Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

The revolution will be supervised.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

I really should read my own blog.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Let’s finish the job.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night Open Thread: Nosferatu at the RNC

Late Night Open Thread: Nosferatu at the RNC

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Jane Mayer, at the New Yorker, catches David Koch stepping “Out of the Shadows“:

… David Koch, the co-owner of America’s second largest private company, Koch Industries, an oil, pipeline, chemical, lumber, and finance conglomerate that has been called “the Standard Oil of our times,” has historically been press-shy. But he used the occasion of the Republican National Convention, which he attended as a delegate, to rebrand himself as a good citizen rather than one of the biggest and most secretive behind-the-scenes funders of the opposition to Barack Obama. (There are wealthy people backing Obama’s reëlection campaign as well, but as I reported in the magazine recently, he’s been having trouble on that front.) The fact that he’d take on the public role of a delegate was noteworthy on its own, but even more remarkable was that his week in Tampa culminated with an event billed as a “Salute to Entrepreneurs Building America,” which was really a kind of coming-out party that he threw himself in conjunction with Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political group he co-founded…

Koch’s live event capped a week of carefully controlled press appearances in friendly venues, evidently aimed at a similar image makeover. Koch rarely writes, but on August 24th, his byline appeared atop a short op-ed in the New York Post in which he described his “involvement in the public discourse” as a matter of doing his “civic duty.” The Post, of course, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, a fellow Manhattan mogul who shares many of Koch’s views.

Two days after Koch’s Post piece ran, his smiling face appeared across the entire cover of the Washington Examiner, a right-wing tabloid that is sent free to households all over the Washington area, next to giant black letters announcing “CITIZEN KOCH GOES TO TAMPA.” The Examiner is owned by another conservative billionaire, Philip Anschutz, who shares many of the Kochs’ views, and has attended a secretive political-planning retreat that the brothers run. The same piece, under the same headline, ran simultaneously in the Weekly Standard, an ostensibly higher-brow journal of conservative opinion, edited by William Kristol and Fred Barnes, and also now owned by Anschutz (although it too was originally owned by Murdoch)…

Anybody know where I can find an embeddable clip of Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire?

Reader Interactions

57Comments

  3. 3.

    AA+ Bonds

    Ah yes, I’m very concerned about the reëlection, the reëlection being on everybody’s mind and all, you can’t go five feet without seeing a diaeresis in America during this season, The New Yorker everybody

  5. 5.

    Anya

    When did Jon Steward become a villager?

    I just watched some of his DNC coverage, and it was not funny. He tries to be balanced by making fun of the dems and the president. But it’s not funny because he doesn’t have a lot to work with. The part I hated the most was when John Oliver talked about how Obama saved his life. When Jon confronted him he admits that his story and all of the other stories told by dems were all embellished and how he can blame the DNC for embellishing when the RNC is running against a fictitious Obama that’s why they created their own fictitious Obama. Seriously? What part was made up?

    On a related note, Jennifer Granholm was seriously drunk.

  6. 6.

    Jewish Steel

    Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire

    Boy, I don’t know when that came out but I still do an impression of him when I come across something creepy.

  7. 7.

    Soonergrunt

    In re: Rmoney’s pledge to not remove the phrase “In God We Trust” from the coinage–his latest red meat to the wingnuts–the tweet of the day comes from Hari Sevugan,
    @HariSevugan:

    To be fair to @MittRomney his promise to keep “God” on our coins is the closest thing to an economic plan he’s been willing to share w/ us.

  8. 8.

    Yutsano

    @Soonergrunt: He said he’d keep God on the coins. He didn’t specify which one. Or whether he meant his own self-believed impending godhood. Details people, DETAILS!

  9. 9.

    Another North Carolinian

    A variation on “A Face in the Crowd,” where a man with money and influence attempts to achieve twang?

  10. 10.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Anya: right about the time they planned the rally about nothing. He came up to the brink and chickened out of actually taking Beck on. Colbert, who doesn’t give a fuck what people think of him, jumped and (I believe the phrase is) stuck the landing.

