THE BRAZILIAN BOT

PSL

  • #Congress voted 232-232 against the urgency of the bill that would allow the implementation of a vaccination passport. 257 votes were needed for it to be approved. When it was presented in the #Senate, in the beginning on June, the bill was approved 72-0. It is inspired on the one approved in the #EuropeanUnion. The vote was against the urgency for creating it, not against creating it. #pandemic #covid
  • President #Bolsonaro's ex-sister-in-law, #AndreaSiqueiraValle, disclosed an audio where she says that ex-office assistants paid part of their salaries back to Bolsonaro in return for the favor of giving them a job. This is a common crime pratice among Brazilian politicians. This allegedly happened during all his terms as congressman, from 1991 to 2018. The opposition is trying to form a committee to investigate the accusation. Senator #RenanCalheiros wants her to be heard on the #COVIDProbe ('#CPIdaCOVID') in order to know if this alleged scheme continued during the presidency. Evidence of this scheme prior to Bolsonaro becoming president is yet to be shown, so Calheiros subpoening her is, as of now, based on assumption rather than evidence.
  • President #Bolsonaro expressed his wish that the party he's going to choose to run in 2022 be composed of rightwing #Christians as most as possible, but the #PatriotParty, the one he's more inclined to join, is resistant to the idea. The #AliancapeloBrasil Party, the one that was conceived to embrace this formula, won't be legally ready in time. “THE PATRIOT IS A CENTER PARTY AND IT WILL ALWAYS BE,” stated its General-Secretary #JorcelinoBraga. The #BigCenter (#Centrao), an alliance of parties that claim not to be left or right, has shown to align themselves more with the left, based on the policies they defend, bills they propose and back, their politics, and their statements, so the 'center' claim is highly debatable. The Patriot Party's president, #AdilsonBarroso, stated, “IT'S A CENTER-RIGHT PARTY. IT'S NOT A RIGHTWING PARTY SO THAT NO ONE CAN SAY IT'S AN EXTREME RIGHTWING PARTY. NOBODY CAN SAY IT'S A RADICAL PARTY.” This statement seems to tell there's a mentality from top down that implies Bolsonaro and his allies and supporters are radicals, extremists. He goes on, “IT'S A PARTY ALSO COMPOSED BY PEOPLE WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND ANYTHING ABOUT RIGHT AND LEFT. IT'S A PARTY THAT RECEIVES EVERYBODY.” This other one kind of nullifies the previous one, giving Bolsonaro no assurance he's going to have a party any better than the one he joined to ran in 2018, the #PSL, which got very devided right after he was elected, forcing him to leave it. The reason for the PSL's fiasco was the same lack of clarity on who they would allow to join them, but they can't be blamed fully because everything happened in a hurry. This time, Bolsonaro had more time to plan better what to demand from the party he's going to join, but although the situation now is better than in 2018, it's far from good enough as of this moment.
  • #SupremeCourt (#STF) Justice #RosaWeber authorized an investigation into if President #Bolsonaro prevaricated in the case of the #Covaxin vaccine (we covered this case on a previous date). According to lawyer, professor, and state congresswoman #JanainaPaschoal, Justice Weber is abusing of her power, since an investigation into prevarication could only take place if Bolsonaro had been criminalized for a wrongdoing, which he hasn't.
  • #SupremeCourt (#STF) Justice #CarmenLucia will decide if the president of the #Congress, Rep #ArthurLira, can be forced to “at least” analyze one of the impeachment requests against President #Bolsonaro.
  • The Federal Police indicted Senator #RenanCalheiros for receiving 1 million reals from the builder #Odebrecht during the time he was the president of the #Senate in order to help approve a bill that would benefit the company. The charges are passive corruption and money laundering. Calheiros is one of the members of the committee on the mismanagement of money during the #pandemic (#CPIdaCOVID, #COVIDProbe). People joke about Calheiros by saying he is a record breaker for number of dismissed charges. Will these latest two be?
