The rightwingers are mounting a campaign: "We want an investigation of the Weiner affair!" They shout they words, they purr the words, they sometimes pose as liberals and try to make a reasonable-sounding case.
Obviously, we are dealing with an organized campaign. The overall picture is becoming clearer.
There are, in fact, no grounds for a federal investigation. Gennette has denied that she received any inappropriate words from the Congressman. Weiner has denied sending the picture or tweeting the tweet. He sent her nothing but boilerplate. Neither he nor she have broken or even brushed any laws.
Clearly, the security loophole described in my previous post was the device which allowed a miscreant to try to frame Weiner. We know this because Yfrog is closing that loophole at this very moment. And that is that.
So why do the righties want an investigation? For one reason: They want to go fishing.
Remember Whitewater? It was bullshit. Everyone now agrees that it was bullshit. The Republicans used bullshit charges to go on a fishing expedition against Bill Clinton.
What the Republicans want is a scenario where Anthony Weiner -- the victim of a frame job -- is forced to sit in a chair and answer questions like the one Wolf Blitzer (infuriatingly and inapproriately) tried to ask: Have you ever in your life taken a picture of your groin?
Appalling.
Weiner is the victim here. There is no justification for placing him in a situation where political enemies can ask him humiliating questions about his entire life history.
The righties are guessing that Weiner played some naughty online games back in the days before he was married. They may even have secret info to that effect.
I've posited in various comments that Weiner, in his bachelor days, may have traded naughty photos with an online paramour, and that the crotch shot, or a version thereof, may be leftover detritus from some dalliance that took place a long time ago. Millions of other people trade such pics.
As everyone knows, dumped lovers tend to turn vengeful.
Please understand: I do not know that there is a vengeful ex lurking behind the scenes. (And I have no idea if the congressman has ever pointed a camera lens crotch-ward.) But I would not be surprised.
If such a personage exists, the Republicans would keep her offstage until the right moment. First and foremost, they would want to see Weiner respond to the question that they have no right to ask: "Have you ever in your life pointed a camera at your crotch?"
Nota bene: Dan Wolfe has said that he has more info and possibly more photos to use against Weiner. Those claims, in and of themselves, imply that the events of the 27th were was a set-up, not happenstance.
If Weiner were to sue the presumed framer for libel or defamation, the accused would have the right to discovery. During a deposition, Weiner would be asked that question. The question would probably be allowed, despite being in no way germane to the issue at hand.
He'd have to be nuts to walk into that nightmare.
Nevertheless, the righties keep saying that if Weiner will not sue or investigate, then he must be guilty.
Oh really?
That logic works two ways. And so does the threat of deposition.
Let me make this statement loud and clear, in boldface, with no caveats or qualifications:
The person who tried to frame Anthony Weiner is DAN WOLFE! DAN WOLFE! DAN WOLFE! Dan Wolfe is 100% guilty of a serious ethical offense, and that fact should be made known to everyone who ever considers employing him!
I've read up on the libel laws. I know full well the import of what I am saying. I've never before used this column to level an accusation of that sort against a private citizen. I'm usually very careful about wrapping my statements in qualifying language.
By rightwinger logic, if Dan does not sue me, then he must be guilty as charged.
Dan says that he welcomes an investigation. But he's lying. You know how I know he is lying? Because he won't sue me. He knows full well that if he sues me, I will have powers of discovery.
(Will someone please pass this post along to Dan Wolfe, Dan Wolfe, Dan Wolfe, the man who definitely, positively tried to frame a congressman, DAN WOLFE?)
Come and get me, Dannikins. I want your C drive.
Let's talk about that browser cache of yours. If you found that 800x600 image in your browser cache, then you damn well ought to have the 640x480 -- and that image would have the all-important EXIF data. If the image has been deleted, then we will know that you tried to cover your tracks.
How can you say you have nothing to hide when you have refused to cough up that 640x480?
I just talked the matter over with a top paralegal who has worked with lots of really good lawyers here in Baltimore. She told me all about discovery. She also said "Sometimes it's good to tweak the Devil's nose."
Am I worth suing, financially? No. In fact, I'm pretty much as judgment-proof as an individual can be. The most that DW! DW! DW! could get from me is the Hippo, the loss of which would pain me, even though the gain of the thing would probably be inconsequential to Danny.
But Dan -- we're talking about principle here. You say you welcome an investigation. Well, let's have at it.
