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22 Jan, 4 tweets, 2 min read
Microsoft held an employee town hall today. I obtained a copy of Microsoft President Brad Smith's remarkably candid explanation of why Microsoft will continue to fund politicians whose conduct is completely at odds with the company's stated values notes.pinboard.in/u:maciej/90342…
Picture of Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella with an unidentified Windows user from Queens
One reason we're talking about Microsoft here is that their leaders are at least willing to engage with employees about the PAC. Not so at Google, Facebook, or Amazon, whose political giving is even less defensible. Employees have the power to defund all this and should use it
A while back I compiled this long list of Microsoft's public statements on issues like immigration, climate, and LGBTQ rights, juxtaposed with their actual political giving idlewords.com/microsoft_word…

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29 Oct 20
Ranked choice voting is an amazing electoral innovation that lets you mark one of the two major party candidates as your “first choice” instead of voting for them outright.
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28 Oct 20
Be honest with me: does the bay leaf even do anything?
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27 Oct 20
A thread on how record fundraising has crippled a bunch of Democratic campaigns, which also ties in to people's question "can candidates do anything useful with donations a week before the election?" TL;DR no one can afford to pay for pre-reserved ad time because of Senate races
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27 Oct 20
A thread expressing some concerns I have, too. I think a lot of the articles about the genius of Biden's low-key approach to campaigning are being too clever by half, and the vital lessons of Brexit and 2016 (things can move quickly in the last week) have not been absorbed
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27 Oct 20
It's a week before the election! A thread on where your money is still useful: First off, two House races in rural Maine and northwest Iowa with a record of overperforming in rural votes, both in states where we need every vote we can get to win the Senate secure.actblue.com/donate/great_s…
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27 Oct 20
A nice thing about agricultural areas of Nebraska and Iowa is that the grocery stores have the usual timid "ethnic foods" aisle with ramen noodles and the like, but also a separate and well-stocked "EXTREMELY MEXICAN" section, both in the produce and dry goods departments
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