He dropped the 140 character on Twitter, a tool that forced him to resign two years ago, for a much faster and well prepared 140 second video message. As if it were a secret, Anthony Weiner finally put all rumors to rest and jumped right into the mayoral race, just in time for petitioning season.

“Look, I made some big mistakes. And I know I let a lot of people down. But I’ve also learned some tough lessons. I’m running for mayor ‘cuz I’ve been fighting for the middle class and those struggling to make it my entire life. And I hope I get a second chance to work for you,” Mr. Weiner says in the video. Second chances? It’s up to the voters this time.

An April 19, 2013 Quinnipiac University survey gives Weiner 15 percent of Democratic primary voters in the New York City mayor’s race, but he has a negative favorability of 41-33, and back then only half the voters thought it was a good idea for him to run at all.

Now that he’s running, those numbers could improve, at least initially.

In the same poll, Christine Quinn led the Democratic primary field with 28 percent, well short of the 40 percent needed to avoid a primary runoff. Her support included 31 percent of women and 24 percent of men. Results for other candidates were:

15 percent for Weiner, including 20 percent of men and 12 percent of women;

11 percent for Bill de Blasio, including 10 percent of men and 12 percent of women;

10 percent for William Thompson, including 14 percent of men and 7 percent of women;

9 percent for John Liu, including 9 percent of men and 8 percent of women.

Yori Yanover contributed to this report.

Anthony Weiner can forget about any support from Hillary and Bill Clinton if he decides to run for mayor of New York City, the New York Post reported Monday. The main reason is Huma Abedin, Weiner’s Muslim wife who suffered disgrace shortly after their marriage when Weiner was caught using the Internet for online relationships with women.

Abedin, unarguably Hillary Clinton’s closest aide, decided to swallow her pride and remain married to Weiner, one reason being that she was pregnant. She had the emotional support of her former boss who went through a similar period following the scandal of the relationship between her husband Bill and his aide Monica Lewinsky

“The Clintons wish Weiner would just disappear. Every time he pops up, it’s a reminder of Bill’s scandal with, and it isn’t helpful to Hillary’s hopes for 2016,” one Democrat told the New York newspaper.

The Clintons are not expected to officially endorse a candidate for the mayor of New York.

Four years after he left Bill Thompson hanging, in favor of Mayor Bloomberg, Hank Sheinkopf is back in the car with Bill Thompson. In key move, the Thompson campaign announced the hiring of Sheinkopf, 63 (now Rabbi Sheinkopf, after he received his ordination from Rabbi Yaroslavsky of Kfar Chabad), as a senior strategist, working together with team Thompson’s chief strategist Jonathan Prince.

“There was a time when he certainly was not happy with me, but there’s a larger issue involved, and the larger issue is getting him to Gracie Mansion,” Sheinkopf told The Daily News. “I’m emotionally very moved that he would want me back and working with him, and I hope that I can help to make him the next mayor of the city of New York.

In a Jewish Week interview with Adam Dickter, Hank Sheinkopf called himself “a warrior,” saying both his chosen vocations, rabbi and political consultant, required a love of fighting.

The Thompson campaign also announced the hiring of John Collinsr, a former staffer for Anthony Weiner, as Communications Director, and Amber Greene as Policy Director.

Thompson also brought on more Obama veterans, including Senior Advisor Karine Jean-Pierre, who’s worked on both the campaign side—helping run battleground state ops— and in the White House. Another ex-Obama staffer, Will Leaverton, who ran GOTV ops, will serve as Thompson’s field director. Deputy Campaign Manager Frank Thomas, who managed Rep. Kathy Hochul’s re-election bid last year, and Political Director Kim Ramos, a strategist and lawyer with a network of contacts particularly among elected Latinos in the city and state Legislatures.

“We are proud to be building an experienced team that will aggressively campaign in every community in every corner of the city,” said Prince. “New Yorkers have benefited from Bill’s career in public service, including his leadership of the Board of Education and his successful tenure as the City Comptroller. As Mayor he will use his experience and leadership to deliver for all New Yorkers.”

Incidentally, Rabbi Yaroslavsky, who gave Rabbi Sheinkopf his smicha, speaks no English, and so Sheinkopf completed his exam in Hebrew, which he has been studying at home on the Upper West Side.

