If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed. -- Benjamin Franklin
Showing posts with label A Weiner Is You. Show all posts
Showing posts with label A Weiner Is You. Show all posts
Anthony Weiner, the disgraced former congressman who pleaded guilty in May to sexting with a 15-year-old girl, was sentenced Monday to 21 months in prison.
Weiner, 53, also faces spending the rest of his life as a registered sex offender for his lengthy and lurid social media contacts with the North Carolina teen.
Weiner cried as he read from a written statement in Manhattan federal court, saying he was sorry and that he was “a very sick man for a very long time.”
"The crime I committed was my rock bottom," Weiner said. "I live a different and better life today."
Weiner, who must report to prison by Nov. 6, wept again after the sentence was announced.
“This is a serious crime that deserves serious punishment," federal Judge Denise Cote said.
Well Carlos Danger, you're going to be serving that better life in prison for a while, where maybe you can, you know, stop being a sex offender.
Jackass. Glad to be rid of you for a while at least.
Newly discovered emails from Hillary Clinton’s private server were found after the F.B.I. seized electronic devices once shared by Anthony D. Weiner and his estranged wife, Huma Abedin, a top aide to Mrs. Clinton, federal law enforcement officials said Friday.
The F.B.I. is investigating illicit text messages that Mr. Weiner, a former Democratic congressman from New York, sent to a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina. The bureau told Congress on Friday that it had uncovered new emails related to the Clinton case — one federal official said they numbered in the thousands — potentially reigniting an issue that has weighed on the presidential campaign and offering a lifeline to Donald J. Trump less than two weeks before the election.
In a letter to Congress, the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said that emails had surfaced in an unrelated case, and that they “appear to be pertinent to the investigation.”
Mr. Comey said the F.B.I. was taking steps to “determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation.” He said he did not know how long it would take to review the emails, or whether the new information was significant.
Why the hell would Jim Comey drop this nonsense that the FBI hasn't even finished determining if Weiner's emails to Huma Abedin were even significant, 11 days before a presidential election? Oh yeah, he's a Republican.
Mr. Trump seized on the F.B.I. action on Friday at a rally in New Hampshire. To cheers of “lock her up” from his supporters, Mr. Trump said: “Hillary Clinton’s corruption is on a scale we have never seen before. We must not let her take her criminal scheme into the Oval Office.”
After deriding the F.B.I. for weeks as inept and corrupt, Mr. Trump went on to praise the law enforcement agency.
“I have great respect for the fact that the F.B.I. and the D.O.J. are now willing to have the courage to right the horrible mistake that they made,” Mr. Trump said, referring also to the Department of Justice. “This was a grave miscarriage of justice that the American people fully understand. It is everybody’s hope that it is about to be corrected.”
The Clinton campaign called on Mr. Comey to provide information beyond what was put forth in the letter.
“Director Comey’s letter refers to emails that have come to light in an unrelated case, but we have no idea what those emails are and the director himself notes they may not even be significant,” said John D. Podesta, chairman of Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.
He added: “It is extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election.”
Weiner is a dick. So is Comey. And now all this crap will be on the news all weekend and all next week. Here's hoping Trump says something ridiculously racist again to remind everyone what the real issues are. There's still enough time left for him to botch the home stretch, but boy are we making it hard for Hillary to finish this asshole off, huh.
Weiner, whose career ended after a sexting scandal, was reportedly exchanging messages with a woman on July 31, 2015, when he changed the subject of the explicit conversation, saying, "Someone just climbed into my bed," the New York Post reported.
He then attached a picture of his crotch, with his son curled up nearby.
“You do realize you can see you[r] Weiner in that pic??” the woman responded, according to the Post.
Earlier this month, Weiner gave his phone number and offered to share his location with a college student during a private online chat, according to the Post.
So yeah, last summer he was still at it, and probably since then, once again cheating on his wife and making an asshole out of himself. Oh hey, and his kid was in the picture too, because he's a family guy.
Yes, I know the Democrats aren't perfect and the Republicans are far worse, but it sure would be nice for Weiner to stop behaving like a horny frat boy jackass, you know? This is wrong, this is stupid, and frankly I'd like to never hear about this little carbuncle again.
