Well, this is awkward: imagine if every time you went out and patronized your favorite store and bought your favorite product, you were putting money into the pocket of someone you loathe.
That’s the exquisite dilemma that Apple fanboys and fangirls of a liberal bent are about to face, now that a pair of left-wing hate objects have acquired a key supplier to the computer company.
Charles and David Koch, heirs to an industrial fortune, have spent their adult lives building up Koch Industries, a huge conglomerate with interests in oil, pipelines, chemicals, paper, ethanol, fertilizer, fibers, and cattle. They’ve used the profits of the privately held company to fund philanthropic efforts and engage in relentless political combat.
They have deployed their cash in campaigns against global warming, against renewable energy, against Obamacare, against President Obama and congressional Democrats, against all sorts of progress. If liberals and progressives like it, it’s a good bet the Koch brothers are against it. (With the possible exception of public television, a cause to which David Koch has made significant, controversial contributions.)
The House voted Tuesday to end a nearly four-day partial government shutdown, approving spending through September...
