Trump claims minorities thrived during his presidency. Advocates disagree.

Last week, while announcing his presidential candidacy, Donald Trump said minorities thrived during his time in office.

“Two years ago, when I left office, the United States stood ready for its golden age. Our nation was at the pinnacle of power, prosperity and prestige, towering above all rivals, vanquishing all enemies and striding into the future confident and so strong,” Trump said at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., where his campaign will be headquartered.

“In four short years, everybody was doing great: men, women, African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans — everybody was thriving like never before,” he added.- ADVERTISEMENT -

But advocates and experts say otherwise. Stop AAPI Hate, an organization that was created in 2020 after a rise in anti-Asian hate, believes that people of color were put in harm’s way during the Trump administration.

“During the pandemic, in 2020, [Trump’s] systematic use of [anti-Asian-and-Pacific-Islander] rhetoric really drove a sharp rise in hate incidents, unjust racial profiling and overall deeper divisions across our nation,” Manjusha Kulkarni, the executive director of the AAPI Equity Alliance, told Yahoo News.

The Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, found that anti-Asian hate crimes increased in 16 of the largest U.S. cities by 145% in 2020, during Trump’s time in office.

“Asian Americans are VERY angry at what China has done to our Country, and the World. Chinese Americans are the most angry of all. I don’t blame them!” Trump tweeted on May 12, 2020.

In 2020, Trump posted at least two dozen tweets that used negative rhetoric against Asian Americans, and the tweets were shared over 1 million times, according to Stop AAPI Hate.

“I feel like we’re still really paying for the cost of Trump’s presidency and his extreme rhetoric and dehumanizing of communities of color,” Sung Yeon Choimorrow, the executive director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum, told Yahoo News.

However, Kulkarni said it’s not just Trump’s rhetoric that harmed minorities, but also the policies implemented during his administration.

“The immigration ban that suspended visas from China, [the] ban on Chinese students and researchers, policies targeting the use of WeChat and even the ban on federal racial sensitivity training — those were some of the ones that had a truly devastating impact on our communities,” she said.

Nearly two years after the end of Trump’s term in office, Asian American communities say they are still dealing with the impact of his decisions.

“Many of our community members are being targeted, whether it’s violence in the streets or some sort of discrimination, but we’re still facing that. So that’s like a very in-our-face, still-present threat to our safety,” Choimorrow said.

In the 2020 presidential election, Black Americans largely voted for Joe Biden, with over 90% voting against Trump. Four in 10 of Biden’s votes came from Black, Hispanic and Asian American voters, though Trump did make gains among Hispanic voters, according to the Pew Research Center.

“We know who’s good for us, we know what’s best for us. We feel like Trump did not represent our values and did not help our communities,” Svante Myrick, president of People for the American Way, a progressive advocacy organization, told Yahoo News.

Some minority voters have expressed support for Trump. Mateo Mokarzel, a graduate student in Texas, told BBC News in 2020 that Trump’s policies and ideals protect the United States. “He has a strong nationalist stance, and they try to portray that as racist,” he said. “Protecting your borders and building up your economy is something most Americans want. I don't see how that’s racist or some kind of dog whistle.”

Others have argued that Trump made key strides in the right direction for minorities and criminal justice reform. In 2018, the Trump administration commuted Alice Johnson’s sentence and signed into law the First Step Act, which increased prisoner rehabilitation efforts and gave judges more leeway with the sentencing of drug offenders.

Actor Isaiah Washington praised Trump at the time for passing the legislation. “I voted for 44 [Barack Obama, the 44th president] twice. I even checked my emails in his Senate Office while lobbying for Salone [Sierra Leone] to be given another chance to rebrand. Not once in 8 years was I given any support regarding Africa or the Black Agenda, but 45 [Trump] invites me to the WH to celebrate the #FirstStepAct,” Washington tweeted.

But advocates say the First Step Act had overwhelming support before Trump got involved. “He’s trying to take credit for something that would have happened with or without him, which is, you know, frankly, typical Trump,” Myrick said.

