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| Anthony Fauci |
Has Donald Trump totally lost his mind? Or is a case of COVID-19 “brain fog?" The president's squabble with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the most revered figure on Team Trump, is not exactly a smart PR move.
Millions of Americans turn to the 79-year-old doctor for the unvarnished truth about the threat posed by COVID-19, which the infected tweeter-in-chief still maintains will just disappear though the virus is spiking across the US.
America’s top infectious disease expert is enraged that Trump’s campaign used him in one of their ads as apparently endorsing the president’s efforts to fight the virus. That would only be true on opposite day.
“I can’t imagine that anybody could be doing more,” said Fauci in the ad. That reference was to the COVID-19 task force, not the COVID-19 denier-in-chief.
The doctor, who has never endorsed a candidate in his 50 years of government service, told the president to knock it off, saying it would be “outrageous” and “terrible,” if he popped in another spot.
He darkly warned Trump that if he was featured in another ad that it would “come back to backfire.”
Of course, Fauci's threat is like waving a red cape at a charging bull. You can bet Fauci will make a return appearance in the campaign. When it comes to COVID-19, what else does Trump have going for him?
What could the good doctor do in response? He isn’t thinking of quitting his post. “Not a chance,” he told The Daily Beast. “Not in my wildest freakin’ dreams, “did I ever think about quitting.”
How about ratcheting it up to DefCon1 and endorsing Joe Biden?
That be a great way for Fauci to gain a measure of revenge for Trump’s depraved indifference to the scientific recommendations made to counter COVID-19, which has killed more than 215K Americans.
Trump 'foxconns' Wisconsin... Trump used the East Room of the White House on July 26, 2017 to announce with great fanfare that Taiwan’s Foxconn planned to invest $10B for a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant to provide LCD panel products in southern Wisconsin.
It was all a scam.
Engineered by presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner, the plant was pitched as major coup in regaining America’s place in advanced electronics manufacturing.”
“Foxconn joins a growing list of industry leaders who understand that America’s capabilities are limitless and that America’s workers are unmatched, and that America’s most prosperous days are just ahead,” crowed the president.
On June 28, Trump and his entourage traveled to the Foxconn site in Mount Pleasant to take a victory lap. He personally took credit for the plant, saying Foxconn would have built it elsewhere had not Trump been president.
Trump pitched it as part of his “America First” agenda. The facility, which promised to create 13K jobs, was to be constructed with “beautiful” American steel and concrete.
Wisconsin’s then-governor Scott Walker promised to kick in $4B in tax credits for the facility, which was to wrapped up in red, white and blue.
The Foxconn plant was just another empty promise made by the president.
The Badger State pulled the tax credits on Oct. 12 because Foxconn failed to meet its promised job levels during the past two years.
It has only 281 people eligible for tax credits after spending only $300M for capital expenditures.
“The factory has become a symbol of failed promises in Midwestern states like Wisconsin that were key to Trump’s 2016 election and are now closely watched swing states in the Republican’s bid to be re-elected on Nov. 3,” reports Reuters.
Make America Great Again flopped in Mount Pleasant. I hope the good people of Wisconsin won't get fooled again by our carnival barker leader on Election Day.
Working remotely is taking a toll on productivity at Google, according to an internal survey that found only 31 percent of its engineering staff report high productivity levels.
Conducted at the end of the June, at-home productivity slipped eight points from a survey in March, according to the tech website, The Information.
Michael Bachman, head of engineering productivity, called the data “relevant for all teams across the company.”
In July, Google CEO Sundar Pichai extended the work from home option from the end of year though the second-half of 2021 to give employees that ability to plan ahead.
"I hope this will offer the flexibility you need to balance work with taking care of yourselves and your loved ones over the next 12 months,” he wrote in an email to staffers.
Many tech firms followed Google lead on the work at home option. As productivity slips, will they revisit their policies.
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