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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.
Welcome to TDI-11861: NIH-funded Team Contraceptive Disables Sperm; More Work is Still Needed Before Human Clinical Trials Could Begin
"An NIH-funded team of researchers, led by Drs .Jochen Buck and Lonny Levin at Weill Cornell Medicine, pn and fertility. Their findings appeared in Nature Communications on February 14, 2023. A variety of tests in mice didn’t identify any potential safety issues with TDI-11861. The team then treated male mice with a single dose of TDI-11861 before allowing them to mate with females. The treated mice showed no differences in mating behavior from untreated mice. But the sperm from treated mice lost the ability to move on their own. Sperm remained immobile after being deposited in the female reproductive tract..." "Men produce several million sperm per day — about 1,000 per second. To prevent pregnancy, all of these need to be stopped from reaching an egg." more »
Kaiser Health News and NPR, Surprise-Billing Law Loophole: When ‘Out of Network’ Doesn’t Quite Mean Out of Network
The Takeaway: More than a year after the federal surprise-billing law took effect, patients can still get hammered by surprise bills resulting from health plans’ limited provider networks and ambiguities about what is considered emergency medical care. The loopholes are out there, and patients ... are just discovering them. Washington state Rep. Marcus Riccelli, chair of the House Health Care and Wellness Committee, said he will ask the state’s public and private insurers what steps they could take to avoid provider network gaps and out-of-network billing surprises like this. He said he will also review whether there is a loophole in state law that needs to be closed by the legislature. Fiedler said policymakers need to consider addressing what looks like a major gap in the new laws protecting consumers from surprise bills, since it’s possible that other insurers across the country have similar contracts with hospitals. “Potentially this is a significant loophole, and it’s not what lawmakers were aiming for,” he said. Congress might have to fix the problem, since the federal agencies that administer the No Surprises Act may not have authority to do anything about it. more »
Jo Freeman Reviews: The Moment: Changemakers on Why and How They Joined the Fight for Social Justice
Jo Freeman Reviews: After publishing his last book in 1921, based on memories and interviews with civil rights icon C.T. Vivian, Steve Fiffer wanted to do more like it. He felt that many lesser-known people had stories that needed to be told. His publisher concurred. It does help to start with an interested publisher. At that time it was NewSouth books. By the time the book came out in November 2022, NewSouth had become an imprint of the University of Georgia Press.
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Kaiser Health News*: May 11th Era of ‘Free’ Covid Vaccines, Test Kits, and Treatments Is Ending. Who Will Pay the Tab Now?
"Medicare beneficiaries, those enrolled in Medicaid — the state-federal health insurance program for people with low incomes — and people with" Affordable Care Act coverage will continue to get Covid vaccines without cost sharing, even when the public health emergency ends and the government-purchased vaccines run out. Many people with job-based insurance will also likely not face copayments for vaccines, unless they go out of network for their vaccinations. People with limited-benefit or short-term insurance policies might have to pay for all or part of their vaccinations. And people who don’t have insurance will need to either pay the full cost out-of-pocket or seek no- or low-cost vaccinations from community clinics or other providers. If they cannot find a free or low-cost option, some uninsured patients may be forced to skip vaccinations or testing." more »
