NYT Upshot/Siena College have built a live polling platform. They track each call made on the site, how many responses, maps of the area they’re calling and give you real-time updates on results. It’s kinda neat.
Not getting through Woodward’s book, Fear: Trump fast enough because of other stuff at the moment. Only on chapter 5, and at this point Bannon is the star of the show for being a political genius in the face of chaos and drama. And given how often Woodward delves into Bannon’s mind, it’s as if Woodward were Bannon’s ghostwriter in these chapters.
Met a State House candidate last night, Martha Schafer down here in North Carolina. She really impressed me and hopefully she can win (polling shows even right now)
Interesting. Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury was mostly told through the mind and eyes of Steve Bannon as well. I guess he’s the one most willing to talk to these reporters, or at the very least, the one most willing to tell and engaging story.
Listening to him on Colbert responding to the obvious question about whether he was getting spun so that people who talked to him would come out looking better than those that didn’t, as always happens with his books, it was kind of remarkable how dismissive he was of the suggestion. It didn’t even seem disingenuous, just remarkably naive (all the more naive for someone who’s been doing political reporting at the highest level for decades). He didn’t even seem to acknowledge it as a risk to be guarded against. It just seems to be a case of total source capture.
Yeah, he was the same way during the Bush era and Obama era books. He seems to really completely believe all his interview subjects completely.
Right wing politicians everywhere suck.
Related, and cross posted from the conspiracy thread. Long but well worth reading.
Murdoch is not just a menace for the US.
Surprised by this, but good news regardless.
Fuck.
The contagion spreads.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jair-bolsonaro-brazil-far-right_us_5bb437cfe4b028e1fe38dccb
Bolsonaro is a former army officer who has praised the military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985. He has declared a female fellow legislator unworthy of rape, suggested that indigenous Brazilians are not suitable for procreation, called immigrants “scum” and, at different points over the last two decades, called for the murder of his political opponents. His running mate has suggested that Brazil’s military could return to power. The combination of the two on the right-wing Social Liberal Party’s ticket has fostered fears that Bolsonaro would pose a deep threat not only to Brazil’s most vulnerable populations and but also to the very existence of its 30-year-old democracy.
The sad and tragic thing is from an outsider’s perspective, if Bolsonaro wins (he may even win on the first ballot) I think there’s real danger Brazil will follow Turkey, Poland et al into authoritarian one party rule. There’s real anger there over corruption, but this isn’t the way to fix it.
Looks like a runoff in Brazil’s election, although Bolsonaro will gain power; his allies have won in numerous local elections.
“A Bolsonaro government would speed the privatization of state companies to reduce Brazil’s budget deficit and relax environmental controls for farming and mining. It also would block efforts to legalize abortion, drugs and gay marriage."
Related:
At the end of that report he said it might be too late already, but I see in the election results today that Bolsonaro did not win 50%, so there will be a run off election.
Don’t get your hopes up, short of some sort of act from God, he’s gonna win…