Gin Blossoms to push for patients' rights in pre-Congressional Baseball Game concert
The Gin Blossoms are aiming for lawmakers to follow them down the road to health care price transparency with a performance ahead of next week's Congressional Baseball Game.
The alternative rockers behind '90s hits such as 'Hey Jealousy' and 'Til I Hear it From You' will take to the stage at the Bullpen in Washington just before first pitch between Democrats and Republicans at Congress's annual charity baseball competition on June 11 at Nationals Park.
'It'll be nice to play this show. It's a good event and it's a worthy cause,' Jesse Valenzuela, the Gin Blossoms' guitarist and singer, said in an interview this week with ITK.
The band is performing on behalf of the nonprofit organization, Power to the Patients, which describes itself as a 'bipartisan movement to strengthen healthcare price transparency rules that will protect patients and unleash choice and competition to lower costs.'
'It's sort of a common-sense issue that they really want to get some sort of transparency on medical bills to people so that they don't wind up getting sick and going bankrupt trying to pay all the bills,' Valenzuela said.
The 63-year-old songwriter mentioned his mother, who just celebrated a birthday this week: 'She's in her eighties, so she has health issues and concerns. And sometimes it can be difficult for people when there's more bill than she suspected, being on a fixed income.'
'We all make our way through these things, but sometimes, for some people, it can be catastrophic,' the 'Follow You Down' musician said.
Power to the Patients has brought a star-studded lineup to the nation's capital over the years to advocate for healthcare price transparency and legislation, including rapper Fat Joe, Foo Fighters and Everclear, among others.
A limited number of free tickets to the pre-Congressional Baseball Game festivities are available to the public through the Power to the Patients' website.
Valenzuela, who's getting ready to hit the road as part of a nationwide tour this summer with Blues Traveler and the Spin Doctors, said he suspects the Gin Blossoms have some fans in Congress.
'I bet there are a few,' he said with a laugh.
'We're certainly of the right age.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CBS News
21 minutes ago
- CBS News
ICE arrests under Trump top 100,000 as officials expand aggressive efforts to detain migrants
Arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during President Trump's second term topped 100,000 this week, as federal agents intensified efforts to detain unauthorized immigrants in courthouses, worksites and communities across the U.S., internal government data obtained by CBS News shows. On Tuesday and Wednesday, ICE recorded more than 2,000 arrests each day, a dramatic increase from the daily average of 660 arrests reported by the agency during Mr. Trump's first 100 days back at the White House, the federal statistics show. During President Biden last year in office, ICE averaged roughly 300 daily arrests, according to agency data. The latest numbers show ICE is getting closer to meeting the far-reaching demands of top administration officials like White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, an immigration hardliner who has forcefully pushed the agency to conduct "a minimum" of 3,000 arrests each day. On Wednesday morning, ICE was holding around 54,000 immigrant detainees in detention facilities across the country, according to the data. The Trump administration is asking Congress to give ICE billions of dollars in extra funds to hire thousands of additional deportation officers and expand detention capacity to hold 100,000 individuals at any given point. Officials are also looking at converting facilities inside military bases into immigration detention centers. The marked increase in ICE arrests across the country — especially in major Democratic-led cities that do not cooperate with federal immigration officials — comes after the Trump administration replaced two of the agency's top leaders amid internal frustrations that arrests numbers were not high enough. CBS News reached out to the representatives for ICE and the Department of Homeland Security for comment. Trump administration officials have framed the aggressive expansion of immigration operations as necessary to fulfill the president's signature campaign promises of cracking down on illegal immigration, expelling immigrants with criminal histories and overseeing the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history. But to boost arrest numbers, ICE has resorted to more aggressive — and controversial — tactics that have triggered outrage and even confrontations in some communities. Those efforts include arrests of migrants and asylum-seekers showing up to court hearings or check-in appointments that the government instructed them to attend. Immigration lawyers have strongly denounced those arrests, saying they deter migrants from complying with the legal process. Immigration roundups at some worksites have also been reported recently. Videos of some ICE arrests have depicted sobbing women and children being escorted into vehicles outside of immigration courts. Footage has also captured community members confronting federal agents — some of them masked — as they take migrants into custody. One video showed construction workers suspected of being in the U.S. illegally lined up after an ICE-led operation on their worksite in Florida. And while ICE has been arresting many immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally and also