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| Richard, Renée and Mike Edelman |
Congratulations to Richard Edelman, who followed in his father Dan’s footsteps in winning the Publicity Club of Chicago’s Lifetime Achievement Award on Oct. 4. Dan scooped up PCC’s inaugural award in 2003.
PCC president Dominic Calabrese called the Edelmans Chicago’s first family of PR.
“What the Daleys are to politics, the Pritzkers to philanthropy, the Fields to retailing and the McCormicks to agribusiness and journalism, they are to public relations,” he said.
Edelman said the smartest decision that his family ever made was to stay independent, focused on results for clients instead of financial returns for shareholders.
He paid tribute to his late mother Ruth and his sister Renée and brother John, who play important roles in preserving the firm’s history and ensuring its future through sustainability commitments.
Edelman said his daughters Margot, Tory and Amanda are prepared to take the company forward into the future as they are working hard to learn the business on the front lines.
They have big shoes to fill.
Biden risks it all. It’s either Joe Biden’s excessive pride or downright stubbornness that prevents him from coming to grips with the simple fact that he is too old to run for another term in office.
Biden, 80, has accomplished more than any other president since FDR, yet he recklessly puts that legacy at risk.
By running again, future historians may overlook his achievements on climate change, infrastructure, uniting US allies in defense of Ukraine and restoring decency to America’s government, and instead profile him as a desperate politician who tried to cling to power.
The president has just experienced the loss of 90-year-old Sen. Diane Feinstein, whom he called a “cherished friend.”
Though a trailblazer in the areas of environmental protection, reproductive rights, gun control, and the first woman to head the Senate Intelligence Committee, Feinstein will be remembered for overstaying her usefulness in office.
Biden’s “I know best” attitude also is evident in the saga of his German shepherd, Commander.
CNN reported that Commander has been involved in more biting incidents than the 11 reported by the Secret Service.
Team Biden has made various excuses for the dog (e.g., Secret Service agents wear sun glasses and are fidgety, making Commander nervous) before finally removing him from the White House.
The president’s loyalty to the dog is admirable, but his refusal to admit that Commander has a biting problem posed a threat to the health and safety of the Secret Service.
It also was a sign of presidential hubris.
There is still time for Biden to face the facts and open the Democratic presidential nomination race to the party’s next generation of leadership.
The ramifications of the lying, fraudster, grifter Donald Trump defeating Biden in 2024 would be a horror for the US and the world.
And Biden would have to bear that heavy burden for the rest of his days.
Kenny isn’t cutting it. TikTok has been running a TV ad featuring retired 80-year-old Navy vet “Patriotic Kenny” to divert attention that the platform is owned by China’s ByteDance.
Festooned with US flags, the ad tells how Kenny became depressed when his electric scooter broke down, but was able to raise $5K to fix it once his plight was posted on TikTok.
That sum soon ballooned to $110K and 1M followers for Kenny, who now provides mobility scooters for veterans.
That tale doesn’t exactly warm the hearts of Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn.
They fear the recent replacement of American executives at TikTok with ByteDance people from China calls into question the independence of TikTok and the security of its US users’ information.
The Senators sent a letter on Oct. 3 to TikTok CEO Shou Ze Chew, asking for the security protocols on ByteDance employees that transfer from China to the US.
They also should ask whether Kenny will soon don the uniform of the People’s Liberation Army.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gets it wrong... New York governor Kathy Hochul’s decision to take a one-year pause in permitting data centers is a winning issue for her... JD Vance fails to bail out Trump from the mess that he created.
JPMorganChase chief Jamie Dimon warns of lurking risks that could upend Wall Street's gravy train... Iran foreign minister praises Trump's looney "guardian of the Strait" idea... State Dept. scolds NYC's international affairs unit for overplaying its hand... Historian Timothy Snyder graciously puts his '"Hitler and Stalin" lecture series online to alert people that "it" could happen here.
New York mayor Zohran Mamdani, an outspoken critic of Israel, is more popular among American Jews than prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu... Donald Trump is the first leader since Benito Mussolini in 1934 to intervene publicly in his national team’s favor... It's surprising that JD Vance hardly uses the word "Catholic" in his memoir about his conversion to Catholicism.
President Trump killed much of the positive PR that the US has enjoyed as one of the co-hosts of the World Cup... Pride in the US sinks to 25-year low, Gallup finds... White House trashes Smithsonian's US History Museum as the MAGA version of un-American.
Donald Trump claims we are all profiting from Wall Street's rising prices, but the billion-dollar president sure did a lot better than the rest of us... Venezuela hopes the $300M in US reconstructiion aid will follow the same growth trajectory as the White House's East Wing ballroom project.
