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Jo Freeman: There’s Plenty To Do at the RNC – If You Have the Right Credentials
by Jo Freeman
Every national nominating convention has plenty of auxiliary events, some authorized, some not. Getting space can be a challenge; getting the word out even more so. But they do it nonetheless. Press were given a RNC 2024 Master Event Calendar, which was updated a few days later. Events began on Sunday and ended on Thursday. The actual convention sessions were just one item on the list. The calendar said if an event was Open or Closed to press, and also whom to contact to register. I’m going to describe some of the events, including a couple I went to, and a couple I was turned away from.
Since my focus is on women, I obviously wanted to go to those events – if I could.
The National Federation of Republican Women is the largest grassroots Republican women's organization in the country with hundreds of clubs. Founded in 1938, its members made the phone calls and knocked on the doors that elected Republican candidates for decades. It’s Tuesday luncheon featured Arkansas Governor Sarah Sanders. The Master Calendar said it was SOLD OUT and they wouldn’t let me in. I was able to get into their lounge at the Fiserv Forum Wednesday evening, where I was repeatedly asked if I was a member, and if not, would I join. “I’m press,” I said. “I can’t join anything partisan.” I then said: “What brings you here?” On hearing that, finding anyone willing to chat with me was like pulling teeth.
Moms for Liberty met in a concert hall that afternoon. I had pre-registered, and I got in. From high in a balcony seat I listened to several people talk about the evils of transgenderism. It’s webpage says WE BELIEVE Power Belongs to the People. Sound Familiar? With a focus is on parental rights, it wants to “STOP WOKE indoctrination.”
Tuesday I went to “The New Mavericks” reception co-hosted by the Black Republican Mayors Association and the Georgia Republican Party. They honored Sen. Tim Scott, four Congressmen and two Georgia delegates – all male. There was only one mayor on stage, from Aurora, IL. The chair of the Georgia Republican Party was the one white man on the stage. At that event, women served; they didn’t speak. The RNC reported that 55 delegates to the 2024 convention are Black, up from 18 in 2016.
I missed the Independent Women’s Forum toast to “Women Who Make Our Country Great” because I went to Convention Fest: The Official Delegate Experience, which was held in the streets outside the Fiserve Forum and Baird Hall as well as some space inside Baird. To get to that one you not only needed a credential of some sort, but a USSS pass (which I have).
Concerned Women for America parked its pink bus across from the Baird Center the week before the RNC. No one was home. When Convention Fest opened on Tuesday afternoon, they set up a pink tent, from which its leaders preached to whomever passed by. It calls itself “the nation’s largest public policy women’s organization” but its focus is evangelical Christian. The slogan on the side of its pink bus captures this emphasis: “She Prays, She Votes.” A prayer precedes each sermon.
Pink Out the Capitol
Jo Freeman writes: Roughly 500 women and a few men gathered on the east lawn of the US Capitol building on March 29 to declare that "I Stand With Planned Parenthood." The Senate was due to vote on a resolution to permit the states to deny federal family planning funds to health care centers which provide abortions, albeit with other funds. The failed Republican replacement for the 2010 Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) contained a provision which would have denied PP $400 million in Medicaid money.
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Worth Revisiting: Islandia
Joan L. Cannon reviews: This lengthy story covers a short time in the life of a privileged young man who forms a friendship at Harvard with another student from Islandia in 1905. John Lang of New England and Dorn of Islandia cement a friendship reminiscent of the male bonding of classics. After spending a summer together on Cape Cod, Lang has learned enough Islandian from Dorn and by studying on his own to secure a job as consul to the nation that occupies the southern coast of a continent whose nearest land mass would be Antarctica — if it existed. more »
Ferida Wolff's Backyard: Daffodils and Spring; Squirrels - Enough Already!
Ferida Wolff writes: Friendships come and go and some hang around regardless of the different seasons of life. I am grateful for my perennial garden that is there for me year after year, sharing its bounty, and I value my friendships that flower so beautifully in my heart.
Daffodils and Spring
The mini daffodils were peeking out of the earth in our backyard, teasing the big daffies beside them to open up and greet the day. They are always a sweet next reminder after the crocuses that Spring is peeking thro… more »
With a Daily Dial, Police Reach Out to Seniors; Automated Telephone Reassurance Systems Began Nearly Three Decades Ago
Hundreds of police agencies in small towns, suburbs and rural areas across the country are checking in on seniors who live alone by offering them a free automated phone call every day. Already, nearly half of women age 75 and older live alone. Automated telephone reassurance systems for seniors have grown in popularity in recent years and now are used by police departments from California to Massachusetts.
Dispatcher Kelly Orsini at her communications desk at the Naugatuck, Connecticut, Police Department. Across the country, hundreds of police age… more »