Brazil Selects First Black Supreme Court President Joaquim Barbosa

Brazil Selects First Black Supreme Court President Joaquim Barbosa

• 
  Joaquim Barbosa smiles during his inauguration ceremony at the Supreme Court in Brasilia, Brazil. (AP)

  
  

From Fox News Latino, November 23, 2012

BRASILIA –  Joaquim Barbosa was sworn him on Thursday, making him the first black justice to head Brazil’s Supreme Court.

The 58-year-old became the first ever to serve on the court when he joined in 2003, even though more than half of the country’s 192 million people identify themselves as having African descent.

Barbosa was elected in October to a two-year tenure as Supreme Court President. His election was a foregone conclusion since the court’s presidency always goes to the justice who has served on the bench the longest.

Over the past several weeks he gained national and international renown presiding over a high-profile corruption trial involving a congressional cash-for-votes scheme. The court has convicted 25 people including the fort chief of staff of ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

President Dilma Rousseff, members of her Cabinet, state governors, congressional leaders and several sports and entertainment personalities were present at Barbosa’s swearing in.

“The multiculturalism that characterizes the Brazilian people is evident here today with Joaquim Barbosa heading the highest court of the land,” said Ophir Cavalcante, president of the Brazilian Bar Association in a speech during the swearing in ceremony.

Valter Silveiro, coordinator of the Center for Afro-Brazilian Studies of the University of Sao Carlos, believes Barbosa as a Supreme Court president “has a strong symbolic impact for Brazilian blacks.”

“The new generation of blacks will have the opportunity that my generation never had — of seeing a black man presiding over one of the three branches of government.”

Silveiro also stated Barbosa's history, background and achievements "strengthen affirmative action programs that try to increase the presence of blacks in the country's universities."

Barbosa was born in the small town of Paracatu in Minas Gerais state, where his father worked as a bricklayer. When he was 16 he went to the capital, Brasilia, to study. He worked as a cleaner and a typesetter at the Senate to pay for his studies at the University of Brasilia’s law school.

After graduating he was hired by the Foreign Ministry and served three years at the Brazilian Embassy in Finland.

A former federal prosecutor, Barbosa taught law at Rio de Janeiro State University and was a visiting scholar at the Human Rights Institute of Columbia University’s law school in New York and the UCLA law school in California.

Based on reporting by the Associated Press.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/politics/2012/11/23/brazil-selects-first-black-supreme-court-president-joaquim-barbosa/

Lula's associates are sentenced in mensalao (monthly stipend) corruption trial

Supreme Court sentencing begins in Brazilian corruption trial

by Juliana Barbassa, Associated Press, October 26, 2012

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A political corruption trial seen as a turning point toward cleaner governance in Brazil is nearing its end, with the country's Supreme Court starting to hand down tough sentences this week against powerful defendants.

Twenty five people have been convicted on charges related to the funneling of public money into political campaigns and a cash-for-votes scheme in the legislature. The court adjourned Thursday due to a judge's health problem and will likely resume discussions of sentencing of the convicted in the second week of November.

The trial has riveted Brazil for months, with results that have tarnished the reputation of the governing Workers' Party. The alleged corruption dates back to the government of former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, though he has not been charged and denies the schemes happened.

The accused included Jose Dirceu de Oliveira e Silva, who was Silva's chief of staff, and a host of other politicians, consultants and bankers. Jose Dirceu, as he is known, pleaded not guilty, but was convicted of racketeering and leading the vote-buying in Congress during Silva's first term in office, among other charges.

The first sentence, which came Wednesday, was for Marcos Valerio de Souza, a consultant considered the key operator in the cash distribution scheme. So far, he's been condemned to more than 40 years in prison and fined more than $1.3 million. Both will be recalibrated once a last judge has his say, and he'll be eligible to serve in a more lenient, semi-open prison system after completing one-sixth of the sentence.

To many in this country where public service has long been marred by corruption and impunity, the sentence was a powerful message signaling improving political health. The country's main newspapers reported it with above-the-fold headlines, trumpeting "the hour of punishment."

