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Apple: no funding for 2016 GOP convention
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NewsPoster
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Jun 18, 2016, 05:27 PM
 
Apple, which is seen as a relatively minor political player compared to other tech firms, has opted out of supporting the Republican Party's 2016 presidential convention due to presumptive nominee Donald Trump's long string of racist, misogynist, and minority-bashing comments. A number of other tech and non-tech companies have also indicated they will not provide funding or other support for the convention as well -- HP had previously said it would skip the convention, and Microsoft has opted to cut back on its contribution. Most of the big tech players generally offer computers and cash to both of major party conventions.

Apple has done so in the past, even though the company as a whole has adopted -- under both co-founder Steve Jobs and present CEO Tim Cook -- a number of progressive positions on matters such as civil rights, marriage equality, spousal benefits, and education. Generally speaking, tech firms tend to evenly split their political donations and in-kind support for events like the convention equally among the two parties, and Apple (including Cook) has held events that feature meetings with both Democratic and GOP leaders and lawmakers.

This year, due to the sheer volume of inflammatory statements from Trump (who will even on occasion oppose things the mainstream GOP and tech companies are in favor of, such as attracting more skilled foreign tech workers to the US), Microsoft has said it will provide computers and other support, but will not offer any cash to fund the convention, reports Politico. Google and Facebook are presently going ahead with plans to other their usual funding and support to the GOP, despite protests from users, activists, and their own employees.



Trump, who previously called for a boycott of Apple products but then continued to use them, has also singled out the company over Apple's stance on user privacy and encryption. He has said previously that Apple and other tech companies should provide "backdoors" for law enforcement on demand, but has never addressed the larger implications of that position. Apple is alone among the major tech companies in its lack of a political action committee, although it does spend a (relatively modest) sum on political lobbying in Washington.

Civil rights and privacy activists have been putting pressure on tech and non-tech companies alike to stop their contributions to the GOP convention over Trump's positions and comments. "We want them to divest from hate. We want them to pull all their money and support," said Free Press Action Fund Field Director Mary Alice Crim. Because of Trump's very high negatives, there has been some open discussion among some Republican leaders of how to replace Trump with a more mainstream substitute candidate.

The Free Press Action Fund is one of many that opposes Trump due to his various positions that would restrict First Amendment press protections, as well as his claim that he would "reverse" the Supreme Court ruling on marriage equality, and various other comments that suggest he little regard or understanding of Constitutional civil rights. The group is encouraging tech firms in particular to be "thinking hard about where they put their brand, and whether they want to align their brand with racism, hatred and misogyny."
( Last edited by NewsPoster; Jun 18, 2016 at 05:47 PM. )
     
Stuke
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Jun 18, 2016, 09:26 PM
 
OK, so if Donald Trump is selected as the GOP nominee, now he'll truly have to buy the Whitehouse. Icing on the cake as I see it.
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prl99
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Jun 18, 2016, 11:48 PM
 
The sad thing about Trump and his followers is that many of the things he subscribes to are blatantly unconstitutional. I can see this in one person but to have all the people who support him and his ideals, that's what bothers me. Americans have tried to be tolerant of others over the course of our history but others regularly flush those ideals down the toilet. I'm glad Apple isn't supporting the Republicans this year and hope many Republicans don't end up supporting Trump. This election might finally break up our political parties and open a new chapter in the US.
     
ptklenk
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Jun 19, 2016, 03:39 AM
 
Another forum for more liberal nonsense . . . Trump is in favor of big business. How would you categorize Apple, as a small business. So, vote for Hillary, but unfortunately, the liberals forget her history. Does White Water ring a bell? What about the Clinton Foundation? And how about the Benghazi? Are you prepared to excuse her? Any recollection of email issues and secure servers? You people truly nauseate me.
     
bobolicious
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Jun 19, 2016, 09:38 AM
 
...neither leading candidate inspires from this beyond the border vantage, to the point where I question returning to a country I have enjoyed (and supported) with annual vacations for many years, and where I have met many kind, generous & friendly people...

