Politics

Donald Trump clearly doesn’t watch CBS, because if he did, he’d be standing on a tarmac in front of a chopper, screaming about yesterday’s 60 Minutes report. For an interview with YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, the program found that Google and YouTube collected the Trump campaign’s money for more than 300 video ads before removing them days later. The evidence can be found in Google’s public database of political ads, a nutty and grim space that Michael Bloomberg is currently carpet bombing. Together, the Trump Make America Great Again Committee and Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. have spent over $12.7 million on Google and YouTube ads. Google doesn’t explain why it took down the ads, but perhaps it had something to do with its stated policy of prohibiting ads that espouse false claims, whether political or not. Advertisement So, the countdown to a fresh tantrum we’ll probably be hearing throughout the next year. A quick Twitter check … [Read more...] about Donald Trump to Freak Out About Political Ads on Google in 3, 2, 1

It’s long been taboo to discuss politics in the workplace, and as the national atmosphere becomes more politically charged, arguments have grown both for and against bringing political discussions to professional settings. The Onion looks at the pros and cons of talking politics at work. PRO Anything to kill a half hour. Important to know who you’d help during an emergency. Could use second set of eyes on manifesto. Less heated than talking about new Star Wars. It’s what MSNBC is paying you $7 million annually to do. CON Finally got your echo chamber just how you like it. Oof, Steven’s a libertarian. Could interfere with public image of Supreme Court as nonpartisan. Boss casually asking if we think Obama from Kenya already more than enough. Can’t afford to lose this job too. Advertisement … [Read more...] about Pros And Cons Of Talking Politics At Work

On the last day of its term, the nation’s highest court churned out two major rulings Let’s start with gerrymandering—that is, when a political party shapes the boundaries of an electorate so it favors them—which the Supremes already ruled could not be done on the basis of race. The question before them was whether political gerrymandering, that is, gaming political maps so they disproportionately benefited their parties—was just as unconstitutional. Advertisement In a decision splitting the court between its five On its face, the decision might seem like one of those “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” situations. After all, this ruling would apply equally to states run by Democrats as it would states where the GOP holds all the power. But therein lies the rub: Republicans have control over FAR MORE states than Democrats do. CNN, citing the National Conference of State Legislatures, reports that Republicans control … [Read more...] about SCOTUS Blocks Census Citizenship Question, but Rules Political Gerrymandering Constitutional

Film is a trickster’s medium, an illusion of an illusion. Though it purports to capture objective fact—as if holding it for ransom—there are few things as subjective as a frame. “It is said that the camera cannot lie,” wrote James Baldwin in The Devil Finds Work, “but rarely do we allow it to do anything else, since the camera sees what you point it at: the camera sees what you want it to see.” Gina Apostol’s novel Insurrecto is a tale of dual visions and dueling scripts, one written by an American filmmaker, Chiara Brasi, and the other by a Filipino writer and translator, Magsalin. Magsalin isn’t given a last name, and this reader suspects that her first is a fake one: magsalin, we are told, means to translate in Tagalog. She is what she does in the eyes of the white foreigner, what she does for her. Translation is a precarious occupation, a profession historically populated by people in slavery or servitude who, defeated by enemy … [Read more...] about The Fractured Politics of Naming

The crux of recent tension between Starbucks and Arizona’s Tempe Police Department occurred on July 4, but the aftermath is ongoing—and, shocking for 2019—incredibly civil. For those who missed the initial news, here is the CliffsNotes version: A group of six Tempe cops visited a Starbucks, and after receiving their orders, were asked by a barista to move or leave the store because they were making a customer uncomfortable. The officers chose to leave, but the Tempe Officers Association followed up with a statement that brought the encounter to national headlines. The tone of that initial statement was, overall, pretty friendly, even if it called the barista’s request that the officers leave “offensive”: “This treatment of public safety workers could not be more disheartening. While the barista was polite, making such a request at all was offensive. Unfortunately, such treatment has become all too common in 2019. We know this is not a national … [Read more...] about Everyone acting exceedingly polite in this Starbucks-cops kerfuffle