Rep. Anthony Weiner To Give Presser at 4PM To Address Inappropriate Twittered Photos: UPDATE: Admits To Sending Photos

More photos keep coming to light courtesy of Breitbart and they do appear to show Brooklyn Democrat Rep. Anthony Weiner in less than a flattering light. Does this mean that the crotch-photo that lit up the Twitterverse is legitimately Weiner, or that Weiner sent the photo himself?

That's still an open question, but it appears that the Yfrog exploit is going to turn out to be the side-story. Yfrog had a vulnerability that could explain how someone could take photos and insert them into Weiner's twitter-stream without him knowing. That exploit may or may not have been fixed, but the news today doesn't appear to be good for Weiner.

Weiner could still claim that his accounts were hacked and that he never intended to send either the crotch photo or these newly released photos, but that would end up requiring forensic proof showing that he didn't do so or that his account was hacked.

If these do appear to be legitimate and Weiner has actually sent these photos, including the crotch-photo to other people through Twitter, then Weiner's political career is likely done. After all, similar photos sent by Buffalo-area Republican Rep. Christopher Lee resulted in his resignation. Lee actually set some kind of record, as he resigned within hours after the story broke on Gawker.

If Weiner does admit to sending the photos, the question then becomes of his political career, and his seat in Congress. His district is reliably Democrat, but Weiner's political aspirations for higher office, including Mayor of New York would likely over. That would be quite the stunning fall for the one-time protege for US Senator Chuck Schumer.

UPDATE:
Well, he's gone and admitted to sending the photos, which is just plain odd. After all his odd defenses and statements, that's it? What a putz.

As for his chances for a political future outside his district, I'd say that they're over. However, since he's refusing to resign, consider that he's in a safe district for Democrats, so he's going to likely remain and serve at his constituents' pleasure not unlike the way that Rep. Charles Rangel was reelected twice after his tax cheating ways were revealed and was censured by Congress.

A Twitter/Yfrog Exploit Allowed Unauthorized Postings on Rep. Weiner's Account?

The whole kerfuffle and smear campaign against Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY)  just gets more interesting. Cannonfire and Milowent have apparently found a way to duplicate how the image of a man's torso and penis was ostensibly sent from Weiner's Twitter account. For starters it would appear that Yfrog has no security (or is leaky) to the point that anyone can not only share images, but place images in the directories of other people even if the other person has password protection on their account.

That kind of arrangement makes it real easy to share images, but also inevitable allows for all manner of mischief - such as what apparently happened with Rep. Weiner's account.

Kudos to Milowent and others who figured this out and showed conclusively that it doesn't require hacking to make it appear that someone sent images or "hacked" the account.

(c) Cannonfire

More to the point here's the key graf:

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.

Thankfully I don't have a Yfrog account (and until now, never knew that such a thing existed), and my twitterings are usually quite tame text links, comments etc.

Whoever did this attempted the framing of a Congressman with lewd photos, and it would take a review of the IP addresses at Yfrog and Twitter to confirm that this happened.

Those who are proffering the original tweet and photo as proof of Rep. Weiner's misconduct are engaging in propaganda and attempting to delegitimize the Congressman as part of a smear campaign. It's a high tech attempt, and those responsible for spreading the smear might have gotten away with it except for the fact that others have managed to duplicate the manner in which the item was placed into Weiner's accounts - without actually hacking into the accounts.

Carrie Prejean Keeps Her Crown

Donald Trump, who owns the Miss USA pageant, refused to strip Carrie Prejean of her title. Good for him. Even better was the fact that he pointed out the salient fact that the media chose to ignore - that Prejean's position on gay marriage is the same as that of President Obama.

Prejean had apparently done semi-nude photos, which were not disclosed to pageant organizers, but the real kerfuffle flared in the aftermath of the event finals where Perez Hilton questions Prejean on gay marriage and a firestorm brewed over her honest answer that she personally opposed gay marriage.

As I've notably pointed out, Prejean's position is identical to that of President Obama, and he's received a fraction of the derision and investigation on his position as Prejean has had on hers.

She's Kosher Alright

I reported yesterday that the outrage over Gal Gadot's posing for an ad campaign that included an event at the Israeli Consulate in New York City last night was overblown.

Still, Gadot felt that she had to come forward and issue a statement:

The stunning former Miss Israel and model, Gal Gadot, said she is proud of her sexy photograph - part of a new tourism campaign touted by the Israeli Consulate that show cases a host of scantily clad Hebrew hotties.

"Obviously, I don't think it's pornographic, or I wouldn't have done it," said Gadot, 22, who's starting law school in the fall.

She added, "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. Israel is a democracy and that's what it's all about."

Her picture appeared on an official invitation sent out by the consulate in New York. It touched off an uproar in Israel, where several female politicians denounced it as the wrong way to promote the Jewish state.

The invite was for a Maxim magazine party last night at Chelsea hotspot Marquee to hype its July issue showcasing "Women of the Israeli Defense Forces."

"I'm not involved in politics," said the 5-foot-9 beauty. "I leave that to the politicians."

Israeli Consul-General Arye Mekel tried to diffuse the situation.

"This is the first time we used the word 'shoot' in connection to Israel and we're not talking about killing people," Mekel quipped about the photo shoot.

UPDATE:
Via Amos, here's a video of Gal:



UPDATE:
This post will serve as my call for today's Best and Brightest - just like Gal!

Israel's Latest Bombshells

Some Israeli legislators are getting all wound up over the portray of one mighty fine looking Israeli woman who is helping raise awareness for an event at the Israeli consulate in New York City today, that is cosponsored by Maxim (that should have been a giveaway that you were going to get some mighty attractive folks to adorn the ad campaign).

But prominent Israeli women say using sex to market the Land of Milk and Honey is "an outrage."

Former Consul-General Colette Avital, a member of the Israeli parliament, yesterday demanded an urgent meeting with the Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik to get an explanation of what she called the "pornographic campaign," the newspaper Yediot Achronoth reported.

The consulate in New York says the campaign is just seeking good demographics.

"We found that Israel's image among men 18-38 is lacking," David Saranga, consul for media and public affairs said.

"So we thought we'd approach them with an image they'd find appealing."

That's the wrong image, said Zahava Gal-On, a Knesset member and chairwoman of the Meretz Party.

These critics complain that the photo is pornographic. Sorry, I see it as art.

It most certainly isn't obscene. It's also quite representative of what you'll see at Israeli beaches throughout the year.

Your mileage might vary, but this is yet another reason to go visit Israel.

UPDATE:
Those who are trying to make a mountain out of a molehill here had ample warning. This was known to the Israeli legislators back in March, when Israel decided to approach Maxim over doing an ad campaign.

The beer 'n' babes magazine Maxim will send photographers to Israel next week for an Israeli women photo shoot that Foreign Ministry officials hope redefines what the magazine's hormone-charged readers think when they hear television reporters say "the situation in Israel is hot."

"All the surveys we have done shows that the biggest hasbara problem that Israel has is with males from the age of 18-35," said David Saranga, the consul for media and public affairs at Israel's consulate in New York.

"Israel does not seem relevant for them, and that is bad for branding," he said. "In order to change their perception of Israel as only a land of conflict, we want to present to them an Israel that interests them." Which is where good-looking women in skimpy bikinis come in.

The nine-person Maxim team, including photographers, a reporter, hairstylists and make-up people, will arrive for a five-day photo-shoot on Tuesday, using Tel Aviv-Jaffa - and the old and new motif - as a backdrop for the photographs.

UPDATE:
Jammie has more thoughts on the matter, as well as a link to the Maxim spread on the IDF gals.