The Greene County Democrat

Tag: and Pursuing Trayvon Martin. Officials cited Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s

  • Newswire : Defending Medicaid cuts, Ernst tells Iowans, ‘We all are going to die’

    Senator Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, on Capitol Hill in January.Credit…Eric Lee/The New York Times
     

    By Annie Karni, New York Times


    Senator Joni Ernst, Republican of Iowa, had a gloomy message for constituents at a town hall in Butler County, Iowa, on Friday morning: “We all are going to die.”
    Ms. Ernst was fielding questions about cuts to Medicaid that were included in the domestic policy bill working its way through Congress, when someone in the audience yelled out that the effect would be that “people are going to die.”
    “Well, we all are going to die,” Ms. Ernst responded, drawing jeers from the crowd.
    Ms. Ernst appeared taken aback by the negative response. “For heaven’s sakes, folks,” she said.
    Democrats moved quickly to call attention to the comment from Ms. Ernst, a second-term lawmaker who is up for re-election next year. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee circulated a video clip of the moment, calling Ms. Ernst’s remark “stunningly callous” and saying that it came as Republicans in Congress were pushing massive cuts to Medicaid that would leave “millions of Americans uninsured in order to pay for a tax giveaway for billionaires.”

    The sprawling legislation Ms. Ernst was discussing, which contains a $4 trillion tax cut that would provide the biggest savings to the wealthy, also would make several changes to Medicaid, including adding a strict new work requirement, an end to state provider taxes to help states match Federal funds, and other steps. The independent, nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that the bill would cause around 10 million Americans to become uninsured.
    Ms. Ernst’s comment on Friday came after town hall attendees interrupted her as she was highlighting provisions in the domestic policy measure that seek to ensure that undocumented immigrants, who are not eligible to enroll in Medicaid, would not receive any services. As they defend the legislation, Republicans often refer to that aspect of it, suggesting that the only major changes it would make to Medicaid would be cracking down on waste and abuse in the program, including illegal use by undocumented people.
    Still, it is the more morbid portion of Ms. Ernst’s remarks that Democrats are likely to play on repeat in campaign ads against her in the coming months.
    Ms. Ernst’s Democratic challenger Nathan Sage, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq and currently leads the Knoxville Chamber of Commerce, was in the audience and said he was stunned when he heard her remark.
    “It was this jaw-dropping moment — how the hell can you say something like that?” Mr. Sage said in an interview. “The crowd was already hot. She was there to answer questions and get out. It just showed she doesn’t care about us.”
    Mr. Sage said he attended the town hall to hear voters’ top concerns. “The overall feeling from everyone in the room was she’s doing what she needs to do to keep her job,” he said.
    With her re-election top of mind, Ms. Ernst, a survivor of sexual assault and the Senate’s first female combat veteran, earlier this year caved to a right-wing pressure campaign and voted to confirm Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth despite expressing reservations about his bid.
    In a statement, a spokesman for Ms. Ernst said that Democrats were trying to “fearmonger against strengthening the integrity of Medicaid.”
    The spokesman added: “There’s only two certainties in life: death and taxes, and she’s working to ease the burden of both by fighting to keep more of Iowans’ hard-earned tax dollars in their own pockets and ensuring their benefits are protected from waste, fraud, and abuse.”

     

  • Newswire : U.S. Parks Service appears to have restored Harriett Tubman texts on it’s website

    By Stacy M. Brown
BlackPressUSA.com Senior National Correspondent

     

    After significant public backlash, the U.S. National Park Service has now appeared to restore its original webpage on the history of the Underground Railroad after it was met with backlash for deleting a prominently featured photo of abolitionist and women’s suffragist Harriet Tubman, as well as segments of text describing the horrors of slavery.
    Part of the restored text describes the 18th- and 19th-century Underground Railroad as “efforts of enslaved African Americans to gain their freedom by escaping bondage.” Tubman was one of the system’s best-known “conductors.” Earlier, a photograph of Harriet Tubman was removed from a webpage about the Underground Railroad. Previously, the page opened with a photo of Tubman and a description that acknowledged slavery and the efforts of enslaved African Americans to escape bondage. That language is now gone.
    The change followed an executive order signed by President Donald Trump last month directing the Smithsonian Institution to eliminate “divisive narratives.” A review by The Washington Post found that since Trump’s return to office, dozens of webpages across the National Park Service have been edited to soften or eliminate references to slavery, racial injustice, and the historical struggles of African Americans.
    On the website for the Stone National Historic Site in Maryland, mentions of Declaration of Independence signer Thomas Stone owning enslaved people were removed. Elsewhere, references to “enslaved African Americans” were changed to “enslaved workers.” A page exploring Benjamin Franklin’s views on slavery and his slave ownership was taken offline. Those references were still missing despite the restoration of Tubman and the Underground Railroad.
    The Defense Department also removed several webpages related to diversity and minority contributions to the U.S. military, including a tribute to Jackie Robinson’s Army service and content honoring the Tuskegee Airmen, the Navajo Code Talkers, and the Marines at Iwo Jima. Officials later said some content would be republished after public outcry.
    Nearly 400 books were removed from the library at the U.S. Naval Academy. The list includes Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Memorializing the Holocaust, Half American, and Pursuing Trayvon Martin. Officials cited Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s directive to eliminate books that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion.