Family of First Person Killed by State Abortion Ban Speaks Out at Harris Town Hall

The family of the first known person to have died due to a post-Roe abortion ban spoke publicly for the first time on Thursday night, alongside Democratic candidate for president Kamala Harris and famed television host Oprah Winfrey during a town hall event.

They shared the story about their daughter, Amber Nicole Thurman, whose 2022 death was entirely preventable.

Georgia's extreme ban on abortion allows exceptions to save a pregnant person's life, but such exceptions are rarely carried out due to the vagueness of the law failing to stipulate what constitutes a life-saving event (this is a regularly occurring problem throughout the U.S. where such bans are in place). Thurman waited 20 hours before receiving treatment -- had she been treated earlier, it's believed she would have lived.

Said Thurman's mother at the event:

Initially, I did not want the public to know my pain. I wanted to go through in silence, but I realized that it was selfish. I want you to know, Amber was not a statistic, she was loved by a family, a strong family.

It's unclear how many people have died because of such bans that right-wing states have instituted since the dismantling of Roe. While another death is known, such statistics aren't regularly posted, and the number who have perished because of these bans is believed to be much, much higher.

These abortion bans would not have been possible were it not for Donald Trump appointing three anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court during his tenure in the White House. The overturning of Roe v. Wade, seen by many legal experts as extremely dubious legal reasoning, is directly responsible for Thurman's death, and for the deaths of others, not to mention the detrimental health outcomes many more have experienced.

Matt Hrkac/Flickr

Trump Said the Crowd at the Debate Cheered for Him. There Wasn't a Crowd There.

Image via Public Domain

Donald Trump claimed on Fox News last night that he received overwhelming support from the audience during his debate with Kamala Harris last week, saying the crowd "went absolutely crazy" when ABC News moderators fact-checked him over blatantly false assertions he made.

However, the debate had no audience present — it only included Trump, Harris, the moderators, and the TV crew. So what in the hell is Trump talking about?

Critics are questioning whether this, along with other recent statements he's made, suggests a decline in Trump's mental sharpness and if there should be more conversation about his fitness to serve as president, similar to the concerns raised about Joe Biden earlier this year.

From The New Republic:

Speaking in Long Island on Wednesday, Donald Trump was as bombastic and boastful as ever—but also slurred his words on several occasions.

Trump stumbled over words like “migrants” and “Russia” and had trouble stringing sentences together.

And from Salon, which quotes MSNBC's Chris Hayes's views:

MSNBC anchor Chris Hayes argued that the Republican candidate's remark validated concerns about his age and mental capacity.

"Trump talking about 'the audience' at the debate (where there famously was no audience) is more delusional and unsettling than any moment of Joe Biden misspeaking all year and it’s not close," Hayes wrote on social media.

Kamala Harris Sees Small "Bump" in Polls One Week Out From Debate

Image via WhiteHouse.gov/Public Domain

Polling data is showing a small "bump" in the polls for Kamala Harris just over a week after her debate with Donald Trump.

The Democratic candidate for president leads Trump by an average of 3.1 points, on average, according to the aggregate polling site FiveThirtyEight. That's a jump of more than half a point from September 10, the night of the debate.

That sounds like a minimal increase, but it's based on a pool of polls all put together. A better indication of the "bump" can be seen by observing changes in specific polls.

The Economist/YouGov survey that was taken before the debate showed the two candidates were tied at that time, at 45 percent support for each among registered voters. In their most recent poll, Harris has a 4-point lead, attaining 49 percent support to Trump's 45 percent.

Similarly, a Morning Consult poll from before the debate had Harris ahead by 3 points. A week out from the debate, that lead has doubled, expanding to 6 points, per the organization's latest polling.

The momentum is clearly on Harris's side, and early observations about her winning the debate appear to have been true, given the expansion of her national lead. Whether she can hold onto it, from here until November, and whether it will translate to an Electoral College win, has yet to be seen.

Vance Makes Hypocritical Demand for Dems to Stop Saying Trump Is Fascist (Psst...He Is)

J.D. Vance whined this week that Democrats use the word "fascist" too much to describe Trump.

Trump, of course, has used the word on multiple occasions to describe and deride Kamala Harris. Meanwhile, I don't think I've ever heard Harris use the word once against Trump, even though it is a correct descriptor for his views.

A search of Rev.com, an online transcription service that keeps up-to-date with the presidential candidates' speeches, finds no transcripts of Harris uttering the word during this past year. Conversely, it shows multiple times that Trump has used the word against her just this past week. 

Vance's complaints are hypocritical. Yes, there are plenty on the left that call Trump a fascist -- that's because Trump IS one (how else would you describe a guy who pushes false xenophobic lines of attacks, who wants to be a dictator, has called for the termination of the Constitution, isn't ruling out creating "camps" for certain people, etc.?). But if Vance wants to remonstrate against Dems for doing so, he should probably tell his boss to knock it off, too.

Image credits: Vance image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr; Harris image via DoD/Public Domain; Trump image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr