Mornings on the Mall 07.26.16

Mornings on the Mall

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Hosts: Brian Wilson and Larry O’Connor

5am – A/B/C

‘We trusted you!’: Elizabeth Warren repeatedly heckled, booed during DNC speech

Sen. Elizabeth Warren was repeatedly heckled Monday night as she delivered a speech endorsing Hillary Clinton to the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

“We trusted you! We trusted you!” chanted factions of the audience comprised of individuals who were apparent supporters of Bernie Sanders and were seemingly upset with Warren’s endorsement of Clinton.

Loud boos and jeers came soon after, when the Massachusetts senator said it was imperative that Clinton and Tim Kaine, her running mate, were elected to the White House.

And toward the end of Warren’s speech, the more progressive delegates began chanting again.

“Goldman Sachs! Goldman Sachs!” portions of the crowd chanted.

Chants of “tax Wall Street” also came from the crowd.

While the audience was raucous at times during the progressive firebrand’s address, it was far tamer than when the convention was gaveled in during the afternoon.

The divide between Sanders and Clinton supporters deepened over the weekend after leaked DNC emails published by Wikileaks revealed top Democratic officials used the party apparatus to tip the scales against the Vermont senator.

As a result, DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced she would resign after the convention.

5am – D/E

DNC Turns Women’s Restroom into ‘All-Gender’ Bathroom

Women’s bathroom near media section reassigned to all genders

BY: Elizabeth Harrington July 25, 2016 2:40 pm

PHILADELPHIA—The Democratic National Convention has turned a women’s restroom into an “all-gender” bathroom at the Wells Fargo Arena.

The all-gender bathroom is one of the ways the DNC is infusing its party platform into the arena accommodations. The arena also has a “gluten-free zone” and garbage cans are categorized by landfill, recycling, and compost.gluten free zone

A DNC volunteer told the Washington Free Beacon that there is only one all-gender restroom to accommodate transgender individuals.

The change leaves female convention goers with one fewer bathroom than male attendees.

No transgender individuals were spotted using the restroom, but it was being used by both male and female reporters, as well as some cameramen. The bathroom is closest to the media section of the arena.

The DNC will also for the first time feature an openly transgender individual in its speaking lineup. Sarah McBride, the national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, will speak on Thursday.

all-gender restroomTransgender bathrooms have become an issue in the presidential campaign. A North Carolina law placed heightened attention on whether biological males who identify as females can use a women’s restroom.

Republican nominee Donald Trump said he would let Caitlin Jenner use whatever bathroom she wanted at Trump tower, and PayPal founder Peter Thiel called the issue a distraction at the RNC last week.

“Now we are told that the great debate is about who gets to use which bathroom,” Thiel said. “This is a distraction from our real problems. Who cares?”

At least one person at the DNC cares, according to media reports.

“I don’t need no man in the next stall next to me while I go to the bathroom,” a female employee of the arena told Mynorthwest.com.

“We need a male and female she said. I’ve got personal business. I’m trying to keep it real.”

“It’s privacy. I need privacy.”

6am – A/B/C

Michelle Obama: ‘When they go low, we go high’

Philadelphia (CNN) Michelle Obama cast the presidential race as one between a positive role model for children — in Hillary Clinton — and a damaging one — in Donald Trump — in the marquee speech on the Democratic National Convention’s opening night.

The first lady never mentioned Trump by name, but leveraging her popularity, she made a rare, if not unprecedented, foray into partisan politics to knock the Republican nominee.

Obama condemned “the hateful language that we hear from public figures on TV,” saying that “our motto is, when they go low, we go high.”

And in a shot at Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan, Obama discussed raising her children in a White House that was built by slaves.

Memorable lines from the DNC’s opening night

“Don’t let anyone tell you that this country isn’t great. This right now is the greatest country on earth,” the first lady said.

Obama electrified the crowd at the Wells Fargo Arena in Philadelphia, taking the stage just after 10 p.m. ET and — in a departure from the political attacks on display all day — making the case that, because of her character and temperament, Clinton is the role model she’d like her daughters to see in the Oval Office.

It was a remarkable embrace of the prime-time stage for Obama, who was reluctant about the spotlight that came when her husband, then-Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, launched his presidential campaign against Clinton in 2007.