“I studied very hard,” Sheinkopf told Adam Dickter, “I had to learn the four portions of the Shulchan Orach.”

So now you can ask Rabbi Sheinkopf which candidate to vote for and whether or not you can eat your chicken.

Yori Yanover contributed to this report.

Anthony Weiner, the New York Democrat who resigned his Congressional seat after he was caught sending lewd tweets, has emerged as the number two candidate for mayor in a new poll of Democratic party candidates.

Weiner has not stated whether he will throw his hat in the race, which so far has no Jewish candidates vying to be the party’s favorite to replace Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Weiner is testing the political waters and released on Sunday a wide-range 64-point plan for New York City.

The latest Marist poll gave him 15 percent of the vote, with City Council speaker Christine Quinn remaining in the lead but with her first-place support down to 26 percent from nearly 40 percent previously. Behind Weiner in the poll are city comptroller John Liu, Bill de Blasio, and former comptroller Bill Thompson.

Weiner still is suffering a bad image from the tweet scandal, and 50 percent of Democrats said they would not vote for him.

While some numbers make him appear viable, he’s got a long way to go to establish credibility,” Marist polling director Lee Miringoff told Bloomberg News.

In one of politics most recent ignominious flights from respectability, former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner resigned his office in June, 2011, after it was exposed that he had a habit of “sexting” young women he met online with pictures of his barely clad private parts.

But if  you have consigned Weiner to the bin of history or source of tasteless jokes, you may have underestimated him.

Weiner, 47, who used to represent part of the Rockaways section of New York City which was slammed by Hurricane Sandy a few weeks ago, wrote an op-ed along with Congressman Meeks, who still represents the area.  The op-ed, published in the New York Daily News yesterday, Nov 28, was essentially a call for more funding, better transportation and improved protection from natural disasters – some might also describe it as a stump speech – for a community that was devastated by the storm.

This is not the first time Weiner has reared his head since his awkward exit from office less than 18 months ago.  In fact, Weiner reactivated his infamous twitter account during Hurricane Sandy, when he issued a call for help for the besieged community.

Other than these few forays, Weiner has largely been mentioned in the news only as the other half of a power couple – his wife, Huma Mahmood Abedin, works as Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Abedin, an American of Pakistani descent, was the target of criticism by a small group of conservative members of Congress who were alarmed by her alleged connection to Islamist extremists, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

Cong. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and four other Republicans, including Cong. Trent Franks (R-AZ) and Cong. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) sent a letter to the U.S. State Department Deputy Inspector General this past summer.  In the letter, the congressmembers asked that there be an investigation into whether there has been an Islamist infiltration of the U.S. government, based upon research presented in various publications.  Abedin was specifically mentioned in that letter because her mother, her late father and her brother all were allegedly members of, or had connections to, Muslim Brotherhood organizations.

Those allegations ended up doing more harm to Bachmann and her colleagues than to Abedin, as not only Hillary and Bill Clinton defended her, but prominent Republicans such as Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Speaker of the House, Cong. John Boehner (R-OHIO), blasted Bachmann for conducting what they essentially called a witch hunt.

Anthony Weiner is Jewish and was widely considered one of Israel’s most ardent defenders in Congress.  Weiner and Abedin had a son, Jordan, over the summer.  The reception for Jordan’s bris was held in the multi-million dollar Park Avenue apartment the couple moved into after Weiner resigned from office.  The apartment is owned by Jack Rosen, head of the American Jewish Congress and a huge financial supporter of the Clintons.

If Weiner is considering another political run, he already has a potential campaign war chest of $ 3.9 million.

There has been talk that Weiner might be eying the New York City mayoral seat.  If so, a poll conducted this summer by NY1-Marist poll shows New Yorkers are not enthusiastic, with 58% responding that they did not want Weiner to run, and just 25% in favor.

That same poll asked New Yorkers for their take on several other potential NYC mayoral candidates, including another disgraced Jewish New York Democratic politician, Eliot Spitzer.  Spitzer fared only slightly better than Weiner, with 57% opposing his run and 30% in favor.  Spitzer, New York State’s former governor, was forced to resign his office in March, 2008, after his repeated liaisons with prostitutes was exposed.