The Supreme Court has also determined that consultant Marcos Valerio de Souza acted under Jose Dirceu's command. On Wednesday, judge Joaquin Barbosa noted that "Marcos Valerio agreed to take part in this criminal enterprise headed by Jose Dirceu to seize political power."

Brazilians followed minute-by-minute on news sites the judges' discussion of sentences for Valerio's former business partner, Ramon Hollerebach, and wondered what this could mean for Jose Dirceu, who was once considered a likely presidential candidate. He resigned his post when the scandal broke in 2005.

Political analyst Matthew Taylor, author of "Judging Policy: Courts and Policy Reform in Democratic Brazil," called the sentencing "a watershed for Brazil." He noted that this is the first major political corruption scandal where the Supreme Court found the defendants guilty.

This has real weight, since the Supreme Court has traditionally been very deferential toward power and constrained by the cumbersome rules of Brazilian justice, he said.

Still, Taylor, a professor at the American University in Washington, cautioned against investing the case with too much significance. Brazil has made significant strides in promoting accountability in government and combatting corruption at various levels, but the judicial system is lagging behind, he said.

"The courts remain the chief bottleneck for justice in Brazil," Taylor said. "While this case is very important, it is the exception that proves the rule."

He said one of problems impeding justice is the glacial pace of the courts, noting it took seven years for this case to reach the Supreme Court. He also pointed to the special privileges afforded to politicians, including the right to be heard directly in Brazil's highest court, and to a plethora of avenues for appeal available to the elite.

"The fact that there are special privileges for politicians is anachronistic for a democracy as vibrant as Brazil," he said.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sentencing-begins-brazil-corruption-trial-060950497.html

José Dirceu sentenced to 11 years in prison!

[I don't know how I missed this article.]

A Former Brazilian Presidential Chief-of-Staff Gets 10 Years in Vote-Buying Scheme

by Simon Rimero, The New York Times, November 12, 2012

RIO DE JANEIRO — Brazil’s high court on Monday sentenced one of the most powerful figures in the governing Workers Party to nearly 11 years in prison for orchestrating a vast vote-buying scheme, sending shock waves through Brazil’s political establishment.

Jamil Bittar/Reuters

José Dirceu, a top ally of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was convicted of conspiracy and bribery.

Related

• Times Topic: Brazil

Connect With Us on Twitter

Follow@nytimesworld for international breaking news and headlines.

Twitter List: Reporters and Editors

Justices in the Supreme Federal Tribunal, or Supreme Court, announced that José Dirceu de Oliveira e Silva, a top ally of and chief of staff to Brazil’s popular former president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was sentenced to 10 years and 10 months in prison after being found guilty of charges that are roughly the equivalent of unlawful conspiracy and bribery.

The length of the sentence for such an influential political operative, who is commonly called José Dirceu in Brazil, and the mere possibility that he could spend some time in prison before being paroled, stood as precedent-setting shifts in a political culture in which impunity in corruption cases has traditionally prevailed, legal scholars said.

“This is a watershed moment,” said Thiago Bottino, a law professor at Fundação Getúlio Vargas, a top Brazilian university. “The court is sending a message that this concrete case is very serious.”

The sentencing of José Dirceu, 66, who spent part of Brazil’s long military dictatorship exiled in Cuba, came amid a flurry of other sentences the court handed down in the trial.

José Genoino Guimarães Neto, the former president of the Workers Party at the time the scandal emerged in 2005, received a sentence on Monday of almost seven years. In October, Marcos Valério de Souza, a businessman who was found to have operated much of the embezzlement scheme, got a 40-year sentence and was ordered to pay a fine of about $1.3 million.

It remained to be seen how much time those convicted would actually spend in prison, and when their terms would begin, raising concerns that defendants would find ways to wiggle out of time behind bars. Brazil’s judicial system allows for certain procedural appeals, even at this seemingly defining stage in a high court trial.

In addition, some Brazilian legal scholars, including former justices on the court, say the defendants cannot go to prison until the high court formally publishes its decision in the case, which it is expected to do in early 2013. But Prosecutor General Roberto Gurgel publicly argued this month that defendants should start serving sentences almost immediately after they are announced.

