Brazil thread 2023-

[MaxQue]

Really revelatory how little attention this has gotten. A left wing leader's judicial appointees threaten to ban an entire website for hosting dissenting speech (in some cases not even dissenting speech in that country's language?) and to stop a popular former leader who got 49% of the vote just two years ago from running again on spurious charges, and the New York Times, the White House, et cetera have said nothing. By contrast, the Polish judicial reforms were treated as a herald of incoming dictatorship.

Modi did the same, but there Musk decided to obey in silence.
Yet another proof of the lies and hypocrisy of Musk.

[buritobr]

As much as I want it to happen, Twitter isn’t getting blocked in Brazil.

I also believe that Twitter will not get blocked in Brazil. A Twitter ban would be very unpopular. Brazilians are one of the people in the world who uses social networks more often. Some years ago, an ordinary judge (not the Supreme Court) ordered the block of the Whatsapp because the firm which controls this app refused to send the data of some criminals the police requested. This block took place only during few hours. Most of the Brazilians became very angry.

The relevance of the Twitter is overrated. The favorite platform of the pro-Bolsonaro Olavo de Carvalho far-right propaganda machine is neither the Twitter, nor the Facebook, nor the Instagram, nor the Tik Tok, but the Whatsapp, because it is at the same time a private and a mass network. It's easier to use the Whatsapp because the probability of being sued for fake news is much lower.

[Red Velvet]

Well, Whatsapp is kinda irreplaceable in the average Brazilian life. It’s the new telephone for Brazilians. People don’t call each other anymore, they just send a text or audio on Whatsapp.

Twitter relevance is way more questionable and limited.

Thing is, Twitter; Facebook; TikTok; Instagram are platforms where everything is public for everyone to see so you can actually trace criminal accounts.

Whatsapp you need to be included in a group where disinformation happens in order to see what happens and entrance is also often private as well. So definitely much more of a challenging platform to punish crimes and misinformation tactics.

[buritobr]

Really revelatory how little attention this has gotten. A left wing leader's judicial appointees threaten to ban an entire website for hosting dissenting speech (in some cases not even dissenting speech in that country's language?) and to stop a popular former leader who got 49% of the vote just two years ago from running again on spurious charges, and the New York Times, the White House, et cetera have said nothing. By contrast, the Polish judicial reforms were treated as a herald of incoming dictatorship.

In Brazil, everybody is free to speak that Lula is dumb, Lula is a bad president, Bolsonaro is a hero of the jewish christian western civilization against the threat of the woke culture, Mises is better than Marx, but there is no legal right to make racist and nazi speeches and no legal right to propose a coup d'etat.
In Brazil, everybody is free to speak that voting using paper is safer against fraud than the electronic polls, even some left-wing politicians did this claim in the past (and I think they are wrong), but no one is free to speak that the electronic polls in 2022 were rigged without showing any evidence.

In order to operate in a certain country, a service needs to follow the rules of the host country. This rule is valid in the 193 countries of the world.

[Red Velvet]

So, neither side is folding, after Alexandre de Moraes included Elon Musk in the fake news inquiry after his threats of not following court decisions, Elon Musk today called Alexandre de Moraes “Brazil’s Dictator”.

Brazilian government today announced the suspension of contracts with Starlink (Elon Musk company) and Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco related Musk’s actions to a search of profit, while also stressing the importance of creating more specific legislation for social media regulation:

PACHECO: Our children, young people and elderly people are at the mercy of a completely lawless field that allows everything in order to gain more engagement. With more engagement, in the end, everything comes down to profit, a search for money.

More money from more engagement in a social network that becomes more attractive when it shows violence, disunity, when it stimulates conflicts between right and left, between political characters. Ultimately, it is an indiscriminate, unethical and criminal search for profit and this, obviously, has to be contained by law and this is our role as the National Congress.

First Lady Janja Lula da Silva also made a public statement:

JANJA: Again, I am not surprised by the stance of Mr. @elonmusk who, in recent days, has made a series of posts attacking Brazilian sovereignty, personifying these attacks on the Minister of the Supreme Court @alexandre (Alexandre de Moraes).

Musk's announcement to release accounts that had been blocked by court decisions is disrespectful to a decision by the Brazilian judiciary. These profiles are used to spread fake news, hatred and misogyny, and also to support the January 8, 2023 coup attempt.

As Minister Alexandre de Moraes himself said: social networks are not a land without law! And platforms, in addition to obeying the judicial decisions of each country, must be held responsible for crimes committed within them.

