vanlose kid wrote:^ ^
a bit underwhelming, that. seems TM doesn't read his own articles.
*
What do you mean? I thought it was pretty compelling.
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by Nordic » Wed Jun 01, 2011 11:53 am
vanlose kid wrote:^ ^
a bit underwhelming, that. seems TM doesn't read his own articles.
*
by anothershamus » Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:30 pm
http://tradewithdave.com/?p=6640
Maid In The Shade
Dave has done a lot of traveling… a whole lot. As much as 150 days a year. Dave knows a thing or two about hotels and how to make sure your laptop, passport and wallet make it with you regardless of what may happen along the way. According to this report, Russia’s Vladmir Putin is making connections between the arrest of Egyptian Banker Mahmoud Abdel Salam Omar and IMF Head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, both accused of assaulting maids at plush Manhattan Hotels.
If you read our recent piece on RICS Bricks, you know that Russia is obviously motivated to undermine the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Even when you consider the obvious motivations, the similarities in these two scenarios is striking.
What’s the connection between hotel maids and these two arrests? According to Putin, both of these men possessed secret knowledge that there was no gold in Fort Knox. According to the article, the reason that Strauss-Kahn left his cell phone behind was because he did not want to be followed by authorities. Even I have to admit that is an interesting twist on the plot. The odds of such an elusive action seem reasonable, but Putin’s assertion that there are rogue elements within the CIA that provided the report on the empty nature of Fort Knox’s gold supply seems far-fetched on the surface. Then again, Strauss-Kahn has hired a PR firm in the past that was comprised of former CIA agents (http://www.tdinternational.com/WilliamGreen.html).
Here’s the Omar story from CNBC: http://www.cnbc.com/id/43221009
Here’s the Putin story from CNBC: http://www.cnbc.com/id/43214487
Here’s the story from the EU Times. Be careful on this website it launches a load of pop-ups: http://www.eutimes.net/2011/05/russia-s ... d-is-gone/
Here’s an interview with Grigory Marchenko, head of the National Bank of Kazakhstan, the man who would appear to be Russia’s choice to head the IMF. His own description of his qualifications as including “3 weeks of training” at the IMF shows his lack of political savvy. Then again, that’s probably a good thing. The interesting portion of the interview comes after the ten minute mark. The most important question for him would be who participates in the “collective mind” that he alludes to.
Keep in mind that RT.com is backed by the Russian Government and therefore the possibility that its reports promote the agenda of the Russian political leadership is likely. Also, it seems very strange to Dave that the IMF would have concerns that the sale of $15 billion in gold would in some way upset the gold market. http://www.imf.org/external/np/exr/faq/goldfaqs.htm
According to this previous May 21 story from The Sun, it was Putin that wanted Strauss-Kahn out as head of the IMF. If that was true, it may be another motivation for the Russian leader to direct the attention to the U.S.: http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... -Kahn.html
To Dave, the entire operation reeks of one too many counter-intelligence operative cooks in the kitchen. I have searched high and low for the FSB secret report that was reportedly posted to the Kremlin’s website. So far I am unable to find it.
Here’s a link to the original piece on RICs Bricks and the Hong Kong gold mercantile exchange. The way Dave sees it, there was probably a connection between the sale of the IMF’s gold and the arrangements to clear through LCH Clearnet. If so, then that begs the question as to the role of the CLS Bank as a possible loophole to avoid the Dodd-Frank requirements and the concept that Strauss-Kahn was disrupting this in some fashion. In other words, if this arrangement would have been subject to Dodd-Frank, then it would have placed unwanted burdens on the ability to leverage the gold being sold by the IMF. In the case of a 1% fractional reserve, $15 billion becomes $1.5 trillion and everything starts making sense. Don’t try to buffalo Dave, because you might just end up on the receiving end of a stampede: http://tradewithdave.com/?p=6291
According to the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005, under which these gold coins were minted, they are legal tender according to setion 5103. However, according to 5134 and 5136 they are numismatic. Which is it $50 or $5,000? Something’s cookin’ in the kitchen and it don’t smell like fried chicken. http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin ... 45.109.pdf
CORRECTION: Here’s what the EU Times has to say about the credibility of their stories and their sources:
The European Union Times also known as The EU Times is an online copyrighted newspaper. Most articles have external “credible” sources cited at the end of each article with the click-able word “Source”. If you click on “Source” you will end-up to an external source.
