Greenup County will be site of protest on Saturday
ASHLAND Several groups in the region are planning a protest on Saturday about a variety of concerns in the United States.
One will be at the Taco Bell parking lot in Russell and it's being organized by the Greenup County Democratic Women.
Patricia Metz Stevens, president of the group, said several issues will be highlighted, including the dismantling of the government, the Department of Education, SNAP programs, unions, Medicaid and closing government facilities.
'It's about things that concern our people right here in our area,' Stevens said.
One of those concerns: The proposed closure of the Social Security Administration office in Portsmouth, Ohio, which the Department of Government Efficiency claims will save $92,317. Also on the list of Social Security offices to close are the ones in Hazard, Ky.; Mansfield, Ohio; and in Logan, W.Va.
'Democracy as we know it is being jeopardized,' Stevens said. 'It's frightening. ... Everything we have been reading is what we're concerned about.'
Stevens said anyone with concerns about the government is welcome to join the demonstration, planned for 1 to 3 p.m. Many will carry signs expressing the concern that's most pressing to them.
Grassroots protests also are planned for Louisville, Morehead, Danville, Lexington, Frankfort, Florence, Paducah, Franklin and Owensboro in Kentucky; Huntington, Charleston, Charles Town, Wheeling and Lewisburg in West Virginia; and at least 24 cities in Ohio. In fact, cities all over the world will be sites for protests.
Hundreds of rallies, marches and protests from Alaska to Hawaii to Northern Maine to Southeast Florida — plus four overseas — will bring hundreds of thousands into the streets to, as organizers put it, 'Stop the MAGA Assault on our country and our Constitution.'
Some of the organizers are the Women's March, Public Citizen, the Progressive Democrats of America, Indivisible and local unions. The Greenup event is part of Hands Off! Mass Mobilization. The website is handsoff2025.com.
Progressive Democrats of America chief Alan Minsky said protests will continue. One is planned for Tuesday, when Trump Education Secretary Linda McMahon, a GOP donor who's been given the assignment to destroy her department, visits San Diego three days later.
'We need a progressive force inside the Democratic Party' to take it over and take control from the D.C.-based corporate Democrats, their campaign consultants and their lobbyists, Minsky told 450 activists on a Zoom call this week.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Polls show Trump's big bill is unpopular as Republicans stare down their deadline for passage
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is facing political headwinds for his 'big, beautiful bill' as Republican leaders hope to begin votes on it in the Senate this week. Specifically, five new surveys indicate that the GOP is losing the battle of public opinion on a major piece of legislation they're aiming to pass by July 4. Nonpartisan polls released this month show that voters have a negative perception of the bill. The House-passed version, which is facing modest revisions in the Senate, would extend the 2017 Trump tax cuts while slashing taxes on tips and overtime, and enact a series of spending cuts to Medicaid and other programs. A Fox News poll found that 38% of registered voters support the 'One Big Beautiful Bill' based on what they know about it, while 59% oppose it. The survey found that the legislation is unpopular across demographic, age and income groups. It is opposed 22%-73% by independents, and 43%-53% among white men without a college degree, the heart of Trump's base. A Quinnipiac University poll found that 27% of registered voters support the bill, while 53% oppose it. Another 20% had no opinion. Among independents, 20% said they support it and 57% said they oppose it. A KFF poll found that 35% of adults have a favorable view when asked about the 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act,' while 64% have an unfavorable view. Just 27% of independents said they hold a favorable view of it. A survey from Pew Research Center found that 29% of adults favor the bill, while 49% oppose it. (Another 21% said they weren't sure.) Asked what impact it would have on the country, 54% said 'a mostly negative effect,' 30% said 'a mostly positive effect' and 12% said 'not much of an effect.' A poll by The Washington Post and Ipsos found that 23% of adults support 'the budget bill changing tax, spending and Medicaid policies,' while 42% oppose it. Another 34% had no opinion. The bill reduces Medicaid spending through new work requirements and eligibility rules. Overall, the House-passed version is projected by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to increase the national debt by $2.4 trillion over the next 10 years. 'The great, big, beautiful bill will grow the economy like it has never been grown before,' Trump, who has pushed hard for its passage, wrote earlier this month on Truth Social. In a recent NBC News Decision Desk poll asking Americans what issue matters most to them, 51% picked 'maintaining current spending levels on programs like Medicaid,' 21% picked 'continuing and expanding income tax cuts and credits' enacted by Trump in 2017, and 28% picked 'ensuring that the national debt is reduced.' The Senate is eyeing some changes to the House's bill, but nothing that alters its basic structure. For instance, the Senate is weighing less aggressive cuts to clean energy funding and more aggressive Medicaid spending reductions. Senate GOP leaders are hoping to hold a vote on the package this week. They can only afford three defections, assuming all Democrats oppose the bill, and several Republican senators have raised an array of concerns with it. The final product that passes the Senate will also need to go back through the House before it can go to Trump's desk for a signature. 'It needs work. And they don't have 51 votes,' Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., told NBC News, taking issue with a provision that changes how providers are taxed. 