This piece was originally published in the September 4, 2020 edition of CAP Action’s daily newsletter, the Progress Report. Subscribe to the Progress Report here.
8.4%
The percentage of Americans who are unemployed in the midst of the pandemic. Many have been evicted, gone hungry, or been unable to pay their bills.
Remember when Trump promised to be the “greatest jobs president that God ever created”?
We’ve got some much-needed context for today’s jobs report.
Share this on Twitter and Facebook to get the facts out:
IN THE NEWS
- New from The Atlantic last night: The reason Trump canceled a planned 2018 visit to a World War II memorial near Paris was not that it was raining, as he’d said at the time. Rather, Trump reportedly expressed disdain for American soldiers ahead of the trip, telling staff that he didn’t think it was important to honor fallen troops. According to four sources familiar with the conversation, Trump asked staffers on the morning of the trip why he needed to visit the cemetery, saying it’s “filled with losers.” He later called fallen marines “suckers” for getting killed in battle and asked that a military parade not include wounded veterans because “nobody wants to see” amputees.
- It’s long been clear that Trump has no respect for the troops who’ve put their lives on the line for our country. He’s repeatedly mocked the former senator and Vietnam POW John McCain, including after his passing in 2018. As Rebecca Cokley, the Director of CAP’s Disability Justice Initiative, pointed out, Trump’s disgraceful remarks about disabled veterans “unfortunately come as no surprise” and are far from the only insult Trump has doled out to disabled Americans over the last four years.
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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
- A new model estimates that 410,000 people in the U.S. could die from the coronavirus by the end of 2020 if the ongoing decline in mask-wearing persists. That would mean 224,000 more lives lost over the next four months, more than doubling the current death toll.
- As a reminder: Under Trump’s chaotic and mishandled pandemic response, we’ve experienced thousands of preventable deaths and cases. We’ve seen how other countries have responsibly approached this crisis — and we’ve seen what’s happened when our own leader fails to do the same.
WHAT WE’RE READING (AND LISTENING TO)
- Check out Made to Fail, a new podcast from our friends at The Hub Project that pulls back the curtain on how conservative policies set us up for failure in the face of crisis today. Listen to the first three episodes to learn about how crises like Wisconsin’s chaotic mid-pandemic election and Florida’s broken unemployment system didn’t happen by accident — rather, they’re by design.
- The Trump Administration’s Latest Attack on Transgender People Facing Homelessness by Theo Santos, Lindsay Mahowald, and Sharita Gruberg (CAP)
- Do I Need an Excuse to Vote By Mail? Not Always. by Marc Elias (Democracy Docket)
- Read about this awesome high school history teacher who’s making the best of remote learning by calling in to class from real historical sites across the country.
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