Tag: taxes

World Health Organization Hires PR Firm to Find Celebrity Influencers to Counter Negative Publicity

Under fire from President Trump for its botched handling of the coronavirus pandemic, the World Health Organization has reached out to a high powered PR firm with the mission to find celebrity influencers who can sing the praises of the embattled United Nations agency and boost its public image.

The WHO signed a $135,000 contract on May 1 with Hill + Knowlton Strategies to reach out to influencers of all stripes, including celebrities with more than 1 million followers on social media, according to documents filed this week to the Justice Department.

Hill + Knowlton outlined a plan of action in its proposal that was included in the filing.

“There has been criticism and assertions leveled against the World Health Organization (WHO) and media coverage that could undermine WHO as a trusted and critical information source on global public health issues,” the PR firm wrote. The objective is to “ensure there is trust in the WHO’s advice and that public health guidance is followed.”

In addition to celebrity influencers, Hill + Knowlton said that it will identify “microinfluencers” who have smaller, niche followings, as well as lesser known people such as health experts who appear on news programs.

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Obscene federal ‘diversity training’ scam prospers — even under Trump

Critical race theory — the far-left academic discourse centered on the concepts of “whiteness,” “white fragility” and “white privilege” — is coursing through the federal government’s veins. Under a GOP ­administration, no less.

Last month, a private diversity-consulting firm conducted a training titled “Difficult Conversations About Race in Troubling Times” for several federal agencies. The training called on white employees at the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the National Credit Union Administration and the Office of the Comptroller to pledge “allyship [sic] amid the ­George Floyd Tragedy.”

According to a trove of whistleblower documents I’ve reviewed, the training begins with the premise that “virtually all white people contribute to racism” and hold narratives that “don’t support the dismantling of racist institutions.” Therefore, the trainers argue, white federal employees must “struggle to own their racism” and “invest in race-based growth.”

The trainers then ask “white managers” to create “safe spaces,” where black employees can explain “what it means to be black” and to be “seen in their pain.” White staffers are instructed to keep silent and to “sit in the discomfort” of their racism. If any conflicts arise, the trainers ­insist that whites “don’t get to decide when someone is being too emotional, too rash [or] too mean.” Whites are told they can’t protest if a person of color “responds to their oppression in a way [they] don’t like.”

Howard Ross, the consultant who created the training, has been a fixture in what might be called the ­diversity-industrial complex. Since 2006, he has billed the feds more than $5 million for trainings.

In 2011, he billed the General Services Administration $3 million for “consulting services.” NASA coughed up $500,000 for “power and privilege sexual-orientation workshops.”

It is somewhat distasteful but crucially important to note that Ross is a white man. He has a bachelor’s degree in history but pitches himself as an expert in “neuro-cognitive and social-science research” and has spent the past three decades selling the ­unscientific snake oil of “unconscious bias.”

The irony: Ross has used his own privilege to enrich himself at taxpayer expense. In the language of his own discourse, he has monetized collective black pain to create individual white profit.

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