'They've got to fix the provider, the rural hospital issue. ... They cannot defund rural hospitals.' There are some nuances in the polling. The Washington Post-Ipsos survey found that extending the 2017 tax cuts 'for people of all income levels' was popular among adults by a margin of 49%-26%, but extending them specifically for incomes above $400,000 was unpopular by a margin of 30%-49%. The Post-Ipsos poll found that 52% of Americans supported work requirements for able-bodied adults to receive Medicaid, while 33% opposed them. But that policy became unpopular when voters were told that the CBO estimates 8 million people would lose health coverage as a result of the bill: 63% said that is unacceptable, while 18% said that's acceptable. (The latest version of the bill is projected to result in more than 10 million losing their coverage, according to the CBO.) The Quinnipiac poll found that just 10% of voters want to decrease Medicaid spending, while 40% want it to stay about the same and 47% want to increase it. In recent days, the Senate bill has been scrubbed by the parliamentarian, the chamber's in-house referee tasked with ensuring all the provisions comply with the rules for the so-called 'budget reconciliation' process Republicans are using to pass it. The process allows the majority party to bypass the Senate's 60-vote threshold, effectively cutting Democrats out of the process. Some pieces of the bill have been knocked out in that process, according to a Democratic budget aide, including a provision to cut federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) spending and require states to shoulder a larger burden. That will be subject to the 60-vote threshold and removed from the bill, along with a controversial policy sought by Republicans to restrict the power of courts to issue injunctions against the federal government. Other provisions that were dropped include cuts to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and repealing authorizations under the Inflation Reduction Act. Senate Republican leaders hope to roll out the remaining provisions of the bill this week and begin voting on it, with the target of passing it by July 4. No votes have been scheduled yet. For now, Senate Republicans are crafting the bill with the goal of finding 51 votes in the chamber, even if that makes it unpalatable to the narrow House majority. For instance, they're slashing a $40,000 cap for state and local tax deductions down to $10,000, which a critical group of House Republicans in high-tax states have made clear is a nonstarter for them. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, slammed what he called 'major backsliding on the IRA green new scam subsidies' in the House bill, calling the more modest cuts a red line for him. 'I'm not going to vote for a bill that does that,' Roy told reporters. That sets up a confrontation with the House, where Republicans also have a narrow majority, in order to craft a version that can clear both chambers. Meanwhile, Democrats are planning to make the bill a centerpiece of their message to voters in the 2026 midterm election. 'It's no wonder the so-called moderate House Republicans continue to lie about their Tax Scam: the Big, Ugly Bill is wildly unpopular with the American public and they know their vote for it will lose them the majority next year,' Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Justin Chermol said in a statement. This article was originally published on
Politico
an hour ago
- Politico
Senate GOP unlikely to release revised megabill text Monday
House Republicans are aiming to slash funding for the nonpartisan watchdog for waste, fraud and abuse within the federal government by nearly half in the next fiscal year, according to spending bill text released Sunday night. The House Appropriations subcommittee funding Congress and its support agencies, led by chairman David Valadao (R-Calif.), is set to mark up their fiscal 2026 measure Monday evening, with the full committee set to act Thursday. The Legislative Branch bill would provide $6.7 billion — $51 million below the current funding level, which was set in fiscal 2024. Per tradition, the House bill does not touch any Senate funding. 'Chairman Valadao's bill puts the American people first — in strengthening the institutions that represent them, protecting effective governance, and safeguarding taxpayer dollars,' said House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) in a statement. The deepest cuts in the bill are to the Government Accountability Office, an arm of Congress that would see a $396.5 million reduction from current levels to $415.4 million. GAO has served as the nation's chief investigator of wrongdoing at federal agencies for more than a century, but has been fighting for months as Republicans in Congress and the Trump administration have attempted to undercut its legal conclusions and independence. Now, they are attempting to shrink the agency into submission as it pursues nearly 40 investigations into whether the White House is illegally withholding, or 'impounding,' money Congress had previously approved. Also tucked into the bill is a major policy change that would eliminate the GAO's ability to bring civil action against the executive branch over impoundments of funds. 'GAO's work makes it possible for the legislative branch to hold government accountable,' said Daniel Schuman, executive director of the American Governance Institute. 'Congress needs independent expert advice, which is exactly what GAO provides.' Also on the chopping block is the Library of Congress, which is another legislative branch agency also engaged in a power struggle against intrusion by the Trump administration. The bill allocates $767.6 million for the Library of Congress, which is $84.5 million below the current funding level and $133.7 million below the FY26 request. 'This bill does nothing to safeguard against the growing levels of executive overreach into legislative branch agencies,' said Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the legislative branch subcommittee. Some other key provisions in the GOP-written bill include: Capitol Police: The Capitol Police would see a $84.4 million boost to their funding under the bill, bringing the total to $891 million. Some lawmakers had asked for an increase in office funding for use for security, but the bill flat-funds the Members Representational Allowance, which can be used for some member security purposes. Member Pay: The bill would continue the member pay freeze that has been in effect since 2013, halting automatic cost of living increases that members of Congress are supposed to get under law. Gay marriage: The bill includes language that prohibits discrimination against any person who 'speaks, or acts' in accordance with a 'sincerely held religious belief, or moral conviction, that marriage is, or should be recognized as, a union of one man and one woman.'
