Politics
Kentucky House votes to change child labor laws, food stamp recipient requirements
Republican-backed measures to relax child labor rules and tighten food stamp eligibility standards won passage Thursday in the Kentucky House over impassioned objections from Democrats.
In back-to-back votes, both bills advanced to the GOP-dominated Senate after long debates in the House, where Republicans also have a supermajority. Democratic lawmakers branded the proposals as harsh for low-income and young Kentuckians, while Republicans said the measures reflect policies that value work.
One bill would insert income and asset tests for Kentuckians applying for benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and would impose work requirements for able-bodied adults with no dependents. SNAP helps low-income families supplement their budgets so they can buy groceries.
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Republican Rep. Wade Williams said his bill would close loopholes that he portrayed as deterrents to getting more people into jobs, contributing to the state’s stubbornly low workforce participation rate. It’s a constant complaint he hears from employers struggling to find enough workers, he said.
“The pandemic is behind us, and it’s time for a thoughtful solution on how we get more workers back in the workforce,” he said. “It’s not compassionate to simply keep somebody as a servant to the government.”
Opponents warned that tens of thousands of low-income Kentuckians would lose food assistance under the stricter standards, putting them at greater risk of struggling to get enough to eat. The impact would go beyond able-bodied adults to affect young and elderly people as well, they said.
The Kentucky State Capitol is seen in Frankfort, Ky., on April 7, 2021. The Kentucky House passed Republican-backed measures to roll back child labor rules and raise food stamp eligibility standards on Feb. 22, 2024. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, File)
Democratic Rep. Sarah Stalker read out the number of people estimated under the bill to lose SNAP benefits in a number of Kentucky counties, including those in Republican strongholds.
“How poor do you have to be in Kentucky to be worthy of food?” she said. “That is the question of the day. We’re talking about a basic need and a right.”
Other opponents of House Bill 367 noted that the tougher eligibility standards would put even more strain on food pantries and would come at a time when Kentucky is sitting on massive budget reserves.
“We’re supposed to love the least among us,” said Democratic Rep. Chad Aull. “This is picking on them.”
The bill would close a loophole allowing people to qualify for food stamps despite having significant available assets or an income well above the poverty level, Williams said. It also would reduce the gross income threshold for SNAP eligibility. It plugs another loophole, he said, with the goal of getting able-bodied adults between the ages of 18 and 52 with no dependents into the workforce.
Williams said his constituents “do not think it’s too much to ask a person to work, train, go to school or volunteer to receive a government benefit.”
The other bill that cleared the House after a prolonged debate would relax state restrictions on child labor. It would remove the cap on the number of hours older teens can work on school nights. The bill also would bar Kentucky’s top labor officials from setting child labor standards that exceed minimum federal protections.
Republican Rep. Phillip Pratt, the bill’s lead sponsor, touted the life lessons teens can learn from holding down a job — from learning the value of money to the importance of taking personal responsibility.
“For everyone on the other side of this bill, you’re standing in the way of these lessons,” he said.
Opponents of HB255 warned that school work would suffer if teens take on longer work weeks. Employers will take advantage of the relaxed restrictions to pile more hours onto young workers, especially teens who help their families cover living expenses, said Democratic Rep. Josie Raymond.
“There are no teenagers who are saying, ‘Ah, man I can only work 40 hours a week right now. But if the legislature would just make it unlimited, then I’ll go to work 50 hours right away,’” she said.
As lawmakers wrapped up debating the food stamp bill, Republican Rep. Samara Heavrin said the measure offered an answer to a question she frequently hears from constituents back home.
“I have people stop me if I’m at Wal-Mart or the Dollar General or anywhere, to be honest, saying: ‘What are you doing in Frankfort to get people back to work?’” she said.
Democratic Rep. Rachel Roberts had a starkly different assessment, saying the House had just layered “cruel bills on top of one another.” She noted the irony that the vote on the food stamp bill followed the debate over relaxing labor rules for teen workers.
“I suppose the timing of these two bills — back to back — is that the solution for how we’re going to feed these hungry families is more kids are going to work to earn for their families?” she said.
President-elect Donald J. Trump and his family on Friday started selling a cryptocurrency token featuring an image of Mr. Trump drawn from the July assassination attempt, a potentially lucrative new business that ethics experts assailed as a blatant effort to cash in on the office he is about to occupy again.
