THE BRAZILIAN BOT

Rondonia

  • President #Bolsonaro and the state attorney-general requested the #SupremeCourt (#STF) to rule on the unconstitutionality of lockdown and curfew measures that cities and states are putting up again. A similar request, but directed to other states in March, was rejected by the STF, and this makes many believe they will reject this new one too. But, a lot of other people are expecting that the STF is going to rule against the measures this time because the request is better formulated—an observation made by a judge-minister—and also because Bolsonaro said a couple of weeks ago that he has a decree ready to be signed that would force a military action against any city or state administrator that puts a curfew or lockdown in action. #pandemic #covid #lockdown
  • #MarcoAurelio de Melo, one of the #SupremeCourt's (#STF) judge-ministers, expressed opposition to the Senate #pandemic commission hearing some governors due to accusations of federal money misuse. His opinion (which he isn't supposed to be giving) is based on the idea that the responsability to form commissions to investigate their administration is of the local houses. On the other side, the argument is that the local houses seem to be under total control of their administrators, either a governor or a mayor, and not a single commission to investigate any misuse of money was formed in any of the 27 states or in any of the 5,000 plus cities across the country. #covid
  • The #SupremeCourt (#STF) voted 7-4 to deny the federal police the request to investigate the STF Judge-Minister and President Dias #Toffoli for receiving 4 million reals to help politicians in election processes while he was the president of the #SupremeElectoralCourt (#STE). No one is surprised by this decision.
  • The #Bolsonaro administration is trying to pass a bill that forces fuel taxes to be shown separately on the consumers' receipt, and not just that, but also which entity is charging that amount, if it is the distributor, the gov't, or the state. The bill has been facing difficulty to go for a vote due to pressure from governors (the #SupremeCourt (#STF) has also been making it difficult) since they are charging their taxes on top of the final price and based on the final price, which is considered unconstitutional.
  • It is believed President #Bolsonaro's last motorcycle rally in #RiodeJaneiro reached 2.6 miles in length.
  • The president of the #Senate commission to investigate money misuse during the #pandemic, Senator #OmarAziz, presented a bill that would give doctors 3 years of jail time if they ever prescribed any medicine for #COVID except the vaccine. President #Bolsonaro decided to make it public on his social media, and the backlash was so intense that Aziz requested its permanent dismissal just 30 minutes later.
  • The governor of #SaoPaulo, João #Doria, decided to extent the business reopening transition from May 31st to June 14th, and in some cities, even essential businesses, like, pharmacies and supermarkets, are closed. #RibeiraoPreto is one of these cities. Just a reminder, cities in the State of São Paulo, the City of São Paulo mainly, allowed the public transportation, buses and trains, to operate at a lower capacity and thus crowded for over a year. #pandemic #covid
  • A movement that seeks to sue the City of #SaoPaulo for keeping schools closed, called 'Portas Abertas' ('Open Doors'), has encouraged a broader demand for other mayors and for governors to be called into accountability for not letting cities open their schools. The argument for this is that there are studies worldwide suggesting that opening schools, even if partially, does not represent a considerable risk, especially the earlier education. They claim that businesses that do not have the same kind of comprehensive study and that serve others than children were allowed to open. 10 out of the 27 states (one is not a state, but a federal district, #DistritoFederal, just like #Washington DC) have partially opened schools, but Open Doors claims this opening is too restrictive to be considered adequate. For instance, they are letting children of health workers and children in serious circumstances (for instance, homeless or abused) to attend it. In #Brazil, there is this Law of Accountability, which was the one on which ex-President #Dilma's impeachment was based. Among the reasons for a public administrator to break this law is abuse of power, and keeping schools closed when there has been neither consensus for that nor a single standard being applied can be considered abuse of power. #covid #pandemic #lockdown
  • The #Congress probe into #COVID-related actions approved the hearing of 9 governors; from #Amapa, #Amazon, #DistritoFederal, #Para, #Piaui, #Rondonia, #Roraima, #SantaCatarina, and #Tocantins. #WilsonWitzel, the impeached ex-governor of #RiodeJaneiro, will be heard too. Other people are going to be heard as well. The governor of Piaui is a member of a consortium composed by some Northeastern states, and there is a separate probe into this consortium. Some representatives wanted mayors to be heard, but none was included. #pandemic
  • The #Bolsonaro administration is following the steps of #Florida Governor #DeSantis and has already prepared a bill that prohibits social media platforms from removing accounts and posts solely based on their terms of use. The bill was written by a team in the Ministry (Department) of Culture, and a subsecretary called National Secretary of Copyrights and Intellectual Property would be in charge of its effectiveness. If it's signed, social media platforms can receive from a warning up to a fine of up to 10% of the company's revenue in Brazil in the year prior to the offense. #socialmedia #censorship #bigtech

  • President #Bolsonaro attended the opening of a 1-mile bridge connecting the State of #Acre to #Rondonia. The construction had been planned to start 6 years ago, but it was impeded by the strong lobby of ferryboat owners who was making about 100,000 reals a day by charging to transport vehicles, cargo, and people from one side to the other.
