maids "are complete lunatics, stealing airline tickets, stealing money, throwing away important papers, stealing medication ... This is a case about the hatred of the have-nots for the haves and that's what it's all about".

No, this case is about the fact that just because people talk about liberty, equality and fraternity, it doesn't mean they mean it.

In fact those who lecture most about the evils of capitalism and the need to reduce consumption and slow progress are like the pervert moralisers of old - the last people to listen to.

This is the beauty of the US and Australia, the most successful immigrant nations. No matter how powerful and important, no one is above the law.
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/no-place-for-class-divide-in-justice/story-e6frfhqf-1226060335324

The only evidence I have seen in this case is an accusation.

If it was the chairman of some large American public institution the French would have giggled.

Does "sport section" equate to "pitiful men's things"?

They might have. But this Frenchman is accused of violating serious laws in NYC--where they do not giggle about such matters, and where they don't care about his social position or status.

It wasn't even allowed to get to the point where Nixon would be charged with his crimes before he was shielded both by the rule of law government and the press.

that is an amazingly blind assertion about a country that, more than any other, lets the corporate class walk away with everything that they can carry. It is only when these people violate some cherished racial or sexual morality that we "treat them like everybody else".

The ritual of placing a garland of leaves impregnated with sulphur on the stake victim's head has its modern counterpart in the drivel about DKS being placed on suicide watch as if that has anything to do with him. I don't think there's the remotest possibility of DKS being suicidal. It was a refinement of the torture of his reputation. Sadistically effected. The only way for a female to rape a male. To say he's a coward as well

In a crime of this nature, which occurs outside the view of any witnesses, the police have to go by the accusation of the person who claims they were harmed, if that assertion appears credible to them.

Yes, the French deserve to be mocked. Every day, it becomes ever more clear that the French -- particularly the French socialists who counted DSK as their leader -- turned a blind eye to the man's ever more risky and appalling behavior.
Yes, the French left's attempt to turn this into a story of "American Puritanism" run amok is beyond absurd. DSK was arrested after fleeing his Times Square hotel, not a
megachurch in Alabama. And, last I checked, the NYPD Special Victims Unit was not a hotbed of Amish and Mennonites.
But America is hardly so righteous. As blogger Will Collier notes, if you replaced "socialist" with "Democrat" in many of these stories, and "Dominique Strauss-Kahn" with "Ted Kennedy," the results would be pretty illuminating.
After Chappaquiddick, the liberal establishment did its best to cover up a potential homicide by the "liberal lion." It offered something close to a Gallic shrug when Sens. Kennedy and Chris Dodd made a "waitress sandwich" out of an unsuspecting restaurant server. And as Christopher Hitchens recalls in Slate, Teddy's priapic brother John was such a "seducer" he imported "a Mafia gun-moll into the White House sleeping quarters."
If memory serves, Bill Clinton had to deal with a large number of "bimbo eruptions," as one of his aides put it. He was accused of sexual assault and sexual harassment. The same feminists who once insisted that women never make such things up were suddenly calling the president's accusers liars or by simply abandoning the very standards they had established.
Gloria Steinem took to the pages of The New York Times to establish what has become known as the "one free grope" rule. Susan Faludi, author of the feminist bible "Backlash," suddenly took a more laissez-faire attitude toward sexual aggression, requiring "nuanced" responses "in scale to the offense." A reporter for Time magazine insisted she'd be happy to pleasure the president just for keeping abortion legal.
So yes, the French should be ashamed. But they're not the only ones.


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/are_we_much_better_than_the_french_rzBod4HzGVFa3nVa6KZwYK#ixzz1N1UHoBnD

The hysterical bride in the penny arcade
Screaming she moans, “I’ve just been made”
Then sends out for the doctor who pulls down the shade
Says, “My advice is to not let the boys in”

Now the medicine man comes and he shuffles inside
He walks with a swagger and he says to the bride
“Stop all this weeping, swallow your pride
You will not die, it’s not poison”

Oh his face was all shot up and his hand was all blown off
And he wore a metal brace around his waist
He whispered kind of slow, in a voice she did not know
While she couldn’t even recognize his face!

Oh! Lord! Not even recognize his face.