In the case of José Dirceu, the sentence for his role in the sprawling scheme — called the mensalão, or big monthly allowance, in a nod to the regular payments some lawmakers received — almost ensures that he will spend time behind bars.

Legal experts calculated on Monday that he might have to serve almost two years in prison before becoming eligible for a so-called semi-open arrangement in which he could leave prison each day to work, and return to sleep. It is very rare in Brazil for senior political figures to spend much time in prison for corruption and other offenses.

Lis Horta Moriconi contributed reporting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/world/americas/ex-brazilian-presidential-aide-sentenced-in-vote-buying-plot.html

Felicidade: Happiness When the Rain Comes

Marcelo Jeneci - Felicidade (Happiness) from BrazilRocks on Vimeo.

Jake Naumer on lead, mostly

Jake, Farrell, Bobby, Tony @ Charlack 4.04.2012 from Jake Naumer on Vimeo.

Gota d'Agua, assine por favor!

GOTA D'AGUA   http://www.movimentogotadagua.com.br/assinatura



Vossa Excelência Sra Presidente Dilma Rousseff

Exmo. Sr. Presidente da Câmara dos Deputados Marco Maia PT/RS


Nós do Movimento Gota D’Água pedimos o vosso empenho e ação para evitar mais umdesastre ambiental de proporções gigantescas:

• • pedimos vossa atenção para ouvir os argumentos da população do Xingu, dos ambientalistas, técnicos e cientistas verdadeiramente empenhados em achar soluções para o desenvolvimento sustentável do Brasil.
• • pedimos o fim dos discursos ambientalistas de palanque e o avanço na direção de umadiscussão verdadeira em prol de políticas alternativas de geração de energia sustentável - capazes de gerar a energia necessária ao desenvolvimento do país, sem arruinar um ecossistema dessa magnitude
• • pedimos a interrupção imediata das obras de Belo Monte e a abertura de um amplo debate, que convoque os brasileiros a refletir e a opinar sobre qual modelo de progresso estão dispostos a perseguir, cientes das conseqüências de suas escolhas.

(Os Signatários)

English

To Ms President Dilma Rousseff

To the National Congress of Brazil - Mr. Deputy Marco Maia PT / RS

The petition of “Movimento Gota D’água”,

A nonpartisan organization, committed to stop the imminent building of Belo Monte and to increase the awareness of the Brazilian population over the subject of sustainable development,

Declares that

The building of a gigantic hydroelectric power plant in the Amazon Forest will destroy the natural habitat of thousands of species and brutally dislodge entire local communities. What amount of electric energy would justify such an act of violence and destruction?

The petitioners therefore request that the President and Brazilian Congressmen bring their commitment and action to prevent another environmental disaster of gigantic proportions and request:

• • That the arguments of the people from Xingu are heard, as well as the alternative solutions for energy generation presented by environmentalists and scientists;
• • That campaing speeches on enviromental issues are replaced by a true discussion of alternative policies to promote and develop technologies, which are able to generate the energy needed to develop the country, without ruining an ecosystem of this magnitude and value;
• • That the construction of Belo Monte be stopped immediatly.
• • The opening of a national debate to increase the awareness of the Brazilian people to reflect and opine on what model of progress we are willing to pursue, aware of the consequences of our choices.

And the petitioner(s) remain(s), etc.

ASSINE AQUI!

(Opcional)

PRIVACIDADE DO ENDEREÇO DE E-MAIL:

Privado 

Público 

Privado: Seu email é guardado num local privado e seguro e utilizado apenas para validar sua assinatura.

Público: Público significa que qualquer pessoa que navegue no site do abaixo-assinado poderá ver seu email e também enviar-lhe um email.

Another victory for our plutocrat overlords: IRS ceases audits of large donors to 501(c)4 organizations (faux think tanks, etc.) -- many of these tax-exempt organizations are in fact nothing more than lobbyists for the ultra-right wing

I.R.S. Drops Audits of Political Donors

by STEPHANIE STROM, The New York Times, July 7, 2011

The Internal Revenue Service on Thursday abandoned its effort to force five big-ticket donors to pay gift taxes on contributions they made to nonprofit advocacy groups that are playing an increasing role in American politics.

