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.
Two Reports: Women Veterans Confront Intimate Partner Violence; GAO Reports VHA Improved Certain Prescribing Practices, but Needs to Strengthen Treatment Plan Oversight
Women Veterans who have experienced IPV: “VA can help.” According to the VA Women’s Health Services Office, one third of women Veterans experience IPV in their lifetime, compared with less than a quarter of civilian women. Another story is from VA Officials from the five selected Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers with whom GAO spoke with reported various factors that contribute to providers' mental health treatment decisions, including decisions regarding the prescribing of psychotropic medications and the offering of non-pharmacologic therapy. In addition, a VA study found that a form of brain stimulation that can rapidly improve communication between neurons in the brain helped ease PTSD symptoms. more »
Updated With Events Calendar: Apollo Mission Control Room and the 50th Anniversary of the First Astronauts Who Set Foot on the Moon: "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind"
On July 20, 1969, American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin set foot on the lunar surface – the first men on the moon. The US space agency, NASA, is celebrating the 50th anniversary of this historic event in style – by restoring and reopening the control room that handled the historic Apollo 11 mission. Today it is a museum, but it looks every bit alive and real as it did in 1969, as though engineers and scientists just stepped away for a moment. Lesia Bakalets visited the control room. Anna Rice narrates her story. more »
Rembrandt's The Night Watch Condition Is Being Investigated; The Painting Has Been the Highlight of the Rijksmuseum Collection Since 1808
Rembrandt’s group portrait of officers and other civic guardsmen of District 2 in Amsterdam under the command of Captain Frans Banninck Cocq and Lieutenant Willem van Ruytenburch has been known since the 18th century as simply The Night Watch. It is the artist’s most ambitious painting. One of Amsterdam’s 20 civic guard companies commissioned the painting for its headquarters, the Kloveniersdoelen, and Rembrandt completed it in 1642. It is Rembrandt’s only civic guard piece, and it is famed for the lively and daring composition that portrays the troop in active poses rather than the traditional static ones. more »
The Bodleian Library and Worldmapper Create a Cartogram Depicting Trump's Tweets and Countries that Dominate US President's Foreign Policy
Worldmapper, on behalf of the Bodleian Libraries, have analysed over 8,000 tweets since Trump was elected and created a cartogram that depicts which countries he has mentioned the most on Twitter. Trump has made 1,384 mentions of foreign countries. Russia tops the bill, with 297 mentions (21 per cent of all tweets mentioning foreign countries). North Korea (163), China (158), Mexico (99), Puerto Rico (47), Iran (47), Syria (44), Japan (43), Canada (39) and France (37) complete the Top ten. The cartogram is part of the Bodleian Libraries’ Talking Maps exhibition, which opened on 5 July 2019. more »