A group of House Democrats alleging that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas violated ethics rules by failing to report his wife’s income called for a federal investigation into the matter today.
The group of 20 House Democrats led by Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) sent a letter to the U.S. Judicial Conference, the governing body for federal courts, saying that Thomas has failed to report the income of his wife, Virginia, who earned $700,000 from 2003 to 2007 while working at the Heritage Foundation, according to news reports.
The letter came just days before the Supreme Court returns for the new session, during which it is expected to consider a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the Obama administration’s sweeping health care law. With such high-profile issues on the horizon for the court, the lawmakers wrote, “it is vital that the Judicial Conference actively pursue any suspicious actions by Supreme Court Justices.”
The definitive piece on Thomas's ethical issues throughout his career comes from Allan Brauer and is definitely worth a long a careful read. Finally it seems that Weiner is getting the investigation and attention to the issues that he asked for, but only after it played a part in wrecking his career and becoming a notch on Breitbart's belt.
I still don't expect this inquiry to go far or even for it to happen, but at least it's getting noticed.
But the larger lesson to be drawn from the Turner victory is a basic one that the Democratic establishment appears to have forgotten or ignored: All politics is local. That well-known observation by former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill has a New York City corollary: In the often-rowdy ethnic stew of America's most diverse city, all politics is tribal. The Democrats goofed on that, too.
OK, so it's all local. How is it President Obama's fault then?
National Democrats, including Team Obama, have their work cut out for them. Not only do they have to continue the fight to revive the economy in this election season, they have to get much smarter about how to tailor and target their positions, candidates and rhetoric to each of America's 435 congressional seats.
A one-size-fits-all approach might work for Obama himself, but when it comes to Congress, every district has its own peculiarities. And at that level, all politics is -- well, you know the rest.
So again, all politics is local, but it's President Obama's fault?
So when Jewish, Democratic ex-Mayor Ed Koch crossed party lines to endorse Turner -- and called for other Jewish Dems to follow suit as a way to send a message to Obama -- the message resonated. Prominent rabbis, who were already upset over Weprin's support for same-sex marriage, took Koch's move as another reason to support Turner, a conservative Catholic.
So wait, now Weprin lost because all politics is local, but really he lost because of the President's policies towards another country. Awesome. He lost because Ed Koch stabbed both Weprin and the President in the back, but somehow, it's always President Obama's fault.
And people wonder why Dems lose elections. Jesus wept.
Republican Bob Turner on Tuesday won the special election in New York's heavily Democratic ninth congressional district -- pulling a huge upset that few would have predicted just months ago.
Turner ran against Democrat David Weprin in a heated, summer-long race that ignited Democratic fears of a quiet election morphing into a referendum on the party and President Barack Obama, ahead of next year's elections.
"We've asked the people of this district to send a message to Washington, and I hope they hear it loud and clear," Turner said at his election party in Queens with a packed room, many of them Orthodox Jews.
"Mr. President, you are on the wrong track."
Turner came in with 54% of the vote while Weprin placed second at 46%, with 100% precincts reporting, according to unofficial results from Valerie Vazquez, communications director for the New York City Board of Elections.
The Cook PVI for the district is D+5, meaning Turner's 8-point win is seriously bad news for Dems, who let this seat get away from them. Republicans went after this seat with a purpose, playing dirty and attacking the Dems on both same-sex marriage and the "Ground Zero mosque", which in a heavily Jewish district was enough to give Bob Turner a comfortable win that was really never in doubt.
Republicans organized and did what they had to in order to win. They used bigotry, homophobia and Islamophobia to scare their base into turning out...but they won. Democrats nationally ignored this election and let this seat get away, just like Scott Brown's Senate seat. There was no organization to push Weprin to stop the crazy.
More than anything else, Dem voter apathy is the most powerful weapon the Republicans have. If you stay home in 2012, this will happen dozens of times over again a year from now, and the GOP will take total control of the country.
And they will do everything they can to make being a Democrat illegal. You can stop it. But only if you ACT.
