Also worth context here that Stagwell is set up like another major holding company. They own Targeted Victory (R) and SKDKnickerbocker (D) as their two pillars in DC/public affairs/campaign comms. They also own other non-political communications companies.
I’m always struck by US Grant in this regard. Suffering of debilitating cancer of throat, but convinced by Mark Twain and others his memoirs would bring financial benefit to his family after a failed business post presidency. He completed them and died a few days later, his final mission for his family.
Leaving aside the merits/legality, I think the actual concern is students broadly traveling over the about to occur spring break, and then turning entire campuses into active outbreak clusters when everyone we returns within the incubation/transmission period.
It is also possible that 2% is an overestimate. Unlike SARS for example, it seems many infected, some estimates of 80%, may not even exhibit outward symptoms, like the high fever of SARS. This of course makes containment very difficult, maybe even impossible, to achieve.
This seems to suggest they won't recommend a product if they can't make an affiliate deal off of it, which is not the case. Yes, they make money through these links, but I've not seen a case of them not referring to a good product because it is not available on a store they have an affiliate deal with. And if the product is their chosen product and no affiliate deal is there, they link to the brand store or other retailer.
> This seems to suggest they won't recommend a product if they can't make an affiliate deal off of it, which is not the case.
It goes beyond and deeper than that.
Affiliate-based ad-model is beholden to Amazon for revenue. If Amazon launches their own review site (ex: leveraging the Washington Post brand, as a hypothetical), then you can almost be assured that Wirecutter would be killed off. All Amazon has to do is stop paying paid affiliate-links and instead offer review services through Washington Post (and ONLY Washington Post).
We're beyond the point of simply having websites "function". We're at the stage of the internet where we need to consider how to build web-businesses / web-organizations that last for longer than 10 years, even in the face of unknown changes. Too many websites make short-term assumptions (such as "We can trust Amazon to keep giving us money perpetually"), and end up getting swallowed or shut-down as soon as those assumptions fail.
True: Amazon Affiliate links still are a decent source of money. But just two years ago, most people probably thought that Google Adsense money was good enough to be sustainable also. The collapse of the banner-ad money (as money has shifted to Youtube ads instead) has especially hit online sites (especially those without a Youtube presence) extremely hard.
I see you in multiple places on this thread with comments like these. So here's something to consider, Lyme Disease is actually not at all that prevalent in the South. https://www.cdc.gov/lyme/stats/maps.html
Where it is prevalent, this is standard good advice, advice that we even taught in the BSA 18 years ago in the NE. Lyme is a really nasty thing to get, and not everyone even realizes they were bit, or is symptomatic at first. My case was when I was 15, worked at a camp, got bit, came out before I could notice, no rash. At some point later that summer came down with flu like symptoms, which went away in a standard flu timeframe.
Two months later I had extreme fatigue, I'm talking couldn't stay awake longer than 6 hours. Luckily a blood test confirmed it, but not before it had spread to my spinal fluid, requiring two hospitalizations, over 30 days of IV antibiotics and additional treatment.
So perhaps what works for you down South doesn't work where this is an issue, and hopefully it won't ever be something you or your neighbors need to worry about the way we do.
I would see it differently: The current logic and trajectory of McConnell's several Congresses as a leader would suggest the exact opposite. That if he believes his time as leader is short that he will push through more nominations and other policies as he can under reconciliation in service of his donor class and long standing political beliefs, it doesn't help him to give the other party any policy wins. Bipartisan achievements are likely to come only as conditions for Democratic votes necessary to maintain operation of government funding.
