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The leader of Minnesota’s Democratic Party says he is calling an emergency meeting this week to "ban individuals engaged in violent assaults" from its ranks after a tense confrontation erupted over the weekend at an event to nominate candidates for a Minneapolis City Council seat. The showdown between supporters of Minneapolis Council Member Aisha Chughtai and her challenger, Nasri Warsame, on Saturday has been surrounded by allegations of assault from both campaigns ahead of the November election. Video shows the incident began after a crowd of Chughtai supporters took the stage in preparation for her speech, which caused an uproar...

The media has delighted in hawking the numbers comparison between the Dem and Rep Conventions. Nielsen has a chart showing the numbers of viewers for the Conventions going all the way back to 1960. I was going to paste the chart here but didn't want to go thru the formatting task required to make it readable. Follow link and scroll all the way down until you see the chart.

arly last August, an envelope with extraordinary handling restrictions arrived at the White House. Sent by courier from the CIA, it carried “eyes only” instructions that its contents be shown to just four people: President Barack Obama and three senior aides. Inside was an intelligence bombshell, a report drawn from sourcing deep inside the Russian government that detailed Russian President Vladi­mir Putin’s direct involvement in a cyber campaign to disrupt and discredit the U.S. presidential race.

PRINCETON, N.J. -- Americans' views of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are almost exactly the same now as …

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch is coordinating with Democratic activists to so disrupt the upcoming Republican and Democratic National Conventions that martial law will be declared. That’s the stunning discovery revealed in a series of direct messages between three activists. On Friday, June 10, 2016, someone hacked into the Twitter account of #BlackLivesMatter (BLM) leader and former Baltimore mayoral candidate DeRay McKesson. McKesson later confirmed the hack to The Baltimore Sun. On June 11, 2016, a Twitterer who calls himself The Saint (@TheSaintNegro) tweeted a direct-message conversation on June 10 between KcKesson and another BLM leader Johnetta Elzie (Netta), in...

Nowadays, the “smoke-filled room” is mostly just a metaphor—but there was a real room that started it all. Well, sort of. The compelling image of the smoke-filled room, a “place of political intrigue and chicanery, where candidates were selected by party bosses in cigar-chewing session,” per William Safire, arose during the 1920 Republican convention. That year, Sen. Warren G. Harding of Ohio was the come-from-behind nominee for president, selected after ten ballots. According to historian David Pietrusza, author of 1920: The Year of the Six Presidents, the room in question is often credited with the phrase “because the people who...

More than two-thirds of Americans want the presidential nomination processes to be changed and more than half say the systems are “rigged,” a new poll found. The Reuters/Ipsos poll released Wednesday found that 51 percent of likely voters believe the primary system is “rigged” against some candidates. And 71 percent say parties should pick their presidential nominees with a direct vote, instead of using delegates. Twenty-seven percent said they did not understand how the primary process works, and 44 percent said they were unsure why delegates are involved at all. Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders...

I don’t know what this means. Probably it’s not supposed to mean anything. I think Team Trump’s just throwing words out there now, the more sinister the better, to delegitimize the fact that Cruz is humiliating them in wrangling delegates. (We’re a week away, I figure, from Manafort comparing Cruz’s delegate operation to slaveholding.) It may even be that the more vicious Trump and his allies get, the more hyperbolic the Trump’s campaign’s accusations against Cruz will become to try to create a false sense that the race has turned equally nasty on both sides. Note that the “Gestapo” answer...

Earlier this month, two fan conventions came to London: Nine Worlds and the World Science Fiction Convention, commonly know as Worldcon. Worldcon is in its 72nd year, a huge old dinosaur (or perhaps an aging dragon) of science-fiction fandom. This year more than 10,000 people paid for memberships, which included entrance to the annual Hugo Awards. The official guests of honor were revered science-fiction and fantasy authors, editors, and illustrators, all of whom were in their 60s and 70s. Nine Worlds was smaller, younger, and catered to a more varied crowd including comics, TV, and fanfic followers. But since both...

Now that the national conventions are over which one fired up -- in a positive way -- the country? The Republican National Convention. The Democratic National Convention. That marginally strange Kumoricon Convention at Esther Short Park.

Ron Paul Knocks DNC & GOP Conventions as ‘Taxpayer Funded Spectacles,’ Reminds Both Parties the U.S. Is a Republic Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) on Monday criticized the GOP and the DNC for throwing lavish conventions at the expense of U.S. taxpayers and knocked both parties for constantly referring to the U.S. as a democracy. “Last week marked the conclusion of the grand taxpayer funded spectacles known as the national party conventions,” Rep. Paul’s statement reads. “It is perhaps very telling that while $18 million in tax dollars was granted to each party for these lavish ordeals, an additional $50 million...