The latest poll numbers this weekend for tomorrow's special election in New York to replace Anthony Weiner aren't looking good for the Democrat, NY State Assemblyman David Weprin, in his race against Republican Bob Turner. The wild card is Socialist Workers Party candidate Christopher Hoeppner, who is taking 4% of the vote...and Weprin is losing in a true blue Dem district by six in the latest PPP poll.
To determine just how upset NY-09 voters are with government at the moment, PPP asked a series of questions about Congress, the President and direction of the country. President Obama logged only a 31 percent approval rating in the district versus 56 percent disapproval, and Congressional Republicans registered the same approval with 51 percent against. When PPP asked which of those two choices respondents had more faith in to lead the country at the moment, voters in this Democratic district picked the GOP by a slim margin, 44 percent to President Obama’s 42. That frustration with Obama translates into success for Turner within the poll: 23 percent of those who voted for the President in 2008 said they will vote for Turner on Tuesday.
The new poll also confirms what a Siena survey said last week, that Weprin is getting crushed among independent voters and is losing a healthy number of Democrats. In fact, the PPP numbers show him only holding on to 58 percent of his own party, along with only 26 percent of independents, which is actually smaller than the amount of Dems who say they will go for Turner, 29. Turner also gets the support of 83 percent of Republicans and 58 percent of independents.
Weprin still maintains a positive favorability rating, which is not to say his campaign has been perfect, but it further emphasizes the drag that national issues are putting on the Democrat. “If Dems lose this race blaming it on Weprin is an excuse and ignores the bigger issues,” PPP Pollster Tom Jensen tweeted before the release of the numbers. He also pointed to a finding that “37% in NY-9 say Israel ‘very important’ to their votes. They support Turner over Weprin 71-22.” Siena pollster Stan Greenberg was asked about the “Israel effect” on Friday but brushed aside the issue, saying “I don’t see it at all.”
If the "throw the bums out" effect is favoring the Republicans right now in a district that hasn't had a GOP Representative in nearly 90 years, then something's clearly wrong with the electorate and with Dems specifically. Dems are clearly not getting behind Weprin, but that 31% approval rating in the district is a bad, bad sign.
We'll see how tomorrow's vote turns out, after all Democrats won a number of special elections in 2009 and 2010 only to lose 63 House seats last November, but this is all kinds of bad if Weprin goes down.
Representative Anthony D. Weiner has told friends that he plans to resign his seat after coming under growing pressure from his Democratic colleagues to leave the House, said a person told of Mr. Weiner’s plans.
His decision follows of revelations of his lewd online exchanges with women, said a person told of Mr. Weiner’s plans.
The news comes as Democratic leaders prepared to hold a meeting on Thursday to discuss whether to strip the 46-year-old Congressman of his committee assignments, a blow which would severely damage his effectiveness.
Mr. Weiner, a Democrat, came to the conclusion that he could no longer serve after having long discussions with his wife, Huma Abedin, when she returned home on Tuesday after traveling abroad with her boss, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
And so he goes. Yet another voice for liberals silenced, because being a liberal isn't tolerated in Washington. Double standard? Definitely.
Anthony Weiner is finally beginning to seriously consider resigning from his seat, the Daily News has learned from a source. No wonder: in the past few days alone, it's come out that his wife is pregnant, he corresponded with a teenage girl, Democratic leaders all want him to quit, and now today a new batch of porny photos have surfaced. According to the source, Weiner has not been sleeping and constantly paces his apartment; staffers say a decision won't be made until Wednesday, when his wife Huma Abedin returns from her overseas trip with Hillary Clinton.
Ahh, if only people would tweet links to pictures of the National Unemployment Rate's junk, we'd get Congress to do something about things that matter.
Even if Anthony Weiner survives this scandal, keep in mind New York is losing two congressional districts due to the 2010 census numbers. Guess who just "volunteered" for that honor on the Dems' side?
There is much speculation about whether Representative Anthony D. Weiner will remain in Congress or resign his seat. But there is a politically expedient solution for Democrats if they want to show him the door: Neuter his district in the redistricting process, which will require New York to lose 2 of its 29 seats in the House of Representatives.
