https://archive.is/PajLR

A California state senator is facing anti-Semitic and homophobic attacks, as well as death threats

California State Sen. Scott Wiener said his Jewish identity has made him a target before, and he pointed to President Trump’s leadership as a factor

This has been a difficult month for Scott Wiener, who represents San Francisco in the California State Senate, and not just because he’s running for reelection.

Wiener has been the target of death threats on social media (“I’ll publicly execute you,” one reads), according to screenshots of posts he shared on Twitter, and says he’s been doxxed, his home address posted online.

He’s been called a pedophile thousands of times — in hashtags, direct messages and comments on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

And because he’s Jewish and gay, Wiener has borne the brunt of unrelenting anti-Semitic and homophobic comments and posts. One that has made the rounds in recent days before being removed from Instagram featured a crudely doctored image showing Wiener with an elongated nose and wearing the garb and hairstyle of an Orthodox Jew.

The barrage is coming from believers in QAnon, the sweeping, false conspiracy theory that Democrats run a pedophile ring that President Donald Trump is secretly battling. Anti-Semitism, including the claim that rich Jews secretly control the world, is a recurring feature of the conspiracy.

The movement has grown in recent months with people spending more time online, its adherents winning nominating contests for public office and Trump declining to condemn it. In one prominent example, a Republican congressional candidate who has embraced the movement, Marjorie Taylor Greene, won her Georgia primary with the eager backing of the president.

“It’s been really extreme and hard,” Wiener told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Tuesday about the onslaught he’s experienced. “It’s been pretty consistent. No matter what I post about, there are an enormous number of comments calling me a pedophile, and it’s very disheartening that this is what the country has come to, that we have this cult, QAnon, that is gradually taking over the Republican Party.”

Wiener, 50, a Democrat who was first elected in 2016, said his Jewish identity has made him a target before, and he pointed to Trump’s leadership as a factor.

“In that world, it’s sort of par for the course,” he said. “You attack the Jews, and that’s been unleashed under this president.”

Why is Wiener being called a pedophile?

It’s because he introduced a bill that removes a disparity regarding who has to register as a sex offender.

Under California law, the age of consent is 18. If one has vaginal sex with a minor who is older than 14 and within 10 years of their age, judges have discretion as to whether that person should be registered as a sex offender. So, for example, if a 19-year-old has consensual sex with their 17 1/2-year-old partner, the 19-year-old can be prosecuted — but a judge can decide that the 19-year-old does not have to register as a sex offender.

California law, however, states that adults who are prosecuted for having anal or oral sex with a minor must automatically be registered as a sex offender, no matter the circumstances or what the judge thinks. Effectively, Wiener and his allies say, the current law discriminates against teenage LGBTQ couples. So Wiener’s bill, SB-145, corrects the disparity and leaves the decision to the judge about sex offender status.

>>10587785

The bill, which has passed the State Senate and is awaiting the governor’s signature, does not allow pedophilia.

But its content and author, Wiener, are flypaper to QAnon adherents, who view themselves as part of an imagined global effort to combat sex abuse of children. Opponents are mischaracterizing the measure, falsely saying that it legalizes pedophilia or allows a 24-year-old to rape a 14-year-old without consequences.

Though untrue, the accusations have spread, and mischaracterizations of the bill have been amplified by random social media accounts as well as national figures like Sen. Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, and Donald Trump Jr.

“Today’s CA Dems believe we need more adults having sex with children, and when they do, they shouldn’t register as sex offenders,” Cruz tweeted on Sept. 3. “This is extreme & very harmful to kids.”

Trump Jr. falsely claimed that California Democrats are “pander[ing] to the wishes of pedophiles and child rapists.”

Locally, meanwhile, opponents of the bill say that making penalties for anal and oral sex equivalent to those for vaginal sex weakens anti-pedophilia measures. Melissa Melendez, a Republican state senator in Southern California, called it “disgusting.”

“SB145 allows adults who have ‘consensual’ sex with a 14 year old to not be charged as sex offenders,” she tweeted on Sept. 4. “It’s a disgusting bill and one that should be promptly vetoed. Call the Governor and tell him to protect kids and veto this bill.”

Wiener says such statements could fan the flames of others who repeat claims like those of Trump Jr. — and then say they want to kill him. He said the vast majority of Republicans in the State Senate have not engaged in such rhetoric, but also that none of those colleagues have stood up for him publicly.

“I wouldn’t expect them to,” he said. “Their party is unfortunately being more and more influenced by QAnon.”

This marks the second time this year that Wiener has been targeted publicly with anti-Semitism. In June, a California trade union posted an ad showing Wiener holding Monopoly money and accusing him of “selling out California.” The ad was later withdrawn.

