U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Brazilian Judge Overseeing Bolsonaro Coup Case

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/world/americas/trump-sanctions-brazil-judge-bolsonaro.html

by matheusmoreira • 12 months ago

20 13 12 months ago

jqpabc123• 12 months ago

The force of the US government has been fully subverted to serve the political wishes of one person.

SilverElfin• 12 months ago

Isn’t this the same Brazilian Supreme Court that is basically making up laws and judgments as they go to suppress speech and political opposition, despite constitutional guarantees of speech? Yes I think they deserve sanctions just like other authoritarian states. But consistency would be nice - the US should sanction all states that don’t have some minimum level of free speech protections, not cherry pick them based on ideology or trade or whatever.

matheusmoreira5• 12 months ago

The very same! They have been relentlessly grabbing power since at least 2019.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39966382

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36543423

Every thread about this subject I go out of my way to recount what I saw and reference similar comments.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44619572

I waited years for today's news. My only complaint is they sanctioned a single judge rather than the entire supreme court.

tuesdaynight2• 12 months ago

I find truly baffling reading your comments everytime you show up. I know you are not dumb, but you have a belief so out of reality that it makes me aware how smart people can get disillusioned the same as dumb people. I agree with some of your points, then you go on about how you are afraid of being arrested for commenting on Hacker News and I start questioning myself if someday I will get in that place mentally if I don't take care of what I look through the internet.

TrackerFF• 12 months ago

Trump, being a champion of free speech, seems awfully hypocritical on this - with how intensely he's gone after anything related to DEI and LGBTQ.

This is about one wannabe tough-guy looking out for his wannabe tough-guy pals.

flykespice• 12 months ago

Brazilian Supreme Court that is basically making up laws and judgments as they go to suppress speech and political opposition despite constitutional guarantees of speech?

What evidence do you have that everything he did until now isn't prescribed by the Brazilian Constitution? He is just enforcing the Constituition

matheusmoreira5• 12 months ago

The brazilian constitution contains the following words:

Any and all censorship of political and artistic nature is prohibited

Before the 2022 election, these judges went out of their way to censor pretty much everything Bolsonaro and his supporters said. They just decided everything was "fake news" and ordered it all taken down. Unconstitutional political censorship.

I watched them censor a documentary that had not even been released. A priori censorship, something not seen in these lands since the military dictatorship of the 20th century.

Making a mockery out of our nation's highest laws wasn't enough for them, they went on to brag about it in public. "We defeated Bolsonarism", proclaimed one of the supposedly impartial judges. "Lula is president today due to the decisions of the supreme court", claims another judge. "I wouldn't have won the elections were it not for... [cut off]", muttered absent mindedly into a hot mike by none other than current president Lula himself the day he took office.

These are not the only abuses perpetrated by the court. As far as I know, it started in 2019 when a magazine ran a damning article on one of them. In response to that, they started a "fake news" inquisition that lasts to this day. They're basically the victims, investigators, prosecutors, judges and executioners of wildcard crimes against thenselves covering the entire brazilian territory. Details here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39966382

Suffice it to say that the magazine was censored, proper due process was not observed, conflicts of interest were not resolved, and so on and so forth. But the "fake news" inquisition kept going. It was under its umbrella that they engaged in their censorship efforts against Bolsonaro and his supporters. I witnessed journalists and even youtubers seek political asylum in the US.

Things kept escalating further and further until they blocked Twitter nationwide and essentially stole millions of dollars out of the US economy via fines for failures to comply with illegal censorship orders. Then they declared social media companies liable for user content which in effect gets them to preemptively censor content, thereby privatizing their censorship. Trump is finally striking back against them with much awaited sanctions.

U.S. Imposes Sanctions on Brazilian Judge Overseeing Bolsonaro Coup Case

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