Looks like Rep. Weiner is doing the "time off to get his head straight" thing with a "break" from Congress...and even odds he doesn't return.
U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, who has been under fire after admitting to inappropriate communications with women online, has decided to seek treatment "to focus on becoming a better husband and healthier person," his spokeswoman said Saturday.
While the New York congressman seeks treatment at an undisclosed location, he will take a "short leave of absence" from Congress, Risa Heller said in a statement.
A Democratic source, familiar with conversations among Weiner and Democratic leadership about his fate, did not know what specific type of treatment Weiner, 46, would undergo.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and the chairmen of the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee called for Weiner to step down in separate statements earlier Saturday.
The congressman has resisted calls to resign.
If Pelosi is calling for him to go, he's playing musical chairs with no chairs in sight and the music about to stop for good. I think I'm being very generous when I say his odds of returning to the House are 50/50. It looks like the police investigation in Delaware is the last straw.
We'll see how this turns out. My gut says this break becomes permanent. There's just too much "oh, and another thing I forgot to tell you" post-presser for him to get the benefit of the doubt any longer.
The Democratic dominoes are starting to fall for embattled Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY). Rep. Allyson Schwartz (D-PA), who serves among the leadership of the DCCC, told Politico Wednesday afternoon that it's time for Weiner to go. Schwartz' office confirmed the news to TPM.
As Wednesday evening went on, more Democrats joined the Weiner resignation bandwagon. Sen. Patrick Leahy (VT) and Reps. Nikki Tsongas (MA) and Joe Donnelly (IN) called on Weiner to step down from Congress, as did Reps. Mike Michaud (ME), Mike Ross (AR) and Larry Kissell (NC).
Most of these guys are Blue Dogs who can kiss my black ass and aren't worthy of attention, but Patrick Leahy calling on Weiner to go is a major blow. Leahy is one of the big voices on the D side, and he doesn't speak out unless he feels it's damn important, he's been in the game forever. If Weiner has lost someone of Leahy's level this publicly, he's in serious trouble among his colleagues.
Tuesday night I would have told you Weiner would survive this. Now I'm not nearly as sure. Do I think it's fair that Weiner is getting pummeled while David Vitter is still a Senator? Of course not, as Rachel Maddow discusses with all people, Michael Steele.
But again, it's one thing for knuckleheads like Reince Preibus and Eric Cantor to defend David Vitter and let him get away with it. It's another thing entirely to have Patrick Leahy not defend Anthony Weiner.
Maybe I'm going to burn for this, but Anthony Weiner is being held to a higher standard than the Republican party, and while that's unfair that he's being held to that, I'm having difficulty saying it's completely 100% a bad thing to be held to a higher standard than the Republicans.
"This is a massive overreaction and I don't understand it," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
Sloan pointed to the recent ethics case of another New York congressman, Charles Rangel, as an example of the double standard being pushed by some Democrats for Weiner.
The House Ethics Committee found Rangel -- the former chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, which writes the nation's tax laws -- guilty of improper fundraising, inappropriate possession of multiple rent-controlled apartments and failure to pay taxes on a vacation home, among other charges.
"There were very few calls on Rangel to resign and he was censured of serious misconduct involving his office – really serious things that had potential for criminal charges," Sloan said. "We don't have anything remotely like that in the Weiner case."
Sloan explained that the mounting pressure on Weiner may stem in part from the early precedent set by House Speaker John Boehner when, at the first sign of sexual misconduct, he urged Reps. Mark Souder (R, Ind.) and Chris Lee (R, N.Y.) to resign, even though their behavior didn't appear to involve any abuse of their office.
"A lot of people really hate Weiner, too," she said, referring to Weiner's colleagues in the House, some of whom are said to have been rankled by his personality and frequent media appearances.
So yes, there's a legitimate argument that Democrats should hold Anthony Weiner to a higher standard of conduct. And yes, Republicans Chris Lee and Mark Souder both resigned after making similar mistakes, and I wasn't sorry to see either of them go. I think the argument that Weiner should resign over this is outweighed by the circumstances, but I really can't see myself disagreeing anymore with those who are calling for him to step down.
