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A small group of activists rally against the GOP health care plan outside of the Metropolitan Republican Club. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
'Vindictive and Cruel': After Work Requirements Struck Down, GOP Governor Cancels Dental and Vision Medicaid Coverage for 460,000 in Kentucky
"After a federal judge blocked Kentucky's gutting of Medicaid, which would throw 95,000 off coverage, the governor responded with a Trumpian tantrum."
Jul 02, 2018
In what was described as a "Trumpian tantrum" that comes just days after a federal judge struck down his attempt to impose work requirements on his state's 1.4 million Medicaid recipients, Kentucky's Republican Gov. Matt Bevin on Monday completely canceled dental and vision coverage for 460,000 Kentuckians.
"This action is vindictive and cruel," declared the Southern Poverty Law Center, which represented 15 Kentucky residents in their lawsuit against the state's proposed work requirements, which a federal judge ruled were unlawfully approved by the Trump administration.
Bevin has also warned that he may attempt to go even further, threatening to cancel Kentucky's Medicaid expansion if he is barred from imposing work requirements on Medicaid recipients. If Bevin succeeds in rolling back Kentucky's Medicaid expansion--which was implemented under Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear--500,000 people could lose health insurance entirely.
\u201cLeaders should put people first. Not politics.\n\nWhen I get to Congress, I'll keep fighting for Medicare for All, so that EVERYBODY gets the care they need.\nhttps://t.co/olHts30Ct4\u201d— Randy Bryce (@Randy Bryce) 1530546517
After celebrating the federal judge's decision to strike down Bevin's work requirements, Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) argued that the governor likely doesn't have the legal authority to strip crucial benefits from more than 400,000 of his constituents.
"He said he wants to take dental and vision coverage away," Yarmuth said during a press conference on Monday. "We don't think that's legal either."
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In what was described as a "Trumpian tantrum" that comes just days after a federal judge struck down his attempt to impose work requirements on his state's 1.4 million Medicaid recipients, Kentucky's Republican Gov. Matt Bevin on Monday completely canceled dental and vision coverage for 460,000 Kentuckians.
"This action is vindictive and cruel," declared the Southern Poverty Law Center, which represented 15 Kentucky residents in their lawsuit against the state's proposed work requirements, which a federal judge ruled were unlawfully approved by the Trump administration.
Bevin has also warned that he may attempt to go even further, threatening to cancel Kentucky's Medicaid expansion if he is barred from imposing work requirements on Medicaid recipients. If Bevin succeeds in rolling back Kentucky's Medicaid expansion--which was implemented under Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear--500,000 people could lose health insurance entirely.
\u201cLeaders should put people first. Not politics.\n\nWhen I get to Congress, I'll keep fighting for Medicare for All, so that EVERYBODY gets the care they need.\nhttps://t.co/olHts30Ct4\u201d— Randy Bryce (@Randy Bryce) 1530546517
After celebrating the federal judge's decision to strike down Bevin's work requirements, Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) argued that the governor likely doesn't have the legal authority to strip crucial benefits from more than 400,000 of his constituents.
"He said he wants to take dental and vision coverage away," Yarmuth said during a press conference on Monday. "We don't think that's legal either."
In what was described as a "Trumpian tantrum" that comes just days after a federal judge struck down his attempt to impose work requirements on his state's 1.4 million Medicaid recipients, Kentucky's Republican Gov. Matt Bevin on Monday completely canceled dental and vision coverage for 460,000 Kentuckians.
"This action is vindictive and cruel," declared the Southern Poverty Law Center, which represented 15 Kentucky residents in their lawsuit against the state's proposed work requirements, which a federal judge ruled were unlawfully approved by the Trump administration.
Bevin has also warned that he may attempt to go even further, threatening to cancel Kentucky's Medicaid expansion if he is barred from imposing work requirements on Medicaid recipients. If Bevin succeeds in rolling back Kentucky's Medicaid expansion--which was implemented under Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear--500,000 people could lose health insurance entirely.
