Across Virginia
Photo: AP
JAMESTOWN, Va. (AP) — President Donald Trump’ speech in Jamestown marking the 400th anniversary of the rise of American democracy at the House of Burgesses was interrupted by a protester who is a member of Virginia’s present-day legislative body. Ibraheem Samirah, a Democratic member of the Virginia House, stood up and held signs that read “deport hate” and “reunite my family.” A third message said “go back to your corrupted home.”
Samirah was led out of the speech site as some members of the crowd chanted “Trump, Trump, Trump.” He said in a statement that he was confident his constituents would rather him protest than “passively accept” Trump’s presence. Republican House Speaker Kirk Cox called the protest “inconsistent with common decency and a violation of the rules of the House.”
Photo: AP
President Trump says what Virginia started 400 years ago has had a profound impact opn the entire world. He addressed a commemoration of the hemisphere’s first elected legislative body — a speech interrupted my a member of Virginia’s current General Assembly. WFIR’s Evan Jones has more.
JAMESTOWN, Va. (AP) — President Donald Trump marked the 400th anniversary of the rise of American democracy on Tuesday by celebrating “four incredible centuries of history, heritage and commitment to the righteous cause of American self-government.” His speech in historic Jamestown played out against a backdrop of tension over his recent disparaging remarks about minority members of Congress and was boycotted by black Virginia state legislators.
In his remarks, Trump noted that 1619 also was the year the first enslaved Africans arrived in the colonies, saying, “We remember every sacred soul who suffered the horrors of slavery and the anguish of bondage.”
Trump described the rise of democracy in the New World as “truly a momentous occasion.”
“Self-government in Virginia did not just give us a state we love — in a very true sense it gave us the country we love, the United States of America,” he said.
His speech was interrupted by a protester who stood up and held signs that read “deport hate” and “reunite my family.” The man was led out of the speech site as some members of the crowd chanted “Trump, Trump, Trump.”
Ahead of his speech, Trump said the black legislators who announced a boycott of the event were going “against their own people.”
Trump claimed African Americans “love the job” he’s doing and are “happy as hell” with his recent comments criticizing a majority black district in the Baltimore area and its congressman.
In fact, African Americans continue to be overwhelmingly negative in their assessments of the president’s performance. According to Gallup polling, approval among black Americans has hovered around 1 in 10 over the course of Trump’s presidency, with 8% approving in June.
A last-minute announcement that the president would participate in the Jamestown commemoration of the first representative assembly in the Western Hemisphere injected tension into an event years in the making. Demonstrators gathered Tuesday morning near the site where Trump was to speak.
“The commemoration of the birth of this nation and its democracy will be tarnished unduly with the participation of the President, who continues to make degrading comments toward minority leaders, promulgate policies that harm marginalized communities, and use racist and xenophobic rhetoric,” the black caucus said in a statement Monday.
The boycott follows Trump’s weekend comments referring to U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings’ majority black Baltimore-area district as a “disgusting, rat and rodent infested mess.” A caucus statement didn’t specifically mention Cummings but said Trump’s “repeated attacks on Black legislators and comments about Black communities makes him ill-suited to honor and commemorate such a monumental period in history.”
Black Caucus chairman Del. Lamont Bagby told The Associated Press that the group reached a unanimous decision to boycott the event more than a week ago but that the president has “continued his attacks” since then, including with his remarks about Cummings’ district.
On Tuesday morning, Trump tweeted: “Heading to Jamestown, Virginia. Word is the Democrats will make it as uncomfortable as possible, but that’s ok because today is not about them!”
Caucus members also pledged to boycott the rest of a weeklong series of anniversary events and have instead planned alternative commemorations Tuesday in Richmond, Virginia’s capital.
At an early-morning ceremony, Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam noted that while the ideals of freedom and representative government flourished in Jamestown four centuries ago, a ship carrying African people who would be sold into slavery arrived in Virginia just weeks after that first assembly.
“So today, as we hold these commemorations of the first representative assembly in the free world, we have to remember who it included, and who it did not,” Northam said. “That’s the paradox of Virginia, of America, and of our representative democracy.”
Today’s Virginia General Assembly, considered the oldest continuously operating legislative body in North America, grew out of the assembly that first gathered in 1619.
The anniversary comes at a time of heightened election-year partisanship in Virginia in the aftermath of political scandals that engulfed the state’s top three elected officials, all Democrats.
A blackface photo scandal nearly destroyed Northam’s career. Then, as it looked like Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax might ascend to the governorship, two women accused him of sexual assault. Fairfax, who attended Tuesday’s event where Trump spoke, has vehemently denied those allegations. Attorney General Mark Herring has separately faced calls to resign after acknowledging he dressed in blackface decades ago. All three men remain in office.
Photo: Charlottesville City
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — A recent court ruling in Norfolk makes one of the remaining defense arguments for Charlottesville City Council’s vote to remove two Confederate statues look more uncertain.
The Daily Progress reports most of the major issues have been ruled on, but a defense argument that the statues violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment remains.
A Norfolk judge recently dismissed a similar lawsuit by activists who wanted to move a Confederate monument.
Still, a University of Virginia law professor says there is some differences in the cases.