“To understand the journey she’s taken as a reluctant conscript on the public scene, to come here and command that stage the way she did tonight was extraordinary — and I think did for Hillary Clinton what no one else has done to this point,” said David Axelrod, a top Obama strategist on the 2008 campaign and now a CNN political commentator.

6am – D

Baltimore Mayor Opens Democratic National Convention

John Fritze and Luke BroadwaterContact Reporters

The Baltimore Sun

Rawlings-Blake will gavel in the Democratic convention after Debbie Wasserman Schultz relinquishes role.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake gaveled in the Democratic National Convention here on Monday — taking over for the Democratic Party chairwoman who relinquished the role amid a scandal over internal party emails.

Rawlings-Blake introduced herself to the crowd as “mayor of the great city of Baltimore” and called it an “honor and a pleasure” to kick off the convention.

After calling the convention to order, Rawlings-Blake started walking off stage — only to realize she hadn’t actually struck the podium with a gavel. She hurried back and did so to applause.

Rawlings-Blake has served as the secretary of the national Democratic Party since 2013.

Party chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida congresswoman who had already announced she would resign from the party after the convention, said Monday that she also would not preside over the convention’s opening ceremonies.

Stephanie Rawlings-Blake gavels in DNC

The email controversy, in which the website WikiLeaks has published thousands of internal emails, has threatened the unified message Democrats are hoping to portray as they nominate Hillary Clinton.

Rawlings-Blake is “honored to participate in the historic Democratic National Convention as the party prepares to confirm its 2016 presidential nominee, Hillary Rodham Clinton,” a statement released Monday by City Hall read.

6am – E

Mississippi flag won’t fly in Philly

by Chris Palmer and Amy S. Rosenberg, STAFF WRITERS

Mississippi’s state flag didn’t last long on Broad Street in South Philadelphia.

City workers on Monday removed the red, white, and blue banner – which has the Confederate flag in the top left corner – from a lighting standard near Passyunk Avenue after dozens of protesters and some local residents asked for it to be taken down, city officials said.

It had been put up about two weeks ago among a collection of state flags on South Broad. It won’t be put up again, said Brian Abernathy, a deputy managing director for the city, who said, “The Confederate flag raises strong feelings in our city.”

Posts on social media showed a raucous reception when a man in a cherry picker pulled the flag down Monday afternoon. Protesters, some of whom had gathered around the flag demanding its removal, chanted: “Whose streets? Our streets!”

If Mississippians were upset about the decision, they weren’t easy to find in Philadelphia.

Ouida Meruvia, a spokeswoman for the Mississippi Democratic Party, said the state’s delegation fully agreed with the city’s decision. In fact, she said, the delegation had removed a flag placard designating where they sit on the convention floor for the same reasons.

“The Democratic Party in Mississippi does not advocate the Mississippi flag,” she said. “A lot of delegates have come out against it.”

Curley Clark, a Hillary Clinton delegate and president of the Jackson County, Miss., NAACP, said the flag was “an affront to the descendants of slaves” and “should be changed.”

Meruvia said Monday’s action by Philadelphia police and the Mayor’s Office, “speaks to the national reaction about our flag and what we’ve been talking about.”

7am – A

INTERVIEW — DANA MILBANK – an op-ed columnist with The Washington Post.

Clinton leaves Democrats’ liberal wing high and dry.

(Washington Post) — By Dana Milbank Opinion writer July 25

PHILADELPHIA — As protests go, this one was a doobie.

Democrats gathering here to nominate Hillary Clinton for the presidency had some company: hundreds of Bernie Sanders supporters marching through town, escorted by a 50-foot dirigible in the form of a reefer.

“Berned by the DNC” was the, er, joint declaration printed on the balloon’s side.

The Bernie backers have reason to be fuming. Their man lost a hard-fought race. But on Monday, they let the fire engulf them — and not even Sanders himself could escape the blaze.

“We have got to elect Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine,” Sanders told his delegates Monday afternoon.

Incredibly, they began to boo and jeer. The movement leader, no longer controlling his followers, raised his hand for quiet.

“Brothers and sisters!” he urged. “This is the real world that we live in. Trump is a bully and a demagogue.”