I repeat again that this type of action by X, besides being a coordinated action against democracy, is also an action made in pursuit of profit and the civilized world shall not stand in its knees in front of this articulation made by the far-right that attempts to erode the foundations of our society.

#RegulamentationNow

[buritobr]

The international network of far-right nationalists see Brazil as an important hub. It's easy to understand: they won in 2018 and they almost won in 2022. It is the liberal democracy with the 4th biggest population in the world.

Elon Musk is not alone. Russian traditionalist philosopher Alexander Dugin has already endorsed Musk. Netanyahu's administration is close to the far-right opposition here in Brazil. The Hungarian Embassy has already hosted Bolsonaro for 2 days.

[Pivaru]

The Chamber of Deputies is discussing today whether or not Chiquinho Brazão, one of the masterminds behind Marielle Franco's assassination, should remain in jail. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered him arrested preventively last month, but since Brazão is a federal deputy, the Chamber gets a say on whether or not he stays in jail. Common sense would dictate that of course he's staying in jail, he killed a person, but it's actually not very clear, there has been a lot of talk about him getting freed due to procedural issues (it has been argued that the constitution doesn't allow for federal deputies to be preventively detained the way he was), though I will add that I'm sure there are freaks who are going to vote in his favor because they personally don't care about what he did or don't think it was that bad (they'd probably never openly admit though), also, there are probably some who'll vote against his arrest because the fear they'll get arrested for their own reasons and want to create a precedent so they can be freed.

The Commission of the Constitution, Justice and Citizenship has voted in favor of keeping him in jail (39 in favor, 25 against and 1 abstention) but now the whole Chamber will vote and the results aren't clear, centrão parties which supported a yes vote on the commission won't necessarily keep this position now. Brazão will only remain in jail if 257 deputies vote against him, if, let's say, 250 vote against him, 100 vote in his favor and the remaining 163 were to just not show up or abstain, he'd be freed. With this in mind there are deputies who're just not going to vote, their absence is effectively a vote in favor of Brazão, but I guess they can try to deny their support for him by saying they had to miss the session for some reason. Bolsonaro's son, Eduardo, is one such case of a person skipping the vote, he's in Europe at the moment (though in his case, he's been rather openly talking about how he'd vote to revoke Brazão's arrest on Twitter).

Metropoles has reported that the left wing bloc in congress is trying to calculate the results right now and if they believe he'll be freed, they may try obstructing the vote to prevent it. As I understand it, their current expectations is that the Chamber will vote for Brazão to continue in jail, though by a close margin, the absolute best estimates that I've seen for them is something like 300-ish votes against Brazão. As of now, I'm pretty sure PL is voting for Brazão to be freed and it's also been reported that União Brasil is instructing their deputies towards voting in favor of him, I'm not sure about the other opposition and centrão parties. The vote should happen later today.

Parallel to all of this, there has been a movement to expel Brazão from Congress, not sure when this one is getting voted, but it's likely it will pass regardless of what happens during today's vote.

Edit: The Chamber has voted to keep Brazão em jail, 277 votes against Brazão, 129 in favor, 28 abstentions, it was in fact a narrow vote

[buritobr]

Brazil doesn't produce the best cars, the best computers, but this country produces the best memes.
The meme about the Elon Musk vs Alexandre de Moraes battle became ready very fast

Elon Musk vs Alexandre de Moraes, the battle of the century

[Pivaru]

Quaest released a few statewide polls:

São Paulo:

Opinion on Lula's government:
Bad/awful - 37%
Good/great - 32%
Regular - 29%
Don't know/didn't answer - 2%

Lula's approval rating:
Approve - 50%
Disapprove - 48%
Don't know/didn't answer - 2%

Approval of governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicanos):
Approve - 62%
Disapprove - 29%
Don't know/didn't answer - 9%

Minas Gerais:

Opinion on Lula's government:
Bad/awful - 35%
Good/great - 34%
Regular - 30%
Don't know/didn't answer - 1%

Lula's approval rating:
Approve - 52%
Disapprove - 47%
Don't know/didn't answer - 1%

Approval of governor Romeu Zema (Novo):
Approve - 62%
Disapprove - 31%
Don't know/didn't answer - 7%

Paraná:

Opinion on Lula's government:
Bad/awful - 41%
Good/great - 30%
Regular - 27%
Don't know/didn't answer - 2%

Lula's approval rating:
Disapprove - 54%
Approve - 44
Don't know/didn't answer - 2%