[UPDATE] Anthony Weiner's wife, Huma Abedin, says her husband will remain in Congress. She is currently traveling with Secretary of State Clinton on her latest trip to the Middle East.
So remember Monday when Andrew Breitbart crashed Anthony Weiner's presser and threatened to release a "far worse" picture in order to "protect" the Congressman's family and force Weiner to come clean?
Prominent conservative voice Andrew Breitbart showed two radio hosts what is likely the X-rated photograph of Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) he signaled he had in his possession earlier this week.
After revealing the explicit image said to be of the congressman to Sirus XM's Opie and Anthony on Wednesday, the picture was subsequently leaked into the public eye on Twitter.
Opie wrote in a tweet, which included a link to the photo, "Opie'd eye - this is a pic from @anthonycumia phone of the infamous weiner." He subsequently said on the social media platform, "Lots of you confused how the pic got out there. Myself and Anthony will explain in a bit right here on Twitter."
Nice guy, that Breitbart. And his message is clear: he will do anything in his power to try to destroy the Democratic Party, its politicians, and anyone remotely connected to them.
The media could do something about Breitbart and his blackmail games, but they won't. After all, they would be next.
As we watch Nancy Pelosi and Steve Israel beat the Wenis into a bloody pulp, consider this: Weiner’s district is a D+5 District in Brooklyn and Queens. It was previously represented by Schumer and Ferraro (in her prime, before she was reduced to ugly PUMA racism). Though it’s mainly white and older, it has an above-average percentage of college-educated residents, a much higher-than-average percentage (40%) of foreign-born residents, and whole bunch of traditionally Democratic Jewish voters.
In other words, NY-9 has been an incubator for quality Democratic politicians, and if Weiner quits at the end of his term, it’s pretty likely that another quality Democrat, hopefully with a little better Twitter-fu, will take his place. This isn’t NY-29, where Eric Massa’s extraordinary two-cycle race garnered an against-all-odds win in a tough R+5 district, and Massa’s resignation almost guaranteed a turnover. A Republican hasn’t represented NY-9 since 1923, so it’s pretty easy for leadership to push Weiner under the bus without thinking twice.
Right. Because it's been so effing easy to find outspoken, passionate advocates with a spine on the Democratic side. We'll just get another one, New York is apparently pregnant with them.
Look, I've had my problems with Weiner before, mainly on his eagerness to go after the President on Israel whenever possible. But on the balance of the whole I'd rather have Anthony Weiner in the House than say, Heath Shuler or any number of his Blue Dog pals. The situation in Washington for progressives won't improve if we drop actual working, advocating, effective legislators because they don't meet the puritanical standards of the DC political press corps.
Weiner did lie. I'm angry at the guy, I spent more than a few columns defending the guy and I feel like something of a fool for doing so. I learned a major lesson. I hope he has too. That's a big, huge mark on his record and he will have to face the voters on that.
But if we let Weiner go under and say "We'll find somebody else in the future" then why should anyone in the House on the donks side stick their necks out and make noise about anything when they not only know the GOP will target them, but that they also know that we won't support them, either?
That's exactly what the right wants: pliable, scared Democrats that believe they can't count on their base to back them up. Why should they be "fierce advocates" of anything in that case?
So let's get all emo about Weiner while the GOP plans to destroy Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, our environment, science, and our economy in order to obtain and maintain political power. Time to find some goddamn perspective, people.
He then goes on to discuss with Rev. Al Sharpton of all people how Weiner has failed the Dems and needs to resign now (but run again in 2012 and let the voters decide). Hey Ed? Coming from a guy who just got off of getting a second chance? Methinks the host doth protest too much on this one. Ed Schultz? Not helping one iota.
If being an idiot is grounds for resignation from Congress, the place would be empty.
Well, in the most bizarre press conference in recent memory, this afternoon Andrew Breitbart took over Rep. Anthony Weiner's press conference and vowed that he had even worse pictures of the Congressman, and that if he didn't come clean and stop going after him, he would release them.
