Anthony Weiner

Anthony Weiner (2011)

Anthony David Weiner [ ˈwiːnər ] (born September 4, 1964 in New York City ) is an American politician of the Democratic Party . From 1999 until his resignation because of sextings in 2011, he represented the 9th Congressional constituency of the state of New York , which includes parts of the New York boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens , in the House of Representatives of the United States . He returned to politics in the summer of 2013, but failed after further sexting revelations in his attempt to be nominated by the Democrats as a candidate for New York City mayor . On September 25, 2017, he was sentenced by a federal court to 21 months' imprisonment and three years of conduct supervision for sexting with a minor . US federal court sentences are generally unconditional .

Origin, education and private life

Anthony Weiner grew up in Brooklyn in a Jewish family, the son of a lawyer and a math teacher, and attended Brooklyn Technical High School there until 1981 . He then completed a bachelor's degree at the State University of New York in Plattsburgh .

Weiner and Jon Stewart , who later became the host of the Daily Show , have been old friends since they lived in the same vacation home in 1987.

Weiner lives in Forest Hills , Queens, and was married to Huma Abedin , Hillary Clinton's advisor , from 2010 to 2016 . Their son was born in December 2011.

Promotion to Congressman

From 1985 to 1991 Weiner worked as an employee of the then MP of the House of Representatives Charles Schumer . In 1991, at the age of 27, he was elected the youngest member of the New York City Council. There he was particularly committed to improving the quality of life in individual districts. He started a program to remove graffiti by socially conspicuous young people ("Weiner's Cleaners"); He also campaigned for various urban development and housing projects.

When Schumer was elected to the United States Senate in 1998 , Weiner applied to succeed him for the vacant seat in the House of Representatives. In the democratic district, he won the mandate straight away. As a result, he was re-elected four times without significant opponents.

Weiner was considered an intensely working politician who made high demands on his employees. Accordingly, the staff turnover on his staff was one of the highest in the entire US Congress. He was a member of the Congressional Energy and Trade and Justice Committees .

In 2005 he ran for the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City, but lost the primary to Fernando Ferrer , who was later defeated by incumbent Michael Bloomberg . In 2009, he decided not to run again.

Scandal and resignation in 2011

At the beginning of June 2011 it became known that Weiner had sent links to revealing pictures of himself to several women via his Twitter account, including inadvertently a link to a picture to his 56,000 followers on May 27, 2011 . On June 6, 2011, he announced in a press conference that he had had internet sex with various women for years. Although this was not a criminal offense, Weiner attracted great media interest by denying this and other facts in the USA for days. Nancy Pelosi , then spokeswoman for the Democratic minority in the House of Representatives, announced that there would be an investigation by the United States House Committee on Ethics into whether Weiner had used official means during these acts or whether other rules of his office were violated. US President Barack Obama said in an interview on June 14, 2011 that he would step down in Weiner's place. Weiner resigned on June 16, 2011.

Failed return to politics in 2013

Anthony Weiner returned to the public in May 2013. He ran from a large number of candidates within the Democratic Party to succeed Michael Bloomberg as Mayor of New York City. In the polls up to July - surprising to many observers - he was roughly on par with Christine Quinn, who was considered the favorite , which some commentators interpreted as an indication that the American public is more relaxed about politicians who talk about their intimate life have come under criticism. In the course of the election campaign, Weiner had to admit further affairs, which only took place after the first scandal became known, which led to falling polls, the resignation of his campaign manager and the withdrawal of support from the party establishment. In the Democratic primary election on September 10, 2013, Weiner received around five percent of the vote, the lowest approval of all five applicants.

At the beginning of 2015 there was more coverage of Weiner, as he spoke up more publicly on political issues, even if most observers assume that his political career was over. Weiner runs a policy consulting firm and supports various mandate holders in election campaigns. In the event that Donald Trump Jr. were to implement his idea of ​​running for New York City mayor, Weiner said in July 2016 that he might run against him.

Hillary Clinton email affair

In the final spurt of the presidential election campaign in fall 2016, a Weiners laptop fell into the hands of the FBI. Because this was also used by his wife and there were also emails related to Clinton, FBI chief James Comey surprisingly announced that he would revive the investigation into the email affair by evaluating the emails in question. This announcement was a heavy blow to presidential candidate Clinton and had a positive impact on the election campaign of her Republican rival Donald Trump. Trump, who was well behind in the polls at the time, had already tried to discredit Clinton through his connection to Weiner.

Positions

Anthony Weiner at the LGBT Pride Parade in New York City (2009)

Weiner is considered a “ progressive ” and has mainly represented left-liberal positions. He is considered a “ pro choice ” when it comes to abortion . It was rated F by the National Rifle Association (a strong advocate of gun control in votes; the scale ranges from A + to F ).