Approval of governor Ratinho Junior (PSD):
Approve - 79%
Disapprove - 17%
Don't know/didn't answer - 7%

Goiás:

Opinion on Lula's government:
Bad/awful - 40%
Good/great - 32%
Regular - 27%
Don't know/didn't answer - 1%

Lula's approval rating:
Disapprove - 50%
Approve - 49%
Don't know/didn't answer - 1%

Approval of governor Ronaldo Caiado (União Brasil):
Approve - 86%
Disapprove - 12%
Don't know/didn't answer - 2%

It's no coincidence they only polled these particular states, these four governors have emerged as some of the main faces of the opposition and the main right wing presidential contenders at this point. Maybe I'd also have polled Rio Grande do Sul and Eduardo Leite, but in fairness, he hasn't really done much to establish himself as one of the main contenders against Lula as of late and I haven't really heard much from what he's doing during his second term in general. I fell like most right wingers are also just done with PSDB in general, so that doesn't help his case.

[buritobr]

The Chamber of Deputies is discussing today whether or not Chiquinho Brazão, one of the masterminds behind Marielle Franco's assassination, should remain in jail. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered him arrested preventively last month, but since Brazão is a federal deputy, the Chamber gets a say on whether or not he stays in jail. Common sense would dictate that of course he's staying in jail, he killed a person, but it's actually not very clear, there has been a lot of talk about him getting freed due to procedural issues (it has been argued that the constitution doesn't allow for federal deputies to be preventively detained the way he was), though I will add that I'm sure there are freaks who are going to vote in his favor because they personally don't care about what he did or don't think it was that bad (they'd probably never openly admit though), also, there are probably some who'll vote against his arrest because the fear they'll get arrested for their own reasons and want to create a precedent so they can be freed.

The Commission of the Constitution, Justice and Citizenship has voted in favor of keeping him in jail (39 in favor, 25 against and 1 abstention) but now the whole Chamber will vote and the results aren't clear, centrão parties which supported a yes vote on the commission won't necessarily keep this position now. Brazão will only remain in jail if 257 deputies vote against him, if, let's say, 250 vote against him, 100 vote in his favor and the remaining 163 were to just not show up or abstain, he'd be freed. With this in mind there are deputies who're just not going to vote, their absence is effectively a vote in favor of Brazão, but I guess they can try to deny their support for him by saying they had to miss the session for some reason. Bolsonaro's son, Eduardo, is one such case of a person skipping the vote, he's in Europe at the moment (though in his case, he's been rather openly talking about how he'd vote to revoke Brazão's arrest on Twitter).

Metropoles has reported that the left wing bloc in congress is trying to calculate the results right now and if they believe he'll be freed, they may try obstructing the vote to prevent it. As I understand it, their current expectations is that the Chamber will vote for Brazão to continue in jail, though by a close margin, the absolute best estimates that I've seen for them is something like 300-ish votes against Brazão. As of now, I'm pretty sure PL is voting for Brazão to be freed and it's also been reported that União Brasil is instructing their deputies towards voting in favor of him, I'm not sure about the other opposition and centrão parties. The vote should happen later today.

Parallel to all of this, there has been a movement to expel Brazão from Congress, not sure when this one is getting voted, but it's likely it will pass regardless of what happens during today's vote.

Edit: The Chamber has voted to keep Brazão em jail, 277 votes against Brazão, 129 in favor, 28 abstentions, it was in fact a narrow vote

The sum of votes against + abstentions + absenses was 236. This is a shame for the Chamber. Considering that at least 257 votes for were necessary (the absolute majority), no matter the number of votes against, abstentions and absenses had the same effect of the vote against.
The Bolsonaro base voted against. Not hard to understand.

But not only the Bolsonaro base was not for Brazão's prision. Almost all PT's deputies voted for the prision, but one of them was absent: Washington Quaqua, from Rio de Janeiro.

[buritobr]

I believe the Quaest poll had the intent to measure the chances of pro Bolsonaro governors to run for president in 2026. All these 4 have high approval rates. The governor of Rio de Janeiro Claudio Castro is also an Bolsonaro's ally, but he was not evaluated: other polls show his approval rate is low, it's very hard for him to be candidate for president in 2026.

Lula's approval rates in São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Goiás, Paraná are not bad. It is a little higher than his vote in these states in 2022.

[Red Velvet]

Brazão prison was maintained despite the Bolsonarist base position against AND the support of Lira to overrule the STF decision. That’s good news but I’m honestly surprised we’re in the sad position anything else was minimally under consideration.

