Tag: convention
Cleveland To Process Thousands Of Arrests At The RNC — And Activists Are Nervous

Cleveland To Process Thousands Of Arrests At The RNC — And Activists Are Nervous

Police in Cleveland say they aim to avoid mass arrests at the protests planned for next week’s Republican National Convention, but preparations by the city’s courts to process up to 1,000 people a day have some civil rights activists worried.

Thousands of people from across the country are expected in the city to protest the expected presidential nomination of New York businessman Donald Trump, who has vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and restrict immigration from countries with large Muslim populations if elected.

Supporters and opponents of Trump have clashed at several of his campaign events.

Police have vowed to honor protesters’ rights of free expression, which are protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, and avoid mass arrests.

“We don’t want anybody to trample on anybody else’s rights,” Cleveland police chief Calvin Williams told a news conference on Tuesday.

But memories of recent heavier-handed approaches are fresh in the heavily Democratic, majority black Ohio city of 388,000 people.

“I don’t want to be a naysayer here and rule out the possibility that everything is going to be hunky-dory … but knowing how the Cleveland Police Department has handled situations in the past, I just don’t have confidence that it’s going to work,” said Terry Gilbert, an attorney who has handled criminal and civil rights cases in the city for more than four decades.

“Until I see the actual situation next week, I’m going to be worried,” Gilbert said.

Gilbert pointed to the May 2015 arrests of 71 people following the acquittal of a police officer who fired 137 shots following a high-speed 2012 car chase, killing a black man and woman.

The arrested protesters were held for more than 36 hours over the Memorial Day weekend, and four alleged in a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union that police intentionally kept them in custody longer to prevent the protest from reforming.

‘WE ARE READY’

Cleveland paid $250,000 to secure 200 extra rooms in the Cuyahoga County jail, according to the Republican National Committee budget.

Cleveland Municipal Court officials said they would be ready to process a large volume of people quickly, with staff scheduled to work in two 10-hour shifts keeping the court operating from 5 a.m. to 1 a.m. each day.

“We are ready,” said Ed Ferenc, a spokesman for the court. “We’ll have staff here till 1 a.m. If we have to do a docket at 10:30 at night, we’ll do it.”

The United States has seen hundreds of protests over the past two years following a series of high-profile police killings of black men. The vast majority of the protests have been peaceful, although they have been punctuated with bursts of rioting, arson and looting.

The ACLU plans to be out in force to ensure that people are not arrested for legal protests, said Christine Link, the group’s executive director in Ohio.

“Let’s not equate a lot of protesters with violence,” Link said. She noted the group would be keeping careful watch on the whereabouts of anyone arrested to ensure they are charged and released quickly.

At the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York, hundreds of protesters were swept up and pushed into pens on the Hudson River.

With temperatures expected to reach 90 degrees F (32 C) most days, the health of detainees will be a concern, she said.

“What we’re worried about is that they’re not saying where they are booking people, they are being vague about it and that’s not good,” Link said. “That’s an attempt to hide the cheese.”

 

(Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Photo: A Cleveland mounted police officer talks to his horse during a demonstration of police capabilities near the site of the Republican National Convention July 14, 2016.  REUTERS/Rick Wilking

Pragmatism Don’t Know Bernie

Pragmatism Don’t Know Bernie

“You can’t always get what you want.” — The Rolling Stones

A few words in defense of pragmatism.

That ideal has taken quite a beating lately, mostly at the hands of Bernie Sanders and his supporters. The Vermont senator faces a virtually impossible deficit in his battle with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination. Pragmatism would seem to suggest it’s time for him to pack it in.

But pragmatism don’t know Bernie. Or Bernie Nation.

If this weren’t clear before, it has been made abundantly so in the last two weeks, beginning with Sanders supporters in Las Vegas tearing open the Nevada Democratic convention in a protest so angrily chaotic it was shut down by security, fearing violence. But Sanders supporters weren’t done yet; they also sent death threats to party officials.

The proximate cause of this Trumpish behavior was a dispute over rules, a claim that, as Sanders’ campaign manager put it, the convention had been “hijacked” to award more delegates to Hillary Clinton. Politico rated that false.