Disclosed just days before his second inauguration, the venture is the latest in a series of moves by Mr. Trump that blur the line between his government role and the continued effort by his family to profit from his power and global fame. It is yet another sign that the Trump family will be much less hesitant in this second term to bend or breach traditional ethical boundaries.
Mr. Trump himself announced the launch of his new business on Friday night on his social media platform, in between announcements about filling key federal government posts. He is calling the token $Trump, selling it with the slogan, “Join the Trump Community. This is History in the Making!”
The venture was organized by CIC Digital LLC, an affiliate of the Trump Organization, which already has been selling an array of other kinds of merchandise like Trump-branded sneakers, fragrances and even digital trading cards.
But this newest venture brings Mr. Trump and his family directly into the world of selling cryptocurrency, which is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Mr. Trump recently disclosed he intended to name a cryptocurrency advocate as S.E.C. chairman.
A disclosure on the website selling the tokens says that CIC Digital and its affiliates own 80 percent of the supply of the new Trump tokens that will be released gradually over the coming three years and that they will be paid “trading revenue” as the tokens are sold.
The move by Mr. Trump and his family was immediately condemned by ethics lawyers who said they could not recall a more explicit profiteering effort by an incoming president.
“It is literally cashing in on the presidency — creating a financial instrument so people can transfer money to the president’s family in connection with his office” said Adav Noti, executive director of Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit ethics group. “It is beyond unprecedented.”
Eric Trump, who helps run Trump Organization business operations, said on Saturday that this offering was part of a new and growing business sector that the Trump family has entered.
“I am extremely proud of what we continue to accomplish in crypto,” Eric Trump said in a statement to The New York Times. “$Trump is currently the hottest digital meme on earth.” He added: “This is just the beginning.”
But even some in the cryptocurrency industry were quick to criticize the new token.
“Trump owning 80 percent and timing launch hours before inauguration is predatory and many will likely get hurt by it,” wrote Nick Tomaino, a crypto venture capitalist and former executive at Coinbase, one of the largest crypto trading platforms, in a social media posting on Saturday.
The president-elect and his three sons had, as of late last year, already lent their name to another cryptocurrency startup called World Liberty Financial, an arrangement that included a cut of token sales for the Trump family in exchange for helping promote the new brand.
But the members of the Trump family, with World Liberty Financial, were not actually owners of the platform or officers in the company.
There are other crypto currency coins in the marketplace based on Mr. Trump that are not directly affiliated with his family like the new Trump Meme. Typically, these so-called meme coins — which were born when coins were created as a joke inspired by an internet meme or cartoonish animal faces — are largely worthless and traded more like a hobby.
With this new venture, companies associated with Mr. Trump’s family have a direct financial stake in the value of the new tokens and in the volume of their sales, which quickly surged after going on the market.
“GetTrumpMemes.com is not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign or any political office or governmental agency,” the venture’s website says, adding, “Trump Memes are intended to function as an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol ‘$TRUMP.’”
The legal disclosures say the tokens are not intended to be seen as “an investment opportunity, investment contract or security of any type.” But trading of them on cryptocurrency markets began immediately, driving up the value of each token from $7 to nearly $30 as of noon on Saturday.
This suggested that the so-called fully diluted value of all the tokens as of Saturday at noon was $30 billion, a number achieved less than a day after the token went on the market, according to CoinMarketCap, a site that tracks cryptocurrency trading.
Mr. Trump and his family are clear in the marketing of the new token that the image picked for the coin had been inspired by the July assassination attempt in Butler, Pa.
“President Trump faced death and came up fighting!” the website promoting the tokens says.
Cryptocurrency markets tend to be highly volatile, in part because tokens are not backed by any tangible assets. The website for Mr. Trump’s new venture includes an extensive collection of disclaimers limiting the ability of anyone buying the token to file a class-action lawsuit related to it and warning buyers that “Trump Memes may be extremely volatile, and price fluctuations in cryptocurrencies could impact the price.”
Mr. Trump has already made clear that he will be working to promote the cryptocurrency industry.
He has announced his intention to appoint regulators who will lift restrictions on the sale of new tokens and ties between cryptocurrency companies and other more traditional financial enterprises.
This stands in contrast to efforts by Biden-era regulators to tightly regulate the industry, out of a concern that a sudden crash in the value of cryptocurrency could potentially lead to a future financial crash.