Former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner told People Magazine in an interview on Friday that he is planning to remain just a stay-at-home dad and not run for mayor of New York. The interview was conducted with Weiner’s wife Huma Abedin, a senior aide to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was accused by Michelle Bachman of having ties with the Muslim Brothers. (Michelle Bachmann Doubles Down on Muslim Brotherhood Infesting US Government Charge)

Weiner, you’ll recall, is the NY Democrat from New York who resigned from Congress in June of 2011 after lying about tweeting an illicit photo of himself to a young woman.

“I’m very happy in my present life,” Weiner, 47, told People. “The only next dramatic steps I’m planning on are Jordan’s first,” he said, referring to his 6-month-old son.

Abedin also reiterated her support for her husband in the interview and called them “a normal family.”

Maybe. The Wall Street Journal on Friday was asking, if Weiner doesn’t want to be mayor any more, how come his disclosure reports which he recently filed with the New York City Campaign Finance Board are showing he has approximately $4.5 million in the bank?

The WSJ points out that taking into account public matching funds, which are awarded for individual contributions from city residents up to $175, would give Weiner just about $1.5 million in extra cash.

Those funds will expire, the paper emphasizes, unless they’re used in the upcoming election cycle. So what would you do if you were in Weiner’s shoes?

On a personal note – I was heartbroken when the Weiner fiasco brought the skinny, Anthony Perkins in Psycho lookalike congressman was taken down by his own incredible stupidity. Because he was the only individual running for mayor a few years earlier, with a simple solution to New York’s traffic mega-congestion issues: ban trucks from taking shortcuts on Manhattan’s streets.

Now that he’s shown the judgment of a pubescent boy, I’m not so sure any more.

The WSJ quotes Jennifer Lawless, associate professor of government at American University, who says that the resilience of Weiner’s marriage, which didn’t end in divorce despite the guy’s shenanigans, could help persuade voters to trust him.

Except if it turns out he’s been holding on to a solid marriage to a Muslim Brothers sympathizer. I suspect it won’t go over so good in New York.

When President Obama spoke last week of the opportunities presented by the Arab Spring, he got a lot right. His calling out of the Arab states was long overdue and dead on.

But he got some big things wrong.

Why the 1967 borders didn’t work in 1967: When the president said Israel should withdraw to the 1967 lines with mutually agreed upon swaps, he missed an opportunity to put the issue of borders in an important historical context for the world.

The borders of Israel changed because then, like today, the Jewish state came under attack from all sides.

The Arabs rejected the 1967 borders with Israel by waging war. Egypt cut off Israel’s only supply route to Asia and amassed troops on its borders with the Sinai. Syria attacked from the Golan Heights. Jordan started shelling Jerusalem. Before the outbreak of war, Arab terrorism had grown more frequent, with 37 attacks in just the first four months of 1967.

For anyone to discuss the ’67 borders without mentioning this is like discussing our war with Japan without mentioning Pearl Harbor.

A U.S. “plan” becomes a Palestinian demand: We saw how the ill-fated U.S. demand for a total “settlement” freeze wound up grinding peace talks to a halt when the Palestinians then demanded nothing less before they would even sit at the bargaining table.

The call for a 100 percent stop to all building activity did not take into account ongoing construction of buildings in naturally growing areas, as well as several areas like Gilo that are certainly not “settlements.” Soon even Israel’s capital was called a “settlement.”

The administration eventually withdrew this condition, but not before the damage was done. The Palestinians have refused to even start talking unless this impossible and unreasonable condition is met. The president has now repeated the mistake by giving the Palestinians yet another American-created precondition: 1967 borders.

We will now certainly hear a new refrain from them – that they won’t talk about any “swaps” until the ’67 borders are returned.

Negotiated settlement? OK, but with whom? The president expressed many important sentiments in the speech that reflect our values as a nation. For example, he rightly called Hamas a terrorist organization. But how is that fact compatible with the demand that Israel make concessions?

The sad truth is that it is no longer possible to pretend that there is a “good” and “bad” Palestinian entity. As Hamas and Fatah move closer to formalizing their reconciliation through a power-sharing agreement, the more moderate elements in Fatah are being pushed out.

