August 9, 2020
GREATER HOUSTON EDITION
Vol. 25, Issue 29
BLACK VOTES MATTER
WHAT DID TRUMP SAY?
J
UNEMPLOYMENT HOUSTON - The word they use is “negotiating,” but it is more fitting to flat out call it what it is --fighting -- as Democrats and Republicans are trying to reach a decision on what to do about unemployment benefits during this pandemic. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs after COVID-19/
CRISIS
coronavirus swept the globe, and people who have never had to rely on a “handout” their entire lives are now left depending on food stamps, waiting for hours in long drive-thru food bank lines and are applying weekly for unemployment benefits, which, as of July 31, have decreased significantly after the extra $600 a
week supplement ended. Many families who were previously not receiving SNAP benefits did qualify for a onetime Pandemic EBT disbursement and tax payers also received stimulus checks, but some complain that those funds were eaten up on higher than normal grocery bills and household utility bills,
which have almost doubled now that more family members are home all day. Republicans have argued that the extra $600 in unemployment benefits are causing people NOT to want to return to work, but that’s an unfair generalization of many hardworking inCrisis cont’d on page 4
ust when we thought that President Donald Trump couldn’t go further off the deep end with his bizarre statements, he -- like the Energizer Bunny -- just keeps going and going and going. Let’s take the top three statements that flew out of his mouth over the last couple of weeks. NUMBER ONE Trump, in an interview with “Axios on HBO,” refused to give praise to late Congressman John Lewis, rather focusing on the fact that the civil rights icon decided not to attend his inauguration and State of the Union speeches. Interviewer Jonathan Swan led Trump through a wide range of topics, including the increasing number of coronavirus cases after Trump’s maskless rally in Tulsa, Okla., the now controversial mail-in voting, and his opinion of Lewis, who just lost his battle with cancer. “John Lewis is lying in state at the U.S. Capitol. How do you think history will remember John Lewis?”
Swan asked Trump. “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know John Lewis,” Trump said. “He chose not to come to my inauguration. He chose -- I don’t -- I never met John Lewis actually, I don’t believe.” Lewis was arrested more than 40 times while protesting, was beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on “Bloody Sunday” of the Selma-Montgomery marches and was the youngest speaker at the 1963 March on Washington -- where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Swan asked Trump whether he thinks Lewis and his story are “impressive,” to which the president downplayed, again, focusing on Lewis’ missed attendance at the inauguration. “I can’t say one way or the other. I find a lot of people impressive. I find many people not impressive,” Trump said. “He didn’t come to my inauguration. He didn’t come to my State of Trump cont’d on page 6