Marielle Franco’s murder probably way too much big and on the media for some of these Big Center crooks to risk bad headlines just to save one of them and send a message to the Supreme Court interventionism. For them, instinctively, better to accept one individual getting cut and not antagonize the Supreme Court ministers in order to ensure the rest of them are preserved electorally by being invisible.

[buritobr]

IBGE published a new Atlas with this world map


Since the Earth is not flat, we can choose the place of the cut in order to project a globe in a flat surface. The place of the cut is impacted by political and cultural factors. You can cut in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and put Europe in the center of the map. But you can also cut in the middle of Asia and put Brazil in the center of the map.

[Red Velvet]

Beautiful new official map. The earth is round.

Some details in this map when you look closer:

- Brazil at the Center of the World
- Brazilian Blue Amazon oceanic territory is shown
- Malvinas Islands and Georgia and Sandwich Islands are territory of Argentinian sovereignty (written as ARG in the map)
- Palestine is a State there, delimitated according to 1967 borders
- Tel Aviv is the capital of Israel and Eastern Jerusalem the capital of Palestine
- Taiwan is a part of China, one single China
- Ukrainian occupied territories are naturally part of Ukraine, but also Crimea is Ukrainian
- Essequibo is part of Guyana
- Kosovo doesn’t exist
- Western Sahara is part of Morocco
- Cyprus is one single country

Incredible how just a single official map can tell a lot of geopolitical positions.

[CumbrianLefty]

"Official" maps from the CIA have IIRC always shown Taiwan as part of mainland China.

[buritobr]

Beautiful new official map. The earth is round.

Some details in this map when you look closer:

- Brazil at the Center of the World
- Brazilian Blue Amazon oceanic territory is shown
- Malvinas Islands and Georgia and Sandwich Islands are territory of Argentinian sovereignty (written as ARG in the map)
- Palestine is a State there, delimitated according to 1967 borders
- Tel Aviv is the capital of Israel and Eastern Jerusalem the capital of Palestine
- Taiwan is a part of China, one single China
- Ukrainian occupied territories are naturally part of Ukraine, but also Crimea is Ukrainian
- Essequibo is part of Guyana
- Kosovo doesn’t exist
- Western Sahara is part of Morocco
- Cyprus is one single country

Incredible how just a single official map can tell a lot of geopolitical positions.

Except Palestine with 1967 borders and Malvinas, this map shows only the official borders. The world doesn't recognize Taiwan as an independent country. Ukrainian occupied territories by Russia are part of Ukraine. Essequibo is part of Guyana.


2 weeks ago, stupid right-wingers (not only pro-Bolsonaro but also the "third way") were angry because Itamaraty sent condolences to Taipei and not to Taiwan after the earthquake. But even the International Olympic Commitee uses the word Taipei and not Taiwan.

[Red Velvet]

"Official" maps from the CIA have IIRC always shown Taiwan as part of mainland China.

Which makes sense as the official USA position is that Taiwan is part of Mainland China.

[buritobr]

The majority of the Brazilian Congress is in the opposite direction of the world in some issues.

Yesterday, the Senate approved an Amendment to consider all possession of illegal drugs a crime, no matter the quantity, no matter if it's for own consumption or for sale. This Amendtment creates different punishment for sale and own consumption, but doesn't create a fixed quantity to distinguish. So there is room for the police to differentiate consumer and dealer. And there is a risk that policemen use the color of the skin of the person caught with drugs as a criterium.
This Amendment was created so that the Supreme Court doesn't become allowed anymore to consider the ownership of small quantities of drugs not a crime. The Supreme Court was judging this issue.

It's the opposite of what Portugal, Uruguay, Colorado, Canada and Germany did in recent times.

[Red Velvet]

The issue for me is not even being harsh on drugs, but doing it simply to antagonize the Supreme Court, which now looks way more competent for actual legislation than the congress that has that competence.

While the discussion about what differentiates the drug dealer from the drug user exists in the Supreme Court, the legislative seems completely uninterested in having that discussion. So much that the approved legislation puts the interpretation of the constitution on the hands of whoever enforces it, which is a complete mess and disaster as different standards can and will be applied depending on the judgement of the person who arrests and also the characteristics of whoever is arrested.