\u201cLeaders should put people first. Not politics.\n\nWhen I get to Congress, I'll keep fighting for Medicare for All, so that EVERYBODY gets the care they need.\nhttps://t.co/olHts30Ct4\u201d— Randy Bryce (@Randy Bryce) 1530546517
After celebrating the federal judge's decision to strike down Bevin's work requirements, Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) argued that the governor likely doesn't have the legal authority to strip crucial benefits from more than 400,000 of his constituents.
"He said he wants to take dental and vision coverage away," Yarmuth said during a press conference on Monday. "We don't think that's legal either."
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LATEST NEWS
Top Journalism Watchdog Rebukes International Community for Silence on Israeli 'War Crime'
"It is hard to see," said the head of the Committee to Protect Journalists, "if Israel can wipe out an entire news crew without the international community so much as batting an eye, what will stop further attacks on reporters."
Aug 13, 2025
Nearly two years into Israel's assault on Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces' killing of six journalists this week provoked worldwide outrage—but a leading press freedom advocate said Wednesday that the slaughter of the Palestinian reporters can "hardly" be called surprising, considering the international community's refusal to stop Israel from killing hundreds of journalists and tens of thousands of other civilians in Gaza since October 2023.
Israel claimed without evidence that Anas al-Sharif, a prominent Al Jazeera journalist who was killed in an airstrike Sunday along with four of his colleagues at the network and a freelance reporter, was the leader of a Hamas cell—an allegation Al Jazeera, the United Nations, and rights groups vehemently denied.
Jodie Ginsberg, CEO of the Committee to Protect Journalists, wrote in The Guardian that al-Sharif was one of at least 26 Palestinian reporters that Israel has admitted to deliberately targeting while presenting "no independently verifiable evidence" that they were militants or involved in hostilities in any way.
Israel did not publish the "current intelligence" it claimed to have showing al-Sharif was a Hamas operative, and Ginsberg outlined how the IDF appeared to target al-Sharif after he drew attention to the starvation of Palestinians—which human rights groups and experts have said is the direct result of Israel's near-total blockade on humanitarian aid.
"The Committee to Protect Journalists had seen this playbook from Israel before: a pattern in which journalists are accused by Israel of being terrorists with no credible evidence," wrote Ginsberg, noting the CPJ demanded al-Sharif's protection last month as Israel's attacks intensified.
The five other journalists who were killed when the IDF struck a press tent in Gaza City were not accused of being militants.
The IDF "has not said what crime it believes the others have committed that would justify killing them," wrote Ginsberg. "The laws of war are clear: Journalists are civilians. To target them deliberately in war is to commit a war crime."
"It is hardly surprising that Israel believes it can get away with murder. In the two decades preceding October, Israeli forces killed 20 journalists."
Just as weapons have continued flowing from the United States and other Western countries to Israel despite its killing of at least 242 Palestinian journalists and more than 61,000 other civilians since October 2023, Ginsberg noted, Israel had reason to believe it could target reporters even before the IDF began its current assault on Gaza.
"It is hardly surprising that Israel believes it can get away with murder," wrote Ginsberg. "In the two decades preceding October, Israeli forces killed 20 journalists. No one has ever been held accountable for any of those deaths, including that of the Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, whose killing in 2022 sent shock waves through the region."
The reaction to the killing of the six journalists this week from the Trump administration—the largest international funder of the Israeli military—and the corporate media in the U.S. has exemplified what Ginsberg called the global community's "woeful" response to the slaughter of journalists by Israel, which has long boasted of its supposed status as a bastion of press freedom in the Middle East.
As Middle East Eye reported Tuesday, at the first U.S. State Department briefing since al-Sharif and his colleagues were killed, spokesperson Tammy Bruce said the airstrike targeting journalists was a legitimate attack by "a nation fighting a war" and repeated Israel's unsubstantiated claims about al-Sharif.