  • The left went to the streets across the country to protest against the #Bolsonaro administration. The attendance was low in most places, but it was not bad in #SaoPaulo. There were acts of vandalism and violence. So much so that some of the big leftist media couldn't ignore, but they still found some way to minimize them. They avoided mentioning the rallies were in favor of the left and antigovernment, even though the images spoke for themselves (no Brazilian flags, a lot red, pro-#Lula's signs and Bolsonaro-as-a-genocide banners, hammer and sickle paintings, #BLM and #Antifa groups), kind of leaving for the reader that hadn't seen enough images to guess who these people were and, if they were a group, what group was. It couldn't be ignored as is usual because the Military Police of São Paulo tweeted updates on the rally constantly, and they showed the acts of vandalism, among them, spreading trash on the street, setting fire blockades, doing graffiti on bus stops, breaking windows and setting bank agencies on fire, breaking the windows of a #Hyundai car dealer. When it comes violence, subway guards were harassed, some police officers were attacked with molotov cocktails, one picture shows three to five police officers (the picture is not so clear) standing together and holding their shields to protect themselves from stones and garbage thrown at them, fireworks also thrown at them, a big rock thrown and hitting a police officer who had to receive help, protesters swinging bars at them. #PSDB, one of Brazil's biggest parties, condemned the violence and the vandalism, and stated that they reprove both extremisms. PSDB was the stablished opposition to the left between the re-democratization process in 1988 until Bolsonaro's election. In the last 3 years prior to him running, it started to become clear and to spread fast that PSDB has always been what #RINOs have in the #UnitedStates, so they took advantage of these violent rallies to claim they are moderate. We don't think many Brazilians are buying that. #DaniloGentili, a Brazilian comedian that supports the left, tweeted, “CONGRATS TO THE PROTESTERS FOR MAKING PRO-BOLSONARO PROPAGANDA,” referring to the fact that the violence and vandalism didn't weaken the public perception of him, but strengthened it. Bolsonaro tweeted, “NO ESCALATION OF [THE INTENT TO] AUTHORITARIANISM OR 'ANTIDEMOCRATIC' ACT WILL BE MENTIONED. NO ALERT TO A THREAT TO DEMOCRACY WILL BE MADE. NO SEARCHES AND NO ARRESTS WILL BE MADE. NO SECRECY WILL BE DISCLOSED. REMEMBER: IT HAS NEVER BEEN ABOUT HEALTH OR DEMOCRACY. IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN ABOUT POWER!” The protesters never did any social distancing. A news host on #GloboTV, the biggest TV network in Brazil, said on Sunday, “THE RALLIES WERE PEACEFUL ALL ACROSS BRAZIL. THERE ARE NO REPORTS OF CONFLICTS.” The #UniversityofMackenzie, in SP, a private institution known for provinding a good quantity of scholarships to people with no means, was also vandalized by the people who say they defend the disadvantaged. #CNNBrasil was criticized for their hypocrisy for posting about people not respecting social distancing in bars and restaurants in #RiodeJaneiro after spending a good deal of the Saturday until Sunday evening posting dozens of material about the rallies without ever criticizing their attendees for not doing social distancing.

  • During his weekly live, President #Bolsonaro showed a piece of news where it says that #SupremeCourt [#STF] Justice #RosaWeber asked for the disclosure of the phone communication of a medication company's lawyer due to a committee investigation on the #Covaxin vaccine purchase. If you want to know more about this case, it's today's first story. Bolsonaro criticized the fact the order for a disclosure happened in a matter of days into the investigation, while the disclosure of the phone communication of the lawyer of #AdelioBispo, the guy who stabbed the president in 2018 during his campaign, has still not been asked for. Adélio was poor, but immediately after the stabbing, an expensive law firm sent a team of lawyers for his defense on a private jet, with one of them giving an infamous interview, where he speaks in a jokingly manner and even sends a kiss. #stabbing
  • A judge in #RiodeJaneiro, #RicardoCyfer, accepted a request from an #LGBT group called #ArcoIrisdaCidadaniaLGBT and ordered that the #CBF ('Brazilian Soccer Confederation) explained within two days or face an 800-real daily fine the reason why there's no shirt with the number 24. This number in Brazil is associated with homosexualism. There is this illegal-since-1947 game called #JogodoBicho (#AnimalGame) where a 'veado' (deer) is number 24, and a deer is associated with homosexualism. The office room number 24 of the #Senate was never occupied for years, and they decided to skip this number, just so you have an idea how this culture is old and spread across the country. There was some backlash and the number came back. #RodrigoPacheco, current president of the Senate, accepted to occupy the room 24. The CBF doesn't use this number because the jokes, the mockery, and the laughs can take a toll on a player's psychological state and thus their performance, it doesn't matter how much they avoid taking it personally and how much they believe most fans are just joking. The teasing is simply too great not to drive one's focus away. Some people suggested that if the CBF seems itself forced to add 24 against their will, they could adopt a conservative approach to numering their shirts, a simple sequence starting from 1. Since there are two teams and 11 players each, they'd never need a 24.