  16. 16.

    Nellcote

    OMG! The Rmoney press plane broke down for a while in Richmond and the press amused themselves with their ipods. Sample tracklisting:

    “Ain’t no sunshine” #nowplaying on the broken down Romney plane
    “Free falling” – Tom Petty #nowplaying on the broken down Romney plane
    “Hold me closer tiny dancer” #nowplaying on the broken down Romney plane
    “Fortunate son” #nowplaying on the broken down Romney plane
    “Leaving on a jet plane” #nowplaying on broken down Romney plane

    McKay Coppins ‏@mckaycoppins
    I wonder if—at moments like this, when Romney’s stranded on a tarmac & press is blasting Kanye on the plane—he questions his life choices.

    http://twitter.com/mckaycoppins

  17. 17.

    Hill Dweller

    Colbert’s show has been consistently better than The Daily Show for years, but it took Stewart’s descent into Broderism for people to notice it.

  19. 19.

    GG

    @Anya: When that “Both Sides Do It” stupid rally caught fire. Some of my friends actually went, and I’m pretty sure they’re gonna vote right anywqy, but the whole thing mostly made me gag.

    Colbert hasn’t given in yet afaik.

  24. 24.

    PsiFighter37

    @? Martin: And i will LET you know i exercised earlier today, so I am entitled to that disgusting mstery meat Big Mac + fries I just ate. Oh so good, and oh so calroci to help cushion the oncoming hangover.

    W-0000000000t!!!!

    PF37 + infinity (which includes Troegs Perpetual IPA, Allegash Tripel, Chimay Blue, and Brooklyn Brewery Post Road, and Leffe Brown Ale)

    ETA: Good thing I still have b33r left in my fridge. Heck yagh, peeps

  27. 27.

    Mark S.

    Shorter Andrew (Loathsome) McCarthy: Conservatism has not failed, America has failed Conservatism!

    The only reason I bring this tiresome screed up (besides to relish Andy’s tears) is to point out this idiotic paragraph:

    As constituted, our government offered two visions of “providing for the general welfare.” First is the Madisonian principle that Congress’s capacity to tax and spend is strictly limited to its enumerated powers — which do not include running social-welfare programs. The second is a Hamiltonian gloss, giving Congress additional latitude, provided that its schemes benefit all Americans equally — which would preclude welfare programs that take from A for the benefit of B.

    Hamilton never believed anything so incredibly stupid; like anyone with a brain he knew that his policies would help some people more than others. But in ConservoWorld, a policy like the Ryan budget that results in billionaires paying no taxes and millions of people homeless and without medical care would really, truly “benefit all Americans equally.”

  28. 28.

    trollhattan

    The Kochs think they’re men because they have big bank accounts and always, lots of boot-lickers nearby. Here is a man in the traditional sense, who’d I’m sure like a chat with them about endless war. From his web site:

    In 2011, whilst on patrol with 75th Cavalry Regiment, United States Army in Afghanistan, Duley stepped on an improvised explosive device. He was severely injured, losing both legs and an arm.

    [Read the narrative, then view the gallery photo.]

    http://gilesduley.com/#/galleries/becoming-the-story-self-portrait-london-2011

    People like the Kochs will drive us to our doom.

  29. 29.

    Mnemosyne

    I haven’t seen it yet, but apparently the new Will Ferrell movie The Campaign involves a plot by the “Motch” brothers to buy themselves a candidate who will be a compliant Congressman. So, yeah, it’s out there.

    (Dan Aykroyd plays one of the brothers, so you know there’s got to be a Trading Places joke somewhere in the movie.)

  30. 30.