Richard Schragger says arguments in the Norfolk case came from activists in a civil complaint, and the Charlottesville arguments came from the city and its councilors.
He says the standing question is not quite the same, and that can make a difference.
NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — A member of the Navy’s elite SEAL Team 6 has been charged with soliciting nude photos of women while pretending to be someone else through text messages.
The Virginian-Pilot reports that Petty Officer 1st Class Aaron Howard is accused of impersonating several different people.
The newspaper reports a general court-martial has been scheduled at Naval Station Norfolk.
Howard’s attorney Michael Waddington says the case should be dismissed. He says investigators didn’t find any nude photos on Howard’s phone, and he passed two polygraph tests.
Waddington says the only thing linking his client to the messages is that whoever sent them said he or she was stationed in San Diego and liked to work out with kettle bells. He says that could apply to any number of SEALs.
SEAL Team 6 is famous for being the unit that killed Osama bin Laden.
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — The city of Virginia Beach agreed to a $500,000 contract to clean a city building after a workplace mass shooting in May left 13 people dead, including the gunman.
The Virginian-Pilot reports that the city agreed to a no-bid contract to a worldwide property restoration company called Belfor to clean the building after the collection of evidence.
The company declined to comment on the contract or work, which has been completed. A spokeswoman told the newspaper the matter is too sensitive to discuss.
Eleven city employees and a building contractor died in the May 31 shooting.
Julie Hill, a city spokeswoman, says Belfor got the contract because the company already has one with the state for fire and water damage cleanup.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says President Donald Trump will travel to Williamsburg, Virginia, on Tuesday to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the first representative legislative assembly in America.
The event comes at a time of heightened election-year partisanship in Virginia, and some Democratic lawmakers have threatened to boycott the event if Trump attends.
Democratic leaders of the Virginia House and Senate said earlier this month that “the current President does not represent the values that we would celebrate at the 400th anniversary of the oldest democratic body in the western world.”
State and national leaders are gathering for the celebration. The convening of the legislative assembly in nearby Jamestown in 1619 formed the basis of today’s representative system of government in the U.S.
HANOVER, Va. (AP) _ A Ku Klux Klan recruitment rally earlier this month has sparked a peaceful protest outside a Virginia courthouse. News outlets report clergy and a local chapter of the NAACP organized the Wednesday demonstration that included songs, prayer and criticism of the Hanover County Board of Supervisors. About a dozen people wearing white robes and waving Confederate flags gathered outside the courthouse July 6 . The Hanover County Sheriff’s Office said it received multiple calls about the KKK rally but said no laws were broken and no violence occurred.
Pastor Paul Flowers of Mount Zion Baptist Church in Mechanicsville said he was outraged because he believed the board remained silent after the KKK rally. Board Chairman Canova Peterson and three other board supervisors publicly condemned the KKK at the board’s meeting Wednesday.
APPOMATTOX, Va. (AP) _ The sign outside of a church in Virginia reads “America: Love it or leave it,” and several congregants decided to leave it. Pastor E.W. Lucas tells WSET-TV that some members walked out of the Sunday service over the national attention the sign brought to the Appomattox church. Lucas says he still stands by the Friendship Baptist Church sign, which he’s said is meant to make a statement about the political divisions in Washington, D.C. The pastor has said that people who want to criticize the president and the country should “go over there and live in these other countries for a little while.” His comment echoes President Donald Trump, who previously tweeted that four minority congresswomen should return to “the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.”
Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally 2017
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — Three members of a white supremacist group were sentenced Friday to between two and three years in prison for punching, kicking and choking anti-racism protesters at a white nationalist rally in Virginia and political rallies in California.
Members of the now-defunct Rise Above Movement were caught on camera assaulting counterprotesters before a planned “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville in August 2017.
Benjamin Daley, Michael Miselis and Thomas Gillen each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to riot. The men were sentenced Friday in U.S. District Court in Charlottesville by Judge Norman Moon.
Daley, 26, of Torrance, California, was sentenced to 37 months in prison. Gillen, 25, of Redondo Beach, California, received a sentence of 33 months. Miselis, 30, of Lawndale, California, received 27 months.
U.S. Attorney Thomas Cullen said the men were motivated by “hateful ideology.”
“They were not interested in peaceful protest or lawful First Amendment expression; instead, they intended to provoke and engage in street battles with those that they perceived as their enemies,” Cullen said in a statement.
Members of the California-based Rise Above Movement frequently posted photographs and videos of themselves engaging in mixed martial arts street-fighting techniques along with messages related to the white supremacy movement.
In court documents, prosecutors said that from March 2017 to August 2017, RAM members — including Daley, Gillen and Miselis — engaged in acts of violence at rallies and organized demonstrations in Charlottesville and in Huntington Beach and Berkeley, California.
As part of their guilty pleas, the men acknowledged that they did not commit the acts in self-defense.
Attorneys for Miselis and Gillen did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.
Daley’s attorney, Lisa Lorish, said she and lawyers for Miselis and Gillen argued that prosecutors had not proved that a hate crime sentencing enhancement should apply in their cases. Lorish said Judge Moon denied the enhancement for all three men.
A fourth member of RAM, Cole Evan White, also pleaded guilty to a riot conspiracy charge and will be sentenced later.