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Glenn Greenwald defends Matt Gaetz's right to have sex with 'consenting' 17-year-old girl
April 12, 2021
Libertarian journalist Glenn Greenwald, a frequent Fox News guest, this week said that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has the right to have sex with a "consenting" 17-year-old girl.
Greenwald made the remarks on Twitter although Gaetz has denied that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl. Gaetz has also said that he is innocent of sex trafficking allegations.
<p>
"All or some of these accusations against Rep. Gaetz very well may be true and, one day — perhaps imminently — there will be ample publicly available evidence demonstrating this," Greenwald wrote on Twitter. "But that day has not yet arrived. That should matter for how the case is discussed."
</p><p>
He went on to note that the age of consent is 16 or 17 in 37 states, although it's illegal for a 38-year-old man to have sex with a 17-year-old girl in Florida.
</p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
If you don't think it should be legal for 17 year-olds to have sex with anyone they want, go write to the governors and legislatures in 37 states & the District of Columbia which made it legal. I'm not the one who passed those laws.<br/>
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) <a href="https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1381408015526588417?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 12, 2021</a>
</blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><p>
"If you don't think it should be legal for 17 year-olds to have sex with anyone they want, go write to the governors and legislatures in 37 states & the District of Columbia which made it legal. I'm not the one who passed those laws," Greenwald said in defense of Gaetz.
</p><p>
He failed not note that many states that allow 16 or 17 year olds to have sex require that both consenting partners be of similar ages. For example, Virginia has a <a href="https://www.ageofconsent.net/states/virginia">close in age exemption</a> that allows teens between 15-17 to have sex with each other. At age 38, Gaetz could not legally have sex with a 17-year-old girl in Virginia because the de facto age of consent is 18 years old.
</p><p>
But Greenwald refused to back down in his defense of Gaetz.
</p><p>
"I think consenting adults should be able to do what they want in their private lives and those who try to control them or restrict their choices or impose judgments on moral grounds are creepy sexual morality police similar to the Moral Majority & Pat Robertson of the 1980s," he opined.
</p><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I think consenting adults should be able to do what they want in their private lives and those who try to control them or restrict their choices or impose judgments on moral grounds are creepy sexual morality police similar to the Moral Majority & Pat Robertson of the 1980s.<br/>
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) <a href="https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1381417173252460544?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 12, 2021<br/>
</a>
</blockquote><script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script><p>Greenwald did not address the allegations of sex trafficking.</p>
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Trump's 'bilious tantrum' at Mar-a-Lago shows his 'political potency is fading at a rapid rate': columnist
April 12, 2021
Former President Donald Trump went off on an angry rant about Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and other Republicans over the weekend, and The Week columnist Damon Linker argues that it shows Trump is looking more impotent than ever.
In his latest column, Linker writes that Trump's "political potency is fading at a remarkably rapid rate," as evidenced by the fact that he is still obsessed with relitigating the 2020 presidential election that he lost decisively to President Joe Biden.
<p>The former president's decision to focus on personal grudges at his big Mar-a-Lago speech made him look like "a pathetic, weak, and comical figure," writes Linker, who describes Trump's lengthy off-script rant as a "bilious temper tantrum."</p><p>In fact, Linker believes that Trump's fixation on last year's election is so self-defeating that even some longtime Trump loyalists might feel deflated by it.</p><p>"Either Trump is the sorest loser in the history of American democracy -- the Big Baby his critics always claimed he was -- or else he really did win in a landslide and yet nonetheless allowed himself to be deposed and banished to South Florida while Joe Biden effortlessly took over the White House in a coup," he writes. "Either way, he looks very small indeed."</p><p><a href="https://theweek.com/articles/976786/trump-finally-jumps-shark" target="_blank">Read the whole column here</a>.</p>
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'This is their blood': Civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump fights for George Floyd's family
April 12, 2021
By Makini Brice (Reuters) -As the world follows the often-emotional testimony in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer accused of murdering George Floyd, members of Floyd's family watch a live feed in a separate room in the courthouse. Frequently by their side is civil rights lawyer Benjamin Crump, who heads the family's legal team. Floyd and his brothers often slept in the same bed as children, with Floyd playing the role of protector, Crump says. "For us, it's a case. It's a cause. It's a hashtag," Crump told Reuters. "For them ... it's their family. This is their...
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