“Until further notice, examination resources should not be expended on this issue,” Steven T. Miller, deputy commissioner for services and enforcement, wrote in a memo posted on the I.R.S. Web site.

“This is a difficult area,” Mr. Miller wrote, “with significant legal, administrative and policy implications with respect to which we have little enforcement history.”

The memo was a sharp reversal for the tax agency, which had invoked a rarely used, 30-year-old ruling to warn the five donors in February that they might owe gift taxes on their donations. Organizations heavily financed by conservative donors like David Koch, or in the case of Crossroads GPS, tied to top Republican strategists like Karl Rove, would have come under such newly enforced rules, were they to be imposed across the board.

News of those audits broke in May, after lawyers representing the donors complained about them in an American Bar Association meeting. Neither the donors nor the organizations to which they made the gifts that prompted the I.R.S. audits have been disclosed publicly.

The issue electrified the political world, where such advocacy groups, known as 501(c)4 organizations for the section of the tax code under which they are established, have become powerful players in recent years.

Mr. Rove’s group and Priorities USA, a new liberal advocacy group set up by two former Obama administration officials, Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney, are attracting ever larger war chests in support of campaigns and causes because they can offer their donors anonymity, unlike political action committees and 527 organizations.

The I.R.S. audits became public just as such groups were ramping up for the 2012 election cycle, and a group of six senators led by Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican from Utah, wrote to the I.R.S. commissioner Douglas H. Shulman raising concerns that its effort to impose gift taxes on donations to these groups was politically motivated and in violation the First Amendment.

“This decision today ensures that the I.R.S. remains free from even the hint of undue political influence,” Mr. Hatch said in a statement on Thursday.  “It cannot be turned into an arm of political retribution or payback.”

Similarly, David Camp, Republican of Michigan and chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, questioned the process the I.R.S had used to challenge the five donors and whether the Obama administration, which has been critical of the increasing power of advocacy groups, was involved.

On Thursday, Mr. Camp issued a statement saying that while he welcomed Mr. Miller’s decision, he remained concerned that the I.R.S. had not ruled out future gift taxes on or audits of such donations. “I remain troubled that the I.R.S. has failed to explain what prompted these audits in the first place,” he said.

The I.R.S. has said that the White House had nothing to do with its audits, and its original statement said they were begun by lower-level employees and that administration officials were not notified. Frank Keith, an I.R.S. spokesman, said Thursday that the estate and gift tax unit had in fact suspended those audits in March, although the agency’s initial confirmation of the audits did not mention any such action.

“All decisions to open, suspend and close the audits were made by career civil servants and were not the result of any outside influence,” Mr. Keith said.

Mr. Miller’s memo today indicated that no new inquiries would be made of donors to such groups until these issues had been studied and a broader policy developed, on a timetable he left open-ended. Greg Colvin, a lawyer for one of the five donors under audit by the I.R.S., called the memo issued Thursday “at least a temporary victory.”

“They might sometime in the future decide to apply the tax,” Mr. Colvin added. “But in my experience, they can go for a very, very long time if they’ve got a tough issue where there is difficult public policy, contradictions, constitutional questions, debate over what Congress intended. They could keep this on ice for decades.”

Mr. Colvin and other lawyers said the I.R.S. turnaround might lead to a spate of refund requests from donors who made contributions to advocacy groups and paid gift taxes. “It makes sense to file a protective claim to avoid losing out by virtue of the statute of limitations expiring,” said Marcus Owens, a lawyer who formerly headed the I.R.S. division that oversees nonprofit groups.

