This piece was originally published in the July 6, 2020 edition of CAP Action’s daily newsletter, the Progress Report. Subscribe to the Progress Report here.
Photo by Ethan Hoover on Unsplash
The number of Americans who have died from coronavirus since the start of the pandemic. Today marks 5 months since the first known U.S. death.
Voting by mail is safe, secure, and necessary — especially in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
Giving voters the option to vote by mail also makes the electoral process more convenient for millions of Americans — Americans like Chris, a veteran who has voted by mail throughout his entire 26-year-long military career.
Watch Chris explain why Americans know, trust, and need vote by mail, then tell Congress to fully fund it:
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IN THE NEWS
A new report out from The New York Times found that Black and Latinx people are three times as likely to contract the coronavirus and twice as likely to die from it than white people. The report, which was released this morning, is the fullest picture yet of the racial disparities in the pandemic’s impact in the United States. Another startling aspect of the report? The Times had to sue the federal government just to obtain this data.
After months of pressure from both Congress and the public, the Treasury Department has finally released limited data on the companies which received federal funds from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). In the first few hours since this data was released, we’ve discovered notable loan recipients like Americans for Tax Reform Foundation (part of Grover Norquist’s anti-tax entity that has denounced federal funding for coronavirus relief), Daily Caller (a right-wing blog founded by Tucker Carlson that doubles as a certified Facebook fact checker), and several high-end yacht clubs.
We’ll keep you posted once we have a better picture of the PPP loan recipients and their potential connections to those who administered the program. In the meantime, here’s another new report from Public Citizen on the dozens of lobbyists with ties to the administration who received pandemic-related loans.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Authorities discovered what they believe to be the remains of 20-year-old Army Specialist Vanessa Guillén last Tuesday. According to her family, Guillén, who was stationed at Fort Hood in Texas, had been sexually harassed and was planning to report the perpetrator to authorities before her disappearance in April. Military investigators, however, have said they have no evidence of sexual harassment. Guillén’s family is demanding a Congressional investigation into her death.
The Supreme Court ruled this morning that Electoral College electors must vote with the popular will of their states. The ruling, which was unanimous, allows states to punish “faithless electors,” or delegates to the Electoral College who vote contrary to the decision of their state’s voters in presidential elections.
WHAT WE’RE READING (AND LISTENING TO)
- How To Stop the Rush To Enact New Federal Criminal Penalties by Lea Hunter and Ed Chung (CAP)
- This week on The Tent podcast, Ed Chung and Daniella Gibbs Léger explore the valuable lessons of history with Dawn Porter, director of the new documentary “John Lewis: Good Trouble” about the life of civil rights icon John Lewis and the role that activism plays in shaping U.S. society.
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