the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

acTVism Munich    

Democracy Now!   Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is condemning thousands of supporters of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro who stormed the Brazilian Congress, Supreme Court and presidential palace Sunday in a scene reminiscent of the U.S. Capitol insurrection. Rioters smashed windows, ransacked offices and set fire to a carpet inside the Congress building before authorities made over 400 arrests.    Bolsonaro has never formally conceded the race to third-term President Lula and fled to Florida, where he has reportedly met with Donald Trump at Mar-A-Lago, while his supporters have blockaded highways and set up protest encampments outside military bases and in the capital Brasília to protest what they falsely claim was a rigged election.    Update from Brazilian newspaper columnist and professor Thiago Amparo in São Paulo and reporter Michael Fox, host of the “Brazil on Fire” podcast. 

Glenn Greenwald    

The Jimmy Dore Show   When Viktor Shokin, a former Prosecutor General of Ukraine and notable target of onetime Vice President Joe Biden, wrote a book about his experiences in office, there were powerful individuals within the U.S. Government who didn’t want people reading this book, or even becoming aware it existed. And that’s why government agents insisted Twitter censor accounts promoting Shokin’s book, along with countless others in the tsunami of demands for censorship from government agencies that were flooding into the social media company prior to the 2020 election. Guest host Aaron Maté and journalist Matt Taibbi discuss the very dangerous precedent established by this unseemly private-public censorial partnership.

The Jimmy Dore Show   Some of the revelations to come out of the so-called “Twitter Files” are pretty shocking, especially in the way they describe an intimate partnership of censorship between government agencies and social media platforms. In the latest data dump, journalist Matt Taibbi discusses the remarkable discovery that following the 2016 election Democratic Senator Mark Warner had actively badgered Twitter representatives to drum up examples of Russian bots on the platform spreading pro-Trump propaganda. Guest host Aaron Maté and Taibbi discuss the problems involved in a sitting U.S. Senator making demands that a social media platform generate evidence to support a baseless conspiracy theory promoted by a powerful political party.  

Multipolarista   The USA has rapidly become the world's top exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), tied with Qatar. Europe replaced Asia as the top market for US LNG in 2022, after pledging to boycott Russian energy over the proxy war in Ukraine. Europe is now paying significantly more for expensive US LNG than it had been for Russian pipeline gas. As of 2022, Europe had the highest energy prices on the planet, fueling an inflation crisis.  

The Jimmy Dore Show   In the latest installment of the blockbuster “Twitter Files” release, journalist Matt Taibbi details ways the US State Department sought to label a wide range of critics of United States government policies as promoting “Russian disinformation” and to compel Twitter to ban or otherwise censor these accounts. And guess what – despite some initial hesitation, Twitter essentially went along with it.  

by Kit Klarenberg    Part 3 - ‘Patterns of life’ and ‘bed down locations’ A February 2021 U.N. special rapporteur report on the impact of American sanctions on Venezuela ruled they were “ collective punishment, ” and Caracas lived on just 1% of its pre-sanctions income. The previous March, Alfred de Zayas, formerly an independent expert for the United Nations Human Rights Council, calculated that over 100,000 Venezuelans had died as a result of the restrictions. Despite this monstrous human toll, and countless calls from prominent rights groups and international institutions to end the suffering, Washington rigidly enforces the sanctions regime, and seeks to harshly punish any individual or organization helping Caracas skirt restrictions. While measures have eased slightly following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Stateside prosecution of Colombian businessman Alex Saab, abducted from Cape Verde in October 2020, for selling food to the Venezuelan government is ongoing. Saab could be

At least 14 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean have condemned the coup in Peru, backing President Pedro Castillo. The unelected regime, which has killed dozens of protesters, has the staunch support of the US and the region’s right wing.   by Ben Norton  Part 3 - US State Department reiterates support for Peru’s violent coup regime While Peru’s coup regime is killing protesters, suspending civil liberties, and bringing back war criminals from the Fujimori dictatorship, the United States is praising it for supposedly defending “democracy.” Coup leader Boluarte held a friendly call with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on December 16. Her office boasted that he “ reiterated the support of the United States. ” The State Department confirmed this call in a readout, stating, “ The United States looks forward to working closely with President Boluarte on shared goals and values related to democracy, human rights, security, anti-corruption, and economic prosperity. ” Washington

Multipolarista  Lula da Silva has returned as Brazil's president. This will cause a major geopolitical shift. Meanwhile, far-right leader Jair Bolsonaro fled to Florida, fearing legal consequences for his corruption.