Bernie supporters heckled speakers throughout the first day of the Democratic Convention: can Bill Clinton heal the Democratic rift with his prime-time speech tonight?; Larry interviews Heather Mac Donald, whose controversial views on policing have caused a stir after this month's shootings & a recent study shows that high schoolers are having less sex than previous generations - a "Tinder sociologist" explains why.
DNC Day 2: Sanders delegate says 'This is a coronation, not a nomination'
The deep rift in the party is on full display at the Democratic National Convention. Despite polls showing the majority of Bernie Sanders backers saying they'll vote for Hillary Clinton, there are still plenty of holdouts in Philadelphia.
Inclusion, civility and unity were stressed during the first day of the convention, but there was no way around the party's discord. Thousands of Sanders supporters took to the streets decrying the DNC's anti-Sanders emails.
Even progressive favorite Elizabeth Warren was subjected to booing by Sanders proponents during her speech. Other famous faces at the convention who were heckled included Ohio Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, who gaveled the meeting to order, and comedian Sarah Silverman.
Although Sanders urged his supporters to unite against Donald Trump in his primetime speech Monday night, not all were sold on Clinton’s message.
Brian Carolus is a Sanders delegate representing the 33rd Congressional District, which includes Santa Monica, Malibu and Beverly Hills. He spoke to AirTalk about why he joined in the jeers Monday night.
“It’s not about the speakers,” Carolus said. “It’s about the content of the message... basically, what we’re doing is we’re protesting the idea of this entire convention being a coronation — it’s not a nomination.”
Carolus: If you saw in every single one of those speeches, they sounded very similar to each other. 'Oh, we have to elect Hillary Clinton as president now, even though none of us have voted yet.' That was supposed to be Bernie Sanders’ night... Instead, every single speaker talked about how wonderful Hillary Clinton was, and how we need to be electing her. There was very little talk of Bernie Sanders except for maybe some passing references by a couple of the speakers. There was nobody there saying, ‘We should be voting for Bernie Sanders for president and here’s why.’
We all felt that it was very biased. It was extremely sided toward Hillary Clinton and her campaign. It is especially egregious to us after we saw from the Guccifer email leaks and the WikiLeaks email leaks that the DNC and Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the Clinton campaign were all working together to sabotage our candidate’s campaign and undermine his candidacy.
Jackie Hawthorne, interim president of the Los Angeles African American Women’s Political Action Committee, is a delegate for Hillary Clinton. She represents the 37th Congressional District, which includes Culver City, as well as neighborhoods in the south and west parts of Los Angeles.
Hawthorne didn't boo Monday night. She said she understood the feelings of those who did, though she did not sympathize with them.
Hawthorne: Well I was in the California delegation, sitting up kind of high in that section, and I was right behind a very loud [and] disruptive group of Sanders supporters... they were booing at the intervals of different speakers, which in my culture is very rude to do that, and then when we asked them politely if they would sit down because they were blocking our view of the screen... they told us they had a right to stand and voice their discontent.
Initially, it was very disruptive — very loud, blocking our view, holding up unapproved items, booing, and disrespecting us, which of course led to disrespect on our side also.
I understand how they are feeling... They are feeling like they have been abandoned, and they are reacting to that sense of abandonment. I got it! I got it! I don’t mind you expressing that, but please, please, allow me to enjoy the convention.
Carolus emphasized that delegates still had a job to do, and as of Tuesday morning, Clinton had still not officially become the Democratic Party’s nominee.
Carolus: 'Presumptive.' That term is important. It’s a presumption. [Even though] Bernie Sanders endorsed [Hillary Clinton], he has not given up on his campaign. He has not suspended his campaign. He has not released his delegates. All of his Bernie Sanders delegates are still pledged to Bernie Sanders, and that’s why we are here at the convention.
Hillary Clinton officially became the Democratic nominee after a roll-call vote Tuesday afternoon.
Guests:
Jane Junn, professor of political science at the University of Southern California
Sean T. Walsh, Republican political analyst and partner at Wilson Walsh Consulting in San Francisco; he’s a former adviser to California Governors Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger and a former staffer in the George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan White Houses
Jackie Hawthorne, interim president of the Los Angeles African American Women’s Political Action Committee; she is a Hillary Clinton delegate representing the 37th District
Brian Carolus, Bernie Sanders delegate representing the 33rd District, which includes the Westside of Los Angeles and the South Bay
This story has been updated.