Wiener, who is not under police protection, said the latest wave of smears has made it harder for him to post on social media — the invective accompanies whatever he posts. One comment said “We need to end jewish zionism and jewish interference in white countries.”

The lawmaker also said he has to be judicious about tagging colleagues because he doesn’t want the abuse to then rain down on them.

The solution, Wiener said, is for social media companies to take a larger role in policing hate speech on their platforms, though he added, “I’m not saying they should be the thought police.” He has no immediate plans to work on legislation to that effect, he said.

In the meantime, Wiener said all he can do is “manage” the hate he receives. While it’s made his life more difficult, he hasn’t given up on politics.

“Politics is hard and there’s a lot of ugliness around it, but with that said, politics is a big part of how we make positive change,” he said. “And so this hasn’t discouraged me at all.”

The barrage is coming from believers in QAnon, the sweeping, false conspiracy theory that Democrats run a pedophile ring that President Donald Trump is secretly battling. Anti-Semitism, including the claim that rich Jews secretly control the world, is a recurring feature of the conspiracy.

“It’s been really extreme and hard,” Wiener told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Tuesday about the onslaught he’s experienced. “It’s been pretty consistent. No matter what I post about, there are an enormous number of comments calling me a pedophile, and it’s very disheartening that this is what the country has come to, that we have this cult, QAnon, that is gradually taking over the Republican Party.”

But its content and author, Wiener, are flypaper to QAnon adherents, who view themselves as part of an imagined global effort to combat sex abuse of children. Opponents are mischaracterizing the measure, falsely saying that it legalizes pedophilia or allows a 24-year-old to rape a 14-year-old without consequences.

“I wouldn’t expect them to,” he said. “Their party is unfortunately being more and more influenced by QAnon.”

>>10587777

>>10587810

>Schizophrenic Q Research is the best Q Research.

>>10587826

>https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/09/exclusive-video-15-armed-uspis-agents-new-york-sent-arrest-triple-amputee-war-hero-brian-kolfage-florida-video-photos/

I’ve taken direct hits from mortars fighting for my country overseas, now I’m taking mortars from a politically corrupted and weaponized judicial system who has made it their #1 goal to target all Trump associates. With reckless regard for the constitution they have set out on a mission to destroy people’s lives by intimidation through a weaponized mainstream media platform that regurgitates and tries defendants in the court of public opinion before facts are even known. This is not the type of freedom I raised my right hand to defend, this is totalitarianism to take political prisoners.

They are coming after us for one reason, we embarrassed them, we proved that Americans wanted border security. ‘We the people’ then built the wall and cut off major human smuggling routes. We showed Americans that we can accomplish the “impossible” with a little good old fashioned hard work. Everything we accomplished went against the tainted beliefs of these socialists from NY who are after us. They want the permanent political class to stay in power. And in order to achieve that they need globalism and open borders to keep the power on their side.

When the facts come out over the next few months they are going to have to drop this case; it’s that’s simple, this case is 100% TAINTED by political motivations. That’s why they timed it to the eve of the Republican National Convention, just as Steve Bannon was beginning to advise the Trump Campaign again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P9Rro0QUdk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi67VR2BTCs

>>10587851

>>10587860

>https://twitter.com/tagabhishek/status/1304008391400894466

Army is looking out of people in the vicinity of Beirut port to evacuate as another huge fire rages.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/08/nyregion/donald-trump-jean-carroll-lawsuit-rape.html

Justice Dept. Intervenes to Help Trump in E. Jean Carroll Defamation Lawsuit

Government lawyers made the unusual move of seeking to take over President Trump’s defense in a suit brought by Ms. Carroll, who has accused Mr. Trump of raping her in the 1990s

The Justice Department moved on Tuesday to replace President Trump’s private legal team with government lawyers to defend him against a defamation lawsuit by the author E. Jean Carroll, who has accused him of raping her in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s.

In a highly unusual legal move, lawyers for the Justice Department said in court papers that Mr. Trump was acting in his official capacity as president when he denied ever knowing Ms. Carroll and thus could be defended by government lawyers — in effect underwritten by taxpayer money.

Though the law gives employees of the federal government immunity from most defamation lawsuits, legal experts said it has rarely, if ever, been used before to protect a president, especially for actions taken before he entered office.

“The question is,” said Steve Vladeck, a University of Texas law professor, “is it really within the scope of the law for government lawyers to defend someone accused of lying about a rape when he wasn’t even president yet?”

The motion also effectively protects Mr. Trump from any embarrassing disclosures in the middle of his campaign for re-election. A state judge issued a ruling last month that potentially opened the door to Mr. Trump being deposed in the case before the election in November, and Ms. Carroll’s lawyers have also requested that he provide a DNA sample to determine whether his genetic material is on a dress that Ms. Carroll said she was wearing at the time of the encounter.