Myrick says Trump left a lasting impact on marginalized communities after he confirmed three conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court during his tenure.

“Ethnic minorities did not thrive. In fact, [Trump] was able to nominate no Black individuals to any appellate federal court in the country,” Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, told Yahoo news.

“We’ve already seen those effects: abortion, health care, voting rights, all of those areas where he did things that helped himself and the Republican Party.”

Advocates say they are still working to reverse the damage from Trump’s time in office. “I think if he were to get reelected, it’s going to give him the megaphone, the microphone, again, to reignite that kind of racism and bigotry. As if we don’t already have enough of it in this country. I just think it’s going to be worse,” Choimorrow said.

As potential candidates prepare for the 2024 presidential race, minorities say they are depending on each other to show up to the polls and vote.

“I think the greatest evidence of accountability [for Trump] is the fact that he was not reelected [in 2020]. Seven million more people voted for his opponent than for him across the United States,” Kulkarni said.

Originally reported by:

Jayla Whitfield-Anderson

National Reporter

Tue, November 22, 2022 at 3:14 PM

Florida man's voter fraud charges dismissed in blow to DeSantis.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - One of the 20 people arrested for voting illegally as part of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' effort to crack down on voter fraud had his charges dismissed on Friday.

A Miami state judge threw out the case against Robert Lee Wood, ruling that the statewide prosecutor, who is overseeing all 20 cases, had no jurisdiction because the alleged crime did not occur in at least two judicial circuits.

The decision could pave the way for similar findings in some or all of the other cases, though local prosecutors could still choose to refile the charges. The governor's office said the state would appeal the ruling.

DeSantis, a Republican who is running for re-election as governor on Nov. 8 and is widely thought to be weighing a 2024 presidential campaign, touted the arrests in August as the "first salvo" from his newly created Office of Election Crimes and Security.

The agency, which includes state law enforcement officers, was established amid a nationwide push by Republicans to tighten voting laws in the wake of former President Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

The ruling on Friday came two days after the Tampa Bay Times published police body camera footage taken during the arrests that showed several defendants appearing baffled by the charges.

All 20 are former inmates convicted of murder or felony sex crimes. A 2018 constitutional amendment restored voting rights for many ex-convicts but specifically excluded people who committed those offenses.

In the videos, several defendants said they had been allowed to vote by election officials and did not understand why they were being arrested. Under state law, voter fraud requires intent.

In Wood's case, prosecutors argued that his ballot, cast in Miami, was eventually sent to Tallahassee to be tallied, thus fulfilling the requirement for the crime to occur in two separate locations.

But Judge Milton Hirsch agreed with Wood's defense attorney that Wood had nothing to do with the transfer of ballots from one place to another.

"Here, all the criminal misconduct, if there was any, was performed by one man in one county," the judge wrote in his order.

Wood's attorney, Larry Davis, said prosecutors should abandon the case. Wood registered to vote after being told he was allowed, received a voter card and cast a ballot, all without any objection, Davis said.

"There's no way he would have done so without being told it was OK," Davis said in a phone interview. "My client had absolutely no intent to break the law."

In a statement, a DeSantis spokesperson, Bryan Griffin, said, "The state will continue to enforce the law and ensure that murderers and rapists who are not permitted to vote do not unlawfully do so."

(Reporting by Joseph Ax; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Daniel Wallis)

Reposted by Ricardo Martinez

Jury reaches decision on sentence of Parkland school shooter.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A jury said Thursday that it has reached a decision on whether to recommend that Florida school shooter Nikolas Cruz be executed for the 2018 massacre that killed 17 people at Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

The recommendation was not immediately released and came in the second day of deliberations, 15 minutes after jurors arrived and examined the gun Cruz used.

The decision promises an end to a three-month trial that included graphic videos, photos and testimony from the massacre and its aftermath, heart-wrenching testimony from victims’ family members and a tour of the still blood-spattered building.