  • The civil and military police of #RiodeJaneiro made a surprise raid in the Favela of #Jacarezinho with the purpose of arresting some criminals involved in recruiting underage youngsters to work with drug dealing. During the raid, criminals quickly responded with heavy fire and fatally hit one officer in the head. Shots coming from criminals hit passengers inside a city train. 25 criminals were killed during the operation. The police used helicopters, which had been restrict by the #SupremeCourt (#STF) to fly any closer than 1.25 miles from a school or hospital, greatly diminishing the effectiveness of operations by giving criminals a hint of which areas they can use for cover from an air patrol or an air chase.
  • #SergioMoro gave up running for president in 2022. #Moro became notorious for leading the #LavaJato (#CarWash) operation, the biggest anticorruption operation #Brazil has ever seen. He was assigned minister of justice by President #Bolsonaro but later fell into disgrace. The amount of loss of reputation and importance he reached is remarkable.
  • President #Bolsonaro attended a motorcycle ride on #MothersDay. He rode along with hundreds of others in the streets of #Brasilia. This city is known to host the third largest motorcycle event in the world, #BrasiliaCapitalMotoWeek, which lasts 10 days and happens toward the end of July to coincide with National Motorcyclist Day on July 27th (World Motorcycle Day is on June 21st). Bolsonaro is used to riding a motorcycle a couple of times a month, and one or another person would approach him and express their wish to have the chance to ride along. Bolsonaro then decided to plan this last Sunday's ride. #capitalmotoweek
  • #RiodeJaneiro Mayor #EduardoPaes was caught disobeying his own city's pandemic restrictions. He was filmed singing in a bar called #ArmazemSenado, the place was crowded inside, no social distancing, and very few people is seen wearing a mask including him.

  • A video of a street vendor being approach by the military police and being put into the trunk of a police car Thursday night in #Bahia went viral. He was not supposed to be out at that time due to the #curfew. He said he lost the last bus and no more buses had come since then. At a certain moment, one of the officers forcibly approaches him and puts him in the trunk of the police vehicle while the vendor says, “DON'T HURT ME!” What's shocking about the video is that the officer's approach is nearly the same as if approaching a criminal, which very much makes you believe the guy is a criminal (if you didn't know the context). Another thing that worries is the fact that another officer, when he realizes there's someone recording it, approaches the person and says, “IF THIS GENTLEMAN IS BEING FILMED [BY YOU] YOU'RE GOING TO BE A WITNESS. COME ON [WITH US].” #covid #covid19 #coronavirus #abuseofpower
  • The #Senate approved a bill that authorizes private companies to buy vaccines. It's now headed to the #Congress. If it passes, President #Bolsonaro may veto it because the bill removes the responsibility for side effects of the #vaccine from the makers and put it in the government. #covid #covid19 #coronavirus
  • Some residents of the city of #Araraquara in the State of #SaoPaulo, which is under a full #lockdown period, have reported some food shortage and some price hike. #covid #covid19 #coronavirus #brazil
  • Keeping the annoying and uncalled-for habit of giving interviews nonstop, one of the judge-ministers of the #SupremeCourt (#STF), #EdsonFachin, listed the seven symptoms of a corrupt democracy during an interview for the leftist, liberal, progressive, #FolhadeSaoPaulo (#Folha). They are [with comments], “REMILITARIZATION OF A CIVIL GOVERNMENT” [the military regime was the most stable and orderly period #Brazil had ever experienced in a long time, failed by the 'positivist' mindset and old-anti-#communism combat tactics, while the “civil” government that started in 1988 never made the country any better, so this argument per se doesn't say much], “INTIMIDATION [BY CALLS TO SHUT DOWN THE OTHER POWERS—#CONGRESS, #SENATE, AND #STF” [there was never a direct call to shut them down, but to the possibility of them being shut down due to their unconstitutional behavior, and since #Bolsonaro was elected, no actual attempt has been made and no plan to do so has ever been exposed], “MINIMIZATION OF THE VALUE OF VOTING” [the judge-ministers have been reacting positively to making the voting process even more digital, like voting by phone, which makes it even more prone to fraud, while #Bolsonaro, his allies, and his supporters support the opposite, walking toward more auditability, even if it means partially using paper], “ATTACKS AGAINST THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS” [it was the STF who censored a news outlet back on 2019, who ordered the arrest of a journalist twice in 2019 and 2020, who ordered the conservative site #TercaLivre to be mass suspended on social media platforms in 2021, who ordered the arrest of a congressman for a thought crime and also demanded all his social media accounts to be suspended in 2021; no such restricting actions were ever taken by the President #Bolsonaro; the most he has done was to harshly criticize the big old media, call them corrupt, unfair, evil, disgraceful], “ENCOURAGEMENT OF THE SALES OF WEAPONS AND THUS OF VIOLENCE” [violence in Brazil increased after the gun ban in 2005, and since #Bolsonaro was elected and a few of his pro-guns decrees passed, along with other measures, violence has decreased; also, violence numbers in countries were fire weapons are allowed don't support the judge-minister's reasoning], “NORMALIZING ADMINISTRATIVE AGENTS' CORRUPTION” [one of his administration's hallmark is the nearly total elimination of corruption, at least at the highest level] and “REFUSAL TO ACCEPT ELECTION RESULTS” [the president never refused to accept the elections' results, but expressed that if the vote can't be audited, fraud is possible].