Alleged Russian hack of DNC inspires intrigue, hand-wringing
Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesman said today that Democrats blaming Russia for hacking email servers amounts to a "paranoid" attempt by American politicians to play what he called "the Russian card" during the campaign.
Dmitry Peskov continued, "There's nothing new here, it's a sort of traditional pastime of theirs. We think it's not good for bilateral ties but we realize that we have to go through this unfavorable period."
The FBI announced Monday it was investigating how the hack occurred, saying "a compromise of this nature is something we take very seriously."
Hacked emails posted by Wikileaks Friday suggested the Democratic National Committee was favoring Hillary Clinton over her primary rival, Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Clinton's campaign on Monday blamed Russia for the hack. Republican candidate Donald Trump has dismissed claims that it was committed by Russia for his benefit, calling them a joke.
Michael Buratowski, a cyber analyst with the firm that investigated the hack, said his near-certainty that Russia was to blame was based on evidence such as the hackers using Russian internet addresses, Russian language keyboards, and the time codes corresponding to business hours in Russia, as well as the sophistication of the hack.
An editorial in The Washington Post today bemoaned the alleged hack: "Putin's suspected meddling in a U.S. election would be a disturbing first." However, foreign affairs experts say it's standard operating procedure for governments to interfere in the domestic politics of their enemies and their allies.
What would the Kremlin have to gain? How should the U.S. respond?
With files from the Associated Press.
Guests:
Angela Greiling-Keane, White House correspondent for Bloomberg News; she tweets from
Robert English, Deputy Director of the USC School of International Relations; he specializes in Russian affairs and just returned from three weeks in the region
Study: Most people distrust biotech enhancements — for now
Gene-editing to prevent illness in newborns? Implants that make people sharper and healthier?
These cutting-edge technologies may soon be available for the masses, but a Pew Research Center survey showed that the public may not welcome these alterations with open arms.
The research examined attitudes towards three emerging technologies: gene-editing to reduce the risk of diseases, brain implants that enhance human performance and blood transfusions to give people strength and stamina. When Americans are surveyed on the prospects of these applications, the results showed suspicion, concern and resistance. In fact, a majority of adults say they would be “very” or “somewhat” worried about gene-editing (68 percent), brain chips (69 percent) and synthetic blood (63 percent).
Guests:
Cary Funk, Associate director of research on science and society at Pew Research Center
Ronald Bailey, Science correspondent for Reason Magazine. He’s the author of the book "The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-first Century”
Interview highlights
Why did Pew decide to do this poll?
Funk: We are experiencing such rapid changes in biomedical technology, and they are raising new concerns. One example of that is gene-editing. We have seen so many breakthroughs that create new urgency for a public discussion for social and ethical implications.
Most of the public are new to this ongoing medical research. How did you formulate the right questions in order to give people a sense of what you are asking for?
Funk: This is particularly difficult, because we are talking about the potential use of these technologies, technologies that are not available right now. We started with some focus groups and listened to their existing concerns. Then we pilot-tested a lot of questions to try to capture wording that people could understand. The final survey is nationally representative. We asked around the three scenarios — gene-editing to reduce risk of diseases, brain implants that enhance human performance, blood transfusion to give people strength and stamina.
Is part of this fear of unintended consequences? In the process of making us smarter, you wonder what you give up for that exchange. You think much of that is driving the concern?
Bailey: My main thought is that when people are offered these vague technologies, they are afraid of them. Their first reaction is “let’s slow down, we really don’t want the consequences, intended or unintended.” The truth is we’ve seen when new technology emerges and people eagerly embrace them when their benefits became obvious. In fact, the Pew research mentions that in vitro fertilization was much the same way. The first test-tube baby was born in 1978, and a series of surveys were taken before that — about two-thirds of Americans opposed in vitro fertilization. One month after the baby was born, 60 percent of Americans said they would be happy to use the technology. If you see these things being used successfully, most Americans will sit back and embrace them.
Does the ethical debate trail the technology significantly?
Bailey: What we should do is allow a bit of a tolerance. Clearly, all of these things will have to be tested for safety. But if they turned out to be safe, then there’s no reason why some of us are using the technology while others wait to see the consequences.