  • President #Bolsonaro's statement on the committee on the mismanagement of funds during the #pandemic #CPIdaCOVID (#COVIDProbe), “THEY CAN'T HIT US. IT WON'T BE THROUGH LIES OR THROUGH A COMMITTEE COMPOSED BY SEVEN THIEVES THAT WILL REMOVE US FROM HERE. WE HAVE A MISSION AHEAD OF US, [WHICH IS] TO CONDUCT THE NATION'S DESTINY AND ZEAL FOR THE WELLBEING AND PROGRESS OF OUR PEOPLE. WE STILL LIVE HARD TIMES, AND I HAVE TOLD EVERYONE THAT A NATION'S GREATEST ASSET IS THEIR FREEDOM. [FREEDOM IS] MORE VALUABLE THAN OUR OWN LIFE, BECAUSE WITHOUT THE FORMER, WE WOULDN'T HAVE THE LATTER. I ONLY HAVE PEACE AND TRANQUILITY BECAUSE I KNOW THAT NOT ONLY DO I HAVE THE PEOPLE [ON MY SIDE], BUT ALSO THE #ARMEDFORCES COMMITTED WITH DEMOCRACY AND WITH OUR FREEDOM. REST ASSURED WE HAVE A MISSION AHEAD OF US AND WE WILL ACCOMPLISH IT IN THE BEST POSSIBLE WAY.”
  • The tax revenue in May was the highest in 27 years and 70% higher compared to May of last year. Since the beginning of 2021, the increase is 21.42% compared to the same period of 2020. When it comes to #jobs, 280 thousand were created in May, and more than 1 million since January. #employment #bolsonaro
  • Congressman #DanielSilveira, arrested by order of #SupremeCourt [#STF] Justice #AlexandredeMoraes (with the authorization of the #Congress) for recording a video harshly criticizing the justices, paid a 100-thousand-real bail. His party suspended him for two months. He could appeal the suspension, but decided not to. #censorship
  • One #SupremeCourt [#STF] justice is going to retire this month, allowing President #Bolsonaro to appoint a new one, but senators from the opposition (and even some allies) are planning not to confirm his next pick until the end of the 2022 election, so that, in case he loses, a different president wouldn't be stuck with an appointed of his. Their excuse will be that they have other priorities to debate in the #Senate. The name Bolsonaro should be picking is #AndreMendonca, who was Minister of Justice from May 2020 to March 2021 and State General Attorney from January 2019 to April 2020, and again since April of 2021. Mendonça has so far proved to be a solid ally and to be able to shield himself from being pushed around and abused by the fake news media and the opposition, and this, along with the fact that he is a Christian and is widely endorsed by most of the Christian community leaders, is terrifying them.