Dave commentary: The portions of the story above that attempt to connect Putin with the fact that “Russia said” appears to be erroneous and was propogated by the EU Times and someone named Sorcha Faal. Hard to say exactly what is happening here. Whatever it is it stinks.
by Nordic » Wed Jun 01, 2011 12:39 pm
by semper occultus » Fri Jun 03, 2011 4:22 pm
by Stephen Morgan » Fri Jun 03, 2011 6:21 pm
by Peachtree Pam » Mon Jun 06, 2011 2:46 pm
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 2625.story
Dominique Strauss-Kahn pleads not guilty in sexual assault of hotel maid
Former head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn, with his lawyers and his wife at his side, enters the plea of innocence in a Manhattan courtroom. His lawyers have hinted that he might argue that he did not assault the maid and that the encounter was consensual.
......
In addition to a herd of journalists, many of them French, the brief hearing Monday drew several diplomats, including two from the French consulate in New York and two from the Guinean embassy in Washington, D.C. Also present was Kenneth P. Thompson, one of three lawyers whom the alleged victim has hired.
.......
While the hearing was underway, a few dozen housekeepers from New York hotels gathered outside the courthouse. They had been bused there by their union.
"We are here to support our co-worker," said Doris Codie, a 46-year-old maid who has worked at the swanky Pierre Hotel in Midtown Manhattan for 15 years. Several days after the alleged attack by Strauss-Kahn, a 74-year-old Egyptian banker was accused of sexually assaulting a maid at the Pierre.
"I've never heard of so many problems in all my years," said Codie, who comes from Ghana. She added that she couldn't understand why people who pay "large amounts of money to stay in beautiful hotels" might do such a thing.
by JackRiddler » Tue Jun 07, 2011 11:08 pm
http://counterpunch.org/martens06072011.html
June 7, 2011
Sex Crime Du Jour Sparks Debate on Privacy Laws
Will France Tidy Up After Housekeeper Charges?
By PAM MARTENS
Cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead once said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Sometimes, it doesn’t even take a small group; one immigrant hotel housekeeper can spark a revolution if there is enough pent up anger over wealth inequality.
The alleged sex crimes of the political elite in France are now flowing faster than Perrier at Vergèze. And the criminal nature of the alleged sex crime du jour is triggering a global debate on the misuse of privacy laws in France to effectively provide impunity to powerful men.
The public debate was sparked by the May 15 arrest in New York City of Dominique Strauss-Kahn on charges of sex crimes against a female housekeeper in a $3,000 a night suite at the Sofitel Hotel in midtown Manhattan. At the time, Strauss-Kahn was Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and a contender to be the next President of France. (He has since resigned from the IMF.) The female hotel worker, a member of the New York Hotel and Motel Trades Council union, who has been repeatedly referred to as a “chambermaid” in press reports both here and abroad, is a 32-year old single mother from Guinea who has been in the U.S. seven years. (The woman’s job title at the Sofitel Hotel is “room attendant.” Her union uses the job title “housekeeping” on its web site. Put “chambermaid” into the Google search engine and you’ll see stereotypical images of scantily clad French maids and titillating maid costumes for sale. Protest signs in France have excoriated l'Homme des Cavernes, the Caveman.
Equally out of date is mainstream media’s use of the job title “chambermaid.”)
Mr. Strauss-Kahn was arraigned on June 6, pleading not guilty in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan. He had been indicted on seven counts on May 19 following the convening of a grand jury. If convicted of a criminal sexual act in the first degree, a class B violent felony, he could face 25 years in prison.