"I will remind you again that we're dealing with a complicated, horrible situation," she told a reporter from Al Jazeera Arabic. "We refer you to Israel. Israel has released evidence al-Sharif was part of Hamas and was supportive of the Hamas attack on October 7. They're the ones who have the evidence."
A CNN anchor also echoed Israel's allegations of terrorism in an interview with Foreign Press Association president Ian Williams, prompting the press freedom advocate to issue a reminder that—even if Israel's claims were true—journalists are civilians under international law, regardless of their political beliefs and affiliations.
"Frankly, I don't care whether al-Sharif was in Hamas or not," said Williams. "We don't kill journalists for being Republicans or Democrats or, in Britain, Labour Party."
Ginsberg warned that even "our own journalism community" across the world has thus far failed reporters in Gaza—now the deadliest war for journalists that CPJ has ever documented—compared to how it has approached other conflicts.
"Whereas the Committee to Protect Journalists received significant offers of support and solidarity when journalists were being killed in Ukraine at the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, the reaction from international media over the killings of our journalist colleagues in Gaza at the start of the war was muted at best," said Ginsberg.
International condemnation has "grown more vocal" following the killing of al-Sharif and his colleagues, including Mohammed Qreiqeh, Ibrahim Zaher, Mohammed Noufal, Moamen Aliwa, and Mohammad al-Khaldi, said Ginsberg.
"But it is hard to see," she said, "if Israel can wipe out an entire news crew without the international community so much as batting an eye, what will stop further attacks on reporters."
Three U.N. experts on Tuesday demanded an immediate independent investigation into the journalists' killing, saying that a refusal from Israel to allow such a probe would "reconfirm its own culpability and cover-up of the genocide."
"Journalism is not terrorism. Israel has provided no credible evidence of the latter against any of the journalists that it has targeted and killed with impunity," said the experts, including Francesca Albanese, the special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.
"These are acts of an arrogant army that believes itself to be impune, no matter the gravity of the crimes it commits," they said. "The impunity must end. The states that continue to support Israel must now place tough sanctions against its government in order to end the killings, the atrocities, and the mass starvation."
'We Are Being Cooked Alive': Wildfires Driven by Climate Crisis Ravage Europe
Fire-related deaths were reported in Turkey, Spain, Montenegro, and Albania.
Aug 13, 2025
With firefighters in southern Europe battling blazes that have killed people in multiple countries and forced thousands to evacuate, Spain's environment minister on Wednesday called the wildfires a "clear warning" of the climate emergency driven by the fossil fuel industry.
While authorities have cited a variety of causes for current fires across the continent, from arson to "careless farming practices, improperly maintained power cables, and summer lightning storms," scientists have long stressed that wildfires are getting worse as humanity heats the planet with fossil fuels.
The Spanish minister, Sara Aagesen, told the radio network Cadena SER that "the fires are one of the parts of the impact of that climate change, which is why we have to do all we can when it comes to prevention."
"Our country is especially vulnerable to climate change. We have resources now but, given that the scientific evidence and the general expectation point to it having an ever greater impact, we need to work to reinforce and professionalize those resources," Aagesen added in remarks translated by The Guardian.
The Spanish meteorological agency, AEMET, said on social media Wednesday that "the danger of wildfires continues at very high or extreme levels in most of Spain, despite the likelihood of showers in many areas," and urged residents to "take extreme precautions!"
The heatwave impacting Spain "peaked on Tuesday with temperatures as high as 45°C (113°F)," according to Reuters. AEMET warned that "starting Thursday, the heat will intensify again," and is likely to continue through Monday.
The heatwave is also a sign of climate change, Akshay Deoras, a research scientist in the Meteorology Department at the U.K.'s University of Reading, told Agence France-Presse this week.
"Thanks to climate change, we now live in a significantly warmer world," Deoras said, adding that "many still underestimate the danger."