Further, Hamas has yet to make any progress in moving away from its militant stand against Israel. Even the European Union calls Hamas a terrorist entity, and United States law makes this clear. The merger of Hamas and Fatah must put an end to the myth that the Palestinian Authority seeks peace in the region.

A “negotiated settlement” is what we all want, but it’s unrealistic and unfair to demand it of Israel until Hamas is gone.

I honor the president for his desire for peace. The Israelis have demonstrated they share the same aspiration. But taking a correct approach to history and being realistic in our description of today’s realities are vital to that goal.

Anthony Weiner, a Democrat, represents New York’s 9thCongressional district (parts of South Brooklyn and South Central Queens) in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The time has come for us to take the new technology available to terrorists seriously. The United States recently crowned Anwar al-Awlaki the newest “most dangerous terrorist in the world.” And yet an American company, YouTube, has been giving al-Awlaki open access to the world’s largest bully pulpit.

In response to this outrageous turn of events, I have begun the battle to remove this man from our airwaves and end his reign of E-terror.

Al-Awlaki had been dubbed “the bin-Laden of the Internet.” I call him the “YouTube Terrorist” for his dangerous and extremist sermons that are broadcast over the web via YouTube. My staff began an exhaustive search of the website and we found over 700 videos of this man preaching his hateful and dangerous message, with more than three and a half million views.

The threat al-Awlaki represents is not just a hypothetical one. His fingerprints have been on many of the recent terrorist attacks on American soil, resulting in the shedding of innocent blood on more than one occasion.

Three of the 9/11 hijackers were documented as attending al-Awlaki’s sermons, and there are reports that two of them even met with him privately.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the accused shooter at the U.S. Army base in Ft. Hood, was also a devotee of al-Awlaki’s. U.S. intelligence investigating the attack has intercepted at least 18 e-mails between Hasan and al-Awlaki. In one of these correspondences, Hasan wrote: “I can’t wait to join you in the afterlife.”

The “Christmas Day Bomber,” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, also had a relationship with al-Awlaki, having met with him and also having admitted that al-Awlaki participated in the training leading up to the execution of his terrorist plot.

In one of his most recent videos, posted just this month, al-Awlaki declares that “Americans are from the party of devils, and no special permission is needed to kill them.”

The obvious question is: If al-Awlaki is so dangerous and has been shown to recruit terrorists and plan their attacks, why is he given free rein on the world’s largest digital platform to carry out his evil work?

It takes YouTube mere minutes to remove videos that infringe on the copyrights of private companies or that contain unauthorized audio tracks. I found it particularly disturbing that YouTube has the apparatus in place to remove videos and yet still has not taken down all those that have been posted by Anwar al-Awlaki.

I have no problem with YouTube. It is a profitable American company that creates jobs for New York, and it acts as a clearinghouse for ideas and stories that reach millions around the globe. But with great power comes great responsibility. In this case, its behavior has been inexcusable.

Last month I wrote to the CEO of YouTube and demanded al-Awlaki be taken off the website. At first, YouTube and its parent company, Google, hemmed and hawed that their policy already included taking down violent and objectionable videos in a timely fashion. I was, however, ultimately able to demonstrate to them that their existing “policy” was failing miserably.

The company has since taken down many of al-Awlaki’s videos and has even created a new system on its website in which viewers can flag videos for YouTube’s attention as being terrorist-related, just as they can flag videos for being inappropriate or infringing on copyrights.

It is, however, too early to claim victory. My office staff has been able to spot new videos from al-Awlaki on YouTube. Al-Awlaki is a vigorous and persistent enemy, perhaps blessed – to our misfortune – with American ingenuity, as he was born here. The fact that he speaks fluent English is one of the things that make him so dangerous.

I will remain watchful over YouTube’s parent company, Google. New media is good for business and the sharing of ideas. However, it opens up a whole new front in the war on terror – one that can be fought inexpensively but requires that we pay close attention.

Anthony Weiner, a Democrat, represents New York’s 9th Congressional district (parts of South Brooklyn and South Central Queens) in the U.S. House of Representatives.