Initially, French commentators were consumed with how U.S. media was handling the coverage, including newspaper photos showing this powerful man in handcuffs. France had amended its 130-year old freedom of the press law in 2000 to prohibit the publication or broadcast of images showing the criminally accused in handcuffs or physically restrained prior to sentencing. There is also Article 9 of the French Civil Code that asserts that “everyone has the right to privacy” which has been broadly interpreted by the French press to mean politicians’ private lives are off limits, even when the conduct involves criminality.
Now, there is a growing debate in France as to whether privacy laws have been perverted by the press; in some cases to maintain a good relationship with sources; in other cases out of fear of retaliation by the rich and powerful. A 31-year old French journalist, Tristane Banon, is now alleging that she was sexually assaulted by Strauss-Kahn in 2002 while attempting to interview him. At the time, her mother cautioned her against reporting the crime for fear it would end her journalism career. No doubt, others have had similar fears when covering the political elite.
Just days after the indictment of Strauss-Kahn, Georges Tron, a junior minister in French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative party, stepped down after two former secretaries accused him of sexual attacks following the pretext of a foot massage. One of the women coming forward told the Le Parisien newspaper: "When I see that a little chambermaid is capable of taking on Dominique Strauss-Kahn, I tell myself I do not have the right to stay silent.” Mr. Tron has denied the allegations.
The French confessional parade continued a few days later with Luc Ferry, a former education minister, telling a television audience that he was aware of another (unnamed) ex-minister caught having “group sex with little boys” in Morocco. Mr. Ferry said he had been “informed about the affair by France’s highest authorities, including by the prime minister.” Human rights activists are filing a formal complaint and the French prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation.
At least one French journalist, Nicolas Demorand, is conceding that the press has been cowered into silence. Writing in Libération, Mr. Demorand notes: “Finished are the behind-the-scenes pressuring, the covering up, and the silence: from now on, complaints will be registered and taken seriously.”
But any U.S. backslapping of a highly superior system here of “equal justice under law” (as inscribed on the U.S. Supreme Court building) would be factually untenable. The only place equal justice under law is carved in stone in America is on the exterior of that building. The decisions being handed down inside tell a woefully different tale. Just ask the inmates at Guantanamo or female workers on Wall Street.
For more than three decades, the U.S. has tolerated sexual assaults and egregious harassment against female workers on Wall Street while allowing those cases to be shrouded from public view in private justice systems run by the industry itself.
When I and colleagues blew the whistle on Wall Street in 1996, the U.S. press did its job most admirably, giving wings for over five years to the public debate on the appropriateness of private justice in a democracy. One journalist, Susan Antilla, had the courage to fend off legal threats and write an award-winning book on the matter for Bloomberg Publishing (“Tales from the Boom Boom Room”) dedicating a full chapter to “attacking the no-court system.” In her acknowledgements, Ms. Antilla credited her mother as a source of inspiration: “She also taught by example that a person’s social and economic standing should have no bearing on the decency with which they are treated….”
Just as now, the floodgates opened then because women felt they might be taken seriously. But instead of the claims being ushered into the vaunted U.S. court system, where sunshine and continued public debate might have led to real change, Wall Street and its politically connected law firms with a revolving door in Washington made certain that all the women got was more “hotel justice.” Instead of the Federal Court in Manhattan, claims were heard in secret in hotel rooms, the typical venue for the mushrooming use of private arbitration in the U.S. today.
Judith Mione, a veteran Wall Street woman who protested this perversion of justice and joined with me in calling it out as a fraud, died on April 19 of cancer and a broken heart. She understood that those noble words on the U.S. Supreme Court building were written for the Strauss-Kahns of the world -- not the Judith Miones.
Mandatory arbitration is another cog in the wealth transfer system which allows l'Homme des Cavernes to defy extinction and continue to abuse us all in myriad ways. (See “Judicial Apartheid,” CounterPunch, July 20,2009)
Perhaps anticipating a similar sorry ending for this hotel worker pitted against the wealth and political clout of Strauss-Kahn, an international group of female activists from over 40 countries have penned a petition demanding “Let Justice Be Done.” (Strauss-Kahn has engaged an expensive cadre of spooks, spies, and private eyes, including two former Enron execs, ostensibly to dig for dirt on the low-wage worker. ) The petition can be signed at this link.