    ? Martin

    @Mark S.: They never bring up Jefferson:

    Legislators cannot invent too many devices for subdividing property, only taking care to let their subdivisions go hand in hand with the natural affections of the human mind. The descent of property of every kind therefore to all the children, or to all the brothers and sisters, or other relations in equal degree, is a politic measure, and a practicable one. Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.
    __
    Whenever there is in any country, uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a commonstock for man to labour and live on. If for the encouragement of industry we allow it to be appropriated, we must take care that other employment be provided to those excluded from the appropriation. If we do not the fundamental right to labour the earth returns to the unemployed.
    __
    It is too soon yet in our country to say that every man who cannot find employment but who can find uncultivated land shall be at liberty to cultivate it, paying a moderate rent. But it is not too soon to provide by every possible means that as few as possible shall be without a little portion of land. The small land holders are the most precious part of a state.

    Although, I have it on very good authority he wasn’t born in the United States.

  31. 31.

    Mnemosyne

    @Anya:

    Now I want to e-mail John Oliver and ask him to specifically name which of the people on that stage he’s calling a liar, and present his proof that, for example, the Lihns were lying about their daughter’s heart condition.

  33. 33.

    Suffern Ace

    @? Martin: Thank goodness. I thought we only had two choices. And that the founders imagined that those were the only two we should ever have. It was either that or tyanny as far as they were concerned.

  34. 34.

    ? Martin

    @Suffern Ace: But Jefferson was one of the shitty founders. Who the fuck goes and spends a few years in France, anyway. I mean seriously, France?! Couldn’t find a more manly country to hang out in?

  35. 35.

    Steeplejack

    @Mnemosyne:

    John Lithgow is the other Motch brother, and they do have a hilarious “separated at birth” “together since birth” vibe.

  37. 37.

    AA+ Bonds

    @Boudica:

    I was mispronouncing acai for months till I learned the c should have a cedilla.

    But who doesn’t know how to pronounce “reelection” when they see it written plainly? A New Yorker reader? Really? And in the case of such a reader, would an archaic diacritical mark really help that reader? I suppose they could be pitching for the much-pursued French ESL demographic, but really, it’s about snobbery, at the expense of style. It’s more likely to confuse than clarify.

  38. 38.

    Yutsano

    @? Martin: What you did there, it has been seen. And let’s not start on that Benjamin Franklin character. I mean really, actually BUYING a residence in France? How cheese-eating surrender monkey can you get?

  39. 39.

    Steeplejack

    @AA+ Bonds:

    but who doesnt know how to read words set down plainly its not like those marks give any useful perhaps even subliminal cues and it sure costs a hell of a lot to include them so why do it its just a bunch of pseudointellectual bullshit rite

    its like in music why put in vibrato youre just playing the note so what the fuck difference does any kind of nuance make everybody gets the point rite

  40. 40.

    AA+ Bonds

    It is sort of funny and sort of not funny that of all the things that have shifted in American elections, people still identify closeness to the French as a sign of dangerously libertine politics

    Insert some of the jokes in this thread in American newspapers of Jefferson and Franklin’s time and they would be accepted as sage and serious criticisms, although the contemporary stereotype would have been French bloodthirstiness, not French cowardice

  41. 41.

    AA+ Bonds

    @Steeplejack:

    I think that on occasion there is really good reporting in the New Yorker, delivered in spite of itself, and it does that reporting a goddamn disservice by mistaking its role for that of an artist among a wordsmithing elite

    I prefer good old mud-soaked West Germanic construction, like “wordsmithing”

    On the other hand, diacritical marks in English cause people to invent new and creative mispronunciations that then become accepted, which is a lot of fun and the spice of life

    It would be pretty great if the popularly accepted pronunciation became “ray-lection” or something

  42. 42.

    ruemara

    @Mnemosyne: You know, I think this should be done. TDS was unwatchable. And normally, that’s just unfunny token black woman. Who is terrible, at best and the death of humour and light on the usual.

  43. 43.

    Steeplejack

    @AA+ Bonds:

    As with most things in life, even in punctuation there are different levels of craftsmanship and attention to detail, hard as that may be to believe.

