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Reposted

Pam Spaulding

@pamspaulding.bsky.social

📣1/2
Alan Dershowitz, defender of #Trump & #Epstein, threw down the pedo gauntlet in 1997 — arguing sex w/underage girls (young as 14/15) should be legal, not rape.

"Statutory Rape Is an Outdated Concept" (LAT 5/7/1997)

It tracks, given he's in the #Epstein files, & he ran w/that crowd.

MORE ⬇️

Remember when Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump’s lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, wrote an op-ed trying to justify having sex with kids?

Seems relevant now.
https://x.com/i/status/2003667008005783940

Full txt: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vIxLCFTLkMZKm_enbCOuWBBVvwrQ1cE9PLkajxe3-9Y/edit?usp=drivesdk

Statutory Rape Is an Outdated Concept
Justice: If a 16-year-old can choose abortion, she should be able to choose to have sex.
By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ
Although the most recent survey shows a slight decrease in teenage sex in the United States, it confirms the reality that the crime of statutory rape is rampant. According to the National Survey of Family Growth. nearly one-quarter of the women surveyed said they had sex before their 15th birth- day. An additional 16.5% said they were between 15 and 16, and another 16.7% said they were between 16 and 17.
Every state makes it a serious crime for anyone to have sex with another person below a given age. The age of consent var- ies from state to state. In some it is as high as 18, while in others it is as low as 14. Some jurisdictions mitigate the crime if the per- petrator is close in age to the victim, while others do not.
This is all theoretical, of course, since very few statutory rape charges actually are brought. The laws, however, remain on the books, poised to be used selectively in certain kinds of high visibility cases. Recently, for example, an 18-year-old Wisconsin high school senior was prose- cuted after he got his 15-year-old girlfriend pregnant and then offered to marry her. He faces 40 years in prison and a lifetime requirement that he register as a sex offender.
The high visibility case that has most recently put the statutory rape laws in the headlines is the allegation that Michael Kennedy-son of Robert and nephew of John-had an affair with his children's babysitter, who is now a 19-year-old col- lege student. There is no hard evidence that there was a sexual encounter between Kennedy and the babysitter be…

I stand by the constitutional (not moral) argument I offered in my controversial oped: if a 16 year old has the constitutional right to have an abortion without state or parental interference, how could she not have the constitutional right to engage in consensual sex? 1/

https://x.com/i/status/1155962389776351238

December 26, 2025 at 3:49 AM

Reposted

Pam Spaulding

@pamspaulding.bsky.social

2/2

#Epstein's "club" of wealthy ebo/pedophiles —rapists of the vulnerable— rationalized the deviant acts as deserved spoils.

Matt Thomas, in the present day (Nov 24, 2025), took a torch to Dersh's disgraceful mewlings w/"On the Federal Age of Consent: A Reply to Alan Dershowitz."
🧾 is.gd/juCem6

Alan Dershowitz has a way of wandering into arguments that look like legal questions but are really psychological ones. Back in 1997, he argued that statutory-rape laws were “an outdated concept,” a position he has never meaningfully walked back. It wasn’t a constitutional insight then, and it isn’t one now — it’s an ethical fog of his own making, clever on the surface, a little out of control underneath, and surprisingly indifferent to the actual developmental reality of adolescence. I’m not a lawmaker, and I’m not pretending to be one. I’m simply an adult who has spent decades in and around schools all over the world, watching young people grow into themselves — slowly, unevenly, beautifully. And from where I stand, there’s nothing arbitrary about protecting the forming self from the fantasies of adults who should know better.

https://medium.com/@kyotomatthew/on-the-federal-age-of-consent-a-reply-to-alan-dershowitz-6ba7d43cb188

People like Dershowitz talk about age-of-consent laws as if they’re philosophical puzzles, as if desire and authority rise from the same level floor. But bodily autonomy doesn’t work that way. It has requirements. Preconditions. A forming self needs time, scaffolding, protection — the freedom to grow into decisions that will define a lifetime.
Bodily autonomy is the core of human dignity.
And dignity requires a federal age of consent set at 18 — with room for close-in-age relationships, but no room for adult fantasies about adolescent equality.