CNBC
an hour ago
- CNBC
Health-care cuts in GOP's budget bill may add up to $22,800 in medical debt for some families: Report
Proposed federal spending cuts to health care in Republicans' "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" may increase some families' medical debts by as much as $22,800, according to a new report from Third Way, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. The Republican budget bill proposes $1.1 trillion in cuts to health care that target both Medicaid and Affordable Care Act coverage. An estimated 16 million people may lose health coverage based on those proposals, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated — 7.8 million who would lose Medicaid and 8.2 million who would lose Affordable Care Act coverage. Overall, medical debt would increase by $50 billion as a result of the budget bill changes — a 15% rise over today's $340 billion in unpaid debts, according to Third Way. Health coverage losses would increase the number of people in families with medical debt by 5.4 million, according to Third Way's report. More than 100 million people currently have medical debt in the U.S., according to KFF. More from Personal Finance:'SALT' deduction in limbo as Senate Republicans unveil tax planHow Senate GOP 'no tax on tips' proposal differs from House planSenate tax bill includes $1,000 baby bonus in 'Trump accounts' An estimated 2.2 million households would have medical debt because of Medicaid coverage losses, while 3.2 million more people would rack up balances due to Affordable Care Act reforms that may prompt coverage losses or higher premiums, according to Third Way. Without coverage, families may see their medical debts increase by as much as $22,800, according to Third Way's report. About 87% of households that previously had no medical debt would accumulate an average of $22,800 in balances. Meanwhile, 13% of households may accumulate an additional average of $8,790 in medical debt on top of $13,490 in existing balances. "That's going to put people's dreams back, if they're hoping to go to college or hoping to have a solid retirement or hoping to buy another house," said David Kendall, senior fellow for health and fiscal policy at Third Way. "Medical debt stands in the way of the American dream, and we shouldn't make it worse." The White House said proposed federal spending cuts are aimed at eliminating "waste, fraud and abuse" in government programs including Medicaid. The Trump administration has said the "big beautiful" bill is a potential "economic windfall for working and middle-class Americans" through tax cuts, higher wages and higher take-home pay. In a Monday letter that cites the Third Way report, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee, and Democratic Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey, Chuck Schumer of New York and Ron Wyden of Oregon, urged Republican leaders to reconsider the proposed health-care cuts. Addressing medical debt is a "national priority" with "bipartisan support," the senators wrote in a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La. Currently, 16 states have moved to either cancel medical debt or eliminate medical debts from credit reports, they wrote. "Medical debt is a complex problem, but having health insurance coverage makes a measurable difference," the senators wrote. They pointed to a 2013 study in The New England Journal of Medicine that found Medicaid coverage reduces medical debt rates by 13.28 percentage points. The study, published ahead of state Medicaid expansion under the ACA, looked at the effects of Oregon's 2008 Medicaid expansion. Americans with unpaid medical balances may face "dire" consequences, which may include delaying or going without needed care, cutting back on food or other necessities or taking on additional debt, the lawmakers wrote. In addition to personal setbacks, medical debt also affects consumer spending, which may prevent economic growth, they said. "If the Republican reconciliation bill passes these drastic health care cuts into law, working class families across America risk going further into medical debt," the senators wrote. "It is not too late to stop these cuts," they wrote.