    Think of it like carpentry: there’s a Japanese tansu box and then there’s something you banged together out of spare pieces of plywood. They both hold shit, so what’s the big deal? It’s true that sometimes that’s all you need or want, but to complain because somebody chooses something more is the mark of a yahoo.

    Or look around you at the room you’re in. I’m sure it has many, many “useless” details that go beyond four walls and a ceiling. Who needs those? Get rid of ’em!

  45. 45.

    AA+ Bonds

    I enjoy Munch, but there is little in this world parapraxistastically funnier than being shown around a suburban house by frantic yuppies and noticing a framed print of The Scream in the marital bedroom, true story

  48. 48.

    AA+ Bonds

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    Yes, cranking your pseudo-intellectualism to 11 cetainly trumps my

    And I’m not reporting on an election in a nationally-read magazine, so I can goof all I want

    You see how this setting stuff you were talking about earlier works?

  49. 49.

    AA+ Bonds

    Balloon Juice is the perfect place to not punctuate and talk about “diarrhoea”

    Hell I might throw some thorns in here in a second, look out son, I am pretty serious about loving the thorn

  51. 51.

    AHH onna Droid

    @Mnemosyne: Oliver has always been awful. Look up his ACORN interview four years ago when he thought it would be so ooo funny to make crack jokes because the interviewee was African-American, get it, get it, because black people do crack?

    Jason Jones savaged him in a bit that aired a week later. He sucks and isnt funny. Oh, and he did a bullying interview with the ambassador of an African country that was a former British colony, so basically like that awful Tory finance program on bbc radio that airs at oh dark thirty.

    Unfunny asshole. Brit Denis Leary with less material.

    I, otoh, adore Jessica Williams.

  53. 53.

    Susan K of the tech support

    I think I am having typographic hallucinations.

    I have been seeing the second-e-with-an-umlaut on it all over the place this week.

    As in: reëlection

    (for you Mac-heads, that’s r e option-u e l e c t i o n. Sry windows peeps, I got nuttin for how to generate that kinda umlautty goodness for you.)

    reëlection.

    Why, all of a sudden, during the week of the DNC, have I been seeing this all over? At those hoity toity sites like NYmag or NYorker or whatever, I get that— I mean, they gots editors and the like, but at Balloon Juice? and in the comments section? Words fail.

    Or should I say, Words fäil. (or is that words faïl?)

    Maybe it’s all a part of the side-benefits of John Cole, douche whisperer (see next post for more) and Host with the Most. As if attending the DNC and going to bed early so he can drive the ABL and the Heather back to home base, feed them chiffonaded basil on their caprese and then lovingly grill steak, find himself to be too tired to do anything, but wait! No! Now he is a provisioner of water and lasagna and wisdom, people, wisdom! All that makes it possible to watch, midst his comments, spontaneous apparitions of the typographically astute renditions of the word “reëlection” that works in the same way as coöperation and all those wackadoo dipthonged umlautted vowels.

    Damn.

    Just damn.

    . . . . . . .

    (and then, before clicking the Submit Comment button, I go, one last time, to find the name of the original commenter, conduct a Find in Page… and lo, it turns out that THE FRICKIN’ UMLAUT originates with the New Yorker originally quoted, and this entire comment is based on somebody’s nice lil copy paste of the New Yorker as the source of the snazzy umlauttage. All you people had to do was copy and paste. Well, ferget that. I manually option-u-e’d each and every one of those tender loving ë characters in this comment. sigh. Guess all that’s left is a click of that Submit Comment button. G’nite.)

    E.T.A. oh, now that I’m reading what’s between the first comment with the ë and everything down to this comment, I see that I am not the only one to notice the pretty umlauts on the pretty New Yorker words. All rightie then.

  54. 54.

    Basilisc

    One of the nicest things about an Obama win, if Obama wins, will be the thought that this idiot and his brother just spent a ton of money for nothing.

    Then I’ll realize that they did still buy (or save) a couple of Senate seats, and more than a few House seats, and that they still have tons and tons of money for the next round.

    But until I realize that, it’ll be pretty sweet.

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