Do you know how major TV networks swear they don’t pay for interviews with suspected murderers but then end up paying “licensing fees” for pictures of the victim, supplied to them by the suspect’s family? That’s just what came to mind when I read this report in TMZ that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s mistress, Mildred Baena, said she wasn’t paid for her “interview” with Hello! and just wanted to set the record straight and go back to living a peaceful life. I’m not comparing her to murderesses or anything, I’m just saying this is total bullsh*t, just like her claim that she never told Arnold that the doppleganger son of hers was his. I’m thinking they paid her at least $200k for those photos. There were four posed photos of Mildred with Arnold’s 13 year-old son, Joseph (they had a wardrobe change for one) and another candid photo of them out together. The paparazzi have no pictures of her so those must have been worth a bundle.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s baby mama Mildred Baena claims she did NOT make one single cent for the tell-all interview she gave to Hello! Magazine … insisting it wasn’t about the money.

Mildred’s lawyer tells us, “Mildred was tired of people selling their lies to the media or claiming to speak for her when they do not … She gave the interview in order to set the record straight once and for all.”

Her lawyer adds, “All she wanted to do was put the lies and rumors to rest. And we believe that she has done that through this interview.”

As for how the interview ended up with Hello! Magazine — we’re told it was delivered to the magazine by a freelance reporter … who has a personal relationship with Baena’s lawyer.

[From TMZ]

As for the interview itself, there isn’t much in there that we didn’t cover yesterday. There was one sketchy quote she gave that I’d like to mention. She said that when people told her that her son looked like Arnold, she sometimes claimed that the boy was the son of one of Arnold’s friends from Germany. (Arnold is from Austria, not Germany, by the way.) That’s ridiculous, considering that Joseph himself didn’t know that Arnold was his dad until just a year ago, when his grandmother told him. (If Baena’s story is to be believed.) Here’s what she said “As Joseph matured, I found myself staring at Arnold more and more. People would tease me about how much they looked alike, but I said Arnold had a friend who would come over from Germany and he was the father.” So she told random “people” that the father was someone other than her ex husband, but she didn’t bother informing her son of this fact, and according to the ex husband she didn’t tell him about it either, and he assumed he was the father up until this point. This lady’s statements are not adding up.

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s former housekeeper mistress, Mildred Beana, has an interview and photo spread in the upcoming issue of Hello! Magazine. They have multiple photos of her posing with her and Arnold’s now 13 year-old son, Joseph. Mildred has been in hiding to date and as far as we’ve heard she hasn’t even returned to her home, where the press were camped out waiting for her after the scandal broke in mid May. (It’s possible they’ve all moved on by now, though.)

Hello! has some details online of Mildred’s interview along with a larger photo of her with Arnold’s son. (It’s the small photo to the bottom left on the cover and you can see a larger photo on Hello!’s website.) I’m surprised she’s coming out now and assumed that Arnold would throw a bunch more money at her to ensure that she never spoke to the press. We’ve already heard most of the story, though, and Mildred confirms the detail that Star Magazine reported – that Maria had her suspicions and was the one to confront Mildred. She also claims that Arnold never heard it from her that he was the boy’s father, and that he didn’t find out when the boy was just a toddler, as was reported. The way Mildred tells it, she figured out that Arnold was Joseph’s father, Arnold never figured it out and may have suspected but didn’t say anything to her about it, and Joseph didn’t know Arnold was his dad until his grandmother told him about it a year ago. So if Arnold never knew, why did he put a down payment on Mildred’s house, give her $10k a month over her salary and lavish gifts on her family? Was it just because she was giving him some on the side? It sounds like she’s lying to me.

Here’s what she said, and I’ve added bolded headers:

When it was revealed that Arnold Schwarzenegger had a 13-year-old child with a trusted member of the family’s domestic staff, the world let out a collective gasp.

The mother, housekeeper Mildred Baena, has since been in hiding.

But with fictitious stories circulating in the media, she has decided to set the record straight, and is giving what will be her first and only interview exclusively to HELLO! magazine.

She is joined by the other protagonist in this distressing drama, son Joseph, who has dealt with the events of the past few weeks with a maturity way beyond his years.

