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06 Jun 2011 23:16

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Politics: Yes, Anthony Weiner messed up, but come on!

  • Should Weiner have done this? For an elected public official, it was unwise, inappropriate, stupid. For a human being, it remains well within the bounds of, well, human.
  • Andrew Sullivan • Summing up our feelings on the Anthony Weiner disaster. Look, no one’s saying it was an honorable thing to do, but politicians regularly do much, much worse things than send a picture of their wang to someone online. And they don’t always get called out for it, either. source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Jun 2011 17:31

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Politics: So, when does a scandal force a political resignation?

  • then New York Rep. Chris Lee was caught in a very embarrassing position when it was revealed that he’d sent a shirtless photo of himself to a woman he met on Craigslist. Lee immediately resigned, giving way to the recent special election in NY-26.
  • now Anthony Weiner admitted he was lying, and carried out a number of sexy online relationships, sending not just a shirtless photo of himself (jeez, he looks good for 46), but a photo of him in his boxers. He will not be resigning. Chris Lee never knew it was this easy! source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Jun 2011 17:06

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Politics: Today’s dramatic Anthony Weiner admission: What happened

  • The admission Congressman Anthony Weiner has confessed not just to sending a photo of his clothed penis to one woman, but to having sexually explicit (though non-physical) relationships with six or so women over three years. He repeatedly stressed his apologies, most of them directed at his wife, Huma.
  • No resignation Weiner made it clear, though — he has no intention of resigning his position as a congressman from New York. He maintains he hasn’t violated his oath to uphold the Constitution, and will work to convince his constituents that this was a personal failing that doesn’t compromise his ability to do his job.
  • The Breitbart angle Andrew Breitbart caused a stir when he arrived before Weiner’s appearance, and answered questions from the podium. He’s since said this wasn’t his idea, and that he was skeptical about it (we’d rate it a bad idea). That said, Weiner apologized to Breitbart by name during his appearance. source
Posted by Chris Tognotti • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Jun 2011 02:32

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Politics: Weinergate devolves into flood of conspiracy theories

  • Anthony Weiner‘s got a lot of problems this week, but they’re sorta inflated. First off, the story is kind of at a point where fatigue is very high. However, despite technical evidence, including a very obvious yFrog flaw that would’ve made it easy to post a rogue tweet on Weiner’s account, the congressman’s performance this week has proven to be a complete liability, giving conservatives enough rope to hang him with. (By the way, just wanted to point out — we discovered the @PatriotUSA76 angle 15 hours before DailyKos broke it.) But at this point, only the die-hards are really, truly following this story. One of them, by the way, is a reporter for Mediaite — Tommy Christopher. We criticized Mediaite for their aggressive coverage Thursday but will give some credit today. You guys did some good work that deserves praise. More info:
  • useful Mediaite’s piece on Dan Wolfe (@PatriotUSA76) makes the strongest argument yet of Wolfe building a Wiener conspiracy … around underage girls. Daily Kos looks really bad in the piece, by the way.
  • crazy Not long after Wolfe deleted his Twitter account, the blog Ace of Spades HQ posted a screed on why he’s “irrelevant” in the scheme of Weinergate using a kinda-convoluted poker metaphor. Hrm.
  • crazier Have any patience left? You might lose it after reading the “interview” a conservative blogger did with Wolfe — essentially a long, unedited chat log. Take an Adderall before reading this; you’re gonna need it. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

30 May 2011 19:33

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Politics: Why we’re taking a break from more Weinergate news

  • At a time when the GOP is playing games with the debt limit, a member of the Supreme Court is refusing to recuse himself from matters he has a financial interest in, and middle class incomes are stagnant, many want to change the subject. I don’t. This was a prank, and a silly one. I’m focused on my work.
  • Rep. Anthony Weiner • Trying to draw a line in the sand on this whole Weinergate story, which has certainly gotten a bit crazier over the past day. The Atlantic Wire has a roundup of the story, which has gotten to the point of farce. CNN also got Weiner on camera today, where he seemed at least a little annoyed to be taking the questions. But ultimately, though, this piece of evidence (grabbed by Soup) is the strongest against Weiner doing anything wrong. Also, has anyone noticed how Mediaite has kinda gone crazy over this story? We love the site and everything, but they got a Photoshop expert to analyze the photo. A bit much, eh? They’re not the only ones, but you know what, we’re going to leave this mess alone for a while. The EXIF data is good enough for us. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 May 2011 23:31