The jury’s decision must be unanimous if it intends to recommend the death penalty, and if that happens, it will be up to Circuit Judge Elizabeth Scherer to make a final decision. If all jurors can’t agree on recommending death, then Cruz would get life in prison.

The jury of 12 people had asked late Wednesday to see the AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle, but the Broward County Sheriff's Office security team objected, even though the gun has been made inoperable and Cruz's ammunition would be removed from the jury room.

Lead prosecutor Mike Satz, who has more the five decades of experience, pointed out that in every murder case he has tried or knows, jurors got to examine and handle the weapon in their room — and he said a knife or machete is more dangerous than a gun without a firing pin. Security has never been an issue, he said.

Cruz's attorneys had no objection to jurors seeing the gun.

Cruz, 24, pleaded guilty a year ago to murdering 14 students and three staff members and wounding 17 others on Feb. 14, 2018. Cruz said he chose Valentine's Day to make it impossible for Stoneman Douglas students to celebrate the holiday ever again. The jury will determine only if Cruz is sentenced to death or life without parole. For Cruz to get a death sentence, the jury must be unanimous.

During the prosecution's rebuttal case, Satz and his team argued that Cruz's smooth movements with the gun and his ease in reloading helps show he does not have any neurological disorders, as claimed by his attorneys.

Lead defense attorney Melisa McNeill and her team have never disputed that Cruz committed a horrible crime, but they say his birth mother's excessive drinking during pregnancy left him with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and put him on a path that led to the shooting.

The massacre is the deadliest mass shooting that has ever gone to trial in the U.S. Nine other people in the U.S. who fatally shot at least 17 people died during or immediately after their attacks by suicide or police gunfire. The suspect in the 2019 massacre of 23 at an El Paso, Texas, Walmart is awaiting trial.

As reported by Terry Spencer on Oct 13th, 2022

Los Angeles Councilwoman Nury Martinez resigns following her leaked racist remarks.

LOS ANGELES, CA - Embattled Los Angeles City Councilwoman Nury Martinez has resigned, days after a recording of her making racist comments against the city's Black and Oaxacan communities was leaked.

"It is with a broken heart that I resign my seat for Council District 6, the community I grew up in and my home," she said in a statement.
The recorded conversation involving Council-members Martinez, Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León captured the now-former councilwoman describing the Black son of a white council-member in crude and racist language. She also described Oaxacan immigrants in Koreatown as "short little dark people."

The resignation comes hours after protesters disrupted a scheduled Wednesday city council meeting inside Los Angeles City Hall. With no resignation, there would be no meeting, they said in chants.

Prior to her resignation, Martinez had stepped down as president of the council, but stopped short of leaving the council altogether. Cedillo and de León have issued apologies, but haven't resigned.

Council-member Mike Bonin, whose son was the subject of Martinez's comments, earlier in the day tweeted a call for the three to step down.
It's unlikely that just Martinez's resignation will satisfy the L.A. community.

Dozens of protesters inside the meeting room on Wednesday shouted over President Pro Tempore Mitch O'Farrell as he attempted to speak and call for order. The protesters held signs that demanded members resign and chanted for an hour, as the meeting sputtered along.

O'Farrell attempted to order the group to quiet down, but finally called the meeting to an end after losing a quorum before anything on the agenda was addressed.

As reported by: Jaclyn Diaz & Vanessa Romo for NPR News on September 13th, 2022

Dad chokes driver who tried to run Florida family off road in hate crime.

Pinellas County, FL - After a driver tried forcing a family off the road, in what prosecutors say was a racially-motivated hate crime attack in Florida, the father fought back in self defense.

The roadway attack escalated at a red light where the man got out of his car, charged and tried punching the father, court documents show. But the incident ended when the dad, who is Black, got the man in a chokehold, according to officials.

What Jordan Patrick Leahy, 29, didn’t know was that the father is a martial artist who swiftly dodged his closed fist and kept Leahy restrained until Pinellas County deputies arrived, according to court documents.

A federal jury in Tampa found Leahy guilty of a hate crime on Aug. 24, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida. He faces up to 10 years in prison.