Thousands of mainly female protesters descended on Washington, D.C. to protest President–elect Trump’s inauguration on Monday. However, the crowd is only a tenth of the half a million who turned out for the “Women’s March” in 2017.
Saturday’s march, rebranded as the “People’s March,” is taking place at three different locations with demonstrators advocating for a wide range of left-wing causes and showcasing a united front to the new administration.
This morning, a kickoff event took place in Franklin Park for “gender justice” and bodily autonomy, and then demonstrators walked downtown before making their way towards the Lincoln Memorial for the day’s main event.
Demonstrators participate in the “People’s March” on Washington January 18, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Activists were rallying in opposition to the incoming Trump administration’s policy objectives two days before the presidential inauguration. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)
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“It’s really healing to be here with all of you today in solidarity and togetherness, in the face of what’s going to be some really horrible extremism,” Mini Timmaraju, the head of advocacy group Reproductive Freedom for All, told the crowd as events kicked off.
Other protesters gathered at two other parks also near the White House, with one group focused on democracy and immigration and another on local Washington issues,
Vendors hawked buttons that said #MeToo and “Love trumps hate,” and sold People’s March flags for $10. Demonstrators carried posters that read “Feminists v. Fascists” and “People over politics.”
Lillian Fenske, 31, drove six hours from Greensboro, North Carolina, to participate. Her signs expressed concern over oligarchs and the disunity. “America is not for sale,” said one, while another said simply, “Divided We Fall.”
Protesters representing a variety of rights groups attend the “People’s March on Washington” on January 18, 2025, in Washington, D.C. Activists were rallying in opposition to the incoming Trump administration’s policy objectives two days before the presidential inauguration. (Bryan Woolston/Getty Images)
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There is a heavy police presence, although law enforcement is not expecting a repeat of the violent scenes seen across the city ahead of Inauguration Day in 2017, where protesters shattered glass storefronts and torched cars, with police arresting more than 200 people in demonstrations that spanned several days.
The enthusiasm behind the so-called resistance movement to Trump has waned somewhat, with many progressive voters expressing feelings of exhaustion and disappointment following Trump’s landslide win in November. He dominated both the Electoral College and the popular vote to defeat Vice President Kamala Harris after a historic campaign cycle.
Animated pro-choice and cliamte protesters holding signs at the march. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The 2017 Women’s March took place on the day after Trump’s inauguration. Celebrities like America Ferrera, Madonna, Ashley Judd, Cher, Katy Perry, Amy Schumer, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Michael Moore, Debra Messing, Patricia Arquette and others attended the march.
President-elect Trump is expected to leave Mar-a-Lago later today and head to Washington.
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Trump’s advisers have not detailed how he will spend the first part of the day, and the only public event on Trump’s schedule is an evening reception and fireworks show at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia.
President-elect Trump delivers his inaugural address on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2017,, in Washington, DC. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
On Sunday, there will be a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery and a “Make America Great Again” rally, at which Trump will deliver remarks, followed by a candlelit dinner.
Monday is Inauguration Day when Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance will participate in the swearing-in ceremony, which has been moved indoors due to the forecasted frigid temperatures.
Fox News’ Brooke Singman, The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris, in one of her last public appearances in the role, signed her ceremonial desk drawer at the White House on Thursday, a tradition that dates back nearly a century.
As a crush of current and prior staffers gathered in Harris’ formal office at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, she thanked them for their “extraordinary commitment” to public service and prioritizing the hopes and dreams of the American people.
“We have each taken on a life and a calling that is about doing work in the service of others, and doing it in a way that is fueled yes with ambition, yes with a sense of almost stubbornness about not hearing no and knowing we can make a difference,” Harris said.
Kamala Harris’ and other vice presidents’ signatures on a desk drawer in Harris’ office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
(Susan Walsh / Associated Press)
Then, as Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff snapped pictures, Harris used a Sharpie to sign her desk drawer, a tradition that dates back to the 1940s and has been carried on continuously since the Ford administration. The vice president noted that she has met every one of her predecessors who signed the desk with the exception of Presidents Eisenhower and Truman.
As onlookers chanted, “MVP! MVP!” Harris, who unsuccessfully challenged President-elect Donald Trump for the White House in 2024, was asked what she planned to do next. Speculation about whether she would run for governor of California has been swirling.
“I’ll keep you posted,” she said, smiling.
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