Is a colonial mentality still viable in an ecologically collapsing global village...?

How can the country let this happen...?
     
Mike Wuerthele
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Jun 19, 2016, 10:21 AM
 
Originally Posted by ptklenk View Post
Another forum for more liberal nonsense . . . Trump is in favor of big business. How would you categorize Apple, as a small business. So, vote for Hillary, but unfortunately, the liberals forget her history. Does White Water ring a bell? What about the Clinton Foundation? And how about the Benghazi? Are you prepared to excuse her? Any recollection of email issues and secure servers? You people truly nauseate me.
Settle down. People in glass houses should only throw nerf rocks. Did you see any approval of a different candidate, because if you did, you're reading it wrong.

Trump is in favor of himself. Trump is a racist, and says a ridiculous amount of unconstitutional things. He also thinks that's he's being elected emperor or king of the US.

Hillary should be in jail for just the email thing, to say nothing of all the other things she's weaseled out of over the years.
     
Charles Martin
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Jun 19, 2016, 02:15 PM
 
It has to be pointed out that if Mr. Trump is "for big business," then you have to agree that so is Mrs. Clinton. If that is the basis of your support, then it is logical that you would want to vote for the candidate who is pro-business *and* not a racist (since the President must do what's right for all Americans). To do otherwise would be to admit that your real reason for support lies with your candidate's other distinguishing characteristic.
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Inkling
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Jun 19, 2016, 02:34 PM
 
Ah, seven years into the Obama administration and after endless troubles with the DOJ, Apple has finally learned what 'pay-to-pay' Chicago-machine politics means. If you want to avoid legal harrassment, you pay into the machine and not into its foes. That is what is happening here. Then you get to play, breaking the rules but not being punished Also, you might want to ask yourself a key question: why the national press has never raised the fact that Obama spent twenty years in the politics of the most corrupt city in the country without ever showing the slightest disdain for it. His first job as a Chicago lawyer was for a firm that specialized in getting slum lords off of rat-infested apartments.
Author of Untangling Tolkien and Chesterton on War and Peace
     
Charles Martin
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Jun 19, 2016, 04:53 PM
 
Um ... so your explanation of why most other companies are continuing to put money into both is ... oh wait, you don't have one.

The fact of the matter is that if the GOP had selected a mainstream candidate like George Pataki, Apple would be doing the same thing it has done every four years, like all these other companies that dropped out have done: providing money and support for the nominating convention for both parties. It didn't turn out that way, and I think a lot more companies are going to join that bandwagon (just since we wrote this story, a dozen more companies have dropped or limited their contribution to the GOP convention).

This has nothing to do with Chicago (the convention's in Cleveland, incidentally) and everything to do with a radioactive candidate that primarily appeals to a shrinking, impotent demographic: old, racist, white men.
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Waragainstsleep
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Jun 19, 2016, 07:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by ptklenk View Post
Another forum for more liberal nonsense . . . Trump is in favor of big business. How would you categorize Apple, as a small business. So, vote for Hillary, but unfortunately, the liberals forget her history. Does White Water ring a bell? What about the Clinton Foundation? And how about the Benghazi? Are you prepared to excuse her? Any recollection of email issues and secure servers? You people truly nauseate me.
People who "think" like this are everything wrong with the world.

I'll take a few misplaced emails over a racist bag of dicks like Trump any day of the week.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
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Jun 19, 2016, 07:44 PM
 
Could we move this thread into the Politics section?
     
Steve Wilkinson
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Jun 19, 2016, 09:16 PM
 
I love the photoshop work on Trump in that photo... (Watching the press deal with this political season has been, um, interesting... one could teach whole courses on media deconstruction based on it.)

But, yea, BOTH parties are currently full of unconstitutional actions and positions. At least Trump and Bernie have a bit of non-gov't-institution thing going on. Hillary, Obama, Bush... peas in a pod. Hillary is just, by far, the most corrupt of all of them.