The boy found out a year ago that Arnold was his dad
When his grandmother sat him down one year ago to explain that Arnold Schwarzenegger was his father, he exclaimed: “Cool!”.

And his mother said the young boy is looking forward to building a relationship with the former Hollywood star.

Guatelaman-born Mildred revealed that she realised the truth once her son started to resemble the former Governor of California.

“It was as Joseph grew and I started to see the resemblance that I wondered – but It became more apparent as time went on,” she said.

She claims to have never told Arnold he was Joseph’s father
“I knew Arnold was the father, and maybe as Joseph got older and began to look like him, he [Arnold] wondered. But he never said anything to me.”

On how she told Maria afer Maria confronted her about it
She also revealed that Marie [sic] Shriver, Arnold’s now ex-wife, had started to put two and two together when she heard whispers in the household about the pair’s similarity.

“She would say things like, “I’m here if you need to talk.” I sensed something was up. I have so much love and respect for Maria.

“Finally, she asked point blank.”

But it was Maria’s actions that shocked Mildred.

“She was so strong. She cried with me and told me to get off my knees. We held each other and I told her it wasn’t Arnie’s fault, that it takes two.”

Finally, she expressed her sympathy for Arnold and what he must be going through: “He’s a good man and I know he’s suffering too. He loves Maria. I hope with time they work things out.”

[From Hello!]

So how much did this lady get paid for this exclusive interview? She kept her silence for about a month, so she was probably in negotiations for a while. I really think she’s lying about Arnold not knowing. It sounds like she’s just trying to cover for him. She should have kept her silence. It was bad enough for this kid before his mom sold him out to Hello! along with the story of how he was conceived.

I bought this issue of Hello! on Zinio to see if there are any more details that aren’t in the preview. She swears she never told Arnold that Joseph was his son, saying “I never told him. I never told anyone except my mother.” On how Maria figured it out, Mildred finally brought Joseph with her to work, other staff started whispering, and then Maria got word of it. As for whether her affair with Arnold was ongoing, she says “It was a few times [with Arnold], 14 years ago.” She also confirms that she’s been in hiding, and says “I want to bring my son home so he can get back to a normal life.” As for her home that Arnold put the down payment on, she says “Just recently I asked for his help to buy a home and he said ‘sure,‘” but adds that “I pay all the upkeep myself.” She concludes “A choice was made many years ago that I kept secret for 14 years, but now it’s known and I’m hoping people just leave it alone and we can get on with our lives.” Then why did she do a high profile interview like this?

Congresspeople on both sides of the political aisle are calling for Rep Weiner (D-NY) to resign following the Weinergate scandal. We’ve seen plenty of evidence that the guy enjoyed getting his “ego” stroked online by random women through various outlets like Twitter, Facebook and I’m sure we can add instant messaging platforms to the pile. Maybe if he stuck to Skyping instead of sending out so many adoring photos of himself he could have postponed the inevitable scandal resulting from his online sexting addiction.

Weiner refuses to resign from Congress though, and like so many other idiots before him he’s seeking “treatment” for his “issues” while trying to hold on to his political career. The dude wants us to feel sorry for him, even after the story that he was messaging with a 17 year-old girl from Delaware. We heard recently that police were investigating Weiner’s twitter messages to the girl, which he claims “were neither explicit nor indecent.” Apparently she messaged him after seeing him speak during a school trip to Washington, and he responded and added her as a follow. It’s unknown if Weiner’s messages to her were inappropriate, but given the context this new information is damning. So instead of admitting that the gig is up and that he should leave Congress, Weiner is requesting a leave of absence and issuing statements meant to elicit sympathy. No one is buying it and his colleagues are saying that he should face reality and step down.

Defying forceful demands for his resignation, Representative Anthony D. Weiner of New York said on Saturday that he was entering a psychological treatment center and seeking a leave of absence from the House to deal with a pattern of reckless online behavior with women.

The announcement came as three top Democratic leaders declared that Mr. Weiner, 46, once a rising star in the party, needed counseling and should step down from Congress.

Pressure on Mr. Weiner to leave the House, and spare the Democratic Party from an increasingly embarrassing scandal, had been building all week, but intensified on Friday, after it was revealed that Mr. Weiner had traded private messages with a 17-year-old girl in Delaware.