After a driver tried forcing a family off the road, in what prosecutors say was a racially-motivated hate crime attack in Florida, the father fought back in self defense.

The roadway attack escalated at a red light where the man got out of his car, charged and tried punching the father, court documents show. But the incident ended when the dad, who is Black, got the man in a chokehold, according to officials.

What Jordan Patrick Leahy, 29, didn’t know was that the father is a martial artist who swiftly dodged his closed fist and kept Leahy restrained until Pinellas County deputies arrived, according to court documents.

A federal jury in Tampa found Leahy guilty of a hate crime on Aug. 24, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida. He faces up to 10 years in prison.- ADVERTISEMENT -


When deputies arrived on the scene at the time, Leahy made comments showing “his bias motive, including telling the officers that Black people need to be kept ‘in their areas,’” a news release from the attorney’s office says.

McClatchy News contacted attorneys listed for Leahy for comment on Aug. 25 and was awaiting a response.

The attack goes back to when the father was driving his 4-year-old daughter and girlfriend home from a family dinner in Seminole on Aug. 8, 2021, court documents show.

They were driving southward in the left lane on Starkey Road when Leahy “zoomed up” with his car directly next to them and pretended to shoot at the family using gun hand gestures while shouting racial slurs, according to court documents.

Then, Leahy swerved into the family’s lane in trying to run their car off the road before tailgating them as the father tried to get away, prosecutors say.

Leahy’s “pursuit” of the family went on for roughly a mile and half until he sideswiped their car, causing the cars’ mirrors to collide, and then he sped off down the road, according to court documents and the release.

The father wanted to take a picture of Leahy’s car to report the attack to police, so he followed him down Starkey Road until they both came to a red light, court documents state.

This is when prosecutors say Leahy got out of his car and tried assaulting the father while hurling more racial slurs at him.

“No one should be targeted, threatened, intimidated or assaulted because of their race,” U.S. Attorney Roger Handberg said in a statement.

“The defendant in this case acted upon his bigoted beliefs and put an entire family and others’ safety at risk,” Handberg added.

Leahy previously pleaded guilty to battery and DUI charges in connection to the incident, according to court documents.

He is facing a fine up to $250,000 as part of this sentence, according to the release.

Pinellas County is on Florida’s Gulf Coast, just west of Tampa.

Originally reported by:
Julia Marnin for Yahoo! News

Father, son get life for hate crime in Ahmaud Arbery’s death.

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — The white father and son convicted of murder in Ahmaud Arbery's fatal shooting after they chased the 25-year-old Black man through a Georgia neighborhood were sentenced Monday to life in prison for committing a federal hate crime.

U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood sentenced Travis McMichael, 36, and his father Greg McMichael, 66, in Brunswick. Both were previously sentenced to life without parole in a state court for Arbery’s murder.

“A young man is dead. Ahmaud Arbery will be forever 25. And what happened a jury found happened because he’s Black,” Wood said.

In February, a federal jury convicted the McMichaels and neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan of violating Arbery's civil rights, concluding they targeted him because of his race. All three were also found guilty of attempted kidnapping, and the McMichaels were convicted of using guns in the commission of a violent crime. The McMichaels armed themselves with guns and used a pickup truck to chase Arbery after he ran past their home on Feb. 23, 2020. Bryan joined the pursuit in his own truck and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery with a shotgun. The McMichaels told police they suspected Arbery was a burglar, but investigators determined he was unarmed and had committed no crimes.

Greg McMichael addressed the Arbery family, saying their loss was “beyond description.”

“I’m sure my words mean very little to you but I want to assure you I never wanted any of this to happen,” he said. “There was no malice in my heart or my son’s heart that day.”

Outside the courtroom, Cooper-Jones responded to his statement.

“I think he realizes that he made some horrible decisions. Unfortunately, his apology doesn’t bring back my son,” she said.