What about a class divide on access to these medical breakthroughs?
Bailey: Right now there are technologies that enhance human cognition through the use of certain pills. It doesn’t have to be a class divide, anybody can take the pill if they feel the need to do so. And a lot of these technologies will be the same way. Essentially they will be very expensive in the beginning, but very soon we’ll see their prices go down, especially the ones related to information technology. I think that will not exacerbate class differences, but in fact reduce them over time.
U.S. Public Wary of Biomedical Technologies to ‘Enhance’ Human Abilities
This story has been updated.
Why teens are having less sex than previous generations
Generation Z seems like it’s going to be better known for indulging in a session of “Netflix and chill” than for partying with friends.
A recent study says that high school kids are having less sex than previous generations, with 41 percent claiming to never have had sex – a 6 percent drop from 10 years ago. Drinking and drug use were also down. Even with slight decreases in certain behaviors, Gen Z has been described as independent, career driven and all around “good kids.” So what’s contributed to this phenomenon?
Social media could be a factor in teens having less sex as it’s easier to connect over Twitter or Snapchat than venture out to meet. Education and shifts in parenting may also influence the change in behavior among high school kids.
Larry speaks today with dating expert, Jessica Carbino, about Generation Z’s tamer attitudes towards sex and asks listeners if they’ve seen better behavior in teens.
Guest:
Jessica Carbino, Ph.D., Tinder sociologist and dating expert; she tweets from
‘The War on Cops': How should we talk about contemporary policing?
The shooting deaths of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling by police officers earlier this month renewed a nationwide dialogue about police use of force.
After five Dallas police officers were shot and killed during a protest following Castile and Sterling’s deaths, many called for a re-examination of the often emotionally-charged way we talk about police.
Heather Mac Donald is a fellow at conservative think-tank the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor at City Journal. In “The War on Cops,” she challenges many of the dominant narratives surrounding race and American policing.
Mac Donald is an advocate for the “Ferguson effect”: a hotly-contested idea that police have become less proactive after the shooting death of Michael Brown, causing an uptick in crime. She argues against a racial bias in policing, suggesting instead that race-based critiques of policing actually put minority communities at risk.
Interview highlights
Why do you think that the argument that African-American men are disproportionately stopped and disproportionately shot by police is incorrect?
Heather Mac Donald: Police statistics are invariably compared to population ratios and the benchmark. It is true that when you look at police activity regarding blacks — whether it is arrests or stops — there’s a disparity there. As Obama said right before the Dallas shootings, blacks are arrested at twice the rate of whites. Well, that looks live you’ve got racially biased policing, until you take crime rates into account. When you look at who is committing crime, and above all who is being victimized by crime, you see that policing is simply using data to go where people most need assistance — and that’s in minority communities.
In the United States as a whole, blacks are victimized by homicide at six times the rate of whites and Hispanics combined. They are not being killed by police officers, they are not being killed by whites, they are being killed by other blacks.
How does that relate to officers stopping African-Americans versus non-African-Americans?
Officers are being called to areas where there are gang shootings, whether it is in South Los Angeles or the South Bronx.That’s where people are being mowed down by these mindless retaliatory shootings. After a shooting, the police are going to be making stops. They are going to be stopping known gangbangers to let them know that they are being watched. ... We shouldn’t be surprised that the stop rate is higher in areas where there are high levels of street crime.
If I am an African-American man and I get stopped all the time by police — proportionate to violent crime committed by members of my community — how is that fair to me?
It’s a crime tax. It’s a tragedy that law-abiding innocent black males stand a greater chance of getting stopped by the police because they meet a suspect description than white men. I would say that is a disparity that pales in comparison to the fact that they stand a much higher chance of dying in homicide.
None of this is to say that there haven’t been bad shootings over the last two years. It is also not to deny that police have had a horrible history in this country of maintaining the major hypocrisy of American history, which is racial segregation and slavery. The memory of that understandably takes a long time to fade. I think today we’ve been having a conversation about what I think is phantom police racism in order not to talk about what the real problem is: policing is a function of crime today.
For a different perspective on policing, Larry interviews Prof. Malcolm Sparrow about his new book, "Handcuffed."
Guest:
Heather Mac Donald, Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute and contributing editor at City Journal; she is the author of numerous books, including “The War on Cops” (Encounter Books, 2016)