Ethical Architecture

Autonomy isn’t a mood or a vibe. It’s a developmental achievement — the slow process of learning to inhabit your own body without needing permission, without coercion, without fear. Emotional regulation, impulse control, identity formation, consequence mapping — none of that arrives early.
https://medium.com/@kyotomatthew/on-the-federal-age-of-consent-a-reply-to-alan-dershowitz-6ba7d43cb188

December 26, 2025 at 3:49 AM

Reposted

Don Moynihan

@donmoyn.bsky.social

I did not understand this: one of the five Europeans the US has barred from traveling to the United States...is a permanent resident who lives with his family in the US.

Now he is worried about being arrested and deported for the crime of monitoring online hate.
www.nytimes.com/2025/12/25/u...

Judge Blocks Detention of British Researcher Who Scrutinizes Online Hate

www.nytimes.com

December 26, 2025 at 3:55 AM

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@NewsJennifer (Jennifer Schulze)

@newsjennifer.bsky.social

"an internet witch hunt"

Every single named person in this article who spread ugly lies about the Brown shooting, even putting an innocent student in danger, is a Republican. One is even a top DOJ official.

This NYT headline makes it seem like it was an everybody problem. It was not.

Government Officials Once Stopped False Accusations After Violence. Now, Some Join In.

Prominent business and government figures spread rumors about the attack on Brown University’s campus this month, reigniting questions about accountability in online discourse.

December 25, 2025 at 8:41 PM

Reposted

Adam Cohen (My Personal Views Only)

@axidentaliberal.bsky.social

Neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post published stories about Trump writing 200 unhinged posts on Christmas Day

Bradley P. Moss @bradmossesq.bsky.social · 1d

You almost have to feel bad for an ugly old man with no family or friends to keep him company on Christmas Day that he makes 200 crazy posts ranting about everything under the sun.

Almost.

December 26, 2025 at 5:02 AM

Reposted

ProPublica

@propublica.org

Did you know? Every year, the Supreme Court’s nine justices fill out a form that discloses their financial connections to companies and people.

Our database allows you to search for organizations and people that have paid them, reimbursed them for travel and given them gifts.

Supreme Connections: Search Supreme Court Disclosures — ProPublica

Search Supreme Court financial disclosures for organizations and people that have paid justices, reimbursed them for travel, given them gifts and more.

projects.propublica.org

December 26, 2025 at 2:30 AM

readeradrift.bsky.social

@readeradrift.bsky.social

Boycott Walmart

ProPublica @propublica.org · 1d

Walmart has long been a facilitator of fraud on a mass scale, a ProPublica investigation found.

More than $1 billion in fraud losses were routed through the company’s financial services between 2013 and 2022.

(Published Jan. 2024)

How Walmart’s Financial Services Became a Fraud Magnet

Scammers have duped consumers out of more than $1 billion by exploiting Walmart’s lax security. The company has resisted taking responsibility while breaking promises to regulators and skimping on tra...

www.propublica.org

December 26, 2025 at 6:24 AM

Reposted

Ana Marie Cox

@anamariecox.bsky.social

So Bari Weiss’s first real editorial intervention at CBS is to repress coverage of American concentration camps.

December 22, 2025 at 3:05 AM

Reposted

Anna Bower

@annabower.bsky.social

Per NY Times’s Michael Grynbaum on X, this is Sharyn Alfonsi’s email to her “60 Minutes” colleagues in full:

News Team,
Thank you for the notes and texts. I apologize for not reaching out earlier.
I learned on Saturday that Bari Weiss spiked our story, INSIDE CECOT, which was supposed to air tonight. We (Ori and I) asked for a call to discuss her decision. She did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity.
Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now-after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.
We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed
to kill the story.
If the administration's refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we

have effectively handed them a "kill switch" for any reporting they find inconvenient.
If the standard for airing a story becomes
"the government must agree to be
interviewed," then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast.
We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state.
These men risked their lives to speak with us.
We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their
stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.
CBS spiked the Jeffrey Wigand interview due to legal concerns, nearly destroying the credibility of this broadcast. It took years to recover from that "low point." By pulling this story to shield an administration, we are repeating that history, but for political optics rather than legal ones.

