More and more evidence is piling up that the Anthony Weiner Tweet Scandal is a hoax. A Maddow Show staffer replicates the hoax to corroborate how easy it is.
Weirdly, Andrew Breitbart appears to have leaked some emails the alleged hoaxer, Dan Wolfe, sent him. Although the emails don’t contain an explicit admission of a hoax, they strongly imply Wolf has something to hide. The Smoking Gun has the emails and suggests “Dan Wolfe” is not the alleged hoaxer’s real name. Joseph Cannon calls for an investigation of Dan Wolfe.
Meanwhile, Rep. Anthony Weiner will not confirm or deny that the magna weiner in the photo is his. It’s possible it is a private photo that somehow got into “Dan Wolfe’s” hands, who then used a hoax to make it seem the representative had sent the photo to a young woman. Although it may be a tad skeezy, taking photographs of one’s body parts is not in itself scandalous. Unless something new and significant happens, I’m saying the only story here is about how the Right-wing noise machine creates phony scandals.
Elsewhere — you’ve surely heard the story about Gov. Chris Christie taking a state-owned, $2,500-an-hour helicopter to his son’s school baseball game. Yesterday he declared he would not reimburse the state. Today, the New Jersey Republican Party said that they and the governor would kick in some money to pay for the governor’s personal use of the helicopter.
While the helicopter episode was very likely the lead news story in New Jersey, another state story said “the Christie administration is expected to propose cutting the maximum income level of Medicaid from $24,645 to $5,317 a year for a family of three.”
Further, Christie’s recent moves to the Right on environmental issues might play well in Texas, but New Jersey is not that far Right. NJ has a higher than average concentration of adults with college degrees. As I remember, there’s a lot of consumer product research and development going on in NJ, which leads me to suspect a high proportion of those degrees are in science and technology. I can’t see anti-environment policies being popular in NJ.
I say again, by the time Christie is up for re-election he is going to be very vulnerable.
Finally, Moosewoman used the National Lampoon Palin Family Vacation to stomp on Mitt Romney’s presidential bid announcement. This might give us a clue why the Republican establishment doesn’t like her.
Breitbart is such a sleezeball and should not be given any credibility whatsoever. He has been shown to promote nothing but lies. No respectable news organization should even give him the time of day. If they continue to do so, I hope the people being defamed will sue not only Breitbart and all news organizations that carry any lies from him. He even looks creepy to me.
Look I love me some Anthony Weiner and think Breitbart is a vile human being, but I’m having a tough time with the absence of a flat denial from the former. I mean I’m not personally offended by it, but regardless of any mischief on the photo distribution side, the photo production itself is pretty darn embarrassing for a sitting US congressman.
If he didn’t personally send it to anyone, I’d say file it under MYOB. Someone’s private sexual behavior should not be subject to public approval.
Your link for Mitt Romney’s announcement goes to the map for adults with college degrees.
I’ve already weighed in on Weiner’s junk shot, and “The Whore of Babblin’ On” and her “Do you still love me, do you still need me, now y’know my IQ’s 64?” and her Keystone Kop MSM procession.
So, on to Joisey – what I think a lot of people are missing in the Krispy Kreme Christie helicopter ride, isn’t that ride, it’s the limo ride he had waiting to tranport his zip code sized ass the 100 yards from the landing site to his son’s game, and back.
The weather was brutal in the NE that day. The hottest, most humid day of the year, with temps in the mid-high 90’s, and the humidity about the same. Now, I’m overweight myself, and on days like that, I schvitz like an uncapped fire hydrant with a sprinkler put on it so the poor kids can run around in the cooling shower, while I provide the shade. But I look like an anorexic supermodel compared to Krispy Kreme. So, the reason I think the limo is the real story is that he didn’t want the MSM to see him waddle towards the game, huffing and puffing, and arriving soaking wet, with his shoes squeeking from all of the water pouring down into them, and creating their own puddle with each step, looking like Li’l Abner’s Joe Btfsplk, the character with his own private storm system over his head – a Joe Btfsplk who’d swallowed Li’l Abner, Mammy Yokum, and Pappy Yokum for lunch, and eaten Daisy Mae for dessert. There isn’t a drip-dry suit on the planet that’s designed to handle a hugely fat man on a day like that – a man who’s his own weather front, observable from space, and have that suit still look good after what to Christie must have looked like a super-marathon, and not 100 yards.
Nor did he want to press to see his sweaty, “Caution – Wide Load” ass waddle back to the helicopter, huff and puff aboard, maybe needing a half a dozen staff members who had to grease his thighs and then boost and push him onboard, and then watch the poor thing strain, fighting against gravity (yes, it exists, Republicans), trying to lift more weight than it was designed for.