As for Trump, I don't think he'd make a good president, but it's important to listen to what he's really saying, instead of what the press is saying he's saying. And, hold up his positions on a world-scale vs the 'progressive' liberal narrative. (ex: is building a wall crazy? maybe, maybe not. But you can bet walls are being built in Europe currently! Or, if you look at certain 'progressive' European countries and what's going on, they make Trump's 'racism' look relatively mild.)

But, more on-topic, Apple or it's leadership has put a ton of money and effort into 'progressive' (i.e.: liberal) causes. So, it's not exactly like there's even a hint of an attempt to be unbiased. So, this is pretty much a non-story.
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Charles Martin
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Jun 20, 2016, 03:24 AM
 
Originally Posted by Steve Wilkinson View Post
I love the photoshop work on Trump in that photo...
I cannot speak to that particular photo since I didn't take the photo, but I have seen live television coverage of Mr. Trump where he appears to be that colour, with eerie whiteness around his eyes. Like former Speaker Boehner, Mr. Trump appears to indulge in spray tans/artificial tanning.
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MitchIves
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Jun 20, 2016, 11:33 AM
 
This a mistake. Big corporations should keep their mouths shut when it comes to politics. It's things like this move by Apple that will have people calling for renewed investigations into Apple's tax practices, and it's offshore juggling of funds. As the moderators pointed out, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, and nobody uses more glass than Apple...
     
mbmoore6
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Jun 20, 2016, 12:39 PM
 
But I bet Hillary is as pure and clean as the wind-driven snow.
     
Spheric Harlot
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Jun 20, 2016, 12:43 PM
 
Trump isn't politics.

Apple has always been bipartisan in their support. Even the Republicans aren't supporting Trump, now that they've let him abuse their own party into nominating him.

If he does make it nobody who wants to be remembered fondly by history can afford to be associated with him.

(Eighty years later, IBM having supplied the machines used to organise the holocaust is *still* a touchy subject...)
     
Steve Wilkinson
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Jun 20, 2016, 06:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by Charles Martin View Post
I cannot speak to that particular photo...
Heh, yea, I wasn't blaming you guys. I'm sure most of the stock images of Trump out there are like that.

I just find the whole thing funny as what the press is doing... Trump always looking odd and grumpy, with Hillary smiling, etc. Anyone with a DSLR could do that to ANY public figures... have you ever watched frame-by-frame of a video of someone speaking? And, some of the colorations... wow.

And, the more sad part of it is... stuff like that actually effects the general public and outcomes.

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot View Post
If he does make it nobody who wants to be remembered fondly by history can afford to be associated with him.

(Eighty years later, IBM having supplied the machines used to organise the holocaust is *still* a touchy subject...)
Well, it depends on who writes the history books. Much of the current refugee crisis thing falls on the shoulders of Obama, Hillary, Congresspeople, etc. yet if the general media doesn't portray it as such, one can only hope historians one day will.
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PolyEx
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Jun 21, 2016, 02:12 AM
 
Apple is a big proponent of outsourcing of US I.T. workers using H1B visas. Like Bernie Sanders was, Trump is the only candidate left that wants to raise the minimum salary of an H1B worker to $100,000, effectively putting an end to the program. Trump's further opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, another project in addition to H1B that Clinton is pro on, is another factor that his making Trump an enemy of corporate silicon valley management types. It is no shock that a company that has a vested interest in holding down or reducing the salaries of American I.T. workers , like Apple and Amazon (Jeff Bezo's Washington Post has made it a full-time job to try and dig dirt on Trump). Surprised that any American I.T. worker would fall for the propaganda. It's all about money and not ideals with Apple and Facebook, and Google and Amazon. Disgusted this website wants to even enter the fray with a doctored image of either candidate. Shameful.
     
Steve Wilkinson
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Jun 25, 2016, 04:23 PM
 
Yea, while I can't vote for Trump for other reasons, he and Bernie are the only two that aren't same-as-it-has-always-been types. Hillary, IMO (being that I'm conservative), is the worst of all worlds! She's big-corporate, corrupt as heck, war monger, etc. along with all the worst of the various liberal agendas I despise so much.
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