We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it.
When it fails to air without a credible
explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of "Gold Standard" reputation for a single week of political quiet.
I care too much about this broadcast to watch
it be dismantled without a fight.
Sharyn

December 22, 2025 at 3:37 AM

Reposted

Raider

@iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social

Presidential Portraits

December 21, 2025 at 2:33 PM

Reposted

Tim Carvell

@timcarvell.bsky.social

Now seems like a swell time to point out that Frontline just released this excellent 11-minute mini-documentary about what happened inside CECOT.

Surviving CECOT (full documentary) | Deported to a Maximum-Security Prison | FRONTLINE + ProPublica

YouTube video by FRONTLINE PBS | Official

m.youtube.com

December 21, 2025 at 10:26 PM

readeradrift.bsky.social

@readeradrift.bsky.social

Well put

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 5d

Khanna: "The problem here is there are rich and powerful people who either engaged in this abuse, covered it up, or we're on this island. What the American people want to know is who are these people? Instead of holding them accountable, Pam Bondi is breaking the law."

December 22, 2025 at 2:05 AM

Reposted

Lee

@vaneekara.bsky.social

Nazis chose to march on the northside of Chicago specifically because the area is home to so many Jewish, Muslim & Hindu people. The Catholic Church that was so butthurt about ONE peaceful satanic event on campus DID NOT bring their golden doodads & huge numbers of followers to protest neo Nazis.

December 21, 2025 at 2:33 PM

Reposted

jamelle

@jamellebouie.net

legitimately love this guy.

Rick Steves @ricksteves.bsky.social · 6d

It’s the “season of love and giving”…but this year, doesn’t it seem more like a “season of fear and taking”? Like many of you, I’ve been saddened by the human impact of draconian government budget cuts and how angry many housed Americans are at unhoused Americans.

🧵 1 of 9

December 21, 2025 at 12:19 PM

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Maarten Wolterink (mwcartoons)

@mwcartoons.bsky.social

My cartoon unveils some of it

December 20, 2025 at 8:22 PM

Reposted

Schooley

@schooley.bsky.social

And may every day be another wonderful secret.

December 20, 2025 at 7:14 PM

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Lolita 🙋🏻‍♀️

@lolitaslife.bsky.social

They spent over a million $$ including special overtime for so many people to do this!! How disgusting. While they could haven’t spent that on investigating ppl who committed crimes against children

December 20, 2025 at 10:10 PM

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finescents.bsky.social

@finescents.bsky.social

December 21, 2025 at 12:44 AM

Reposted

Mark Lemley

@marklemley.bsky.social

The FBI put a thousand agents (their own words) on trying to hide all the links between Trump and Epstein. They failed. When people found some additional photos of Trump in the release, the DOJ promptly DELETED THEM FROM THE DOCUMENT RELEASE.

www.npr.org/2025/12/20/n...

Available to download Friday, some Epstein files no longer there Saturday afternoon

An NPR analysis of the Epstein files shows some documents, originally available on Friday, are no longer on the Department of Justice's "Epstein Library" website as the DOJ releases more files.

www.npr.org

December 20, 2025 at 8:30 PM

Reposted

Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD DSc(hon)

@peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social

December 21, 2025 at 2:01 AM

Reposted

The Associated Press

@apnews.com

BREAKING: At least 16 files from the Epstein release disappeared from DOJ's webpage, including a photo of Trump, with no explanation.

At least 16 files have disappeared from the DOJ webpage for documents related to Jeffrey Epstein

The Justice Department’s webpage for documents related to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein is missing at least 16 of its files a day after they were released.

bit.ly

December 20, 2025 at 9:30 PM

Reposted

The Verge

@theverge.com

Since his appointment, RFK Jr. has pursued a brutal vision of American health that several experts liken to a sort of eugenics. Kennedy has made it clear that certain deaths are acceptable or even preferable to a world where every child is vaccinated.

Read more: www.theverge.com/health/66136...