Write to me, and I'll arrange a meeting. I'm too poor to travel, so you'll have to have someone in your network serve me the papers. You probably know someone in the DC area, right? Let's meet in the Starbucks in the Barnes and Noble by the Chesapeake Bay. Just tell me when.
If you don't sue me, Dan, you must be (in the words of that great old Doonesbury cartoon) GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!
5 comments:
So I just posted a link to your site on Facebook & got a never-before-seen security alert--checking to see if I was a real person. wtf?
Anthony Weiner Twitter Photo May Have Posted Via Security Loophole
...
Several technology experts and bloggers have pointed out that one way to get a photo quickly posted to yfrog and Twitter is by sending the photo to a special email address associated with the accounts.
In theory, someone who simply knew Weiner’s yfrog email address could have emailed the photo, which in turn would have been simultaneously uploaded to both his yfrog and Twitter accounts -- all without ever being prompted for a password or permission.
The blog Cannonfire tried it out and took screen grabs to demonstrate HERE.
...
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/06/anthony-weiner-twitter-photo-may-have-posted-via-security-loophole.html
End Quote
Joseph,
Don't forget us little people ;-)
Woman Voter
http://georgegooding.com/post/6120191663/weiner-yfrog-email-debunked
I read that Gooding thing. Pure babble. All of it.
The URL anomaly certainly showed up in my tests, and I showed screen shots to prove it.
Gooding's "analysis" (if it can be called that) relies on that bizarre post by Gateway Pundit, which was hardly a threat. I republished much of it and made fun of it, line by line.
Let's do the same with the Gooding thing, shall we?
"As has been pointed out by Gateway Pundit by now, you can use Yfrog’s image service without ever signing up for Yfrog, and more importantly, they cannot cross-post to Twitter without authorization."
What does that have to do with what I wrote? How does it affect the (proven) contention that you can email a pic to someone else's Yfrog account, and the result would look like that other person uploaded it himself?
"On May 28th, I posted a picture to Twitter with the TweetDeck application from my phone. TweetDeck and other applications use Yfrog as an image service by default. I had not signed up or in at Yfrog prior to this, and did not need to do so in order for images to be pushed to Yfrog from TweetDeck.
"Through using TweetDeck, I gave the application permission to post to Twitter; TweetDeck uses Yfrog without any further authorization from me, as do many other applications. This does not give Yfrog permission to post to my Twitter account!"
How does that affect my contention in the slightest?
"A layman way of explaining how this works:
"I tell the phone application that I want to send an image to Twitter
"It sends the image to Yfrog and Yfrog returns a URL to the application
"The application then posts to Twitter with the URL and any message I put in along with it
"In other words, the application (TweetDeck in my case) is using Yfrog as an asset, it isn’t Yfrog doing the posting to Twitter."
None of this affects my contention in the slightest.
"Now, Weiner has stated on the record that he had no idea what Yfrog was, and there is no reason to suppose that he ever signed into or gave Yfrog permission to post to Twitter on his behalf. It would never have been required of him in the use of his Blackberry to post pics to Twitter, as the Blackberry application would be the one that had the permission to post, not Yfrog."
Sigh. I've already dealt with this. All right, once AGAIN...
Weiner did not say that he had never had anything to do with Yfrog. He did seem confused by it.
As I noted earlier, I've often forgotten the name "Imageshack." That's the Yfrog sister app that allows me to put images on the side panels of this blog. Why does the name regularly slip my mind? Because I use Imageshack infrequently.
When Weiner went through the initial Twitter setup, he must have ran across a screen eling him to sign onto Yfrog so he could transmit images. He clicked on that screen and went on to other business. Like a zillion other Twitter users.
How do we know he did this? Simple. In the same interview that Gooding references, Weiner said that he got onto his Yfrog account and deleted the images!
He could not have done that if he had not, in fact, been storing images on his Yfrog account. Which means he HAD one.
And if you have one, it's possible for other people to spoof your address.
Many of the people who conducted what we may call the Cannonfire test (or perhaps the Dowson test?) did so using Blackberries and similar devices.
Is Gooding arguing that the images on my account are not there?
Gooding is pathetic. Just pathetic.
As dear old Uncle Aleister once put: "Never forget how easy it is to make a maniac's hell's-broth out of any proposition, however plain to common sense."
And of course, Gooding doesn't have commenting on his blog. Wouldn't want have to actually prove, or debate at all, his contention now, would he?
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