Sightings
Jo Freeman: Fourth Dispatch from the RNC -- Largely on Things To Do At The Convention
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.
Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll – August 2017: The Politics of ACA Repeal and Replace Efforts
About 10.3 million people have health insurance that they purchased through the ACA exchanges or marketplaces, where people who don’t get insurance through their employer can shop for insurance and compare prices and benefits. Seven in ten (69 percent) say it is more important for President Trump and Republicans' next steps on health care to include fixing the remaining problems with the ACA in order to help the marketplaces work better, compared to three in ten (29 percent) who say it is more important for them to continue plans to repeal and replace the ACA. more »
From Harvard Medical School, Via the Maryland Office of the Chief Medical Examiner: Murder Is Her Hobby, Frances Glessner Lee and The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death
Murder Is Her Hobby: Frances Glessner Lee and The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death explores the surprising intersection between craft and forensic science. Frances Glessner Lee (1878 1962) crafted her extraordinary Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death exquisitely detailed miniature crime scenes to train homicide investigators to "convict the guilty, clear the innocent, and find the truth in a nutshell." These dollhouse-sized diorama composites of true crime scenes helped revolutionize forensic science. more »
The Eclipse Megamovie Project: An App to Add Images for Lasting Photo Archive
UC Berkeley solar physicist Oliveros cautions that smart phones, cameras, binoculars or telescopes must also be protected by an eclipse filter, created either by cutting up eclipse glasses and taping the filter over the camera lens, or by buying a special sun-safe filter or a number 14 welder’s glass to mount over the objective lens. more »
National Institutes of Health Twitter Chat: The Importance of Clinical Trials and The Clinical Research Process
Discovery's three-part documentary, First in Human, which follows the experiences of patients, their families, doctors, researchers, staff, and caregivers at the NIH Clinical Center, will air on three sequential Thursday evenings: August 10, 17, and 24, at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT. To further educate the public about clinical research and the NIH, we are planning social media events around the three episodes. We invite you to join us in any of these events using #FirstinHuman: more »