“those providing material support to human rights abusers face sanctions risk themselves.” The irony, this comes from a government with strong ties to Saudi Arabia, Israel and El Salvador.
No comments yet
duxup · 2h ago
I'm a little lost on the whole story here, article is short.
What did the US government expect? The Brazilian government to carry out their wishes just because of US legal action in the US?
cactacea · 1h ago
Essentially, yes. Trump has no understanding of what the word sovereign means (or just doesn't care).
matheusmoreira · 1h ago
> I'm a little lost on the whole story here, article is short.
I submitted to HN and discussed all the major episodes of this saga. Here are the links if you'd like to know more.
Some of these have been flagged and my comments are almost always downvoted to oblivion but I don't care, I will continue speaking out because these are my honest opinions on the subject.
Under the pretext of protecting denocracy, the unelected, supposedly impartial brazilian supreme court waged an all out legal and political war against our "Trump equivalent". They have engaged in unconstitutional censorship and politically motivated arrests.
They have usurped the functions of the legislative and executive branches of government. They are essentially judge-kings and have transformed my country into a dictatorship of the judiciary.
One of these judges has been sanctioned by the USA under the Magnitsky Act, an unprecedented consequence that nobody thought would ever happen. I mean that literally: these judges publicly mocked the idea that they would ever be sanctioned for their actions.
Now they are apparently moving to defy the sanctions by ordering banks to continue providing services to the sanctioned judge despite the sanctions.
This will get our banks banned from the international banking system, isolating our country. The economic damage this will cause simply cannot be calculated.
Brazil is essentially the world's soy farm and we import like 70% of our fertilizer. They're going to sacrifice everything to protect these judges and display their non-existent "sovereignty", like a defiant child trying to stand up to its parent. Brazil is pretty much done for if this continues.
On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.
You would probably have better luck finding a different forum to discuss it on.
matheusmoreira · 32m ago
Yeah I know... I know that it's not a good fit for HN. I post this here because this is the only place I feel safe discussing this.
I do hope I'm not being too much of a pain on dang's butt... My account is already rate limited to about 5 posts every two hours or so and I think that's absolutely fair. I emailed him once about it, he explained his reasons and I accepted them and the limitation. I hope HN's downraking of political threads neutralize any disruption these discussions could possibly cause.
I know I'm going to sound like a paranoid schizophrenic by saying this but please keep in mind that there's at least a possibility that the flaggings and downvotes are politically motivated.
People have created sockpuppet accounts here and called me out by name because of the views I express.
> Brazil is essentially the world's soy farm and we import like 70% of our fertilizer.
You might want to check the sources from which we import those fertilizers, largest of which are Russia and China. While some do come from more US aligned sources, including the US itself, most of the names on that list have no problems ignoring US sanctions if it comes to that.
> They're going to sacrifice everything to protect these judges and display their non-existent "sovereignty", like a defiant child trying to stand up to its parent.
Our sovereignty is very much real and existent :)
> Brazil is pretty much done for if this continues.
Nope, we'll be fine.
matheusmoreira · 16m ago
> most of the names on that list have no problems ignoring US sanctions if it comes to that
Somehow I doubt it...
Trump has already imposed 50% tariffs, causing major economic losses. NATO has already threatened to impose 100% tariffs on us if we keep buying russian oil. And these are mere tariffs, not actual sanctions.
It's very hard to predict what's going to happen if things keep spiralling out of control.
> Our sovereignty is very much real and existent :)
Sovereignty must be backed up by military and economic power. We have neither. It's complete fantasy.
Do you really think the likes of China and Russia are going to defend us and our interests if push comes to shove?
Look at Ukraine. Gave up nuclear weapons because the USA promised to defend them if push came to shove. How's it going for them?
They'll use us like pawns and then turn us into their own backyard. Not that our relation with the USA is any different but personally I'd rather live in the USA's backyard than in China's backyard.
> Nope, we'll be fine.
Remains to be seen.
ronsor · 1h ago
> This will get our banks banned from the international banking system, isolating our country. The ecomomic [sic] damage this will cause simply cannot be calculated.