Mr. Keith, the I.R.S. spokesman, said taxpayers had the right to file for a refund of any tax they had paid. “However, I’m not saying how the I.R.S. would treat such a claim, whether it would be honored or denied, and the field directive” — Mr. Miller’s memo — “doesn’t speak to that, either,” he said.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 8, 2011, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: I.R.S. Drops Audits Of Political Donors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/08/business/irs-drops-audits-of-donors-to-political-groups.html

Chris Hedges Speaks on Osama bin Laden’s Death

Chris Hedges Speaks on Osama bin Laden’s Death

Truthdigs, May 1, 2011: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/chris_hedges_speaks_on_osama_bin_ladens_death_20110502


Chris Hedges, speaking at a Truthdig fundraising event in Los Angeles on Sunday evening, made these remarks about Osama bin Laden’s death.


I know that because of this announcement, that reportedly Osama bin Laden was killed, Bob [Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer] wanted me to say a few words about it … about al-Qaida. I spent a year of my life covering al-Qaida for The New York Times. It was the work in which I, and other investigative reporters, won the Pulitzer Prize. And I spent seven years of my life in the Middle East. I was the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. I’m an Arabic speaker. And when someone came over and told ... me the news, my stomach sank. I’m not in any way naive about what al-Qaida is. It’s an organization that terrifies me. I know it intimately.


But I’m also intimately familiar with the collective humiliation that we have imposed on the Muslim world. The expansion of military occupation that took place throughout, in particular the Arab world, following 9/11—and that this presence of American imperial bases, dotted, not just in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Doha—is one that has done more to engender hatred and acts of terror than anything ever orchestrated by Osama bin Laden.


And the killing of bin Laden, who has absolutely no operational role in al-Qaida—that’s clear—he’s kind of a spiritual mentor, a kind of guide … he functions in many of the ways that Hitler functioned for the Nazi Party. We were just talking with Warren [Beatty] about [Ian] Kershaw’s great biography of Hitler, which I read a few months ago, where you hold up a particular ideological ideal and strive for it. That was bin Laden’s role. But all actual acts of terror, which he may have signed off on, he no way planned. [Chris turned out to be wrong about this, or at least, that is what our government told us.]


I think that one of the most interesting aspects of the whole rise of al-Qaida is that when Saddam Hussein … I covered the first Gulf War, went into Kuwait with the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, was in Basra during the Shiite uprising until I was captured and taken prisoner by the Iraqi Republican Guard. I like to say I was embedded with the Iraqi Republican Guard. Within that initial assault and occupation of Kuwait, bin Laden appealed to the Saudi government to come back and help organize the defense of his country. And he was turned down. And American troops came in and implanted themselves on Muslim soil.

When I was in New York, as some of you were, on 9/11, I was in Times Square when the second plane hit. I walked into The New York Times, I stuffed notebooks in my pocket and walked down the West Side Highway and was at Ground Zero four hours later. I was there when Building 7 collapsed. And I watched as a nation drank deep from that very dark elixir of American nationalism … the flip side of nationalism is always racism, it’s about self-exaltation and the denigration of the other.

And it’s about forgetting that terrorism is a tactic. You can’t make war on terror. Terrorism has been with us since Sallust wrote about it in the Jugurthine wars. And the only way to successfully fight terrorist groups is to isolate [them], isolate those groups, within their own societies. And I was in the immediate days after 9/11 assigned to go out to Jersey City and the places where the hijackers had lived and begin to piece together their lives. I was then very soon transferred to Paris, where I covered all of al-Qaida’s operations in the Middle East and Europe.

So I was in the Middle East in the days after 9/11. And we had garnered the empathy of not only most of the world, but the Muslim world who were appalled at what had been done in the name of their religion. And we had major religious figures like Sheikh Tantawi, the head of al-Azhar—who died recently—who after the attacks of 9/11 not only denounced them as a crime against humanity, which they were, but denounced Osama bin Laden as a fraud … someone who had no right to issue fatwas or religious edicts, no religious legitimacy, no religious training. And the tragedy was that if we had the courage to be vulnerable, if we had built on that empathy, we would be far safer and more secure today than we are.

We responded exactly as these terrorist organizations wanted us to respond. They wanted us to speak the language of violence. What were the explosions that hit the World Trade Center, huge explosions and death above a city skyline? It was straight out of Hollywood. When Robert McNamara in 1965 began the massive bombing campaign of North Vietnam, he did it because he said he wanted to “send a message” to the North Vietnamese—a message that left hundreds of thousands of civilians dead.