Mr. Weiner, who friends say has become distraught and fragile in recent days, will use the leave to think about his future and whether to leave Congress, a possibility he has not entirely ruled out, a person close to him said.

But Mr. Weiner’s plan did not satisfy exasperated Democratic leaders, who have been trying to persuade him that he is damaging himself, his family and his party by remaining a member of the House.

The House Democratic leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, spoke to Mr. Weiner on the phone Saturday morning and, notably, released her statement calling for his resignation after he told her of his plan to get treatment and to take the leave. Mr. Weiner received a similar phone call from Representative Steve Israel of New York, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, urging him to resign.

Mr. Weiner has been talking with a therapist in New York City over the past couple of days, as fallout from his online scandal worsened and he absorbed the message from his colleagues and advisers that his conduct reflected not just bad judgment but perhaps a deeper psychological problem.

“Congressman Weiner departed this morning to seek professional treatment to focus on becoming a better husband and healthier person,” said his spokeswoman, Risa Heller. “In light of that, he will request a short leave of absence from the House of Representatives so that he can get evaluated and map out a course of treatment to make himself well.”

Ms. Heller would not identify the facility or the precise kind of counseling Mr. Weiner, who has admitted having explicit communications with six women he met online, would receive. She stressed that he was carefully considering the calls from his fellow lawmakers urging him to give up his seat.

Mr. Weiner has been resistant in telephone calls over the past week with Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Israel, who have been warning him that if he does not quit, they will make their case publicly.

They were especially frustrated, according to one high-ranking Democratic official, when Mr. Weiner repeatedly told them he could not resign now because his wife, Huma Abedin, was traveling abroad with her boss, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton — an assertion they viewed as an unpersuasive pretext.

Ms. Pelosi had hoped that the congressman would reach the decision on his own to go. In addition to her concerns about the political distraction Mr. Weiner had become, Ms. Pelosi concluded that his behavior required medical intervention.

“When you are this self-destructive, there is obviously something deeper going on with you,” said a Pelosi adviser who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being seen as betraying her confidence…

One friend said it had become abundantly clear that Mr. Weiner was no longer in a position to make clear-headed decisions about his career and health.

“He was falling apart,” said a longtime friend, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect the relationship.

Mr. Weiner, who prides himself on his dapper appearance and physical fitness, was losing weight, seemed run down and drawn and increasingly found it difficult to make it through telephone calls without losing his composure.

He began meeting with the therapist not only to discuss his online behavior, but also to cope with the fallout from the scandal. On Friday, with calls for his resignation multiplying, he agreed that traditional therapy was not enough. He told family and friends that he would enter an out-of-town clinic and made travel plans for Saturday afternoon. He will be evaluated before it is determined exactly what kind of treatment he will receive.

[From the NY Times via Radar Online]

Boo-f’ing-hoo. Meanwhile TMZ has a whole new crop of photos of the guy posing in the mirror at the Congressional gym. In some he’s clutching a towel and cupping himself. In another the towel is barely hanging over his d*ck. As I’ve said before, it’s not that he enjoyed getting off online with randoms, that’s relatively harmless and is something between him and his wife as long as he keeps it quiet – it’s that he lied about it repeatedly in the aftermath and was so arrogant and defensive. That is a huge reflection on his character, and shows that he has no qualms about lying when it serves his purposes. It’s all about Weiner and his precious d*ck.

Photos are from 2006 and 2010. Credit: WENN.com

In a sad twist to the Weinergate scandal, the cybersexting Congressman’s wife is reportedly pregnant. Huma Abedin, 35, has been married to 46 year-old Congressman Anthony Weiner since just July of last year. Abedin is a longterm aide to Hillary Clinton, and Bill Clinton even officiated the Weiner’s wedding. (Hillary can probably teach Weiner’s wife a thing or two about managing the political fallout from a cheating spouse who lies about it to the press. Obviously Weiner learned nothing from Bill Clinton’s example.)

I would write that this is just a rumor and is not confirmed, but it’s a rumor in a blog from the NY Times, and they write that several sources have confirmed the news. Weiner of course claims his wife isn’t happy with his cyber sexing, but that she’s sticking by him for now. The story that she’s pregnant adds some perspective to her apparent decision to stay.

