 |
| Brian Kemp |
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp won't be getting that tattoo of president Trump after all. The self-proclaimed cheerleader-in-chief has now tossed the Peach State's CEO under the bus.
Vying with Florida's Ron DeSantis for the title of worst governor of the year, Kemp thought he could score some brownie points from Trump after the president via Twitter urged the liberation of Virginia, Michigan and Minnesota, a trio led by Democratic governors.
Brian took the bait. Sadly, he failed to understand that Trump is "all hat and no cattle."
As the April 24 Georgia re-opening D-Day approached, Trump, per usual, covered his own tracks, claiming he disagrees with Kemp's reopening of tattoo parlors, bowling allies, hair salons, barber shops and massage places.
Good luck to the good people of Georgia, a state that has lost 872 people to COVID-19, including 36 people over the past 24 hours.
Most of those deaths occurred in metro Atlanta, which will be ground zero of Kemp's grand experiment.
Many Georgians must feel a sense of buyer's remorse with Kemp, who just found out this month that "the virus is now transmitting before people see signs."
Republican Kemp, who was Georgia's secretary of state, beat Stacey Abrams in the squeaker 2018 gubernatorial race amid charges of voter suppression.
Walt Disney Co. has cast its 100,000 "cast members" overboard as its suspends their pay to save $500M a month. The 70,000 Orlando workers are looking at $275 weekly unemployment checks for the next three months.
As a publicly traded company, Disney has a responsibility to its shareholders, but the company didn't touch the bonus programs of top management.
The $70B entertainment powerhouse, which earned $11B in fiscal 2019, also has a corporate reputation as the "happiest place on Earth."
New CEO Bob Chapek is certainly happy. He's in line for a annual bonus of "not less than 300 percent" of his $2.5M base salary. He also will receive a long-term incentive award of "not less than $15M." Chapek did agree to give up half of his salary.
Ex-CEO Bob Iger must be ecstatic after earning $47M last year and $65.6M in 2018.
Abigail Disney, granddaughter of company co-founder Roy, isn't very happy.
She blistered Disney's decision to keep executive bonuses intact while furloughing "the people who make the magic happen" in the company's amusement parks.
Though she does not have a role with the company, Disney said: "I am an heir. And I do carry this name with me everywhere. And I have a conscience which makes it very difficult for me to sit by when I see abuses taking place with that name attached to them."
Hats off to Harvard for its April 22 decision not to accept $9M in federal aid as part of the COVID-19 emergency relief package.
The university, which has the world's biggest endowment fund, initially justified the windfall due to expenses incurred from the epidemic. It then agreed to channel 100 percent of the aid to needy students, before throwing in the towel.
In its statement, Harvard said any criticism stemmed from "confusion" about the COVID-19 relief.
Please, spare us.
The only confusion about the whole affair is why would school with a $41B endowment fund and a 2019 $300M operating surplus grab the cash in the first place.
The North American "united bid" for the World Cup doesn't look so united these days... State Dept muzzles political speech as it investigates deporting an influential opponent of Iranian war... Wall Street Journal "discovers" corporate communications.
Momentum is building for nuclear power but public support is not guaranteed, according to a survey conducted by Ruder Finn... America First PR founder admits to assaulting a woman in a London tube station... If they knew their presence would disrupt the lives of thousands of people, neither Barack Obama nor George W. Bush would have attended the NBA Finals. They were not narcissists-in-chief. 
Ukraine struck PR gold as its launches drone attack on St. Petersburg oil depot ahead of 'Putin's Davos' designed to put a positive spin on Russia's economy that is reeling under the 'special military operation' that has cost the lives of more than 500K soldiers... Defense Secretary Hegseth ups war against reporters... Extremist government ministers marching in NYC Israel Day Parade further hurts the country's image. 
Cuba will make or break Secretary of State Marco Rubio's bid for the 2028 Republican presidential nomination... Ballard Partners and BGR Group push for justice for the family of Robert Levinson, who was abducted and vanished in Iran 19 years ago... Robert Daley, the pistol-packing larger-than-life PR guy who was PA chief for the NYPD, dies at 96.
Pope Leo's encyclical on dangers of AI has JD Vance rethinking his justification for Trump's war with Iran... Software tools remove guardrails on Google, Meta AI models that aim to protect against biological war, child sex abuse, stealing credit card info, reports the Financial Times... US tech sector drops nearly 100K jobs during first four months of the year.
