Two huge and violent protests are heating up in downtown Cleveland right by the Covention Center. Two groups are going at it right in the middle of the public square downtown near the Convention Center  (above) as we speak. Approximately two to three hundred cops are trying to handle the mayhem. According to one of the police on scene, the protesters are throwing bags of urine at the cops and have started to attack people on the street. I am right down the block. This is happening now.

Law enforcement is getting ready to use gas.

My flight yesterday was delayed 13 hours (traveling today is so third world), but lots to report on. Leftist thugs who want to disarm the law-abiding patriots took to the streets armed and angry. Lots of itchy fingers in that crowd. It’s a tinderbox. Large demonstrations shut down a barricaded downtown on the opening day of the Republican National Convention Monday. Police were calm and cool and kept the crowd contained, giving the crowd lots of leeway.

There was plenty of action on the floor of the convention:

CLEVELAND — Here’s what’s happened at the Republican National Convention earlier, and scroll through our best photos of the day.
Delegates tried to stage a last-ditch revolt against Donald Trump.

The convention floor momentarily turned into a scene of discord and boisterous dissent on Monday. Those who were opposing Donald J. Trump broke into booming jeers and chants of “Roll call vote! Roll call vote!” in an attempt to demand a vote by all 2,472 delegates on a procedural motion that is required before the convention can formally get underway.

Eric Minor, a delegate from Washington state, and Michael Steele, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, spoke after a faction of delegates attempted a last-ditch revolt against Donald J. Trump.
By THE NEW YORK TIMES on Publish Date July 18, 2016. Photo by Eric Thayer for The New York Times. Watch in Times Video »

Their hope was that by starting a lengthy process so late in the day — just a few hours before the convention’s prime-time programming was set to begin — they could embarrass Mr. Trump by delaying the convention’s opening speakers.

Delegates who opposed them appeared to have the advantage. And they responded with their own noisy shouts of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”

But after several minutes of confusion, and a couple of musical interludes by the band to kill time, the anti-Trump delegates appeared to have been stymied.

When the chairman called for a voice vote on whether to have a roll call vote, he ruled that the “no” votes prevailed.

Initially, there appeared to be at least nine states in which a majority of delegates agreed to the roll call vote, meeting the threshold of seven required under party rules. But faced with the possibility of a runaway start to the convention, the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee staff members working the floor went into overdrive to get delegates to withdraw their support.

Stamping the rebellion out was a show of organizational muscle and discipline by the Trump campaign and the party, which had teams of aides scurrying around the arena as they tried to flip votes. They wore ear pieces and carried stacks of affidavits that they circulated to delegates as they pressured them to withdraw their support for the roll call vote.

In the end, they peeled away enough votes so that only six states had a majority of their delegates on the petition. And the crowd broke into chants of “we want Trump!”

Leaders of the rebellion conceded defeat. “It’s disappointing,” said Ken Cuccinelli, a delegate from Virginia who was coordinating the effort. “There’s nowhere to appeal.”

Delegates said the forces working to stop the vote were intense. “They just steamrolled it,” said Rachel Hoff, a delegate from the District of Columbia, which was one of the delegations that initially supported the roll call vote but backed off. “It seems like they’re denying the delegates the agency to play a role in the process,” added Ms. Hoff, who did not sign one of the affidavits.

After the scene in the arena settled down, the Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, insisted he was never concerned he was going to lose control of the convention.

“From our standpoint, it wasn’t relevant,” he said. “It was handily defeated. And now we move on.”

Article posted with permission from Pamela Geller.

Pamela Geller’s commitment to freedom from jihad and Shariah shines forth in her books