Representative Anthony D. Weiner and Huma Abedin are about to make news of a different kind: they are expecting their first child.

Ms. Abedin, 35, is in the early stages of pregnancy, according to three people with knowledge of the situation.

The pregnancy, which the couple has disclosed to close friends and family, adds a new dimension to questions about the future of their marriage.

Mr. Weiner, 46, has admitted to engaging in salacious online conversations with at least six women over the last few years, including an incident last month in which he sent a photograph of himself in underwear to a college student in Washington state. He apologized to his wife and declared that they have no intention of splitting up.

“We will weather this,” Mr. Weiner said on Monday, during his emotional news conference. “I love her very much, and she loves me.”

But Ms. Abedin, a longtime aide to Hillary Rodham Clinton, has remained silent about the topic as she keeps up a hectic schedule at the State Department.

Ms. Abedin returned to work this week and departed on Wednesday for a trip to Northern Africa with Ms. Clinton.

A State Department spokesman declined to comment Wednesday afternoon.

[From Cityroom NYTimes.com]

Yesterday Bedhead pointed me to this article in the NY Post in which Sex and The City actor Chris Noth commented on Weinergate. He made some interesting observations. “Imagine if sex didn’t matter in politics, what would it be like?… I think media has changed our society not for the better. I think we would never have a John F. Kennedy with you guys around… I’d rather have [bleeped] some lady than [bleep] the country.” A lot of people agree with that last sentiment, and think that puts this all in perspective. If you have a good politician who fools around on his wife (and in this case just virtually as far as we know), what does it matter? I think the fact that the guy lied to multiple news outlets about it afterwards and was arrogant and evasive does matter, and that it speaks to his character. Plus he wasn’t just tweeting his dick to porn stars and single moms, he was sexting with 21 year-old college students. That’s technically legal, but it still makes him a skeeve.

Now that Weiner’s political future is up to question it leaves the field wide open for a potential Democratic candidate for mayor of New York City in 2013. Weiner was considering running for Mayor before we saw a photo of his dick in boxer briefs. (And a photo of his unclad erection has surfaced as well.)

Actor Alec Baldwin is reporting considering a run for mayor in 2013 in Weiner’s stead. His rep told Entertainment Weekly “I wouldn’t rule it out.” If Schwarzenegger can be governor of California I guess Baldwin can be mayor of New York. We already know that Baldwin has anger management issues, but some more dirt will probably come out on him if he enters politics. Chris Noth pretty much called it.

Photos of the happy couple are from 3/6/11 and 5/14/09. Credit: WENN.com

The Weinergate sext scandal rages on, with more women coming out of the woodwork, and more stories about the stupidity the Congressman from New York was up to. Radar even published all the chat sessions he had with one of his Facebook friends, a 40 something blackjack dealer from Vegas who won him over by talking politics for a hot minute before flattering him. It was stupid and lame, and reading those messages brought the scandal home for me – he just wanted to talk sex online and get some fan love from randoms. If he would have owned up to the c*ck pic from the beginning and admitted that he was up to no good online he might possibly have avoided this inevitable leakage of even more evidence. The Republican NY Congressman who sent the shirtless pic to the woman on Craig’s List resigned right away and we didn’t hear another peep about it. This douche is holding on and trying to weather the storm that is his own stupidity and throbbing ego.

There’s also that chick from Texas who friended him by commenting “hottt” on his YouTube video, we heard from her yesterday, the porn star who said that Weiner coached her to lie, and the 21 year-old student that Weiner originally tweeted the boxer briefs photo to. There are surely many more, and some of them have got to be scared that they could be called to the Capital to talk about what they were up to when the Congressman was bored at work. There’s going to be an ethics probe into whether he used official resources (he did according to one of the women he called on a Congress phone) and if he violated any House rules:

Disgraced New York Congressman Anthony Weiner is now facing an Ethics Committee investigation to determine whether or not he violated any House rules, and RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned that the women embroiled in Weinergate could be called to testify.