Maybe that “small group of thoughtful, committed citizens” is emerging after all. In addition to the petition above, Norman Siegel, a respected civil rights scholar who headed the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) from 1985 to 2000, has joined the woman’s legal team. And union hotel workers were out in force outside the courthouse at Strauss-Kahn’s arraignment, serenading the haughty millionaire, who allegedly bragged to his target “do you know who I am,” with jeers of “shame on you.”
Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years. She has no security position, long or short, in any company mentioned in this article. She has been writing on public interest issues for CounterPunch since 2006. She can be reached at pamk741@aol.com
by AlicetheKurious » Wed Jun 08, 2011 2:23 pm
anothershamus wrote:Dave commentary: The portions of the story above that attempt to connect Putin with the fact that “Russia said” appears to be erroneous and was propogated by the EU Times and someone named Sorcha Faal. Hard to say exactly what is happening here. Whatever it is it stinks.
In an astounding move puzzling many in Moscow, Putin after reading this secret FSB report today ordered posted to the Kremlin’s official website a defense of Strauss-Khan becoming the first world leader to state that the former IMF chief was a victim of a US conspiracy. Putin further stated, “It’s hard for me to evaluate the hidden political motives but I cannot believe that it looks the way it was initially introduced. It doesn’t sit right in my head.” Link
by JackRiddler » Wed Jun 08, 2011 2:33 pm
by AlicetheKurious » Wed Jun 08, 2011 3:43 pm
by Nordic » Wed Jun 08, 2011 3:48 pm
by Joe Hillshoist » Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:08 pm
Ed. Note: Western governments and their intelligence services actively campaign against the information found in these reports so as not to alarm their citizens about the many catastrophic Earth changes and events to come, a stance that the Sisters of Sorcha Faal strongly disagrees with in believing that it is every human beings right to know the truth. Due to our missions conflicts with that of those governments, the responses of their ‘agents’ against us has been a longstanding misinformation/misdirection campaign designed to discredit and which is addressed in the report “Who Is Sorcha Faal?”
May 23, 2011
Attack On Japan, US Linked To ‘Alien Whale Race’ Nearing Earth
By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers
A chilling follow-up report prepared by Russia’s Federal Space Agency (FKA/RKA) on the deadly ‘alien’ attack that destroyed a US space facility in Texas two weeks ago warns that ‘substantial evidence’ exists that it was ‘directed’ from the mysterious Saturn Water Moon Titan [depiction 3rd photo left] that Russian scientists say is ‘awakening’ in a manner similar to what has been occurring on Earth’s Moon.
Going from the chilling to the downright shocking is this report further stating; that based upon the analysis of the electronic ‘signatures’ emanating from Titan, the Earth’s Moon and the believed to be ‘UFO fleet’ following in the wake of Comet Elenin (C/2010 X1), that is fast nearing our planet, the only, and logical, interpretation that can be made is that they are, in fact, ‘whale songs’.
Even worse, this report goes on to claim that the catastrophic 11March 2011 Tōhoku Earthquake and Tsunami, that left Japan with over 30,000 dead, wounded and missing, and causing the worst nuclear disaster in modern human history, was, ‘without any doubt’, also, caused by this mysterious ‘alien whale race’.
The ‘method of attack’ employed by this ‘alien whale race’ against Japan, this report continues, was the ‘super-heating’ of the Earth’s ionosphere above the Pacific Plate subduction zone near northern Honshu causing it to rupture in a staggeringly large area estimated to be 500 km in length (310 mi) with a width of 200 km (120 mi) which unleashed a 9.0 magnitude super-quake and a tsunami said to have been over 100 meters in height.
by Joe Hillshoist » Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:10 pm
by DrVolin » Wed Jun 08, 2011 9:18 pm
Joe Hillshoist wrote:BTW That article about the whale attack. I'm still laughing... must be revenge for Japans whaling policies or something. Sorcha Faal may actually be the greatest troll ever, but I suspect they are just a con.
by Kate » Wed Jun 08, 2011 10:06 pm
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