Travis McMichael declined to address the court, but his attorney, Amy Lee Copeland, said her client had no convictions before Arbery’s slaying and had served in the U.S. Coast Guard. She said a lighter sentence would be more consistent with what similarly charged defendants have received in other cases, noting that the officer who killed George Floyd in Minneapolis, Derek Chauvin, got 21 years in prison for violating Floyd’s civil rights, though he was not charged with targeting Floyd because of his race.

Greg McMichael’s attorney, A.J. Balbo, also cited the Chauvin sentence as well as his client’s age and health problems, which he said include a stroke and depression.

Prosecutor Bobbi Bernstein said Chauvin at least had some legitimate authority to engage Floyd initially.

“Greg McMichael had absolutely no legitimate reason to run inside and get a gun and chase after a young man who was doing nothing other than running down the road,” Bernstein said.

Arbery’s killing became part of a larger national reckoning over racial injustice and killings of unarmed Black people including Floyd and Breonna Taylor and in Kentucky. Those two cases also resulted in the Justice Department bringing federal charges.

“The evidence we presented at trial proved ... what so many people felt in their hearts when they watched the video of Ahmaud’s tragic and unnecessary death: This would have never happened if he had been white,” Christopher Perras, another prosecutor, said Monday.

A state Superior Court judge imposed life sentences for the McMichaels and Bryan in January for Arbery’s murder, with both McMichaels denied any chance of parole. Bryan had a sentencing hearing scheduled later Monday in the federal case.

All three defendants have remained jailed in coastal Glynn County, in the custody of U.S. marshals, while awaiting sentencing after their federal convictions in January.

Because they were first charged and convicted of murder in a state court, protocol would have them turned them over to the Georgia Department of Corrections to serve their life terms in a state prison.

In court filings last week, both Travis and Greg McMichael asked the judge to instead divert them to a federal prison, saying they won’t be safe in a Georgia prison system that’s the subject of a U.S. Justice Department investigation focused on violence between inmates.

Copeland said during Monday’s hearing for Travis McMichael that her client has received hundreds of threats that he will be killed as soon as he arrives at state prison and that his photo has been circulated there on illegal phones.

“I am concerned your honor that my client effectively faces a back door death penalty,” she said, adding that “retribution and revenge” were not sentencing factors, even for a defendant who is “publicly reviled.”

Arbery’s father, Marcus Arbery Sr., said Travis McMichael had shown his son no mercy and deserved to “rot” in state prison.

“You killed him because he was a Black man and you hate Black people,” he said. “You deserve no mercy.”

Wood said she didn’t have the authority to order the state to relinquish custody of Travis McMichael to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, but also wasn’t inclined to do so in his case. She also declined to keep Greg McMichael in federal custody.

During the February hate crimes trial, prosecutors fortified their case that Arbery’s killing was motivated by racism by showing the jury roughly two dozen text messages and social media posts in which Travis McMichael and Bryan used racist slurs and made disparaging comments about Black people.

Defense attorneys for the three men argued the McMichaels and Bryan didn’t pursue Arbery because of his race but acted on an earnest — though erroneous — suspicion that Arbery had committed crimes in their neighborhood.

By RUSS BYNUM for AP News

Advocates struggle with how much they can help with self-managed abortions.

At a rally in Nashville, Planned Parenthood organizer Julie Edwards looked out at some of the "back alley abortion" imagery on signs, including bloody coat hangers. But, Edwards told the crowd, driven into the streets by the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on abortion rights, it's not like the old days before Roe v. Wade.

Nearly a decade ago, Edwards was a teenager and got medication from some older friends. Edwards said that may be the new normal in abortion-ban states like Tennessee.

"I'm standing in front of you having had a self-managed abortion, having gotten abortion pills from people in my community. And I'm safe," Edwards said to cheers. "It's going to take all of us to keep each other's secrets, to hold each other's hands, to keep each other safe."

Medications are now available for first trimester abortions. And it's become the primary way abortions are induced.