Los Angeles powerhouse attorney Mark Geragos, who has represented numerous high profile clients, including Roger Clinton and Susan McDougal, tells RadarOnline.com: “The Ethics committee could issue subpoenas for the women involved in the scandal. If subpoenaed, they are required to appear, by law.”

Weiner’s woes don’t end there — Geragos reveals that the embattled lawmaker’s government issued cellular phone records and government computer hard drives could also be admitted for evidence in the investigation.

“It’s possible that Congressman Weiner’s government issued cellular phone records, and government computer hard drives could be subpoenaed as well. It’s all relevant.”

In a joint investigation, RadarOnline.com and Star magazine broke the blockbuster story that Lisa Weiss, a 40-year-old Las Vegas blackjack dealer had a nine month sexting relationship with the disgraced Democrat.

Moments after weeping Weiner’s press conference on Monday, House Minority Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced: “I am calling for an Ethics Committee investigation to determine whether any official resources were used or any other violation of House rules occurred.”

Meanwhile, the congressman said he has no plans of resigning.

[From Radar]

This seems pretty inevitable, and again if he just would have nipped this in the bud from the beginning and admitted it was him and that he was doing some cybersexting he may have been able to get off (ha!) with a slap on the wrist. As it is he’s going to be a punchline for a long time and he may get kicked out of Congress. Plus we’ll probably get to read more asinine messages he sent to women online when he was jerking off. Yay!

Kaiser pointed me to this Daily Show send up of the Weiner press conference, which they didn’t cover right away on Friday. The best part is the second one where John Oliver comes in. Kaiser and I agreed that we would hit it so hard.

And here’s Stewart in a moral dilemma about whether to cover this. I love it. “What if it was Senator Scrotum? Comptroller Camel Toe?… You gotta come cleaner, Weiner.” This had me crying laughing.

This photo is from 2006. This woman has got to regret posing with him.

This one is from 2005.

Photo credit: WENN.com

After married congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) posted a photo to his Twitter account of a man’s erect p3nis in underwear, an apparent direct message to a college student that was accidentally posted publicly, he tried to claim that his “Facebook” account was hacked. This was despite the fact that the apparent hack occurred on his Twitter account. When reporters asked him about the scandal, he repeatedly changed the subject, insisted that it was the work of a prankster trying to detract from the issues at hand, and wouldn’t directly answer whether the boxer briefs and the equipment posted on Twitter were his. Now that more women have come forward with evidence of sexting with Weiner, he’s finally owning up to the photo, and has admitted that it was him. In a press conference he said that “the picture was of me and I sent it,” and that he’s “exchanged messages and photos of an explicit nature with about six women over the last three years.”

At least two of those “six” women have come out already, one to ABC News and another to The National Enquirer [via Radar], and of course there are more photos of this douche. The woman who shared her story to ABC news, a 26 year-old single mother from Texas, also gave some photos to Breitbart of Weiner showing off his shaved chest and mugging for the camera. You can watch a video with her above in which she discusses their online flirtation (while she’s chomping gum the entire time), which began in April of this year. Here’s more on this story, from ABC News:

Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York said today he has engaged in “several inappropriate” electronic relationships with six women over three years, and that he publicly lied about a photo of himself sent over Twitter to a college student in Seattle over a week ago.

“I take full responsibility for my actions,” Weiner said. “The picture was of me, and I sent it.”

The announcement came as ABC News prepared to release an interview with Meagan Broussard, a 26-year-old single mother from Texas who provided dozens of photos, emails, Facebook messages and cell phone call logs that she says chronicle a sexually-charged electronic relationship with Weiner that rapidly-evolved for more than a month, starting on April 20, 2011.

View an exclusive slideshow of images obtained by ABC News.

ABC News reached out to Weiner earlier today for comment about his possible ties to Broussard, but he did not respond to requests for an interview. At a press conference later, Weiner confirmed Broussard was one of the women with whom he sexted.

Broussard’s story had threatened to expose the secret online life of one of the House Democrats’ most popular members, and a man many considered a leading candidate for mayor of New York City.

It also raised new questions about Weiner’s explanation for how a photo of a man’s groin area ended up on his public Twitter feed on May 27. Today the congressman said he accidentally sent the image to a woman, Gennette Cordova, who was following him on Twitter, as a joke.

