Welcome to Axis Pro Radha, where we take just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

Brought to you by Facebook. I'm Dan for Mac. On today's show, Dishing on a big telecom mega merger and what we actually remember from political debates.

But first, Nike flags in Arizona.

So the sneaker maker on Tuesday did yet another high dive into America's Culture Wars, pulling

sales of a commemorative July 4th sneaker whose design included the so-called Betsy Ross

flag.

That's the early version of the Stars and Stripes with just 13 stars in a circle used to

represent the 13 colonies present at the time of independence from Great Britain.

Now, the decision reportedly came after concerns were first raised by former NFL quarterback

and current Nike pitchman Colin Kaepernick, who believes the flag is a stark reminder of America's racist

past, in that slavery was still legal and ubiquitous at the time of its creation.

It's also possible that Kaepernick was put off because the Betsy Ross flag over the past several

years has been co-opted by various white supremacists and neo-Nazi groups in the U.S., something

Nike probably would have learned via a Google

search had it done one. Anyway, Nike's decision has predictably become a cable news and social

media firestorm, or maybe even a real firestorm, given the number of folks threatening

to burn the company's apparel. But perhaps the most consequential reaction came in Arizona,

where Republican Governor Doug

Deucey said he would pull state tax incentives from a Nike manufacturing plant that's set

to be built in the Phoenix suburb of Goodyear. This facility, which would have at least

505 full-time manufacturing jobs at an average salary of $48,000 per year had been announced just one day earlier this

past Monday, and now those jobs could be at risk. The bottom line here, this isn't just about

...