BrianMier Profile picture
Correspondent for @teleSURenglish TV news program "From the South". Native Chicagoan who has lived 28 years in Brazil. Editor of "Year of Lead".
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Sep 10 12 tweets 4 min read
Greenwald is lying about Brazil's Supreme Court, falsely claiming that its 1st working group ruling on the Bolsonaro case is made up of faithful allies of Lula. Yet 3 of these 5 ministers voted to open an exception to the Constitution to imprison him on flimsy charges in 2018+ Image During its first 14 years on power, the PT used technical criteria to choose Supreme Court justices - an ethical move that is never done in the US. It came back to haunt them, as most voted in favor of Rousseff's frivolous impeachment and Lula's arbitrary political imprisonment.
Aug 29 5 tweets 2 min read
Brazil's Federal Police announced that, based out of the conservative state of Parana, the PCC crime group has taken over hundreds of petrol stations (privatized by Jair Bolsonaro) and created shell companies to launder drug money, investing US$6 Billion in 21 hedge funds+ Image Assets seized/frozen: 21 hedge funds, 141 cars, 1600 trucks, two boats and 191 properties, including 6 farms valued at R$31 million and a mansion appraised at R$13 million. Parana governor and Bolsonaro ally, Ratinho Jr., has been rumored to have organized crime ties for years. Image
Aug 4 6 tweets 2 min read
"The conduct of this relative is repugnant," says ex-first lady Michelle Bolsonaro, about her uncle Gilberto Firmo, arrested during a child pornography investigation last week. Another uncle was arrested for organized crime in 2021. A 3rd uncle was arrested for rape in 2020+ Image In addition to her uncles, Mrs. Bolsonaro's grandmother did jail time for drug trafficking in the 1990s and her mother was once investigated for fraud. Could this explain why she has worked so hard to project the image of an evangelical religious zealot? Image
Aug 3 6 tweets 2 min read
As Trump tries to extort the Brazilian government to reverse Jair Bolsonaro's conviction, it's worth remembering that he is the first and only Brazilian president to ever visit CIA headquarters in Langley, VA, on 3/18/2019, along with son Eduardo and Car Wash judge Sergio Moro+ Image CIA director William Burns then visited Bolsonaro in Brasilia on July 2, 2021. forte.jor.br/2021/07/02/em-…
Jun 8 10 tweets 3 min read
Whenever Americans try to impose their ridiculous "free speech" laws on Brazil, I have to explain this again: 1) Brazil does not follow the sloppy, outdated, US Constitution. It has it's own laws; 2) Unlike in the US, glorification of pedophilia is not protected free speech here+ Image 3) Like other countries around the world, e.g. Germany, glorification of Naziism is also not protected as "free speech." In Brazil, the reason for this is the Constitution's concept of the Harmony of Rights. No essential right can be used to trample over other essential rights;
Jun 3 9 tweets 2 min read
In the 1970s, the Communist Party of Brazil (PC do B) was persecuted by the US-backed Dictatorship, & supported by the Labour Party of Albania. In 1978, PC do B's 7th Congress was held in Tirana. I asked Deep Seek to apply Hoxha-style analysis to modern US imperialism in Brazil.+ PC do B leadership meeting in Albania in 1978 "From a theoretical perspective rooted in Enver Hoxha’s anti-imperialist and anti-revisionist Marxism-Leninism, U.S. involvement in Brazil’s Operation Car Wash can be understood as an extension of capitalist hegemony and imperialist subversion...
Apr 25 10 tweets 3 min read
Using out of context information and a Delaware-based NGO with 0 financial transparency called Coffee Watch, the New York Times and Guardian are running a coordinated hit job on Brazil's coffee industry. Recently hit by Trump tariffs, the sector employs an estimated 1.5 million.+ Image Like many countries, including the US, Brazil has forced labor problems. Police regularly raid coffee farms to rescue workers in these conditions. The highest annual number of rescued workers since 2000 was 313 in 2023, according to Coffee Watch's own partner Reporter Brasil. Image
Apr 19 16 tweets 6 min read
The death knell chimes for the PSDB (Social Democratic Party of Brazil). Once the most powerful party in Brazil and perennial favorite of US Democrats. After a series of dismal elections, it announced it's merging with another right-wing party, Podemos. How did it fall so fast? Image 1) Like Gorbachev, Brazil's ex-President Fernando Henrique Cardoso had a better reputation abroad than at home. In Brazil, he's despised for his privatizations, like state mining company Vale do Rio Doce, sold to a group of cronies for the equivalent of 1/4 of its annual profits Image
Apr 3 17 tweets 4 min read
Valério Arcary, one of Brazil's greatest Marxist historians, unaffiliated with the PT since 1991, warns radicals from repeating the errors of 2013-2016: "Unfortunately, a segment of the radical militant left does not agree that we need to buy time, much less that we need Lula+ Image "Some declare themselves independent of the government, while others adopt the strategy of left-wing opposition. Independence means criticizing what one believes is wrong while prioritizing the defense of the government against Bolsonarism...