Middle East conflict

In 2006, Weiner campaigned for the Palestinian delegation to the United Nations to be denied entry to the United States on the grounds that the PLO was a terrorist organization and therefore had no right to represent the Palestinians. At the same time, he accused Amnesty International , Human Rights Watch and the New York Times of unilaterally taking sides against Israel.

Health system

During the 2009-10 US health care reform debate , he advocated the United States National Health Care Act , which would have opened up Medicare , the existing health insurance for retirees , to citizens under the age of 65. This would have put it in competition with private health insurance companies.

reception

The directors Josh Kriegman and Elyse Steinberg processed Weiner's failed election campaign for the mayor's office in New York City in 2013 in the documentary Weiner , which was released in theaters in May 2016 and relentlessly addressed Weiner's married life, as well as sensational media coverage.

Web links

Commons : Anthony Weiner  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Anthony Weiner in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Justine Ashley Costanza: Anthony Weiner And Wife Huma Abedin, One Year Later: Where (And How) Are They Now? In: International Business Times , June 20, 2012.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://mentalfloss.com/article/51902/why-habenweinerounter-sometimes-"weener"-and-sometimes- Brillewhiner ”
2. ↑ http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/25/politics/anthony-weiner-sentencing/index.html
3. ^ Prison Time Surges for Federal Inmates. In: pewtrusts.org. Retrieved September 26, 2017 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b} Archived curriculum vitae ( memento from December 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive ).
5. ↑ James Burnett: Life of the Party. In: New York Magazine . December 3, 2001.
6. ^ Raymond Hernandez: Weiner's Wife Didn't Disclose Consulting Work She Did While Serving in State Dept. In: New York Times . May 16, 2013.
7. ↑ Amber Phillips: Anthony Weiner just blew his second chance at a second chance. In: Washington Post . 29th August 2016.
8. ^ Tara Palmeri, Leonard Greene: Weiner's Wife Gives Birth to Boy. In: New York Post . December 22, 2011.
9. ^ David W. Chen: Congressman Pushes Staff Hard, or Out the Door. In: The New York Times . July 23, 2008.
10. ↑ Michael Barbaro, David W. Chen: Weiner Decides to Stay Out of Mayoral Campaign. In: The New York Times . May 23, 2009.
11. ↑ Marc Pitzke : Scandal Deputy. From Weiner to Sausage. In: Spiegel Online . June 7, 2011.
12. ↑ Felicia Sonmez: Pelosi Calls for Ethics Investigation of Weiner's Conduct. In: Washington Post. June 6, 2011.
13. ↑ Annett Meiritz: Obama makes his first comment on "Weinergate". In: Spiegel Online. June 14, 2011.
14. ↑ Anthony Weiner resigns from office. In: NZZ Online . June 16, 2011.
15. ^ Javier C. Hernández: Weiner's Surprising Rebound From Scandal. In: New York Times. 5th July 2013.
16. ↑ Michelle Cottle: How Americans Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Philandering Politicians. In: The Daily Beast . 5th July 2013.
17. ↑ Marc Pitzke: Anthony Weiner's new cybersex scandal: Candidatus interruptus. In: Spiegel Online. July 24, 2013.
18. ↑ Erin Durkin, Jennifer Fermino: Anthony Weiner Falls in the Polls as He Admits to 3 Online Relationships After Exit from Congress. In: NY Daily News . July 25, 2013.
19. ↑ Michael Barbaro: Weiner's Campaign Manager Quits After Latest Revelations. In: New York Times. July 27, 2013.
20. ^ Burgess Everett: Axelrod to Weiner: 'Go away'. In: Politico . July 28, 2013; Rick Klein: Sources: Clintons' Patience Growing Thin with Anthony Weiner. ( Memento of the original from July 31, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: ABC News. July 29, 2013. 
21. ↑ Fabian Reinbold: Primary elections in New York: scandal politician Weiner fails as candidate for mayor. In: Spiegel Online. 11th September 2013.
22. ↑ Aliyah Frumin: Anthony Weiner, comeback kid? In: MSNBC . January 30, 2015.
23. ↑ Mark Leibovich: Anthony Weiner Thinks He's Pretty Good at Giving Advice. In: New York Times. 16th August 2016.
24. ↑ Veit Medick: Hillary Clinton's E-Mail Affair: Chaos in the last meters. In: Spiegel Online . October 29, 2016, accessed June 9, 2018 . 
25. ↑ Voting behavior (House Voting Summary) at the Drum Major Institute .
26. ↑ Amy Goodman, Norman Finkelstein : Congress member Weiner Gets It Wrong On Palestinian Group He Tried To Bar From US In: Democracy Now. August 30, 2006.
27. ↑ Brooks Barnes: 'Weiner' Directors Say Film Is About Media's Sensationalism. In: New York Times. January 24, 2016.