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U.S.: “Weinergate”: Scouring Anthony Weiner’s rogue tweet saga

  • Look, we don’t want the Weiner story to be true. But we’ve done enough tweeting in our day to know all the tricks for reading someone’s social media tracks. We spent a couple of hours digging through tweets to find out more info. And, to us, there seems to be some evidence pointing in both directions on this story. The key thing for us is the existence of the rogue tweet, which was captured by TweetCongress.org even after it was deleted. But there’s also stuff that makes us wonder. The patient zero — the first person to retweet Anthony Weiner’s NSFW tweet — was this guy, who we’ve found in our research to be overly fixated on the congressman even BEFORE the tweet in question. In fact, he posted about a cheating scandal just like this one over TWO WEEKS AGO. Really? How was he so quick to hit the trigger on this? Some other things we noticed from the scandal:
  • for On Twitter, Weiner noted the Seattle time of his Friday TV appearance. The recipient of the NSFW tweet, from Seattle, retweeted.
  • for The person at the center of the drama deleted her Twitter account — which was active as of yesterday — after the tweet.
  • for The girl in question said Weiner was her “boyfriend” in an April tweet. Yeah, so? Her and every other liberal teen female has!
  • against To disprove that the photo was of Weiner, Daily Kos has a test of the NSFW photo that suggested it was ‘shopped. Hm.
  • » The important things to take from this: We don’t think Weiner did anything wrong as of yet, but we do think that there is a lot to suggest one of two things: One, this was possibly a scandal planted by someone who had closely followed the congressman’s Twitter account (because, based on our research, people have), and there were somewhat bizarre things that may have connected Weiner to the girl. Given the track record of Big Journalism, where the story originated from, we’d like to see a better source tackle this thing, because we don’t trust Breitbart as far as we can throw him. We rate this an “inconclusive.”
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

12 Dec 2010 23:34

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Politics: Max Headroom: Shepard Smith calls Obama “Omaba” somehow

  • “Anonymous” goes mainstream: Remember when “Anonymous” was simply a joke on the Internet that most people didn’t take seriously? It’s been a long time since those days. Now, we have “Operation Payback” (an offshoot of whatever “Anonymous” is) showing up as the number one item on “Countdown.” It’s a fascinating time we live in where something that started out as an apparent internet joke can actually raise some eyebrows. Our question: Will future attacks be scare tactics, like shutting down Mastercard and Visa? Or will they go for the jugular, like the massive hacking attack that tore through Gawker today?
  • Great Washington Theater The thing that we enjoyed the most about Friday’s ad-hoc press conference at the White House on Friday? We got to see a cheery, almost casual approach by both Obama and Bill Clinton. That said, guys like Anthony Weiner (part of the panel) aren’t having it. He backs Clinton while questioning Obama.
  • “Omaba”: A one-term president? We love when our boy Shepard Smith makes on-air mistakes. They’re always supremely entertaining – including the epic clip where he suggested Jennifer Lopez couldn’t get a blowjob block party in her old neighborhood. In this case, he called Obama “Omaba,” which is such a bizarre mistake to make.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

01 Aug 2010 21:57

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Politics: Max Headroom: According to Sarah Palin, Jan Brewer has balls


  • Talkin’ ’bout cajones On “Fox News Sunday,” Sarah Palin totally stumbled through what she was trying to say, only to make an amazing comeback by suggesting that Jan Brewer has the cajones to take on immigration – and Barack Obama doesn’t.

  • Gettin’ used to AmanpourCNN’s “Reliable Sources” seems to not know what to make of Christiane Amanpour’s first appearance on “This Week,” with Howard Kurtz and his guests stumbling over themselves to say the same thing – she’s new.

  • Anthony Weiner = cajonesPeople in New York, you have pretty much the loudest congressman in history. And we mean that in the nicest way possible. We swear. This scene in Congress last week is a method acting tour de force disguised as anger at the GOP.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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