Brazil thread 2023-

[Libertas Vel Mors]

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.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

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.

Particularly since Lula is anti-Western, while Duda/the PiS are not. This isn't even something that can be explained by national self-interest -- it is pure fellow traveling.

[Libertas Vel Mors]

The US hasn't banned TikTok. There is a bill under consideration to force its sale (which I oppose) but even that would be non-analagous to the extent that it would be passed by Congress, not mandated by executive fiat, and that it would not be primarily motivated by domestic politics, let alone to shut down specific dissenting voices.

Alexandre de Moraes was appointed by Temer, but Cármen Lúcia and several of the Superior Electoral Court's other members are Lulaists.