Sightings
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.
GAO* Report, Cybersecurity: National Institutes of Health Needs to Take Further Actions to Resolve Control Deficiencies and Improve Its Program
The National Institutes of Health's duties include researching infectious diseases and administering over $30 billion a year in research grants. NIH uses IT systems containing sensitive data to carry out its mission. This GAO report is a public version of our June 2021 report on NIH cybersecurity. The agency has taken actions intended to safeguard the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of its systems. However, we found many weaknesses related to identifying risks, protecting systems, and more. We have made 219 recommendations for improvements. NIH has partially implemented more than half and fully implemented about a third of them. more »
Jo Freeman Reviews: Gendered Citizenship: The Original Conflict Over the Equal Rights Amendment, 1920 – 1963
Jo Freeman Reviews: “All citizens are created equal but some or more equal than others” is the message of this book. Women are not the only unequal citizens in this country, but they are the most numerous. The Equal Rights Amendment was an attempt to bring real equality to women’s legal status after the 19th Amendment gave women the right, but not always the reality, to the franchise. Focusing on the first 40 years of the struggle for the ERA, DeWolf divides proponents and opponents into emancipationists and protectionists... Although this book is on the ERA, it does go into other laws that affected women, especially their employment opportunities. Read it as a general review of public policy on women, especially at the federal level. Then imagine how different things would have been if the ERA had been ratified several decades ago." more »
Stanford Medicine: COVID-19 Vaccine Effective in People Wth Cancer
The Moderna and Pfizer BioNTech vaccines prevented COVID-19 infection in cancer patients, particularly in those whose treatment concluded more than six months before vaccination, say researchers at Stanford, Harvard and the VA. The mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing infection in most cancer patients, according to a nationwide study of veterans diagnosed with cancer in the past decade. But the researchers found that some vaccinated patients, including those who had received therapies that suppressed their immune systems within the six months before vaccination, were less protected than their peers from COVID-19 infection for the duration of the study.
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The Stanford Center on Longevity: The New Map of Life
"In the United States, as many as half of today’s 5-year-olds can expect to live to the age of 100, and this once unattainable milestone may become the norm for newborns by 2050. Yet, the social institutions, norms and policies that await these future centenarians evolved when lives were only half as long and need updating. In 2018, The Stanford Center on Longevity launched an initiative called The New Map of Life, believing that one of the most profound transformations of the human experience calls for equally momentous and creative changes in the ways we lead these 100-year lives, at every stage." more »