There have been at least two fire-related deaths in Spain this week: a man working at a horse stable on the outskirts of the Spanish capital Madrid, and a 35-year-old volunteer firefighter trying to make firebreaks near the town of Nogarejas, in the Castile and León region.
Acknowledging the firefighter's death on social media Tuesday, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez sent his "deepest condolences to their family, friends, and colleagues," and wished "much strength and a speedy recovery to the people injured in that same fire."
According to The New York Times, deaths tied to the fires were also reported in Turkey, Montenegro, and Albania. Additionally, The Guardian noted, "a 4-year-old boy who was found unconscious in his family's car in Sardinia died in Rome on Monday after suffering irreversible brain damage caused by heatstroke."
There are also fires in Greece, France, and Portugal, where the mayor of Vila Real, Alexandre Favaios, declared that "we are being cooked alive, this cannot continue."
Reuters on Wednesday highlighted Greenpeace estimates that investing €1 billion, or $1.17 billion, annually in forest management could save 9.9 million hectares or 24.5 million acres—an area bigger than Portugal—and tens of billions of euros spent on firefighting and restoration work.
The European fires are raging roughly three months out from the next United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP30, which is scheduled to begin on November 10 in Belém, Brazil.
Head of Largest US Teachers Union Warns Trump Budget Law Will Worsen Child Hunger Crisis
"These are not abstract numbers," wrote National Education Association president Becky Pringle. "These are real children who show up to school eager to learn but are instead distracted by hunger."
Aug 13, 2025
The leader of the largest teachers union in the United States is sounding the alarm over the impact that President Donald Trump's newly enacted budget law will have on young students, specifically warning that massive cuts to federal nutrition assistance will intensify the nation's child hunger crisis.
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association (NEA)—which represents millions of educators across the U.S.—wrote for Time magazine earlier this week that "as families across America prepare for the new school year, millions of children face the threat of returning to classrooms without access to school meals" under the budget measure that Trump signed into law last month after it cleared the Republican-controlled Congress.
Estimates indicate that more than 18 million children nationwide could lose access to free school meals due to the law's unprecedented cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid, which are used to determine eligibility for free meals in most U.S. states.
The Trump-GOP budget law imposes more strict work-reporting requirements on SNAP recipients and expands the mandates to adults between the ages of 55 and 64 and parents with children aged 14 and older. The Congressional Budget Office said earlier this week that the more aggressive work requirements would kick millions of adults off SNAP over the next decade—with cascading effects for children and other family members who rely on the program.
"Educators see this pain every day, and that's why they go above and beyond—buying classroom snacks with their own money—to support their students."
Pringle wrote in her Time op-ed that "our children can't learn if they are hungry," adding that as a middle school science teacher she has seen first-hand "the pain that hunger creates."
"Educators see this pain every day, and that's why they go above and beyond—buying classroom snacks with their own money—to support their students," she wrote.
The NEA president warned that cuts from the Trump-GOP law "will hit hardest in places where families are already struggling the most, especially in rural and Southern states where school nutrition programs are a lifeline to many."
"In Texas, 3.4 million kids, nearly two-thirds of students, are eligible for free and reduced lunch," Pringle wrote. "In Mississippi, 439,000 kids, 99.7% of the student population, were eligible for free and reduced-cost lunch during the 2022-23 school year."
"These are not abstract numbers," she added. "These are real children who show up to school eager to learn but are instead distracted by hunger and uncertainty about when they will eat again. America's kids deserve better.
Pringle's op-ed came as school leaders, advocates, and lawmakers across the country braced for the impacts of Trump's budget law.
"We're going to see cuts to programs such as SNAP and Medicaid, resulting in domino effects for the children we serve," Rep. LaMonica McIver (D-N.J.) said during a recent gathering of lawmakers and experts. "For many of our communities, these policies mean life or death."
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