Is this going to be like the Russian sanctions?
matheusmoreira · 46m ago
I'm not sure... I don't think they will be that strong but still pretty bad.
The sanctioned judge has been essentially permabanned from the US financial system. Everything that touches US dollars is now banned from transacting with him. He cannot even have a brazilian bank account since they absolutely do business with US institutions.
This news is essentially them saying "Magnitsky is invalid here, you cannot refuse service to the judge unless we say so". It looks like they're going to force the issue.
This will immediately expose Brazil to secondary sanctions. All banks that comply with the supreme court will be sanctioned and cut off from US institutions. Every single brazilian will be affected.
This will no doubt cause foreign investment to flee the country as Brazil becomes high risk. It will also probably significantly reduce or destroy our USD reserves, indirectly devaluing our already devalued currency.
hshdhdhj4444 · 21m ago
> This will get our banks banned from the international banking system, isolating our country. The economic damage this will cause simply cannot be calculated.
What about Trump’s actions makes anyone think that Brazil will escape this fate if only it suborns its democracy to Trump’s whims?
Of the BRICS nation, the only one that isn’t being targeted by Trump is Russia. We don’t need to get into why that is.
India is being targeted purportedly for importing Russian oil which is obviously nonsensical considering Russia keeps escaping additional sanctions and other areas, such as China which imports more Russian oil and the EU which imports far more gas, don’t face sanctions for this reason.
China has been facing a whole set of sanctions for the past 6 months and other restrictions.
South Africa faced an escalation based on nonsensical claims of white genocide (South Africa has a massive crime problem…there’s no evidence it’s targeted towards white people and if anything the opposite seems true considering black South Africans are suffering more from crime than white SA)
And these are just BRICS. We haven’t even gotten to the Penguins yet.
arunabha · 56m ago
> Some of these have been flagged and my comments are almost always downvoted to oblivion but I don't care, I will continue speaking out because these are my honest opinions on the subject.
If only you spent a fraction of that energy on self reflection...
matheusmoreira · 38m ago
Do you have a point to make?
My thoughts are all there in my comment. If you disagree, then just refute them. I'd love to have reasons to believe things are not as bad as they seem.
matheusmoreira · 3h ago
> According to the Constitution of Brazil, foreign court decisions "can only be enforced in Brazil upon approval or in compliance with international judicial cooperation mechanisms," the court said.
> Although the ruling did not explicitly mention the Magnitsky Act, a Brazilian court source told AFP that the ruling "in theory" invalidates the law in Brazil -- though Washington has already contested this interpretation.
They are moving to sacrifice the country's entire economy in order to maintain the despotic supreme court judge who got sanctioned under Magnitsky.
If they keep this up it's pretty much over for this country. Wow.
No comments yet
What did the US government expect? The Brazilian government to carry out their wishes just because of US legal action in the US?
I submitted to HN and discussed all the major episodes of this saga. Here are the links if you'd like to know more.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44152909
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44188337
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44256169
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44613114
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44736860
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44793777
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44869353
Some of these have been flagged and my comments are almost always downvoted to oblivion but I don't care, I will continue speaking out because these are my honest opinions on the subject.
Under the pretext of protecting denocracy, the unelected, supposedly impartial brazilian supreme court waged an all out legal and political war against our "Trump equivalent". They have engaged in unconstitutional censorship and politically motivated arrests.
They have usurped the functions of the legislative and executive branches of government. They are essentially judge-kings and have transformed my country into a dictatorship of the judiciary.
One of these judges has been sanctioned by the USA under the Magnitsky Act, an unprecedented consequence that nobody thought would ever happen. I mean that literally: these judges publicly mocked the idea that they would ever be sanctioned for their actions.
Now they are apparently moving to defy the sanctions by ordering banks to continue providing services to the sanctioned judge despite the sanctions.
This will get our banks banned from the international banking system, isolating our country. The economic damage this will cause simply cannot be calculated.