The shouts and jeers continued, followed by a chant of “We want Bernie!”

It was just the opening to the Democratic convention that Donald Trump would have wanted. And the Bernie Bros — and a few sisters — weren’t done. They took their hooliganism to the convention floor at the Wells Fargo Center. They booed Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.) when she mentioned Clinton. They did the same to AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka and Adriana Espaillat, who hopes to be the first former undocumented immigrant to win a seat in Congress.

They booed Ben Jealous, former NAACP head and a Sanders supporter, when he said it was time to elect Clinton. They booed Rep. Marcia Fudge (Ohio) when she reminded them that “we are all Democrats,” just as they had booed House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi earlier in the day. They even booed when the Rev. Cynthia Hale, giving the opening benediction, mentioned Clinton’s name.

For a time, they booed most every mention of Clinton’s name. They chanted “Bernie! Bernie!” and even reprised the Republicans’ cheer: “Lock her up!” Outside, they blocked the main road to the convention site and blocked buses carrying delegates — relenting only when thunderstorms and flooding washed them out.

7am – B/C

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke blasted the speakers at the Democratic National Convention on Monday arguing that they seem to be “embracing criminality.”

Appearing on Fox News, Clarke said when reflecting on Sen. Cory Booker’s speech, “What’s he so angry about? I mean when Donald Trump uses that kind of passion, they say he’s angry. But the only thing he didn’t use was a car in every driveway and a chicken in every pot. A lot of platitudes there. He talked all around a big problem for the Democrats this fall and that is their flawed candidate, Mrs. Bill Clinton, who should have been under criminal indictment. She’s a confirmed liar. She left people to die in Benghazi. All that kind stuff that he acted like it wasn’t there. But that stuff matters to the American people.”

“So, you know, this thing will go on just like the RBC. They’ll get their pom poms out, and you rah, rah and what not. But stark contrast I think with the Republicans. Donald Trump is the law and order candid and this DNC seems to be about embracing criminality and criminal behavior, trying to mainstream criminal behavior, hold these individuals up as if they’re martyrs and symbols of the new civil rights movement.”

An earlier speaker in the day, Astrid Silva, daughter of an illegal immigrant, spoke at the DNC. Host Megyn Kelly went on to say, “Tomorrow night onstage here, the mother of Michael Brown, the 18-year-old who was killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, among other mothers of African American men who were killed at the hands of police officers, will take to the stage. Michael Brown’s mother is the most controversial, however, because her son was the aggressor against a police officer. And while he lost his life, the DOJ concluded it was because of his own actions in attacking a cop.”

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McAuliffe promises to dodge court ruling against sweeping clemency order

By Jenna Portnoy July 25 at 6:56 PM

PHILADELPHIA — Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) stood before Democrats gathered at their party’s national convention Monday and promised to individually restore voting rights to hundreds of thousands of felons within the next two weeks.

McAuliffe vowed to use an autopen to sign the orders, sidestepping a recent court ruling that invalidated the step he took in April to restore the rights of about 200,000 felons en masse.

The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday decided that McAuliffe had overstepped his legal authority and could restore rights only on a case-by-case basis. The court ordered that 13,000 felons who had registered to vote between April and last week must be removed from the rolls.

The ruling appeared to reverse a signature achievement of McAuliffe’s administration. But he indicated that it inspired him to take action.

“By the end of this week, I will have restored the rights of all 13,000!” a defiant McAuliffe thundered at a breakfast for the state party delegation at the Democratic National Convention. He got a standing ovation.

“And in two weeks all 206,000 will have their rights back, folks!” he said. Another standing ovation.

In fact, even more people will register to vote “because they will not let this injustice stand by,” he said.

The ruling spurred another change. McAuliffe’s administration had repeatedly declined to release the names of newly eligible voters. But, suddenly, all bets were off. He vowed to make the list public in the hope of encouraging more of the eligible felons to register to vote.

To Republican lawmakers who had legally challenged the governor’s order, he said: “If that’s the game you want to play: Game on!”

Two hundred and fifty miles away in Richmond, more somber state employees were grappling with just how to make that happen.