The regimen involves two prescription drugs that hit the market since Roe was decided in 1973. Mifepristone is taken first. It's the abortion drug that's fairly expensive and highly regulated. A day or two later, the patient takes misoprostol, which is much more widely available and can work on its own to induce an abortion. The drug was developed for treating ulcers in the 1970s but has several other off-label uses aside from abortions, such as alleviating arthritis. It's even prescribed for animals, so veterinary supply stores carry the medication. Misoprostol is even sold over-the-counter in Mexico.

"It's really based on what somebody can get. And in the self-managed context, the only way to get mifepristone plus Misoprostol is through the internet, so it takes time to wait for the delivery," said Susan Yanow, spokesperson for Women Help Women, a nonprofit based across four continents that works to increase access to abortion.

The international organization ships both medications all over the world — but not to the U.S. because laws vary so much state to state. Social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram have already started pulling down posts offering to send these drugs by mail. Many states that now ban abortion have recently strengthens their laws on mail-order abortion drugs.

"We still have the right to share information," Yanow said. "People use the internet. People use their phones. People will find ways to obtain these pills."

But it's more than finding the medications, which is why Yanow's organization has a detailed guide on how to use them safely. And she provides training for local reproductive rights groups, as do others.

Lynsey Bourke of Self-Guided Abortion, based in Montana, began producing video tutorials late last year and publishing them on Youtube, explaining how to use Misoprostol alone and offering ways to make the process more sacred by building an altar, burning incense and lighting candles. She even provides post-abortion yoga instruction.

With Misoprostol alone, multiple rounds are needed. Nausea is common. And the medicine induces cramping and bleeding that can be alarming for those who aren't prepared.

Even some OB-GYNs are quietly supportive of self-managed abortion.

"I'm more worried about people who can't get to one of these sources and are just so desperate that they take matters into their own hands," said Dr. Nikki Zite, an OB-GYN at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville.

She said clinical counseling before taking the pill combo is ideal. For example, some patients are anemic and could bleed enough to need emergency care. And some just don't do well with pain and lots of blood.

"Not every patient is a good candidate to miscarry at home," she said.

But at this point, Zite can't afford to provide that consultation. In Tennessee, she would be risking a felony and prison time under a six-week ban now in effect, and an all-out abortion ban set to take effect in August. And it's unclear just how far law enforcement is willing to reach.

References to coat hangers have been used to protest the decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. Abortion rights activists say "self-managed abortions" are much safer today because of medications — but women still need guidance.

Tennessee's laws specifically exempts the pregnant person from prosecution. But a motivated prosecutor could find ways to press charges related to a self-managed abortion, said criminal defense attorney David Raybin in Nashville.

"I mean, that is fraught with peril," Raybin said. "I would strongly recommend against a woman using such quote-unquote underground methods to get medication like that."

He said it's best to get a legal abortion in another state. But abortion rights activists in Tennessee say they know travel will be difficult for many. And even for those who can, a self-managed abortion may be more convenient. To a degree, reproductive rights groups are willing to help navigate the legal gray area.

Healthy and Free Tennessee, an organization working to promote sexual health and reproductive freedom, has organized several training sessions through Women Help Women in recent weeks. Policy director Nina Gurak said their biggest worry isn't health complications — it's the legal risk.

"We recommend that if someone is self-managing an abortion that they have a supporter or friend. That supporter or friend may be at a higher legal risk than the actual person who is self-managing an abortion," she said. "And then you have to decide for yourself — is that something I'm comfortable with? Is that something I'm not comfortable with?"

Organizations in states with abortion bans have their own risk to assess. They feel confident the First Amendment protects sharing medical information endorsed by the World Health Organization.

But abortion rights advocates are torn between raising awareness and becoming a target for anti-abortion lawmakers — who are no longer limited by Roe v. Wade.

"We definitely are concerned about increasing criminalization of abortion or self-managed abortion and abortion pills," Gurak said. "We also want to balance that with the need for communities to have the information that they need to make the decision for themselves."

Originally reported by NPR on July 05, 2022 11:36 ET