Apr 1 10 tweets 4 min read
Glenn Greenwald may by whining about protecting the political rights of fascists now, but in 2017 a billionaire allegedly flew him to Canada so he could promote a US DOJ-backed lawfare operation in Brazil. His role in Operation Spoofing later turn the public against the prosecutors he awarded the Allard Prize to. However it seems like he sat on a massive trove of evidence of US collaboration w/ Lava Jato until Intercept lost its monopoly on the info+ fair.org/home/greenwald…
Mar 28 9 tweets 3 min read
Here's "Owned" Glenn Greenwald misleading Americans about Brazil, while revealing his true, millionaire nature by engaging in the long tradition of US elites denying coups in Latin America: 1) Jair Bolsonaro was not declared "guilty" of anything;+ Image 2) This weeks Court procedure was not a trial. It was a formal review of evidence;
Mar 26 4 tweets 1 min read
After ex-President Jair Bolsonaro was formally charged with leading an armed criminal organization to plot a military coup by the Supreme Court today, he said, "discussing hypotheses isn't a crime." Not only is he wrong, he's confessed again. I'll explain why here.+ Image Bolsonaro's argument that merely discussing a coup is not illegal fails because, 1) Intent matters: If discussions involve planning, recruitment, or incitement, they cross into criminal conspiracy;
Mar 20 6 tweets 3 min read
Brazilian journalists are scouring the new Kennedy files for info about the US role in the 1964 Military Coup. Supporting what Phillip Agee wrote in the 1970s, new info shows that Rio Grande do Sul Gov. Leonel Brizola was one of the most spied on individuals in Latin America.+ Image As Jacob Gorender wrote in "Combate nas Trevas", infighting in the Brazilian left led to inability to form armed resistance during the coup in 1964 - everywhere except Rio Grande do Sul, where governor Leonel Brizola (left) had put together an armed militia. Left to right: Leonel Brizola, Getulio Vargas, Neusa Goulart
Mar 16 4 tweets 2 min read
This week, Brazil's Federal Govt. delivered 789 new ambulances for use by the national free, universal public health system, to 59 cities in 21 Brazilian states. Ambulance service is free in Brazil, thanks to the SAMU program, started in 2004 during the 1st Lula administration.+ Image Established by then Health Minister and current Senator and PT President Humberto Costa, Brazil's free public ambulance service has it's own dedicated, free emergency number, 192, which can even be accessed from a locked smartphone with no credit. Regular emergency number is 190. Image
Feb 19 7 tweets 2 min read
2.5 years after former tech reporter Jack Nicas began to push Elon Musk's "judicial overreach" narrative about the Supreme Court Justice, Alexandre de Moraes, supervising the investigation into a failed military coup attempt, NYT finally admits he was targeted for assassination.+ Image Another first: NYT runs a positively framed photo of Justice Moraes, who is not (as Glenn Greenwald might have you believe) Chief Justice but one of 11 members of Brazil's Supreme Court. Image
Dec 30, 2024 6 tweets 2 min read
In 1978, Jimmy Carter cut off US support for the Brazilian military. Then he made an uninvited visit to Brazil, where he met with liberation theology clergy and human rights activists. S. Paulo Cardinal Dom Evaristo Arns (l) asked him about the CIA's torture training program.+ Image "I was in a car, alone with the US President and his wife, in Rio de Janeiro," Arns said. "I said, 'a lot of people say that the CIA tought us torture techniques, most notably psychological torture. Do you think this is true?' ... Image
Dec 24, 2024 8 tweets 3 min read
New York Times hero, bolsonarista ex-Congressman Daniel Silveira, is back in prison after only 4 days, for parole violations. The ex-Rio military police cop (kicked out after 60 disciplinary procedures) was arrested in 2021 for calling on the army to overthrow the Supreme Court+ Image As I wrote for FAIR, on 10/4/2024, the Times Jack Nicas spent the first 4 paragraphs of a hit job on Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes softening Silveira's image, misrepresenting the terms of his arrest, and fixating on his "bulging muscles." fair.org/home/with-bols…
Aug 15, 2024 18 tweets 5 min read
Phase 2 of Musk's "free Bolsonaro" campaign has begun, with help from sidekick Greenwald, who's released WhatsApp chats from Supreme Court Justice Moraes' staff showing him "informally directing" an Electoral Court investigation. The problem is there's nothing illegal about it.+ Image In the pages of Folha de S. Paulo, Glenn uses US law to claim his leaked messages prove that the Supreme Federal Court (STF) minister illegally acted 'outside the procedural framework' by having his staff request Superior Electoral Court (TSE) reports on investigation suspects.
Aug 13, 2024 14 tweets 5 min read
It's depressing to see the normally respectable magazine Current Affairs run yet another one of a long series of misleading, Perry Anderson-style "from the left" hit pieces against Lula. I'll highlight some of the worst examples of disinformation in this thread+ Image I'll start with these two examples of gaslighting of the Brazilian left. Image
Aug 6, 2024 5 tweets 2 min read
When President Lula brought up Venezuela, AS/COA endorsed "leftist" Chilean President Gabriel Boric rolled his eyes and stuck his beloved US State Depatment narrative. Here's the infamous Americas Quarterly (AS/COA's Latin American news magazine) 2021 fluff piece about Gabriel Boric, pictured here as a cool guy for going to a big oil/pharma/mining-funded think tank in a Nirvana t-shirt. americasquarterly.org/article/what-i…
Jul 14, 2024 5 tweets 2 min read
On September 6, 2018, the news broke that Jair Bolsonaro had been stabbed at a campaign rally. As World leaders expressed solidarity for him, a friend from the PT called and said, "this is our 9/11. We've lost the election". Later, all kinds of suspicious information came out + Image Many Brazilians have never believed that Bolsonaro was really stabbed, in part because there was no blood (actually a pretty common situation in puncture wounds), but also because he had a series of intestinal surguries before and after the alleged stabbing. Image