Relationships and Going Places
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.
The Horror; A “Vacuum Bomb"; Do You Remember the First Time You Heard the Term 'Atomic Bomb'?
"Thermobarics have extremely limited utility against military targets; their primary use has been against civilian areas. They still fall far short of nuclear weapons. A better comparison for thermobarics is to incendiary munitions, cluster munitions and barrel bombs. There is a legal argument that thermobaric weapons may be prohibited under the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons if they count under Protocol III: Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons, but they are not explicitly listed. Further, since the United States also keeps them in its military inventory, it is unlikely that they will be explicitly listed or that there will be a treaty banning their use." more »
Kaiser Health News: Biden’s Promise of Better Nursing Home Care Will Require Many More Workers
CMS has rebuffed requests to mandate higher staffing levels in the past, saying each facility should “make thoughtful, informed staffing plans.” But multiple examinations — including a thorough CMS study in 2001 — have concluded staffing levels are frequently inadequate, particularly on nights and weekends. Studies have found that homes with higher staffing levels have fewer patient injuries. The 2001 study set a standard that many nursing homes currently don’t meet, saying optimal care required roughly one staffer for every seven short-stay patients — like those recovering from a hospital stay — and one staffer for every six long-stay residents. more »
National Archives Virtual Daytime Programs in March; Celebrating Women’s History Month
One example of the programs available: Book Talk – Female Genius: Eliza Harriot and George Washington at the Dawn of the Constitution, Tuesday, March 8, at 1 p.m. ET; Register in advance; watch on the National Archives YouTube Channel; Mary Sarah Bilder looks to the 1780s — the age of the Constitution — to investigate the rise of a radical new idea in the English-speaking world: female genius. English-born Eliza Harriot Barons O’Connor delivered a University of Pennsylvania lecture attended by George Washington as he and other Constitutional Convention delegates gathered in Philadelphia. As the first such public female lecturer, her courageous performance likely inspired the gender-neutral language of the Constitution. more »
Drug Candidate Designed by NIH Scientists Reduced Brain Inflammation, Protected Against Cognitive Decline in Alzheimer’s Mouse Model
"After four months of treatment with DP (3,6’-dithiopomalidomide), the mice showed reduced brain inflammation and neuron death, and they had more neural connections in the brain areas responsible for memory and attention. DP-treated mice also showed improvement in behavioral laboratory tasks that test spatial and working memory as well as anxiety behaviors and motor function, results the researchers see as protective against cognitive impairment." more »