Not that this has made much difference to Sanders, now locked in a battle with the party he ostensibly seeks to lead. His denunciation of the convention chaos was as tepid and belated as Donald Trump at his worst. He has blasted the party for being, as he sees it, in the pocket of the rich, and specifically denounced Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. In a Monday interview, Sanders told the Associated Press that this summer’s convention could be “messy,” though he later insisted that was not a tacit suggestion of violence.

Given the intensity of the emotions at play and the behavior of his supporters in Vegas, it’s hard to see how it could have been anything but. Which is disappointing. A few days ago, Sanders’ campaign seemed headed for an honorable legacy. But he has apparently decided instead upon a legacy of peevishness and sore losing, which is, as Frank Bruni noted a few weeks back in The New York Times, a hallmark of this political epoch.

Look: There is something to be said, under certain circumstances, for fighting to the last breath. Under certain circumstances, it is noble to stand one’s ground, come what may. Under certain circumstances, it might even be heroic to soldier on past the point of defeat.

These are not those circumstances. Trump awaits. And every second the left spends arguing with itself is a gift to the presumptive Republican nominee.

Let’s not get it twisted. For all that some people now seek to normalize him and his campaign, for all that they fool themselves into thinking he wouldn’t be so bad, for all that a party once appalled to find him its leader now coalesces behind him, Trump is still what he’s always been: a tire fire in an expensive suit.

Yes, Clinton is, putting it mildly, a flawed candidate, stiff at the lectern, shameless in her pandering and disliked for reasons both substantive (she sometimes seems to have only a nodding relationship with truth) and not. (Since when is it a sin — or a surprise — for a politician to be ambitious?) But she’s also intelligent and experienced. And compared to Trump, she’s a plate of Lincoln with a side of FDR.

As such, she might make a good president, might be a middling president, might even be a bad president, but at a minimum, she would be a president unlikely to hand out nuclear weapons like party favors or require customs agents to ask would-be visitors, “Are you now or have you ever been a Muslim?”

Clinton is, in other words, a good, pragmatic choice. And no, that’s not an inspiring battle cry.

But a reality show buffoon unburdened by knowledge, decency or dignity is closing in on the White House. We should probably take a little inspiration from that.

(Leonard Pitts is a columnist for The Miami Herald, 1 Herald Plaza, Miami, Fla., 33132. Readers may contact him via e-mail at lpitts@miamiherald.com.)

(c) 2016 THE MIAMI HERALD DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Photo: U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders is seen between poles of a football goalpost as he speaks in Santa Monica, California, U.S., May 23, 2016. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson 

Endorse This: Priebus On Candidates: “No One’s Forcing Them To Wear Our Jersey”

Endorse This: Priebus On Candidates: “No One’s Forcing Them To Wear Our Jersey”

At a meeting of the Republican National Committee in Hollywood, FL today, party chairman Reince Priebus said that his entire party had a responsibility to “unite behind the nominee.”

“Our candidates are running for the nomination for the Republican Party,” he said to a conference room of party and campaign officials leaders. “They’re trying out for our team, no one is forcing them to wear our jersey. We expect our candidates to support our party, and our eventual nominee.”

Priebus was navigating a minefield: the RNC’s rules committee voted Thursday against a rule change that would have made it harder to nominate candidates on the floor (a vote which enabled so-called “white knight” candidates to challenge Trump for the nomination should Cruz and Kasich fail) and the Republican National Committee has been paddling against Trump’s accusations that the system is “rigged” since he lost all 14 of Wyoming’s delegates to Ted Cruz.

Since then, Trump has accused Republican Party officials and the Cruz campaign of “wining and dining,” orchestrating a conspiracy against his campaign.

Of the three remaining Republican presidential candidates, Trump was the only one not to attend the meeting in Hollywood.

Video/photo: CSPAN

Meet A Man Who Will Help Determine Trump’s Fate In 2016 Race

Meet A Man Who Will Help Determine Trump’s Fate In 2016 Race

(Reuters) – Mark Strang spends his days delivering farm equipment, listening to politics on the radio during cross-country drives. But in July, the 63-year-old could have an outsized voice in choosing the Republican nominee for president of the United States.

For the first time in 40 years, Republicans could arrive at their national convention in Cleveland without a nominee. If front-runner Donald Trump fails to lock up the nomination before then, as some pollsters are predicting, Strang will have a chance to make history.

