50 Comments

She's from "south of the border", so "Of course!" I wonder what tack they'd take if she was one of the hundreds of thousands of Eastern Europeans, Asians or Russians here illegally.

Fox "News"* should try a new slogan: "Your Source For Shamelessness".

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And, the right-to-lifers are saying she should have had the baby. Beyond creepy and inhumane. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/14/anti-abotion-10-year-old-ohio-00045843

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I know, it's like something out of a horror film, or dystopian science fiction.

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Interestingly, I'm certain that the people who are eager to deny a 10-year-old rape victim an abortion would describe themselves, without a trace of irony, as "religious."

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I'm in crazy mode. I ca''t believe this life-long pacifist that I I am is even thinking this. Line these right wing animals up against a wall... (Forgive me.)

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I feel you, Joyce. All I can say is Holy Effing Shitballs!

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I will offer you this, in a sympathetic spirit, from a brilliant thinker who made radio broadcasts within Germany during the rise of Hitler and the Nazis, until he found it necessary to flee to Switzerland:

"Toleration of the intolerant becomes itself a kind of moral evil."

--- Thomas Mann, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

See also Karl Popper's discussion of the so-called paradox of tolerance, in The Open Society and Its Enemies, (Princeton University Press, 2013)

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I'm liking the idea of interring them all in a wall or a cave, and I haven't even reread Poe's "Cask of Amontillado" recently.

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Oh my god - these people are the

f@$%#^ing worst people.

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Sadly, this is not the bottom and we all know this.

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That’s the saddest truth of all …

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Fox should change its name to FILTH.

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Fox knows no bottom. All of this is a harbinger of what's to come, multiplied by thousands upon thousands of cases. Republicans (whatever that means these days) get off on chaos no matter who's hurt and how. They have no clue about what they've unleashed.

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They have every clue as to what they've unleashed. They play this for everything its worth because they know there will be no pushback. They remind me of the dirty wrestlers who poke opponents in the eyes, kick them in the nuts, twist their ears, etc. The minute the opponent punches back, they cry like babies to the referee. It's all choreographed theater. They are masters at playing the dupes who vote for them.

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Well, of course they are! Okay, the GOP is outdoing itself as the party of punishment and death. Its figureheads are all old white males. The Dems have so, so many eloquent, capable, admirable Congresspeople. I vote that the Democratic Party creates a joyful ad campaign, identical nationwide, showcasing Mallory McMorrow, AOC, Cory Booker, Stephanie Murphy and more, asking young people to go out and vote. No attack ads, just a concerted campaign to showcase our terrific young Democrats. Highlight the contrast between the GOP Zombies and the talent in the Democratic Party. Not that hard. Nancy, are you listening?

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When I get frustrated with the Democratic Party organizations (especially the MA state party), I look at the really stellar Democrats in Congress, and in my state government, and in various other states. Sure, there are some mediocre Democrats -- but mediocrity is the very best the GOP can do, and the overwhelming majority of them are worse than that.

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There simply is as we have come to learn no bottom to the modern day conservative movement. Now I know a lot of old time conservatives as I once was will claim what is being done in their name is not conservatism. But, if it isn't how come so many of them not just sit idly by while it is done under that umbrella but continue donate to and vote for Republicans who claim they are all about "conservative values" and "Making America Great Again."

What is now obvious is the conservatives who simply cannot find it in them to vote for a Democrat lest Western civilization come apart are more than willing to put up with the vulgarity and baseness so long as then can get something out of it. Tax cuts, more restrictive voting to disenfranchise those "who really don't represent my values," and, yes, quiet acquiescence to racism, sexism and misogyny because they were all part of "the American I know and love," In other words the conservatives have fully embraced Trumpism and its vulgar salesman and values as part of a transaction. Today that transaction consists of turning a blind eye to the rape and impregnation of a 9 year old child, the willful ignorance to the no limits/no barriers sale of military grade killing machines and the slaughter that produces in our schools, churches and synagogues. Tomorrow , who knows what will be in the bargain.

We keep reading columns from pundits asking when will the right wake up and understand they are aiding and abetting a monster and his movement to take us back. I believe the question should be why are so many people who say the stand for "American values" and "principles" willing to double down over and over on the deal they are making with a Devil. And, the answer is , regrettably, they are going to continue it willingly because there is something in it for THEM and the America they are looking for is not the one most of us want to live in. This is simply ZERO SUM politics, folks and if the rest of us don't wake up to that very soon the America we want to live in will no longer exist.

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I’m confused. Was the fetus a person with full rights? Was it an illegal person and, if so, what rights did it have considering that illegal persons lack rights that citizens have? Or was it not a person because the girl was illegal? And when will we get the list of all the abortions “pro-life” people paid for?

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I'd guess the sociopaths paused for a second to wonder if the abortion might represent a victory since it eliminated an "anchor baby." Nah. The fetus fetish trumps all.

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Maybe it would qualify as an "honorary person," akin to the Japanese being declared "honorary Aryans" by those paragons of paralogical racism, the Nazis?

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So tragic. That child will be affected for life. They are incapable of showing compassion for an abused child, no matter where she is from. As if a 10-year old has broken the law by being here. Blame the victim.

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When I was ten I lived wherever my parents took me. I didn’t check their credentials.

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Of course!

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These Republicans should not be allowed to call themselves humans.

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Just because they make that mistake, we don't have to.

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No bottom!

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and never will be...

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Are there really strong enough words (in any language) to sufficiently condemn the Rethug orgy of misogyny being inflicted on us? It Isn't just more triumphant owning the 'Libs, although it certainly is that. It is expressing their true feelings about the status of women. The revanchist desires of these odious, repugnant men to return to a white male hierarchy keeping girls and women in 'their place' is really nothing new. Only now they feel empowered to try and make it happen. For my own sanity, I have to believe there are more civilized women and men than there are these subhuman Rethugs. We have to drive these primordial lifeforms back to their caves. Caves we should lock them in.

There is nothing moral about requiring a raped and pregnant 10-year-old to give birth. On the contrary, it is prima-facia child abuse of the worst order. We will likely be treated to more such unspeakable inhumanity before the backfire it has to produce emerges. We have to be as determined as the anti-abortion crowd has been for the past half-century, but we can't need 50-years to set things right. Two election cycles could do it, or the disunion of the country if electoral politics can't accomplish it. We can't call ourselves a unified, first-world civilized country if equality of genders is not universal because it's that fundamental. If men own their bodies, and they do, so must women. And we can't as a society allow children to be abused or we don't deserve to survive.

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The Indiana AG who announced that he plans to investigate the child's Indianapolis ob/gyn is trying his best to stay in the race to bottom.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/13/indiana-doctor-10-year-old-rape-victim-00045764

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Later: Politico has updated this story with considerable new info: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/14/indiana-abortion-rape-ohio-00045899

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For the record, next day. A correction: apparently the abortion was done with pills, not surgery as this comment assumed originally. And another update: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/14/us/10-year-old-abortion-caitlin-bernard-indiana.html

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The field is deep

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And getting deeper every day.

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It sounds like they’re saying, “Only illegals are rapists and rape victims.” If the parents of the child were Republicans, they would have forced her to have the baby?

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