Conservative media showman Andrew Brietbart took the microphone this afternoon at a press conference scheduled for Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY). TPM's Eric Lach is on scene for the presser and sent these dispatches:
"He was on the side when a few reporters noticed him. Then suddenly swarmed. So then he strolls up to the podium," Lach reports. "I don't know if he got permission or what. Now just ended after someone in back yells "thank you" and he says thank you and gets off stage. "
Breitbart told reporters he feels "vindicated" after the initial attacks on his reporting of the Weiner incident. He said the photos he published today are from a tip they got before the infamous Weiner tweet that eventually led to today's press conference.
"Last Friday night i tweeted a photograph of myself that I intended to send as a direct message as part of a joke to a woman in Seattle," he said, fighting back tears. "Once I realized I had posted to Twitter, I panicked, I took it down and said I had been hacked. I then continued to stick to that story which was a hugely regrettable mistake."
He added: "To be clear, the picture was of me and I sent this. I am deeply sorry for the pain this has caused my wife Huma and our family and my constituents, friends, supporters and staff."
As for his own future, Weiner pledged to remain in Congress, saying he had not broken any law to his knowledge. "I am not resigning," Weiner said, telling reporters he would try to convince his constituents this was a "personal failing" and did not alter his record.
Weiner said that he traded inappropriate messages and emails with six women over the last three years, including some exchanges after his marriage last year to Huma Abedin, a longtime aide to Hillary Clinton. Abedin was not present at the press conference. Weiner said he thought the women he exchanged messages with were all of legal age, but he conceded he had no way to know for sure.
"I don't know the exact ages of the women," he said. "And I don't know if you do, I'm going to respect their privacy. But they were all adults -- at least, to the best of my knowledge, they were all adults, and they were engaging in these conversations consensually."
Needless to say, this disaster of a presser only cements what I said earlier: that whoever is advising Weiner on this issue needs to be fired and never work again. The press pounced on Weiner and the Congressman came clean to the fact he lied to pretty much everyone involved. Having said that, A) if lying is the new standard for resigning your seat in Congress, Capitol Hill is going to be a lonely place and B) Weiner actually apologized to Breitbart. When's Breitbart going to do the same for his lies about ACORN and Shirley Sherrod?
I revealed in this blog -- long before the Daily published its "exclusively" provided "data" -- that Weiner used TweetDeck that night. But so what?
The poor schlub writing for the Daily -- his name is Daniel Libit -- doesn't understand that Seixon's entire "TweetDeck" argument was based on the presupposition that the congressman used TweetDeck or some similar app EVERY SINGLE TIME. Thus, he never established a Yfrog account.
Yet even the Daily stipulates that this was not the case.
So there goes the argument. Poof.
Nice try, wingers...but you don't know squat about this one. Surprising, I know. The Tweetdeck stuff is entirely irrelevant to the Yfrog security hole.
TweetDeck automatically establishes a Yfrog account for you. When you try to send a pic, it even flashes a message: "Sending via Yfrog." Don't take my word for it. Download the app for yourself and try it out.
I downloaded TweetDeck and had one of my fictional creations send a pic to another. "Chalice153" had never set up a Yfrog account -- and yet one was set up for her. Here it is. (That's Angela, my model. Pretty, isn't she?) That account was open to the very same exploit which I pointed out in my post.
Seixon, a known Republican operative with a long and irrefutable history of flim-flammery, tried to pretend that this was not the case. Interestingly, he set up his blog to make that argument on the very day when Yfrog plugged its security hole. The plugging made it impossible to prove him wrong via a real-world, real-time test.
Still, I don't think that such a test is necessary. Chalice153 has granted a Yfrog account the moment she sent a picture, even though she did not go to Yfrog's website to set one up. In the days before the security hole was plugged, anyone could have uploaded anything to that account.
So the entire argument is bogus. The Daily has given us techno-babble.
Looks like House Dem leadership is getting as sick and tired of Weinergate as I am, and want Anthony Weiner to put an end to this stupidity. If Weiner doesn't have the PR chops to clean up his mess (and let's face it folks, he doesn't), it looks like his hand is going to be forced for him.