Brazil is essentially the world's soy farm and we import like 70% of our fertilizer. They're going to sacrifice everything to protect these judges and display their non-existent "sovereignty", like a defiant child trying to stand up to its parent. Brazil is pretty much done for if this continues.
I do hope I'm not being too much of a pain on dang's butt... My account is already rate limited to about 5 posts every two hours or so and I think that's absolutely fair. I emailed him once about it, he explained his reasons and I accepted them and the limitation. I hope HN's downraking of political threads neutralize any disruption these discussions could possibly cause.
I know I'm going to sound like a paranoid schizophrenic by saying this but please keep in mind that there's at least a possibility that the flaggings and downvotes are politically motivated.
People have created sockpuppet accounts here and called me out by name because of the views I express.
https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=forabolsonaro
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35900285
You might want to check the sources from which we import those fertilizers, largest of which are Russia and China. While some do come from more US aligned sources, including the US itself, most of the names on that list have no problems ignoring US sanctions if it comes to that.
> They're going to sacrifice everything to protect these judges and display their non-existent "sovereignty", like a defiant child trying to stand up to its parent.
Our sovereignty is very much real and existent :)
> Brazil is pretty much done for if this continues.
Nope, we'll be fine.
Somehow I doubt it...
Trump has already imposed 50% tariffs, causing major economic losses. NATO has already threatened to impose 100% tariffs on us if we keep buying russian oil. And these are mere tariffs, not actual sanctions.
It's very hard to predict what's going to happen if things keep spiralling out of control.
> Our sovereignty is very much real and existent :)
Sovereignty must be backed up by military and economic power. We have neither. It's complete fantasy.
Do you really think the likes of China and Russia are going to defend us and our interests if push comes to shove?
Look at Ukraine. Gave up nuclear weapons because the USA promised to defend them if push came to shove. How's it going for them?
They'll use us like pawns and then turn us into their own backyard. Not that our relation with the USA is any different but personally I'd rather live in the USA's backyard than in China's backyard.
> Nope, we'll be fine.
Remains to be seen.
Is this going to be like the Russian sanctions?
The sanctioned judge has been essentially permabanned from the US financial system. Everything that touches US dollars is now banned from transacting with him. He cannot even have a brazilian bank account since they absolutely do business with US institutions.
This news is essentially them saying "Magnitsky is invalid here, you cannot refuse service to the judge unless we say so". It looks like they're going to force the issue.
This will immediately expose Brazil to secondary sanctions. All banks that comply with the supreme court will be sanctioned and cut off from US institutions. Every single brazilian will be affected.
This will no doubt cause foreign investment to flee the country as Brazil becomes high risk. It will also probably significantly reduce or destroy our USD reserves, indirectly devaluing our already devalued currency.
What about Trump’s actions makes anyone think that Brazil will escape this fate if only it suborns its democracy to Trump’s whims?
Of the BRICS nation, the only one that isn’t being targeted by Trump is Russia. We don’t need to get into why that is.
India is being targeted purportedly for importing Russian oil which is obviously nonsensical considering Russia keeps escaping additional sanctions and other areas, such as China which imports more Russian oil and the EU which imports far more gas, don’t face sanctions for this reason.
China has been facing a whole set of sanctions for the past 6 months and other restrictions.
South Africa faced an escalation based on nonsensical claims of white genocide (South Africa has a massive crime problem…there’s no evidence it’s targeted towards white people and if anything the opposite seems true considering black South Africans are suffering more from crime than white SA)
And these are just BRICS. We haven’t even gotten to the Penguins yet.
If only you spent a fraction of that energy on self reflection...
My thoughts are all there in my comment. If you disagree, then just refute them. I'd love to have reasons to believe things are not as bad as they seem.
> Although the ruling did not explicitly mention the Magnitsky Act, a Brazilian court source told AFP that the ruling "in theory" invalidates the law in Brazil -- though Washington has already contested this interpretation.
They are moving to sacrifice the country's entire economy in order to maintain the despotic supreme court judge who got sanctioned under Magnitsky.
If they keep this up it's pretty much over for this country. Wow.