“I just chuckled,” Broussard, a nursing student, said of her reaction to Weiner’s initial response to the Twitter incident. “It would be one thing if he came out and said, ‘Hey, so what?’ But now he’s saying he got hacked?”

Broussard said she received the same photo of a man’s crotch on May 18 in an email from a man who she then believed was Weiner.

[From ABC News]

This guy made $174,000 a year of taxpayer money with hundreds of thousands more spent on his office, staff, expenses, etc. Instead of reading bills, passing laws and figuring out to make life better for the people he represented, he was wasting time stroking his d*ck and ego online. He’s not resigning yet, although there are plenty of calls for him to do so.

Weiner and his wife of less than one year, Huma Abedin. He claims she’s not leaving him.

photo credit: WENN.com

Arnold Schwarzenegger has officially hired a high-powered divorce attorney, just two weeks after the news came out that this now-estranged wife of 25 years, Maria Shriver, hired her own celebrity divorce attorney, Laura Wasser. Arnold has retained Bob Kaufman, who has represented Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston and Jessica Simpson in their divorces. This is a real turnaround for Arnold, whose last public statement had him saying he still loved Maria and sounding like he was holding out for a reconciliation. This was of course before all that “lovechild” business broke and before we heard other sordid details about all the women Arnold was screwing on the side. Surprisingly, only one other mistress has come out publicly, though, suggesting that The Governator either kept it in his pants most of the time except for the maid (unlikely) or paid off his side pieces to keep quiet, as he did with the housekeeper.

Yesterday Arnold was seen outside a hotel in Santa Monica, where he met with his daughters Christina, 19, and Katherine, 20, for about an hour and a half. Paparazzi agency X17 is speculating that it was a “divorce pow wow” in light of the news that Arnold has hired a lawyer. That’s likely, although we have no way of knowing what they discussed.

The Huffington Post reports that the “Schwarzenegger-Shriver divorce could be one of the most expensive celebrity divorces to date, with their combined net worth estimated at $500 million.” That’s a lot of money to divide. We still haven’t heard anything about Mel Gibson’s divorce, and his net worth is somewhere significantly north of that at around $900 million.

Maria Shriver stepped out on Tuesday without her wedding ring. There were also photos of her on Memorial day without her ring, but this time she held her left hand up for the paparazzi to send a clear message that she wasn’t clinging to her marriage in any way. It looks like Arnold has come around on that issue as well. I’m kind of surprised that he’s facing reality. He’s been leading a double life for years, but now that he’s been caught I find it hard to believe that he’d just concede that he needs to get a divorce. He must have been so deep in denial and delusion for years and that doesn’t just go away when someone gets busted.

Maria Shriver photo credit: Brabus, PacificCoastNews.com. Arnold is shown out riding his motorcycle with a buddy on 5/30/11. Credit: Fame Pictures

Anthony Weiner and his wife of less than one year, Huma Abedin, on 3/26/11

Remember the scandal over the married NY Republican congressman who was trolling for strange on Craigslist? That guy resigned after a shirtless self portrait photo surfaced. Well a married NY Democratic congressman, the ironically named Anthony Weiner, publicly tweeted a photo over the weekend of his erect crotch (in underwear, thankfully, you can see the photo here) to a 21 year-old college student and then immediately tried to claim his “Facebook” was hacked, even though the photo was posted on the photo sharing site YFrog, which is connected to his Twitter account. Also, somehow he gained immediate control of his Twitter account from the “hackers,” who had hacked his “Facebook” and were mysteriously controlling his Twitter account through it. There’s all sorts of evidence that the guy is trying to cover for being 1. a skeeve and 2. an idiot with technology.

Some outlets are trying to make this into a political issue, but it seems like a men thinking with their little heads issue, which is an equal opportunity offender/equalizer. What’s more is that there’s plenty of evidence that Weiner has direct messaged with other women, including porn stars.

Liberal Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner tried Tuesday to deflect attention away from a controversy involving a lewd photo briefly posted on his Twitter account, saying the matter was undeserving of further attention.
Meanwhile, the conservative blogger who broke the story called for a full investigation of what he said was either the hacking of a congressman’s account or something Weiner wants to hide.