have criminal records, the agency is simultaneously detaining non-criminal migrants living in the U.S. without proper documents — including longstanding residents — amid the Trump administration's pressure to increase arrest levels. Among them is Marcelo Gomes, an 18-year-old Brazilian-born high school student in Milford, Massachusetts, who was arrested by ICE last week on his way to volleyball practice. While ICE has acknowledged that agents were looking for his father when they arrested Gomes, it has kept the teenager in detention, saying he's in the U.S. illegally. Gomes' lawyer said her client initially lived in the U.S. on a temporary visa that had since lapsed. Before Mr. Trump took office, someone like Gomes would likely not have been arrested by ICE, given his age, his lack of any criminal record and the fact that he came to the U.S. as a child over a decade ago. But the Trump administration has reversed Biden-era restrictions on ICE operations that directed the agency to largely focus on detaining serious criminals, recent arrivals and national security threats, like suspected terrorists. While ICE employees have spearheaded Mr. Trump's immigration crackdown, the agency is receiving support from other federal agencies as part of an unprecedented effort by the administration to muster manpower and resources from across the government for immigration enforcement. The federal agencies now helping ICE arrest unauthorized immigrants include Customs and Border Protection; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Drug Enforcement Administration; the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and the Internal Revenue Service. The Trump administration has also enlisted local and state law enforcement officials in friendly jurisdictions like Florida to support ICE operations.
Bloomberg
22 minutes ago
- Bloomberg
Senate to Keep Spectrum Sales in Tax Bill, Key Republican Says
A key Republican said senators have reached an agreement to reauthorize spectrum sales to internet companies that would generate billions of dollars in revenue toward funding US President Donald Trump's sweeping tax cuts and spending bill. Spectrum sales were included in the House version of the reconciliation package but the provision had drawn objections from South Dakota Republican Senator Mike Rounds, who previously said they risked undermining the US military's communications capabilities.
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Musk Escalates Trump Feud, Says President Was in Epstein Files and He'd Have Lost Election Without Him: ‘Have a Nice Day, DJT!'
Tesla CEO and former special government employee Elon Musk dropped a 'really big bomb' on his relationship with Donald Trump on Thursday, alleging that the president is directly implicated in documents related to Jeffrey Epstein's crimes and is keeping those documents a secret for that reason. Musk also complained that Trump is being 'ungrateful' and would not have won the 2024 presidential election without his help. The rapidly disintegrating friendship between the two men appeared to completely fall apart Thursday morning when Trump acknowledged Musk's repeated criticisms of his Big, Beautiful Bill. 'Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we will anymore,' Trump told White House reporters. 'I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elon a lot.' The president also insisted that he would have easily won the state of Pennsylvania and, therefore, last year's election even without Musk's endorsement and help. In response to a video of Trump's remarks, Musk tweeted, 'Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.' In an additional tweet, the billionaire accused Trump of expressing 'such ingratitude.' Earlier Thursday, Trump suggested that Musk was opposing his spending bill because of its proposed cutting of the federal electric vehicle tax credit. 'Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here,' Trump said of Musk. 'He only developed [a] problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the EV mandate.' In the same press conference, Trump noted that Musk has not yet said anything bad about him personally, but remarked, 'I'm sure that'll be next.' Musk has disputed Trump's claims about both his knowledge of the spending bill's details and his purported, self-interested reasons for opposing it. 'This bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!' Musk wrote in one tweet. The billionaire spent part of Thursday morning retweeting and quote-tweeting 12 and 13-year-old tweets from Trump, in which he criticized the national debt and deficit under President Obama. Musk even created a poll on X asking users, 'Is it time to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80% in the middle?' In response to a tweet from far-right personality Laura Loomer asking whether Republican officials will choose to side with Trump or Musk, the latter also replied, 'Some food for thought as they ponder this question: Trump has 3.5 years left as President, but I will be around for 40+ years…' For his part, Trump indirectly addressed on Truth Social Musk's latest tweets. 'Elon was 'wearing thin,' I asked him to leave, I took away his EV Mandate that forced everyone to buy Electric Cars that nobody else wanted (that he knew for months I was going to do!), and he just went CRAZY!,' Trump posted. The president further threatened, 'The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it!' The post Musk Escalates Trump Feud, Says President Was in Epstein Files and He'd Have Lost Election Without Him: 'Have a Nice Day, DJT!' appeared first on TheWrap.
