Google and YouTube have pulled hundreds of ads for Donald Trump over the last few months, according to 60 Minutes on CBS.

A review of the tech companies’ advertising archive found at least 300 Trump ads had been pulled from the platforms, mainly over the summer, after they had been found to violate advertising policies.

In an interview with 60 Minutes, YouTube chief executive officer Susan Wojcicki confirmed that there were “ads of President Trump that were not approved to run on Google or YouTube”.

Facebook, Google, YouTube and Twitter have faced scrutiny over political ads. In October Twitter announced it was banning political advertising on its platform. (Guardian – Continue Reading)

President Donald Trump has openly cheered for the impeachment process to move to the friendlier confines of the GOP-led Senate, but there may be some surprises in store for him on the way to a likely acquittal.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said it’s “inconceivable” at this point that the Senate will convict Trump on any articles of impeachment sent over from the House. It would take at least 20 Republican votes -- along with all Democrats -- to form the two-thirds majority required to remove Trump, and at present there are exactly zero.

McConnell and Trump, though, do have a different math problem. Call it the Rule of Four: it would take only four Republican defections to give Democrats an advantage in setting the rules for who testifies, how long the process goes on and other procedural steps that will set the tone and tempo for the trial.

That has potential to add drama to the proceedings, along with the prospect of court rulings, new witnesses or evidence that could alter the trajectory of the impeachment process. (Bloomberg – Continue Reading)

Angela Merkel’s coalition partner is turning leftwards, but that doesn’t mean Germany’s chancellor is poised to give into calls for a major fiscal stimulus.

While the shift at the helm of the Social Democrats will intensify calls for more spending, tight purse strings remain a red line for her own CDU party. Any more stimulus is likely to be incremental for now to avoid piling on debt, since a move to open the fiscal floodgates might lead Merkel’s side to abandon the coalition.

The country has faced increasing calls from the European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund this year to use the space it built up with its “black zero” balanced-budget policy to shore up Europe’s biggest economy. So far, Merkel and her SPD Finance Minister, Olaf Scholz, have said weak growth doesn’t justify that. A lot might still need to happen before that position shifts.

“The potential for a bigger fiscal stimulus is limited,” said Florian Hense, an economist at Berenberg Bank in London. “It’ll only change if there are new elections.” (Bloomberg – Continue Reading)