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.
Women Firefighters Face High Exposure to Toxic ‘Forever Chemicals’ Known to Interfere with Immune and Endocrine Functions and Breast Development
In 2012, Lt. Heather Buren, along with colleagues from the San Francisco Firefighters Cancer Prevention Foundation (SFFCPF) noticed an alarming trend: In that year alone, five female firefighters were diagnosed with breast cancer. “We started asking questions, wondering what was up,” said Buren, co-author of the paper. “Cancer wasn’t new to our profession, but for the first time, I was thinking about cancer as an occupational disease: Was fighting fire somehow a contributing factor in my friends getting sick? Were our repeated exposures to toxic burning chemicals on the fire ground a factor to the high breast cancer rates among SFFD women firefighters?” more »
*GAO SCIENCE & TECH SPOTLIGHT: Coronaviruses: "They can cause respiratory issues, such as pneumonia, and are believed to be one cause of the common cold"
What is it? While the outbreak of COVID-19 in China has brought the term coronavirus into daily usage, coronaviruses can vary in severity. They can cause respiratory issues, such as pneumonia, and are believed to be one cause of the common cold. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), most people will be infected by a coronavirus at some point in their lifetimes. As of March 2020, seven coronaviruses have been identified that can cause illness in humans. Most infections result in mild to moderate symptoms, such as runny nose, headache, cough, sore throat, fever, and a run-down feeling. Coronaviruses are most commonly transmitted by coughing, sneezing, person-to-person contact, and touching objects that have viral particles on them, according to CDC. The best prevention is washing hands with soap and avoiding contact with people who are sick or work in quarantine areas. Current treatment methods are limited, and research is being fast-tracked to develop a vaccine against existing and emerging coronaviruses. more »
It's a Whole New World! Where Am I? What Day Is it? Never Mind That, What Century Is It?
Rose Madeline Mula writes: Another oddity — everyone today walks around clutching a water bottle in one hand and a tiny, flat, rectangular object that they claim is a telephone in the other. Huh? If that’s a telephone, no wonder they have no idea what we mean when we tell the to “hang up the phone” or if we complain that the phone is “ringing off the hook.” They are also baffled when we talk about “dialing” a number. But then we are equally bewildered when they complain that someone has “ghosted” them or they describe something as “dope” or “lit.” If these kids were transported back to the past, they would be lost. Literally. No GPS back then.
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Updated: COVID-19: CDC Press Briefing Transcript, Friday, February 28, 2020; How A 'Drive-through' Testing Facility in London Works
Dr. Nancy Messonnier: Good afternoon, thank you for joining us today. Since I last briefed you, there has been one new case of COVID-19 detected through the U.S. public health system. As has been widely reported, at this time we don’t know how or where this person became infected. This brings the number of confirmed cases of person-to-person spread in the United States to 3. We also have confirmed 2 more people who have tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19 among U.S. citizens repatriated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship. That brings the total number of people with COVID-19 to 44 among this group of people. more »