Weiner told reporters he wasn’t interested in talking about the issue any more, saying he already made statements over the Memorial Day weekend after news of the photo of the lower body of a man wearing underwear turned up on his Twitter account Friday night.

In a heated exchange with reporters, he repeatedly dodged direct questions about the photo.

“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 that insult. I would return to the things that I want to talk about,” Weiner said in response to a question about whether he sent the lewd photo to a Seattle woman.
He also refused to say why he hasn’t asked law enforcement to investigate if in fact his account was hacked, as he has said it was.

In earlier comments, when asked if the photo was of him, Weiner deflected the question.

“I’m not going to talk about this anymore,” he said, adding: “I’m going to get back to the conversation I care about,” including economic issues and what he calls a conflict-of-interest situation involving conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on the health care reform law. The New York Democrat is a leading liberal voice in Congress.
Asked several questions about the Twitter situation, Weiner stuck to his message.

“I understand you’re doing your job, but I’m going to go back to work now,” Weiner said at one point. When asked if he was concerned about being hacked, he responded: “I’m going to return to working on the things I care about. I participated in the story a couple of days now, given comments on it. This is a distraction and I’m not going to let it distract me.”

When a reporter noted the distraction might go away if he answered the questions, Weiner answered: “I’m not convinced of that.

“I’m not convinced there’s any value of me talking about it,” Weiner said.

Asked again if he was the man in the photo, Weiner responded again that he had made previous statements and now it was time for him to get back to work.

Previously, Weiner blamed the photo on a hacker who got control of his social-networking accounts and played a prank. Weiner’s spokesman, Dave Arnold, said Monday the congressman has retained an attorney to look into the situation.
“We’ve retained counsel to explore the proper next steps and to advise us on what civil or criminal actions should be taken,” Arnold said in a statement. “This was a prank. We are loath to treat it as more, but we are relying on professional advice.”

No formal criminal investigation has been launched, which rankles Andrew Breitbart, whose conservative website biggovernment.com first reported the photo on Weiner’s Twitter account in connection with a tweet to a Seattle woman.

[From CNN]

Yeah, he did it and he can only respond by changing the subject. It’s a bad excuse and he’s handling it poorly. Below is a video of him making those statements and I’m pretty convinced he’s guilty now that I’ve watched it. He comes across as arrogant and evasive.

Why do men think that women find photos of their d*ck hot, though? I’ve had men send me stuff like this when I was single and all it made me do was point, laugh and hit “delete.” I should have kept some of that, though, because who knows where those idiots are now.

Here’s Weiner talking about the “prank” on his Twitter account and deflecting all questions. He never directly says “no” he didn’t send that tweet, he never says “no” that photo wasn’t of him, and he doesn’t answer questions as to why he never had this “hacking” investigated. [Mediaite via National Review]

Photos below are from 6/15/10. He’s not wearing a wedding ring because he only got married in July of last year. Credit: WENN.com

Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger were each photographed separately in California over the long holiday weekend. Maria was seen hitting the beach with her kids in Malibu, going out to dinner and shopping in Brentwood. She spent the weekend at the family’s home in Malibu with her children. Arnold was seen cruising on his motorcycle in Malibu and trying to act the stud. Arnold recently came back to California from Utah, where he was staying in a home he owns in the Sun Valley Region. (Those of you who commented that he owned a place there were right!)

There are some drips and drabs of news about this scandal, but it’s been relatively quiet in the past few days. TMZ has the news that Arnold’s first known mistress, his family’s longterm housekeeper Mildred Baena, is upset at her family for selling photos and stories about her to the tabloids. Apparently an ex wife of a family member is the person who has been selling out the most, but we’ve also heard from her ex husband and from her daughter. Baena’s daughter told Telemundo that “it’s just a big deal because [her mom is] hispanic and [Arnold] is a celebrity.” The daughter also claimed not to have known that her brother was Arnold’s son until this point. Baena has been in hiding since the scandal broke.

Maria sent out a few tweets in honor of Memorial Day that made a vague reference to the situation she’s going through. She tweeted (in reverse order):

My daughter once gave me a great Plato quote that said, “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” I love that. So true.

