Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama is coming under criticism
for racially-charged comments he made this weekend claiming Democrats
are "pro-crime" and favor reparations for the descendants of people who
were enslaved in the U.S. because they believe "the people that do the
crime are owed that."

Tuberville, a first-term senator, made the controversial remarks during
a rally held by former President Donald Trump in Minden, Nevada, on
Saturday in support of the state's Republican candidates on the ballot
in November.

"They're not soft on crime. They're pro-crime. They want crime,"
Tuberville said of Democrats. "They want crime because they want to take
over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want
reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed
that. Bulls**t. They are not owed that."

Republicans are jockeying to regain control of the House and Senate from Democrats in the November midterm elections and have been attempting to
paint Democrats as soft-on-crime in their pitch to voters.

The FBI said last week that violent crime decreased by 1% in the U.S. in
2021, and the robbery rate fell 8.9% from 2020 to 2021. The murder rate
in the U.S. rose by 4.3%, according to the FBI data, though that is significantly lower than the 29.4% increase in the murder rate from 2019
to 2020. The bureau warned nearly half of law enforcement agencies did
not submit data in 2021, resulting in an incomplete picture and gaps in coverage.

FBI data released in December, meanwhile, found that more than half of
known offenders, 50.8% were White, and 29.6% were Black or African-American.

Tuberville's comments were swiftly met with criticism.

NAACP President Derrick Johnson called Tuberville's claims "flat out
racist, ignorant and utterly sickening."

"His words promote a centuries-old lie about Black people that
throughout history have resulted in the most dangerous policies and
violent attacks on our community," Johnson said in a statement. "We've
seen this before from the far-right, and we've seen what they can do
when they take power. Next time the senator wants to talk about crime,
he should talk about Donald Trump's hate-fueled rally on January 6,
2021, and the attacks that followed. Perhaps the real criminals are in
his orbit."

https://news.yahoo.com/gop-sen-tommy-tuberville-faces-190800094.html

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)