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.
National Portrait Gallery Presents “Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900–1939"
“By bringing the experiences of American women to the fore, ‘Brilliant Exiles’ provides a counternarrative to conventional histories of Americans in Paris that focus on the interwar period and the ‘Lost Generation’ of men such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald,” said curator Robyn Asleson. “The exhibition will highlight alternative approaches to modernism developed by women, as well as the enterprises through which they catalyzed creativity and forged interconnected communities.” "The exhibition reveals the dynamic role of portraiture in articulating the new identities that American women were at liberty to develop in Paris, with works by artists including Berenice Abbott, Alice Pike Barney, Romaine Brooks, Anne Goldthwaite, Loïs Mailou Jones, Henri Matisse, Isamu Noguchi, Pablo Picasso, Man Ray, Anne Estelle Rice, Augusta Savage, Edward Steichen, Alfred Stieglitz, Laura Wheeler Waring and Marguerite Zorach." more »
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Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco Deliver Remarks at ATF’s Inaugural Gun Violence Survivors’ Summit
"Today’s discussions and dedication of the Faces of Gun Violence Exhibit this afternoon reflect a deep and abiding commitment by the women and men of the ATF to victims and survivors of gun violence. I’m grateful to the ATF and to all of you for being here — especially those who have lost loved ones to gun violence. Your presence honors their memory and fuels our fight for a better, safer future. The community gathered today shares a powerful bond. You are survivors. You are advocates. You are members of law enforcement. You call different places home and you come from different walks of life. But together, you’re bound by extraordinary courage. Your lives have been transformed by gun violence – but you are not defined by it.
You share a commitment — to turn your pain into purposeful action — doing everything you can to prevent another family from enduring the same loss."
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Ferida Wolff's Backyard: Vee-ing Across the Sky
"Previous studies found that birds can use less than 20 to 30 percent of energy. According to a 1970 paper, in a V formation of 25 members, each bird can achieve a reduction of induced drag and as a result increase their range by 71%. In a 2001 Nature study, researchers used trackers on pelicans and yielded the results that pelicans flying alone have higher heart rate and flap their wings more frequently compare to those flying in V formation." more »
Women's Congressional Policy Institute: Ensuring Equity for Women Veterans at the VA, Missing Children’s Assistance Reauthorization Act of 2023
Child Protection: The House is scheduled to consider S. 2051, the Missing Children’s Assistance Reauthorization Act of 2023; Hearing: “The Role of Child Care Small Businesses in Supporting Parents and the American Workforce;” On Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs will hold a hearing, “Caring for All Who Have Borne the Battle: Ensuring Equity for Women Veterans at the VA. Child Protection: The House is scheduled to consider S. 2051, the Missing Children’s Assistance Reauthorization Act of 2023, with an amendment to broaden the definition of child sexual abuse material, expand the AMBER alert system, and create additional reporting processes. Hearings: Child Care - The Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee will hold a hearing, “The Role of Child Care Small Businesses in Supporting Parents and the American Workforce.” Veterans - On Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs will hold a hearing, “Caring for All Who Have Borne the Battle: Ensuring Equity for Women Veterans at the VA.” more »
