What's New
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 Outlook, Uncertainty, and Monetary Policy; Janet Yellen's Speech to the Economic Club of New York
"The labor market has added an average of almost 230,000 jobs a month over the past three months. In addition, the unemployment rate has edged down further, more people are joining the workforce as the prospects for finding jobs have improved, and the employment-to-population ratio has increased by almost 1/2 percentage point. The housing market continues its gradual recovery, and fiscal policy at all levels of government is now modestly boosting economic activity after exerting a considerable drag in recent years." more »
Designing Identity: The Power of Textiles in Late Antiquity
The Late Antique textile owners, in choosing from a vast repertory of motifs, represented the prosperity and well-being of their households. The owners represented themselves through the distinctively gendered imagery of manly and womanly virtues in mythological and Christian subjects so that in these textiles, we see distinctly personal manifestations of the religious transformation of the Roman Empire into a Christian Empire. more »
Reproductive Rights Back Before the Court: Should Health Plans Offer Contraceptive Coverage?
Jo Freeman writes: Rules written by the Department of Health and Human Services for the ACA provided a way for religious organizations, such as universities, hospitals and social service groups, to opt-out of providing coverage by notifying their insurer or the government that their religious beliefs preclude contraceptive coverage. more »
Eight Presidents Who Shaped America's Public Lands: From the Roosevelts to Barack Obama
Consider the legacies of eight presidents who made a difference in American conservation. For one, Theodore Roosevelt created five national parks, 18 national monuments, 51 bird sanctuaries, began the National Wildlife Refuge system and set aside 100 million acres for national forests. Another Roosevelt, FDR, put millions of people to work under the CCC building infrastructure in national parks and forests, planting billions of trees, building roads and trails, and combating soil erosion. Obama has established 22 national monuments and expanded others to set aside more than 265 million acres of land and water — that’s more than any other president. more »