These groups learned to speak the language we taught them. And our response was to speak in kind. The language of violence, the language of occupation—the occupation of the Middle East, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—has been the best recruiting tool al-Qaida has been handed. If it is correct that Osama bin Laden is dead, then it will spiral upwards with acts of suicidal vengeance. And I expect most probably on American soil. The tragedy of the Middle East is one where we proved incapable of communicating in any other language than the brute and brutal force of empire.

And empire finally, as Thucydides understood, is a disease. As Thucydides wrote, the tyranny that the Athenian empire imposed on others it finally imposed on itself. The disease of empire, according to Thucydides, would finally kill Athenian democracy. And the disease of empire, the disease of nationalism … these of course are mirrored in the anarchic violence of these groups, but one that locks us in a kind of frightening death spiral. So while I certainly fear al-Qaida, I know its intentions. I know how it works. I spent months of my life reconstructing every step Mohamed Atta took. While I don’t in any way minimize their danger, I despair. I despair that we as a country, as Nietzsche understood, have become the monster that we are attempting to fight.

Thank you.

Listen to Chris’ speech below:

Kenneth Raposa, Forbes: LulzSec attacks Petrobras and Brazilian Receita Federal (internal revenue service), news sites, and that main site of the President of the Republic

LulzSec Attacks Brazil Gov, Petrobras

LulzSec attack Brazilian Gov, Petrobras

by Kenneth Raposa, BRIC Breaker, Forbes blogs, June 22, 2011

LulzSec: the logo. The Brazilian arm of the global computer hacker community slammed Brazilian government websites on Wednesday; their biggest attack ever on Brazil. And the third this year. What's next?

Global hacker group LulzSec successfully hacked four government websites, shutting them down and spray painting at least one ofthem with a little keyboard graphiti. LulzSecBrazil, the Brazilian version of the group, took down the website of Brazilian oil company Petrobras on Wednesday. In its place was a message, written in Portuguese for Brazilians to “wake up” and stop paying R$2.98 per liter for gasoline (around $7.5 per gallon) while Petrobras exports it for less. Petrobras was unavailable for immediate comment on its overseas gasoline market.

LulzSec’s Brazilian hacker group has infiltrated government websites three times this year, but Wednesday’s attack was its largest yet. Between midnight and 03:00 local time, three government websites were down, including news sites, Brazil’s internal revenue service, and the main site of the President of the Republic. The SQL injection attacks made the network hosting the sites read over 2 billion unique user access attempts at the same time, slowing the site down, or shutting it down completely, according to a statement from the Office of the President.

The attacking servers were based in Italy, but could have originated elsewhere, Folha de São Paulo reported on Wednesday.

Both LulzSecBrazil and LulzSec announced the attack on their Twitter accounts as they took place.

Petrobras said in a statement that no data appears to have been stolen from the attack. “The momentary congestion of our servers did not cause any alteration to the site’s content or compromised data,” the company said.

LulzSec has been on a tear lately. It’s become the geek squad version of Al Qaeda, joyously claiming responsibility for successful attacks whenever they can. They hacked into the site of the US Senate on June 13, and shut down the Central Intelligence Agency’s website a few days later. They claimed responsibility for both. The group has asked its followers to hack government sites to “steal and leak any classified information, including emails and exchanges of documents. The main targets are banks and other high level establishments.”

LulzSec’s new campaign to steal sensitive government data — and its back to back attacks on the US and Brazil — may signal that it is getting bolder. LulzSec is like a Wikileaks cybersquad of hitmen, but so far has not uncovered any damaging information.

Reuters reporters from Boston and Johannesburg wrote this week that LulzSec recently turned down a potential reward from a security firm, Berg & Berg, that had offered $10,000 to anyone who could change a picture on its website. LulzSec did it, and left a message to say the task was easy. “Keep your money; we do it for the lulz.”

LOL!!!

See: LulzSec Ambitions Grow

http://blogs.forbes.com/kenrapoza/2011/06/22/lulzsec-attacks-brazil-gov-petrobras/