Members of the House Democratic leadership have talked repeatedly to Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-New York, to try to get him to end what several Democrats call an unwelcome political distraction, a member of the party's leadership tells CNN.
"It's frustrating because we'll talk to him, and say clean it up, and then he goes out and does stuff," said the member of the House Democratic leadership, who declined to speak for the record about private discussions with Weiner.
"He's got to put the period at the end of the sentence," said the Democratic source, "it's painful."
On Thursday, Maryland Rep. Steny Hoyer, the number two Democrat in the House, was less blunt, but told CNN he had spoken to Weiner.
"I told him that he needs to handle this and he needed to give the facts accurately to the public," Hoyer said.
I've said time and time again his refusal to answer the question of if the picture is indeed him or not doesn't past the smell test in any way. He's stalled three times now on the question, and once in front of Rachel Maddow, who was doing everything she could to give him an out in this clip from Wednesday night's show:
Weiner didn't take it. Rachel Maddow gave him a free pass on this and Weiner still wouldn't deny the picture was him, even when Rachel explained that by not denying it, it made him look worse. She then offered up a theory that maybe it was somebody else's picture and Weiner wouldn't confirm or deny that either. He could have ended this Wednesday. He didn't. That was a foolish, rookie move.
More than anything else, that tells me three things: the people advising Weiner on how to proceed are nowhere near competent, Weiner himself is not ready for the big time yet, and whatever he is hiding, Weiner's lame attempts to cover it up are worse than the actual truth at this point.
So at this point, the Dems' damage control team is taking over and I foresee some sort of statement from the Congressman very, very soon. Weiner needs to axe his PR people, make a gut check, and come clean on whatever he's hiding and lance the boil already. He's making stupid mistakes here and he needs to knock it off.
Over at ABL's place, Allan Brauer has a terrific article involving the specifics on why the Right wants Weiner gone for good: Weiner's the only one banging the drum on Clarence Thomas, his wife Ginny's involvement in the Tea Party, and how this massive conflict of interest threatens our country..and how it comes back to Andrew Breitbart.
Even though Thomas had been appointed to the Court, the experience of his confirmation hearing had ripple effects that shaped an entire generation of political operatives. A conservative sleaze-merchant by the name of David Brock wrote a brutal hit-piece of a book called The Real Anita Hill, in which, as he characterized it later, he did everything he could to “ruin Hill’s credibility,” using “virtually every derogatory and often contradictory allegation I had collected on Hill into the vituperative mix. I demonized Democratic senators, their staffs, and Hill’s feminist supporters without ever interviewing any of them.”
Not long after, while working on smearing the Clintons in similar fashion, he had an epiphany and renounced his evil ways, and ultimately founded Media Matters, the liberal-leaning organization that monitors the smear and disinformation machine of the American Right.
At the same time a young man named Andrew Breitbart watched the Thomas hearings and had an epiphany of his own. He credits the treatment of Clarence Thomas, and a daily dose of Rush Limbaugh, with converting him to the cause of conservatism. In fact, Breitbart’s latest book is dedicated to Clarence Thomas, and he grows verklempt relating the story of the time Ginni Thomas introduced herself to him. (Don’t click this clip of Breitbart being led through his paces by Armstrong Williams without a puke bucket standing by.)
It’s fascinating to think how each of them changed teams as a result of the Thomas hearings, and how they remain, to this day, sworn enemies. And how the events of that hearing are still driving the narratives of resentment and sore winnerdom for the vicious, sleazy, lying scumbuckets who are now attacking Congressman Anthony Weiner.
In other words, there's a very, very plausible reason Breitbart is running with this idiocy: Anthony Weiner is going after his professed idol, so Breitbart in turn is targeting Weiner. It really is nothing more than a massive grudge match...and it always is with these assholes.
Again, Allan has absolutely done his homework here, this one is by far the best explanation for the motivations behind what's going on this week...as Weinergate now approaches Day 7 atop the Memorandum page. They never forgive and never forget a slight, real or perceived. What Weiner is doing is something that Breitbart clearly sees as a legitimate clear and present danger to his hero, Clarence Thomas, so Weiner's getting the Full Monty here for a reason.