Strang, from Illinois, is one of 2,472 delegates to the convention who will ultimately determine the party’s choice for the White House this November. In recent elections, the delegates have simply rubberstamped the presumptive nominee. But this year the convention could become a brutal fight in which every delegate vote will count.

Trump currently has 673 delegates after winning a string of nominating contests, but if he wants to avoid a floor fight at the convention he needs the magic number of 1,237. There is some doubt among election number crunchers that he can hit it.

And that’s when Strang will step into the spotlight. After filling roles in local Republican politics, Strang was selected by Illinois voters to serve as a delegate for Republican candidate U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas. He likes Cruz for his position on guns and immigration.

But if the convention becomes a fight because no candidate has the needed 1,237 delegates on the first round of voting, most of the delegates would eventually be released. States are still sorting through some rules governing how long delegates are bound to candidates. Strang said if he found himself a free agent, he would be open to switching his vote. (Graphic on how a contested convention works: http://tmsnrt.rs/1ROtOHw)

“I am going to be loyal to Ted Cruz, and I will stick with him until I see if there’s no hope. And if there’s no hope for Ted getting in, as I understand it I can pledge my votes to somebody else, and I would hope Ted would understand,” he said.

Interviews with Republican state party officials and some delegates who have already been selected reveal widespread soul-searching in anticipation of a potential fight. Officials and delegates described weighing their personal preference with the need to rally around a candidate going into the general election.

Party faithful are steeling themselves for a battle, not just for the nomination, but also for the party’s core values.

Establishment Republicans deeply opposed to Trump’s candidacy say he does not represent social and economic conservative values on healthcare, trade and the role of government in daily life.

Trump has built his campaign on anti-establishment rhetoric and promises to build a wall along the Mexican border to keep out illegal immigrants, impose a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States and restore the country’s manufacturing base.

A contested convention would pose a major test for Trump’s campaign, which thus far has eschewed a traditional grassroots organization. His rivals, Cruz and Ohio Governor John Kasich, are already trying to lobby delegates who might be open to changing sides once they are allowed to become free agents in the convention.

 

“A Great Misunderstanding”

In every state, the party chair and two national committee members, a man and a woman, are automatically selected to be delegates. But from there, state parties use a wide variety of procedures to pick delegates, most of whom won’t be named until late spring or summer.

“These are the base of the party,” said Michigan Republican Party chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel. “The delegates are not the establishment. They are the base. And I think that’s a great misunderstanding.”

Often sporting outfits with homemade decorated hats or jackets weighed down with dozens of buttons, delegates who show up every four years include everyone from lawmakers to homemakers, and from those who write million dollar checks to retirees who make phone calls.

Many states use small conventions to pick delegates, many of whom are long-time party activists and elected office holders. Not all of them personally back the candidate they are pledged to support in the first round of convention voting, said Virginia Republican Party chairman John Whitbeck.

“We have two former governors, a former attorney general, state senators, state House of Delegates members, party leaders, big and small and donors,” said Whitbeck.

In other states, such as Illinois, some delegates are elected by primary voters. In Ohio, which gives all its delegates to the statewide primary winner, candidates pick their own slate of convention representatives.

Jim Carns, a state representative from Alabama, where delegates are selected in the primaries, signed up to represent Trump last fall — when many still viewed the rise of the New York real estate mogul as a temporary phenomenon.

He sees no circumstance in which he would switch candidates. But he knows there will be efforts to win over delegates by both the Trump camp and their opponents.

Once delegates are allowed to change their votes, some establishment figures have floated the potential to nominate someone who didn’t even run for president — such as House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan.

But most of the 14 delegates interviewed by Reuters dismissed that as an option.

“I almost think that I would walk away from the Republican Party if they did that,” said Strang, the Illinois delegate. “If we’d wanted Paul Ryan, we would have drafted him. And I don’t dislike Paul Ryan, but he didn’t run.”

Ryan has said he is not interested in the presidency.

 

(Reporting by Emily Stephenson and Ginger Gibson, Editing by Ross Colvin)

Photo: Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump leaves the stage after speaking about the results of the Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Illinois and Missouri primary elections during a news conference held at his Mar-A-Lago Club, in Palm Beach, Florida, March 15, 2016.  REUTERS/Joe Skipper