Mind-boggling to me that UNIFIED STANDARDS cannot ever be set. Even for a harsh conservative and right-wing perspective, that is 100% possible to do, just criminalize any and every user possession and punish it just like traffickers are punished but OF COURSE the Brazilian Congress is too much of a pussy to be actually be responsible of such a harsh measure. They would rather keep the chaotic mess by being anti legislation and let anybody interpret the Brazilian Constitution the way they want it and f**k the inequalities that will inevitably lead to.

White drug users will keep smoking weed and being considered “users” and Black users when smoking will be considered “traffickers” simply because Brazilian congress are a bunch of lazy cowards and crooks who are more interested in their individual political interests than they are in legislating anything.

Hard to hold the Brazilian Supreme Court accountable for “overstepping their reach” when that’s what naturally happens when a vacuum of power or leadership exists, allowing someone else to actually work. Bolsonaro hated working so that naturally led to the Legislative growing their power over the Executive. It’s the same thing with the Legislative being completely useless and absent on some discussions because they aren’t convenient for them and the Judiciary having to be a leadership on these many matters.

The legislation approved should be declared unconstitutional because it clearly is.

[Red Velvet]

Not about politics but an interesting story that happened in the neighborhood of Bangu, Rio de Janeiro and gained international repercussion because of how unusual it was:

A Woman took a 68 year old she was taking care of to the bank in order to get a loan in his name but when it was time to sign the document authorizing it, the bank staff noticed that the man was clearly dead. “Weekend at Bernie’s” in real life. Graphic or disturbing footage below.

https://twitter.com/MyLordBebo/status/1780623270896672923

https://twitter.com/ImMeme0/status/1780720479805845951

The defense of the woman claims thar the man was alive when she took him to the bank and that he must’ve died after entering the bank, waiting to be attended. Which if it’s confirmed to be truth, would mean that the woman is innocent. The Uber driver that drove them
previously that day or something appears to have confirmed that the man was alive, but investigations are still going on.

It’s hard to understand how the woman didn’t know that the man was clearly dead though. So many people believe that she was indeed trying to scam the bank using her uncle’s dead corpse in order to get the money from him.

[President Johnson]

Bolsonaro is back in public spotlight:

https://twitter.com/France24_en/status/1782358882183946496

[Red Velvet]

Bolsonaro is back in public spotlight:

https://twitter.com/France24_en/status/1782358882183946496

He never really disappeared in terms of his far-right supporters street manifests, previous one was in São Paulo in February 2024, which had better attendance than this one (estimated only 32k, which is nothing new or impressive, there have been better and this one was considered somewhat of a flop compared to the one from 2 months ago).

The theme of this one seems to have focused on Elon Musk for the 1st time though, as the result of him criticizing the Bolsonarists #1 enemy, Supreme Court Minister Alexandre de Moraes. Bolsonaro supporters could pay 1 Dollar to climb up a ladder where a strip with the sayings “Thank You Elon Musk” was hanged, in order to take pictures.

Bolsonaro is ineligible but these manifests seem like a platform for Bolsonarist politicians to go and strengthen their image ties with Bolsonaro in order to inherit or capitalize that segment of the electorate. Congressman Nikolas Chupetinha (PL-MG) made a speech in this rally saying that Brazil doesn’t need more Laws, what Brazil needs is more Men with Testosterone according to him. Which, as a gay who’s into testosterone in my bed, I fully agree but I would have expected a (supposedly) heterosexual lawmaker to be more concerned about the opposite.

Overall, I live in that neighborhood and walked past those Bolsonarists and they all come across as a very old and religious crowd.

[dead0man]

there are a ton of off duty Brazilian cops shooting bad guys videos, this one is special

**no blood, nobody dies**

[buritobr]

Brazilian far-right has a new idol

[Red Velvet]

Yup that’s the stair I was talking about! Bolsonarists paid 5 Reais (converts to 1 Dollar) to go up that ladder and be able to take a picture with a sign thanking Elon Musk.

There would be no smart people in this world if it weren’t for the stupid. There’s such easy money to be made from these walking corpses that Bolsonaro and his Wife Michelle Bolsonaro have also launched not too long ago their own perfume fragrance line that managed to be a hit with Bolsonarists.

Before this, the Bolsonaros had opened their own products market line, selling stuff like accessories for grilling; pizza boards; etc. But it’s not like he needs the money because after Bolsonaro was fined by justice once, his supporters organized to deposit MILLIONS (more than what he was fined) in his bank account that he didn’t even use to pay his fines but invested for this money to grow even more.

At this point it’s more of a business than real politics. I kinda envy him tbh because I’ve contemplated the idea of becoming a scandalous far-right celebrity in order to make easy money from this type of crowd.