  • The presidents of 11 parties (#AVANTE, #CIDADANIA, #DEM, #MDB, #PL, #PP, #PSD, #PSDB, #PSL, #REPUBLICANOS, and #SOLIDARIEDADE) made a commitment during a video meeting to vote against the trail paper for the voting machines. This number of parties accounts for a majority needed to vote against it. The #ElectoralSupremeCourt (#TSE) even announced they already started the process of purchasing the voting machines for 2022 without the paper trail system, even before the vote, showing how confident the TSE is that the bill for the paper trail will be rejected, but this is also a way to increase the pressure on congresspeople to vote against it, since the purchase would have already been made by the time of the vote, meaning approving the paper trail would mean the money paid was wasted. In other words, the paper trail for 2022 is now out of question. #SupremeCourt [#STF] Justice #AlexandredeMoreas confined to four congressmen during a dinner last Monday that he thought they'd better make sure this issue didn't reach the STF in order to avoid further relationship deterioration between the institution and the executive power. The technology used in the current voting machines dates back to the 90's, and the fight against the voting machines without the paper trail dates back to the early 80's, when politician #LeonelBrizola won a lawsuit against an electronic vote in #RiodeJaneiro where he was able to prove there was fraud, with the company behind the voting machines recognizing it. He campaigned against voting machines until his death in 2004. This last Wednesday, De Moraes and another STF justice, #GilmarMendes, had a meeting with the leaders some those parties. Among the topics they discussed there were killing the paper trail bill early on in order to avoid it from getting to the #Senate or even the STF itself, and allowing 1000 voting machines to be audited before the elections instead of the usual 500. Bolsonaro expressed frustration during this weekly livestream on social media. He said he predicts the next election is going to be a mess, he won't allow that to happen, and urged the justices and the parties' presidents to rethink. TBB thinks Bolsonaro fails to act. Supreme Court justices interfering in politics like this seems unconstitutional, and this is just another unconstitutional act. We don't trying to convert them is the best course of action. #elections2022 #votingmachines #electronicvoting
  • “BARROSO, IT IS A LIE THAT THERE WILL BE [VOTING ON] PAPER BALLOT. YOU KNOW THAT. A JUSTICE OF THE #SUPREMECOURT [#STF] IS NOT SUPPOSED TO LIE. SO LET'S TELL THE TRUTH, DAMN IT!” President #Bolsonaro commenting on #SupremeCourt's [#STF] Justice #LuisBarroso activism against the paper trail by lying when saying the change is to go back to paper voting only. #elections2022 #votingmachine #electronicvoting #paperballot
  • President #Bolsonaro attended another motorcycle rally last weekend, this time in the city of #Chapeco, #SantaCatarina, and the attendance, again, was high. More than 10 thousand motorcycles.
  • President #Bolsonaro found himself again in the middle of another nothing-burger scandal in the last week. He's accused of letting gov't officials to accept bribery during the purchase of the Indian vaccine #Covaxin, made by #BharatBiotech. This bribery was denounced by Congressman #LuisMiranda. He gave interviews showing an invoice where the amount for the purchase of the vaccine was much above what has been paid to other makers. It had 300,000 doses for the total amount of 45,000,000 reals, or 150 reals each dose (about 29 dollars). Comparatively, the #SputnikV, #Coronavac, #Pfizer, #Janssen, and #AstraZeneca/#Oxford, cost 13, 11, 10, 10, and 3.16 dollars respectively. Miranda's brother is Chief of Importation of the Logistics Department of the Ministry of Health, and he was allegedly pressed to overlook and to sign the invoice. Miranda was summoned to speak at the committee on mismanagement of funds during the #pandemic, called #CPIdaCOVID (#COVIDProbe). On this day, Miranda showed up wearing body armor and holding a Bible. During his hearing, no other name was mentioned besides his brother's, #RicardoMiranda (which we will refer to by his first name to avoid confusion). After the hearing, Miranda left the building without the body armor and without the Bible. Soon, he had to appear again now accompanied by his brother so that the latter could give the name of the person who pressured him to overlook and authorize the invoice. Not only did Ricardo gave no names, but he also made revelations that implicated his brother. He didn't authorize the invoice, it was corrected three days later, and the purchase of Covaxin was never made. One senator asked Ricardo if he had informed his brother about the correction and he said, “THE [VACCINE] COMPANY AND THE ADMINISTRATIVE [DEPARTMENT OF THE MINISTRY], YES [, I INFORMED THEM], BUT I DIDN'T INFORM MY BROTHER.” Another senator said that, by not letting his brother know that