The same day, last Friday, that Clarence Thomas made public his 2010 financial disclosure forms in a Friday Night Holiday Weekend News Dump(tm) for he and his wife, and Weiner then tweeted about them (and the fact that for more than ten years Clarence Thomas had "forgotten" to include a total of more than three-quarters of a million dollars in financial activities on his yearly court disclosure forms), just hours later we have this picture show up in Weiner's Twitter feed and this whole obnoxious mess.
The art of misdirection, indeed. Weiner is being targeted for a reason, folks. It's to instantly put the Clarence Thomas story down the memory hole.
Bravo to Allan for digging it back out. This is the why behind Weinergate, folks. I guarantee it.
Weiner’s actions raise questions: At first glance, it was easy to dismiss the story that a lewd photo to a young woman had come from Rep. Anthony Weiner’s (D-NY) Twitter account. The explanation: Weiner’s account was hacked, and that seems like a common thing these days. But the congressman’s actions over the past 24 hours have raised more questions than answered them. For one thing, he hired an attorney. Second, and more importantly, he refused to answer reporters’ simple question on whether or not he sent the photo. Question: Was it from you or not? Weiner’s non-answer: “If I were giving a speech to 45,000 people and someone in the back threw a pie or yelled out an insult, I would not spend the next two hours of my speech responding to that pie or insult.” Third, he refused to answer why he was following the young woman on Twitter. Here’s this truism about Washington scandals: If someone is guilty, it’s never an isolated incident. Weiner has now put himself in a position of having to prove innocence -- which is never a good place to be for a politician, especially one who resides in the media capital of the world.
So sayeth Chuck Todd's crew at MSNBC, so shall it now be the "truth". Andrew Breitbart? Totally believable. Anthony Weiner? Dirty liar. Also he's following someone on Twitter, which is illegal when a Democrat does it.
Not only that. Believe it or not, when an outsider sends a pic to someone else's Yfrog account in this fashion, the action creates a message in the "twitterstream." The message seems to originate with the Twitter account holder -- but it doesn't. It comes from somewhere else -- from someone mailing a picture to the account holder.
This is a serious security flaw in the design of Yfrog and Twitter. It allows a malicious outsider to "spoof" a tweet that seems to come from someone else.
Click on the image below (to enlarge it) and examine the "twitterstream." You'll see what I mean.
Please understand that I have never sent a single tweet in my entire life.
The first two instances were created automatically, when I uploaded those first two test pictures to Yfrog (as outlined in previous posts). The third instance was created when milowent sent a pic to my Yfrog address.
Both the tweet and the image seem to originate with me, but they did not.
This was the perfect frame. We know it was a frame because of the URL address beneath the header -- or rather, the lack thereof in the Weiner "crotch shot" screen cap.
Oops. A little detective work seems to indicate that using the Yfrog.com vulnerability is a much, much more likely explanation as to what really happened. So yes, that could explain why Weiner lawyered up, too. So would I, I'd want to know what my rights and legal recourse options were if I were a public figure like Rep. Weiner is.
So, somebody want to explain to me how this isn't a hit job on one of the most outspoken liberals in Congress?
If this is something as stupid as an old girlfriend getting revenge, or someone hacking the guy's hard drive because hey, he kept a picture of his junk on it, admitting to that would actually be better in the long run than the long, slow death of his career by Breitbart and News Corp.
[UPDATE] Looks like A. Weiner will set the record straight on The Rachel Maddow Show tonight.
Even with the Biden Administration adults in charge and Democrats in control on Congress (barely), there remains an increasingly crumbling global economy imperiling the world, rising nationalism and deadly racism across Europe and Asia, a seemingly endless war against terror, a federal government nobody trusts or believes in, global climate change putting us on the brink of destruction and a Village media that barely does its job on even the best day.
Needless to say there's a lot of Stupid out there when we need solutions. Dangerous levels of Stupid.
Into the fray, dear Reader. Tray tables, crash helmets, arms inside blog at all times.
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