We don’t know what is going on inside of most people. On this #MemorialDay, when so many are grieving in obscurity or silence, let’s keep that in mind. Be kind so many people are grieving. #MemorialDay

That was really touching. A lot of people are asking what Maria knew and when she knew it. I think she was in the dark for a long time, and I’ve heard that it’s incredibly common for people (i.e. neighbors, friends and coworkers) not to tell the wronged spouse when they know that their partner is cheating on them. No one wants to be the one to break that news, and then it’s often those same people that blame the person who got cheated on for not realizing it sooner. It’s not a cliche that the wronged party is often the last to know.

So how long is it going to be until Maria files for divorce and what other bombshells are going to come out about this mess?

You know who Arnold reminds me of here? Jesse James, that dumbass.

Photo credit: Fame Pictures

The Arnold Schwarzenegger scandal keeps churning along, and there are plenty of as-of-yet unknown details and future developments to keep us busy for some time. The best way I’ve found to catch up on all the breaking news in this story is in the “Divorce” section of HuffPo. They have some general divorce articles and advice in there, and it’s also the best aggregate source I’ve found for all the Arnold stories.

First off is The Enquirer’s kind of explosive claim that the Attorney General’s office is conducting an inquiry into whether Arnold misappropriated taxpayer money by having members of his California Highway Patrol security team ferry women to his suites at hotels. (Are you hearing the CHiPs theme song in your head? I am, and I’m seeing Ponch and Jon joking around with some little blonde thing as they walk her to the Governor’s suite. Who am I kidding? He liked them big and brunette.)

In a bombshell exclusive, RadarOnline.com has learned the Office of the Attorney General, a branch of the Department of Justice, is conducting a preliminary evaluation into the scope of Schwarzenegger’s double life, which allegedly included using his state-funded security details to cover up women being escorted into his hotel room.

Veteran hotel security officer William Taylor said he witnessed the “Governator” using California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers and vehicles to ferry scantily-clad women in-and-out of his suite at the Sacramento Hyatt Regency where he and wife Maria Shriver often stayed.

“It makes me very angry just to think of what was going on at that time,” Taylor, who passed a polygraph test about his claims, told the latest edition of the National Enquirer.

“On three differed occasions after the governor arrived alone at the Hyatt Regency, CHP Dignitary Protection Services arrived in their official vehicles, black Ford Crown Victoria sedans – about one to two hours later with one or two young females.

“They’d hurriedly escort the women through the service entrance on the second floor parking garage to the elevator that went to the governor’s private wing… the women would usually stay for two to four hours and either leave through the hotel’s main entrance or be driven away by the CHP in the same official vehicles.”

[From Radar Online]

TMZ of course tries to refute this, like the competitive high school girl they are, and has former members of Arnold’s security force quoted on the record as saying that they never witnessed anything out of the ordinary with Arnold. Arnold has hired attorney Marty Singer, who calls the story from Radar and The National Enquirer a fabrication. It sounds like the Enquirer has a source, though, and that they’re standing by their story.

Meanwhile that mistress who hired Gloria Allred, former child actress Gigi Goyette, has a new video interview with Extra. (Below.) Gigi previously gave details of her affair with Arnold to The National Enquirer, and you can read about that here. She doesn’t say anything new to Extra. This whole scandal is looking even more similar to the Tiger Woods mess. Some of his hired help went to Extra too.

Speaking of the hired help, Arnold’s first known extramarital baby momma, Mildred Baena, has threatened to sue Entertainment Tonight for that interview in which her ex husband insisted that he thought her youngest son was his. Baena’s lawyer writes that the ex knew all along that he couldn’t have fathered the 13 year-old, because he was out of the country when the boy was conceived. Also, as many of you pointed out, although the ex husband is listed as the father on the child’s birth certificate, Mildred checked the box for “no minor children” when she filed for divorce.

Amid all this, Arnold has fled to Ketchum, Idaho, where he was seen riding a bike. TMZ has a photo of him there. I googled the place and it’s a ski area, Sun Valley, with plenty of luxury resorts. I would assume the guy is renting an entire house. That just looks amazing. I need a vacation.

Arnold is shown on 3/31/11 in London. Credit: WENN.com