No, he didn’t want the press and the public to see that. It’s one thing to be that fat asshole who yells at women teachers, and others not in his weight class – and let’s face it, who except the worlds finest Sumo wrestlers are. But it’s another thing to watch that same fat asshole when he looks like a sweaty, undisciplined, grossly overweight fat man, unable to waddle 100 yards without creating enough sweat from the effort that Texans would want to ditch Perry and bring him down to end their drought single-handedly, just by giving him a walking tour of their fair cities.
And, of course, the extra benefit to all of this, is that the belligerant tough fat guy getting in everyone’s faces about not paying for the ride will only endear him all the more to “Buffet Nation.”
PS: I think he and his party agreed to pay for the ride because they negotiated the rate down to a lump sum per trip, and not an “X” amount per mile, per pound, to haul that lump around some per trip.
on days like that, I schvitz like an uncapped fire hydrant with a sprinkler put on it so the poor kids can run around in the cooling shower….
Ow… I just snorted carbonated beverage!
There was considerable debate among the aircraft experts on Wonkette– where of course you can find dozens of them 🙂 — as to the load capacity of the helicopter Christie required. Not that I should talk either, but for me, a ride in a freakin’ limousine would be a major transportation upgrade.
The only thing left, imo, is for Springsteen to write a song about this. Get strumming, Bruce!
Joan,
Bruce could just change one word in the title – to “Born to Waddle.”
Or, maybe, “Thunder Load.”
Also, too – too bad the limo wasn’t a “Pink Cadillac.”
Listening to a rightee from WSJ while driving the Christie talking point was “family values” the “journalist” saying “I’m glad he wants to see his son play baseball.” The same pair of knuckleheads tried to get a good grasp of the Weiner debacle, because he had to stop and think about whether the image could have been of him.
But raising doubts works in the minds of some. With an example like Christie’s other’s in government figure “why not me too” and all of a sudden government is funding the personal lives of all involved. Christie needs to set an example first and foremost.
I refuse to touch this Weiner thing…this tempest in a teapot. If Anderew Breitbart is anywhere near it then I suspect a scam. It’s easy enough to trace the IP address though an ISP who will divulge the user. Even if that werren’t conclusive the fact that concealment occurred via a variety of means (such as a chain of proxy servers) then that would be proof. I’d love to see Breitbart do some time, scum that he is.
I don’t usually fault the media for much of anything, but the Weiner case has become an imbroglio created and perpetrated by media spam-heads. They’ve consistently questioned him as though they were prosecutors questioning a defendant. They’re not and he isn’t. Some questions are particularly galling because any answer to the question will incriminate him in some way.
Surprising that Media Matters hasn’t picked up on this.
LATimes reiterates the lack of strong denial perspective…a “suspicious defense” case being made against him. Now it’s imperative to know. But it’s fueled by the same morbid roadkill curiosity and need to know that causes many to watch those “Housewives” reality shows. Shall we bring back the Coliseum of ancient Rome…maybe some gladiators…babes? To give people what they want?
Still, they’re going to say the same thing happened with Larry Craig. The entire thing become hopelessly muddied in the blink of an eye. All qualifications and drawing lines seem like equivocation and deflection.
Fact is, there’s not illegality or grounds for checking IP etc. Coincidentally, the very best scenario for a setup. Innocent until proven guilty will not be enough for those who will insist that the same isn’t extended to their ideological kindred spirits. Then it becomes all about revenge.
I’m happy with innocent until proven guilty even if he were Republican. We just have to live with doubt sometimes. I hope he’s fine and remains effective. None of us are omniscient. If it was a setup I hope it’s proven. That would have been illegal.
Nod. Someone posted a very good summary of this.
“He says he didn’t send it; she says she didn’t receive it; what’s the story?”
Plus, Breitbart is pimping it. That pushes “benefit of the doubt” to 11.
From what I can glean, *someone* got a hold of a picture of Wiener’s crotch (or learned that he’s allowed such a shot to be taken). Someone else has a screen shot showing it on a twitter feed (and is confident enough that it can’t be proven to be an obvious photoshop to pimp the story).
From Wiener’s point of view,
1) someone got a hold of a picture (or fact) that he’d only let someone he trusts (or trusted) have.
2) someone has played a hideously nasty game with it, and
3) someone (maybe the same someone) is using it to try to smear him.
The way he is acting is perfectly normal, and as dignified as one can be when discussing a crotch-shot on a twitter feed. He’s not sure what happened or how, but he knows he was attacked, and needs information – and doesn’t have it.
He’s only being “evasive” if he knows what happened. Place a template of “he doesn’t know what happened” and his behavior makes perfect sense.