Ms. Carroll’s lawyer said in a statement issued Tuesday evening that the Justice Department’s move to intervene in the case was a “shocking” attempt to bring the resources of the United States government to bear on a private legal matter.

“Trump’s effort to wield the power of the U.S. government to evade responsibility for his private misconduct is without precedent,” the lawyer, Roberta A. Kaplan, said, “and shows even more starkly how far he is willing to go to prevent the truth from coming out.”

Ms. Carroll herself accused the president of siccing Attorney General William P. Barr against her. “TRUMP HURLS BILL BARR AT ME,” she wrote on Twitter.

The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment on the motion.

Citing a law called the Federal Tort Claims Act, the department lawyers asserted the right to take the case from Mr. Trump’s private lawyers and move the matter from state court to federal court.

The government filing was yet another attempt by Mr. Trump to stall the defamation case, Ms. Kaplan said, noting that he had used the tactic several times in Ms. Carroll’s suit and other legal matters.

“Trump’s strategy in this case from Day 1 has been delay, delay, and more delay,” Ms. Kaplan said, adding, “Our job is to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Ms. Carroll sued Mr. Trump last November, claiming that he lied by publicly denying he had ever met her. A longtime columnist for Elle magazine, she wrote in a book excerpt published in New York magazine in June 2019 that Mr. Trump had thrown her up against the wall of a dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman, an upscale department store in Manhattan, in late 1995 or early 1996. Then, she claimed, Mr. Trump pulled down her tights, opened his pants and forced himself on her. She also insisted that security cameras captured both of them moving together before the alleged assault inside the store.

>>10587937

In her suit, Ms. Carroll accused Mr. Trump of defaming her by publicly stating in an interview with The Hill newspaper in June 2019 in the Oval Office that the assault never happened and that he could not have raped her because she was “not my type.” Mr. Trump, according to Ms. Carroll’s suit, also issued an official statement that same month saying she was lying about the alleged assault.

Mr. Trump said he had never met Ms. Carroll, but the two were photographed together at a party in 1987 with her former husband. The president has called the image misleading.

More than a dozen women have accused Mr. Trump of sexual misconduct that they said took place before he was elected president.

Mr. Trump’s private lawyers sought to have Ms. Carroll’s suit dismissed by arguing that the Constitution gave a sitting president immunity against civil suits in state court.

The department’s request to represent Mr. Trump in the case is in keeping with other arguments that the president has made in state court in New York, said Ben Berwick, a former Justice Department lawyer who now works at Protect Democracy, a legal group that is involved in multiple lawsuits against the Trump administration.

“The president has argued in multiple cases that he is immune from civil lawsuits in state courts, and at every turn that argument has been rejected,” Mr. Berwick said. The president has fought cases in New York against his company and his foundation, among other matters.

But Justice Verna L. Saunders of State Supreme Court in Manhattan recently rejected those arguments, citing a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found Mr. Trump could not block a subpoena for his tax returns by the Manhattan prosecutors.

A White House official said Tuesday night that precedent existed under the Federal Tort Claims Act for the Justice Department to step in and defend Mr. Trump in the newly chosen venue: the Federal District Court in Manhattan. Ms. Carroll’s case will immediately be moved to federal court and her lawyers will have to ask a judge there to return the matter to state court.

The closest similar case came in 2005, Mr. Vladeck said, when a federal court in Washington ruled that government lawyers could defend Cass Ballenger, then a Republican representative from North Carolina, in a defamation lawsuit brought against him by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Mr. Vladeck said that while it was fairly uncommon for the Justice Department to assume the defense of a private matter on behalf of any government official, it was even more extraordinary for department lawyers to seek to shield Mr. Trump’s personal behavior behind a screen of “sovereign immunity.” If the federal judge in Manhattan assigned to the case agreed with the department’s arguments, Ms. Carroll’s lawsuit would effectively be over, Mr. Vladeck said.

Some current and former Justice Department lawyers, speaking on the condition of anonymity, echoed Mr. Vladeck’s concerns, saying they were stunned that the department had been asked to defend Mr. Trump in Ms. Carroll’s case. By moving to take control of the matter, the department had raised a critical question, the lawyers said: Was it truly within the scope of a president’s duties to comment on the physical appearance of a woman who had accused him of rape?

But rare as it was to use the Federal Tort Claims Act in this way, it was hardly the first time that Mr. Trump’s Justice Department stretched legal norms on his behalf.

Last year, for example, Mr. Barr gave a public summary of the findings of Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation that a federal judge later called “distorted” and “misleading.”

Mr. Barr’s department also intervened in the criminal case of Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, requesting to drop the prosecution — a move that a federal judge has held up while he is scrutinizing it.

Katie Benner and Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.