Earlier this year it seemed to many that Mitt Romney was a shoo-in to become our next president. Not anymore. ... If I could put my finger on it, I would say the Romney campaign has been poorly managed. They haven't staged their candidate well and their messaging has been incoherent, to put it nicely. ... Earlier this summer Rupert Murdoch tweeted a message that may turn out to be prophetic: "Tough O Chicago pros will be hard to beat unless he [Romney] drops old friends from team and hires some real pros. Doubtful." ...

The absence of a filing deadline is a luxury here at the ranch when current events require more than the instant analysis demanded by editors needing constant content updates to feed the cyber beast. Yet, there they were, some of the best in our business, posting post-convention analyses as balloons and confetti fell from the rafters. TV talking heads do it all the time, and look what you get. It has been more than a week since the elephants packed their trunks, and a couple of days after the donkey show hit the road, plenty of time to grade both...

Federal authorities are urging law enforcement agencies across the country to watch out for signs that extremists might be planning to wreak havoc at the upcoming political conventions -- by blocking roads, shutting down transit systems and even employing what were described as acid-filled eggs. The warning came in a joint FBI-Department of Homeland Security bulletin issued Wednesday. The bulletin specifically warned about a group of anarchists from New York City who could be planning to travel to the convention sites to disrupt the events by blockading bridges. Anarchists "see both parties as the problem," so both conventions are prime...

The Department of Homeland Security has ordered masses of riot gear equipment to prepare for potential significant domestic riots at the Republican National Convention, Democratic National Convention and next year’s presidential inauguration. The DHS submitted a rushed solicitation to the Federal Business Opportunities site on Wednesday, which is a portal for Federal government procurement requisitions over $25,000. The request gave the potential suppliers only one day to submit their proposals and a 15-day delivery requirement to Alexandria, Virginia. As the brief explains, “the objective of this effort is to procure riot gear to prepare for the 2012 Democratic and Republican...

TAMPA, Fla. -- The thousands of protesters expected at the Democratic and Republican national conventions can come armed with a lot more than signs and slogans: State law in Florida and North Carolina allows concealed weapons, including guns. In Tampa, where the RNC will hold its festivities this fall, officials are starting to worry about people toting guns in such a politically-charged environment. The City Council voted Thursday to ask Republican Gov. Rick Scott to help them temporarily ban concealed weapons. Charlotte officials have yet to publically voice concern, but with both cities trying to balance public safety with First...

Protesters at US party conventions could be armedBy MITCH WEISS and TAMARA LUSH | Associated Press – 44 mins ago TAMPA, Florida (AP) — The thousands of protesters expected at the Democratic and Republican national conventions can come armed with a lot more than signs and slogans: State law in Florida and North Carolina allows concealed weapons, including guns. In Tampa, where the Republicans will hold their festivities this fall, officials are starting to worry about people toting guns in such a politically charged environment. The City Council voted Thursday to ask Republican Gov. Rick Scott to help them temporarily...

More than a dozen trade unions are planning to sit out the 2012 Democratic convention because they are angry it will be held in a right-to-work state. The unions say they are disappointed that labor wasn't consulted before Democrats settled on North Carolina, a state that is considered one of the least union-friendly in the nation. They are also frustrated that job creation hasn't been a higher priority for Democratic lawmakers. The unions include the Laborers, Painters and Electrical Workers. The move would deprive the party of millions of dollars spent on sky boxes and other sponsorships that usually help...

Paul Grimaldi Email Journal staff and wire reports PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- More than 2,500 progressive political activists will come to Providence in June 2012 to take part in the annual Netroots Nation conference. But the group of progressive bloggers wants no competition for attention when it comes to town. The conference's organizers have taken steps that would keep a conservative group's traditional counter-event at a distance. Raven Brooks, Netroots Nation's executive director, said Tuesday the progressive group has a non-compete clause in its contracts with the Rhode Island Convention Center and two Providence hotels. The conservative group RightOnline has staged...

CHICAGO—The sprawling McCormick Place became America's convention headquarters when it opened here 50 years ago, hosting buyers and sellers of products from candy bars to windmill turbines. But in recent months, a gradual drop-off in business here has turned into a rout as a string of high-profile shows have pulled out. With the recession cramping convention business across the U.S., exhibitors say Chicago's high costs and complex work rules make other venues more attractive. Chicago's Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, which runs McCormick, had an operating loss of $3.6 million in the fiscal year ended last June and expects to...