the invoice had been corrected, he led him to make a calumnious accusation. Ricardo responded, “I DON'T ANSWER FOR HIM.” Another senator asked him, “WERE YOU PRESSED TO ACCEPT THE [IRREGULAR] INVOICE?” Ricardo, “NO.” Senator, “DID ANYONE OFFER ANY ADVANTAGE OF ANY SORTS FOR YOU TO IGNORE POLICIES OR LOOSEN REQUIREMENTS NEEDED FOR THE IMPORTATION OF THE COVAXIN VACCINE?” Ricardo, “NO. THE ONLY DEMAND WAS THAT THE DOCUMENTATION SENT BY THE COMPANY HAD TO RECEIVE ALL THE PROTOCOLS BY #ANVISA [the Brazilian health regulatory agency].” Then, another senator, #OmarAziz, asked, “ARE YOU [Miranda] SAYING THE PRESIDENT KNOWS WHO WAS THE PERSON BEHIND THIS [PRESSURE FOR BRIBERY]?” Miranda, “YES.” Aziz, “WHO IS THE PERSON?” Miranda, “I DON'T REMEMBER THE NAME OF THE CONGRESSPERSON, THE NAME WAS LOOSELY MENTIONED IN A CONVERSATION.” Aziz, “IF WE GAVE YOU SOME NAMES, WOULD YOU BE ABLE TO REMEMBER?” Miranda, “I DON'T REMEMBER, SIR.” Senator #RenanCalheiros asked Ricardo, “[DID] #PRECISAMEDICAMENTOS [Covaxin's representant in Brazil] TRY TO PUSH FOR THE PAYMENT [OF THAT AMOUNT FOR THAT QUANTITY] FOR THE COVAXIN?” Ricardo, “NO, NO.” Ricardo still tried to save Miranda's skin by saying that a colleague of his told him someone from the government asked for a bribe, but this friend never told him who this gov't person is and Ricardo didn't say who his colleague is so that the committee could summon him to get the gov't person's name. In a disclosed private conversation between Miranda and Bolsonaro on March 20th, where he tells the president about the invoice, Miranda says, “THE GOVERNMENT SPEAKS WITH MUCH TRANQUILITY—AND WHEN I SAY GOV'T I MEAN ONYX [#LORENZONI, President Bolsonaro's Chief of Staff]—THAT THE DOCUMENT WAS QUICKLY CORRECTED. IT WAS QUICKLY CORRECTED AFTER SEEING THE PRESIDENT.” In other words, Miranda was part of plan to try to get Bolsonaro accused of knowing about the invoice mistake, so that there could be grounds for an impeachment process, but the invoice was corrected 3 days later for the amount of 3,000,000 dollars, which then made the price per dose correct and the same as in 13 other countries, but still above all the other makers' vaccines; 15 dollars; and the purchase was never made. The plan to frame Bolsonaro was so bad that they didn't practice what his brother had to say during his hearing, and it did the opposite effect, botching the plan and making a fool out of Miranda. Precisa Medicamentos released a statement saying the negotiation process (which, again, was not approved) was entirely legal. The fake scandal was exposed, but Miranda still said there's something much bigger than [the scandal] that he can reveal, but many believe he's trying to drive the focus away from the mess he put himself into. 27 senators, though, still signed a resquest for the investigation on this nothing-burger scandal to extend for 90 more days, and they also want the #SupremeCourt (#STF) to get involved. All this noise about a documentation illegality that never happened for a purchase that never happened either. In February, Senator Aziz proposed a bill that would allow for states to be able to buy vaccines without a bid and ANVISA's approval of efficacy, and Miranda, during a radio interview not long ago, June 7th, said the #COVID Probe was all a farce, it was highly politicized, all about a political plan to take Bolsonaro down before 2022. Later this last week, while the two leaders of the committee had another person being heard, Miranda showed up out of nowhere and spoke to the ear of each of them both in front of everybody, which made some senators laugh in astonishment. Miranda was not even dressed properly and the security still let him be in the area and having access to the presidents, and the presidents didn't react badly, didn't reprimand Miranda, but rather listened patiently to what he was saying. He and Calheiros even shook hands.

  • #PSL Rep #NelsonBarbudo, aiming to give fair treatment to people and institutions that are fact-checked by #factcheckers, proposes a bill demanding that they inform the one being fact-checked before posting a fact-checking, and give them 5 days to counterfact-check. If the fact-checking is not counterfact-checked in 5 days, the fact-checker can proceed to post it, but if they post it without informing and waiting for the counterfact-check up to 5 days, they'll have to pay a 10% fine over their revenue. We from TBB believe that websites that are only fact checkers should simply be outlawed, but this bill is better than nothing.
  • The newly elected president of the #HouseofRepresentatives, #ArthurLira, dismissed 460 employees from temporary government positions only in House. This is an attempt to keep the ex-(and-disgraced-)chair #RodrigoMaia from having influence there by using some of these now-gone employees to transmit information and pass orders, and they would accept doing that for being thankful for the job, as it doesn't require one to take any public exam, but just be appointed.