  • The tax over imported #fireweapons was going to be zero this year, but the judge-minister of the #SupremeCourt (#STF) #EdsonFachin issued an injunction order halting the decree. Another judge-minister commented that zeroing the tax and thus increasing the sales of fire weapons in #Brazil is a “RISK FOR THE STABILITY OF DEMOCRACY.” Once again, the STF ruling over things it shouldn't. #guns #gunsales #gunban #disarmament #selfdefense #fachin
  • As of February 26th, the states that were imposing the lockdown were #Bahia, #DistritoFederal, #Maranhao, #Paraiba, #Pernambuco, #Piaui, #RioGrandedoSul, #Rondonia, and #SaoPaulo. Aside from the lockdown, these states' governors have another thing in common: They strongly oppose #Bolsonaro. #covid #covid19 #coronavirus
  • During a speech and while he was talking about the stronger #lockdown measures imposed by some governors, President #Bolsonaro said, “THE RELIEF CHECK WILL BE COMING FOR A COUPLE MORE MONTHS. THE GOVERNOR THAT DESTROYS JOBS SHOULD PAY FOR THE RELIEF CHECK. [...] THOSE WHO CLOSE EVERYTHING AND DESTROY JOBS ARE GOING AGAINST THE WISH OF THEIR PEOPLE.” #covid #covid19 #coronavirus
  • Writer and philosopher #OlavodeCarvalho is in hospital in the US with #pneumonia.
  • Leaked messages exchanged by #LavaJato Operation prosecutors show that they had illegal access to the President #Bolsonaro family's personal information, including fiscal, right after he was elected. They laugh in several moments. The data was accessed by the COAF ('Council for Financial Activities Control') and the MP ('Public Ministry' or 'Prosecution Office'). #RobertoLeonel was in control of the COAF back then, he was assigned by #SergioMoro, and the latter got very upset when COAF was taken out of the control of his ministry by President Bolsonaro. #Leonel is behind the leaks from COAF, and he is referred in one of the messages by one prosecutor as “HE IS 1000.” 'To be 1000' is an expression that means a person helped someone else greatly; it's like saying, “He was so helpful that saying he was 100% helpful is not enough. Maybe 1000%?” #carwash #deltandallagnol #moro
  • The city of #Buzios, in the State of #RiodeJaneiro, reached zero hospitalizations for #COVID. They bet strongly on prevention, not withholding themselves from making use of several medications that can possibly help avoid cases from getting too serious, like #ivermectin #hydroxychloroquine, vitamin D, zinc, etc. This example contrasts with other cities, where the number of too serious cases surpassed the number of hospital rooms. #covid19 #coronavirus
  • Some #Brazil(ian) states and some cities in some states are going for a #curfew in order to stop or slow down the spread of the virus. According to the #Constitution, the curfew can only be allowed in two situations: State of Defense and State of Emergency. The State of Defense allows for the curfew in isolated areas, as long as there is a social unrest or a natural disaster that's big enough to result in lack of control by the local authorities. It can last 30 days and be extended for 30 more days. If the lack of control persists, then the State of Emergency is the next step. In this case, it allows for the curfew to be extended to areas where everything is apparently calm, and several constitutional rights are suspended, but in order for a curfew to start, the president (not a mayor or a governor) needs the #Congress' approval—this is to show you how extreme a curfew is. Beyond this point, the military intervention is the call. The virus and the rulings it has caused to be issued have resulted in all the rules regarding curfews being broken, in cities and states making decisions about putting it in place regardless of the government's direction. In other words, mayors and governors are breaking the Constitution, paving the way for a federal intervention; but, will there be? And, how long will unconstitutional actions continue to be taken for? #covid #covid19 #coronavirus
  • The #Congress is discussing a bill called [Speech] Immunity Bill. It has the purpose of clarifying where the limit of the #SupremeCourt (#STF) is when it comes to its power to warrant the arrest of a congressperson for a thought crime. In its original form, the bill made it clear only the Congress Ethical Counsel could apply a punishment, but some parties, like #PT, leftist, is critical of the bill for totally leaving the judiciary out of it. At least one congressman, the infamous and often ridiculed #KimKataguiri (another politician who did a great job pre-#Bolsonaro, campaigned for him and was elected in great part because of him, but ultimately flipped 180°), came to the point of asking the STF to interfere in the Congress' affairs by ordering that this bill be prohibited from even being discussed, and one judge-minister was already chosen to analyze this possibility. #freedomofspeech