Articles
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.
Artifacts Meet Activists: Back to Houston For the 40th Anniversary of the 1977 IWY Conference
Jo Freeman writes: Forty years ago over 20,000 people gathered in Houston, Texas to celebrate International Women's Year (IWY) and identify goals for women for the next decade. On November 6 and 7, 2017, a few hundred people gathered at the University of Houston to celebrate the 40th anniversary of that conference. It was not sponsored by the federal government, though some would argue that today's federal government made it necessary. Speakers discussed what happened in 1977, what didn't happen, what should have happened, and what it all meant. more »
In States, the Estate Tax Nears Extinction: Countering Arguments That Eliminating the Estate Tax Was a Gift to the Wealthy
The New Jersey tax compromise included a 23-cents-per-gallon hike in the gas tax, bringing it to 37.5 cents a gallon. The legislation also cut $1.4 billion in other taxes, including income taxes on elderly residents who can now exempt the first $100,000 of retirement income (a couple) from state income tax. Supporters said the tax break for middle-income seniors was a way to counter arguments that eliminating the estate tax was a gift to the wealthy. New Jersey took in nearly $320 million in estate taxes in 2014. The increase in the gas tax is expected to raise more than $1 billion a year. more »
About A Third Of Americans Unaware Of Obamacare Open Enrollment
In the previous open-enrollment season, 12.2 million people nationwide selected individual market plans through the marketplaces. The number dropped off during the year because not everyone paid and some found coverage elsewhere. Forty-five percent of all respondents to the KFF survey and 52 percent who said they were uninsured said they have heard less about open enrollment this year compared to previous years. Insurers are trying to pick up some of the challenges of publicizing enrollment, and some of those ads are getting noticed. more »
Not My Parents' Church: It's Saturday Mass and I'm Wearing Slacks and Sneakers! No Hat! Not Even a Lace Square Pinned to My Head!
Rose Madeline Mula writes: The church I attend these days isn't the Roman Catholic Church of my parents — or even of my youth. No, despite my profound disgust with the pedophile priests horror and the Church’s anti-woman and anti-gay leaning, I haven't converted to another religion. But if the 20-year-old me were to come back to visit me today, she would be sure I had defected.
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