“We’re working on the overall approach to this. How do we comply with the legality of the order? How do we do that in the most efficient way?” said Kelly Thomasson, secretary of the commonwealth who is in charge of rights restoration.

State Republican leaders, who had launched the legal challenge to McAuliffe’s April 22 clemency, were buoyant after prevailing in court last week. But they were angered by the governor’s promise to sign more than 200,000 individual restoration orders.

“It’s deeply disrespectful to the Supreme Court and a clear effort to circumvent the limits put on him by the constitution,” said Matt Moran, spokesman for House Speaker William J. Howell (R-Stafford).

With help from GOP commonwealth’s attorneys, Republicans said they will scrutinize every individual rights restoration order as they in the blanket order, when they discovered multiple errors. They found the McAuliffe administration had mistakenly restored rights of 132 sex offenders as well as convicted murderers on probation in other states. In both cases, Republicans said the felons did not qualify for restored rights.

“We have discovered scores of errors in the initial database,” Moran said. “If the governor is not careful, he will restore the rights to someone who is not deserving. And he will be held accountable for every single order he signs. He will not be able to cover his mistakes with clerical errors.”

As of Monday, no individual orders had been issued.

Thomasson, the secretary of the commonwealth, said her office will check public safety databases to review the criminal histories of the 13,000 felons who registered to vote.

Then they will probably produce 13,000 computer-generated rights restoration orders printed with the signatures of herself and McAuliffe, she said. Those orders will be mailed to newly enfranchised felons to the most recent addresses on file for them.

McAuliffe spokesman Brian Coy said this system was developed by former governor Robert F. McDonnell (R), the first governor to restore the rights of newly released nonviolent felons without first requiring them to apply.

But McAuliffe’s blanket clemency order took the process further than any other governor had attempted.

Sen. Mamie E. Locke (D-Hampton), chair of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus, said McAuliffe’s move disproportionately affects African Americans, and she predicted they will be more motivated to vote in November. Exit polls show black voters tend to vote Democratic.

7am – D/E

Sarah Silverman just ripped into fellow Bernie Sanders supporters: ‘You’re being ridiculous!’

By Aaron Blake July 25 at 10:04 PM Comedian Sarah Silverman told Bernie Sanders supporters who refuse to back Hillary Clinton that they are “being ridiculous” during her speech at the Democratic National Convention July 25. (The Washington Post)

After a day full of tensions between Bernie Sanders supporters and the Democratic Party, the first few hours of the party’s convention on Monday featured plenty of distractions, and things seemed to be moving forward.

Then Sarah Silverman showed up.

The comedian was a Sanders supporter in the primaries, and she came to the stage with Clinton supporter and fellow “Saturday Night Live” alum, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.). It was a good idea in theory: two comedians trying to bring some levity to the situation and defuse it with humor.

But feelings were still raw. Silverman argued for unity and gave a generally well-received speech, but Sanders supporters weren’t happy, and they began making their voices heard.

Silverman tried to make jokes. She noted that Clinton, who was most recently secretary of state, “was a secretary, and now she’s going to be president.” The crowd got louder.

Silverman added, “I will vote for Hillary with gusto.” She concluded her speech by saying, “As I continue to be inspired and moved to action by the ideals set for by Bernie, who will never stop fighting for us, I am proud to be a part of Bernie’s movement, and a vital part of that movement is making absolutely sure that Hillary Clinton is the next president of the United States.”

The crowd got louder. By that point, though, Franken and Silverman had also run out of material and were being asked to stretch their segment due to a problem with musical guest Paul Simon’s organ.

It got a little awkward as they stalled and people chanted. And then Silverman said this: “To the Bernie-or-bust people, let me just tell you: You’re being ridiculous.”

Franken gamely tried to argue Silverman had just done a good thing.

“This is a comedian,” he said, gesturing to the “Hillary, Hillary” chants. “This is the power of comedy.”

Silverman then alluded either to the awkwardness of them still standing there or to the fact that the crowd was still arguing.

“Thank God they can fix this in post[-production],” she said, referring to the editing process in movies and TV shows.

Needless to say, “you’re being ridiculous” is not the message the party would have scripted for Silverman or anybody else onstage Monday night. Given it was delivered by Silverman and not a party official, though, perhaps it will blow over.

8am – A