Issues
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.
Monuments Men (and Women): National Gallery of Art's The Inside Story, Smithsonian's On the Frontline to Save Europe's Art
"These men — and women — worked to protect Europe's cultural heritage at the height of World War II, ensuring its safety in the aftermath and returning works, when possible, to their rightful owners once peace and security were restored." Edith Standen dug up an antique bronze cannon with her own bare hands. ""It had been taken from the Musée de l'Armée. It went back to the Musée de l'Armée."
David Finley in his office at the National Gallery of Art. Finley was director of the Gallery from 1938-1956, and vice chairman of the Roberts Commission. National Gallery of Art,… more »
Forget About Forgetting: Older Brains Slower Due to Greater Experience, Rather than Cognitive Decline
As the Tuebingen researchers in a new study note, it is impossible to tell if the mind’s information processing capacities do in fact decline with age if you don’t measure the information the mind processes, or how it changes over time. In every one of the cognitive tests in which the team measured this information, no evidence of any change in our minds’ processing capacities was found. The researchers simply found that the tests required older adults to make more effort as they sorted through the larger stores of knowledge they had acquired from experience. more »
A House Foreign Affairs Hearing: "Lessons Learned from Super Bowl Preparations: Preventing International Human Trafficking at Major Sporting Events"
S. 1922 —- Senator David Vitter, having announced his entry into the 2015 Louisisana Governor's race, has introduced bill to prevent the illegal trafficking of supplemental nutrition assistance program benefits by requiring all program beneficiaries to show valid photo identification when purchasing items with program benefits. On Tuesday, the House passed H.R.7, The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act. more »
In California, a Raft of Measures to Improve Conditions and Oversight of Assisted Living
California, which is home to more assisted living facilities than any other state, currently maintains one of the loosest regulatory regimes in the country, with minimal fines (as little as $150 in cases of fatal neglect or abuse) and infrequent inspections (required once every five years). state rules have been broadened to allow people with "virtually any medical condition" to reside in assisted living facilities, yet the division of the department that monitors those operations "has no staff with medical expertise." more »
